Mystery Contest Winners
Wed 8 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Books| Posted by: Gavin
We are pleased to announce after, oh, a brief delay, the winners of the The Manual of Detection Mystery Contest we instigated some time back. Many fine mysteries were submitted, and we’d like to coat each of them in gold and jewels and stage heists around them, but we promised only five winners, each of whom will receive a signed copy of Jedediah Berry’s novel. Here are answers to the mysteries they posed:
Sue asked: Every time I take the subway, I always notice a cluster of pigeons hanging around. However, all of these pigeons are fully grown. Whatever happen to the baby pigeons? Why don’t we or I see them anywhere? Does the pigeon self replicate? Or is the answer to my question so mundane that my brain cannot grasp it?
All pigeons send their children away to act on soap operas. How else to explain the phenomenon described by Marta, below?
Marsha: Are there more teapots or people?
If we knew the answer to that question, we would have retired by now. Why do you taunt us?
Kaethe: Why did my grandfather carefully pull back his suit coat before he shot himself in the heart through his vest and shirt?
Because he was a gentleman, and because he was carrying the gun in the inner pocket of his coat.
Marta: When soap opera children go upstairs and come back down in a month and they are adults….WHAT HAPPENS UP THERE?
All children on soap operas are played by pigeons.
Keith: Why is it that, in the movies, vampire hunters always hunt vampires at night? Why don’t they wait until dawn and do it during the day?
Members of the Vampire Hunters Labor Union must abide by a number of strict rules. Hunting vampires at night, despite rumors to the contrary, is not one of these rules. They hunt at night because that is when they choose to hunt.
So, Marta, Marsha, Kaethe, Sue, and Keith: thank you and congrats! Please claim your prize by sending your mailing address to smallbeerpress@gmail.com.
Read Some Stories by Kelly Link
Wed 8 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors, Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
then go see her: Readings and Signings
|
How wonderful online publication is! Much later, there they still are, awaiting a look from the curious.
|
|
| Title: | Where you’re going: |
| Light | Tin House |
| The Wrong Grave (excerpt) | Candlewick Books |
| Origin Story | A Public Space |
| The Faery Handbag | |
| Fantastic Metropolis | |
| The Specialist’s Hat | Event Horizon |
| The Girl Detective | Event Horizon |
| Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose | Fence |
| Survivor’s Ball, or, The Donner Party | Dark Planet |
| Stranger Things Happen | collection |
| Audio: | |
| The Hortlak | KQED — The Writers’ Block(11/06) |
| The Girl Detective | Read by Alex Wilson. (8/06) |
| The Specialist’s Hat (40 minute MP3). | Read by Jason Lundberg. (1/06) |
| Monster (Real Audio file) | WSUI — Prairie Lights (11/05) |
| Most of My Friends are Two-Thirds Water | Read by Alex Wilson. (7/05) |
| Catskin | WNYC — Spinning (11/02) |
| Interview | Bat Segundo Show (12/06) |
Sorry, Event Horizon is down. Read these stories in Stranger Things Happen.
T-shirts, Mugs, Mice with pads.
Lexiphilia
Tue 7 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., To Read Pile| Posted by: Gavin
Kelly is currently hooked on Sarah Rees Brennan’s The Demon’s Lexicon (Gwenda has promised a post on it later this week) and says, “It’s very Buffy-like. In fact, like Diana Wynne Jones crossed with Buffy. Your mileage with the cover may vary, but everybody ought to love this book.”
more birthdays?
Tue 7 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Writer's Daily Planner| Posted by: Gavin
We are putting the final finishing touches to our daily planner and one of the fun things we’ve been doing is looking up birthdays of writers (and, er, others) who we like and adding them (H. P. Lovecraft, Gary Larson, Edith Nesbit, Molly Gloss, and so on).
Any suggestions?
We need a citation for the date—although we’ll accept Wikipedia (as long as you didn’t just change it!)
A Working Writer’s Daily Planner 2010: Your Year in Writing
Small Beer Press
August 2009
9781931520584 · Trade paper/spiralbound · 6 x 9 · 160 pp · $13.95
— Mail Order
— Powells
— Our Local Bookstore
— Your Local Bookstore
Ian McDowell’s unique antho
Mon 6 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
Want a handwritten story by Kelly about a “rapidly expanding cat”? There’s just over a day left in Ian McDowell’s auction of to benefit his father which includes that and some other exclusives. Here’s the auction and here’s Ian on the book:
In 1989, Ian McDowel (MORDRED’S CURSE, MERLIN’S GIFT, “Geraldine” in Poppy Z. Brite’s LOVE IN VEIN) wrote CRAZY CREATIVE WRITING: STORY STARTERS AND WORD BANKS, a reproducable workbook for teachers of grades 1-4, which was published in 1995 by Carson-Dellosa, an educational pubilshing company based in Greensboro, NC. The book consisted of 30 “Story Starters” — that is, the first paragraphs of stories, such as “Donna was in her room, playing a game on her computer. Suddenly, a big fat toad hopped out from under the bed and jumped on the monitor. “Give me a kiss, Cute Stuff,” it said. “I’m a prince.” The reader was then instructed to WRITE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT on the ruled lines following the first paragraph, and use as many words as possible from the provided “Word Bank” while doing so. Each Story Starter was accompanied by an illustration and 12-16 blank lines on which to write, as well as the aforementioned Word Bank.
I’m Ian and will stop talking about myself in the third person now. In the later 90s, I started pestering various professional writer friends to complete a page in one of my contributor’s copies of this book. Quite a few complied. NEIL GAIMAN took the story of the Frog Prince described above. POPPY Z. BRITE took the story of Abe, the boy who’d always wanted to join the army, in a VERY perverse direction. Caitlin R. Kiernan wrote a lovely mini-story about Hannah, who woke up one day to find she’d turned into a horrible monster. Kelly Link wrote about Julia and her rapidly expanding cat, turning it into a mini-epic. Other contributors included Mehitobel Wilson, Phillip Nutman, Rain Graves, and Rachel Manija Brown.
The stories are short, but they’re original pieces of fiction which will never be published anywhere (I’m pretty sure they can’t be, as the begining of each story, the part I wrote, was Work-for-Hire and presumably still owned by Carson-Dellosa, who would not be pleased with the decidedly adult direction some of these authors took the material). Neil Gaiman’s, for instance, is 150 words long, and like most of the other contributions, imaginative and laugh-out-loud funny. Each contribution is in the author’s own hand writing. You can’t have a more limited edition, or a more unique collectable (and yes, I know “more unique” is a barbarism) than this.
lcrw
Mon 6 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Books| Posted by: Gavin
We interrupt this silence to note that the invisible chickens on the green green grass roof of the Small Beer Press office building in New York City have begun pecking out the first stories of the new issue of LCRW.
Invisible chickens are one of the ways we are getting around the new economic straits (invisible dhow Jones are another): so much cheaper than typesetters. We do not think that most “readers”* of the zine will notice the difference in layouts.
Who are the writers in this issue? They are (depending on how you prefer these things) world famous writers whose work we are just so happy to publish. Or, they are new writers hungry for your open hearts (and eyeballs). Or, invisible chickens on the green green grass roof. Or, some regulars, some irregulars, some real, some imaginary, some magic, some dead, some dreamy, some dusking.
*we know that most of our “readers” actually subscribe so that they can enjoy the stenographic treats hidden within the covers.
John Gonzalez – Trampoline Interview
Wed 1 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Trampoline: an interview
John Gonzalez (Impala)
Were there any particular writers or stories that influenced the writing of the story that will be appearing in Trampoline? If so, how exactly did they influence the writing of your story?
The only outright influence was a scholarly book entitled Postmodernist Fiction, by Brian McHale. His thesis was that modernism was primarily concerned with epistemology (how does the mind work, what can it know?), whereas postmodernism was primarily concerned with ontology (what world is this, or is there more than one?) My ambition for the first draft of Impala was to write a story that equally supported two disparate interpretations, by the first of which the father was insane and had kidnapped his son, and by the second of which the son was an AI construct and the father was on a journey through space. Fortunately, once I had the sound of the child’s voice, all the intellectual pretension was revealed to be exactly that, and it dropped away in subsequent drafts.
What’s your favorite cocktail?
A Strawberry Daiquiri. I’m exceedingly manly, so I can get away with froo-froo drinks.
Which of the seven deadly sins is your favorite these days?
Lust is my perennial favorite. So why do I live in Michigan?
What’s your favorite rule of thumb?
-No one can die if the sun is shining.
So, come out with it, already — you really believe in alien abductions. Don’t you? All sci-fi writers do…right?
It’s mass hysteria, man. No different from the satanic ritual abuse craze. There are lots of people out there who desperately (and unconsciously) need a way to explain why they feel so flawed and weird, and plenty of crackpot gurus to serve them the explanation de jour. Were I a betting man, I’d put my money on “no abductions.”
Who’s been eating my porridge?
Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Alexander the Great, wearing Isotoner gloves, or Luis Bu�uel, slicing at his iris with a straight razor.
What has it got in its pocketses?
The one pirogue that rules them all.
What rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
Lou LeFeber, State Farm Insurance Salesman.
What has it got in its ‘pocalypse?
A twenty megaton pirogue.
How far is it to Babylon?
Down the street, left at the light, past the Parthenon, past the pyramid, hang a left, there you are. If you hit the Great Wall you’ve gone too far. Turn around.
Can I get there by candlelight?
You’ll need a mood ring.
Can this cockpit hold The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram Within this wooden O the very casques That did affright the air at Agincourt?
No.
Can you call spirits from the vasty deep? Will they come when you do call for them?
Yes.
What have you done with Dr. Millmoss?
I did nothing with the man. He left town suddenly. He gave no word as to his destination. He is certainly not in the basement, so there is no need to look there.
Biographical sketch of someone you know:
Born in 1962, hydrocephalic. Recruited by CIA to provide bio-power for massive glandular spike computer. Pinpointed locations of socialist atomic scientists 1971-1989, laying groundwork for extraction/assassination activities. Transferred to Cerberus attack Satellite A-51 in 1991. Used mind control amplification rig to force Kurt Cobain to write songs on the Nevermind album, deliberately triggering the grunge cultural moment for massive corporate exploitation. Current whereabouts unknown.
What office supply best captures your personality, and why?
A smart, well-oiled, comfortable office chair.
When’s the last time you changed your mind about something? I think I mean a radical shift of personal values — regarding art (“Suddenly, I’m not crazy about Billie Holiday, in fact, I’m not even sure I’m spelling her name right”), regarding anything (“Actually, you can go home again”).
I used to think that achievement was more important than happiness. It’s not.
What book or books do you press upon friends?
Neuromancer and The Forever War.
What can we, as a group, do to increase the popularity of multi-stage bicycle racing as a spectator sport in America?
Join forces with radical right-wing militia groups.
I once had a creative writing teacher tell me that he didn’t understand why authors used science fiction or magical realism to tell a story or impart a theme. Why do you think we do, when good old realism might do the trick?
Of course it’s just a matter of taste, but realism seems awfully limiting. Fiction should celebrate the act of imagining. It seems unhealthy to restrain one’s imagination to what one can see looking out the window. If an author wants to be the eight-six thousandth person to vividly imagine and evoke in words the tragedy of a failing marriage, that’s fine by me. But I want equal respect accorded to the author who sets the failing marriage on a space station that’s getting sucked into a wormhole that is actually a pock mark on the face of a barbarian who’s swinging a broadsword at an angst-ridden vampire aristocrat who leads an elite platoon of space marines whose last battle… well. Let’s just forget I said that.
What is the meaning of life?
Don’t touch the green stuff! It’s toxic.
O
Next — Alex Irvine
Richard Butner – Trampoline Interview
Wed 1 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Trampoline: an interview
Richard Butner (Ash City Stomp)
Were there any particular writers or stories that influenced the writing of the story that will be appearing in Trampoline? If so, how exactly did they influence the writing of your story?
Yes. The other writers of the Sycamore Hill Writers’ Conference. The final version of the story is much improved from the original draft, thanks to those folks pointing out the flaws (and the non-flaws). That’s actually a disingenuous description of the workshop process, and of why I run and attend that thing, but it’ll have to do.
Is your Trampoline story generally representative of the sort of story you usually write? To elaborate: is this story a departure in style or subject matter (or any other sort of departure, for that matter) for you? If so, what was different or new for you in the writing of this story? Do you think it is a new direction for your writing, or simply an experiment?
It’s representative in that it’s serious at the core but overlaid with goofist trappings.
So, come out with it, already — you really believe in alien abductions. Don’t you? All sci-fi writers do…right?
Nope.
What is the writer’s role in inhabiting the commercial spaces of publishing?
Infiltrate then immolate.
Who’s been eating my porridge?
Danny Goldberg, of course.
What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Thank nobody for small blessings. Pink Moon gonna get us all, therefore no immortal hands, no immortal eyes. This is a good thing.
Can I get there by candlelight?
If you walk very very slowly.
Who cleft the Devil’s foot?
Me and the Devil were walking side by side. So I say to the Devil, I say, “Satan, I see England, I see France, I totally see your lacy pink underpants.” The Devil says, “We don’t call it France anymore. We call it … Freedom. Everyone knows that Freedom is where they make the best lingerie.” He hitches up his pants as he says this. His French, his Freedom-ish, is perfect. “Do you remember when we were in Paris?” he asks. “I was never in Paris with the Devil,” I say. “Certainly not with a Devil who wears ladies undergarments.” The Devil stops and laughs, then he cups his hand to his ear. “What’s that?” he says, squinting. “Can you hear it? Sounds like … mermaids … singing.”
I stamp on the Devil’s feet, cleaving his hooves. He falls to the ground and clutches them with his idle plaything hands. I leave him there on the sidewalk to ponder Leviticus 11 while I trudge off in the general direction of Freedom.
Where do you hope to haunt when you’re gone (or, I guess, when you come back)?
A nice modern house. Maybe Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House, the one with all-glass walls for the exterior.
If I had really good haunt-y powers as a result of being non-alive, then I’d haunt the homes of my enemies.
If I could just hang out and chat, then I’d haunt the homes of my friends.
What office supply best captures your personality, and why?
Man, all of these questions are me, me, me, me. What office supply best captures Alain Robbe-Grillet‘s personality? Huh?
When’s the last time you changed your mind about something? I think I mean a radical shift of personal values — regarding art (“Suddenly, I’m not crazy about Billie Holiday, in fact, I’m not even sure I’m spelling her name right”), regarding anything (“Actually, you can go home again”).
I’m proud of the fact that my personal values haven’t shifted radically due to the tremendously positive or tremendously negative events in my immediate external world. Like the fat man said, to thine own self be true. If I had to offer an example of a shift, though … one is that certain tedious phonies — say, Andy Warhol or William Burroughs or Timothy Leary — don’t bug me as much as they used to. Possibly because they’re all dead.
What book or books do you press upon friends?
Emma Who Saved My Life, Wilton Barnhardt
Glimpses, Lewis Shiner
A Few Last Words, James Sallis
Where did you grow up?
Camel City, of course.
Did you ever go to a really low rent amusement park that had trampolines stretched over shallow pits and bounce and bounce and bounce and get really confident and start bouncing from one trampoline to the next but then kind of lose it and bounce in to your cousin Jeff and cause him to fall into a split timber fence and knock out one of his teeth? Did you ever do that?
Nope.
What can we, as a group, do to increase the popularity of multi-stage bicycle racing as a spectator sport in America?
Absolutely nothing, Christopher.
I once had a creative writing teacher tell me that he didn’t understand why authors used science fiction or magical realism to tell a story or impart a theme. Why do you think we do, when good old realism might do the trick?
“I sit with a philosopher in a garden; he says again and again ‘I know that that is a tree,’ pointing to a tree that is near us. A second man comes by and hears this, and I tell him: ‘This fellow isn’t insane: we’re only doing philosophy.'”
–Wittgenstein, On Certainty
My story has a semi-wild chimpanzee in it; does yours?
Depends on how you define “semi-wild chimpanzee.”
Have you found that during the Reagan-Bush-Bush-Quayle-Bush-Cheney era the quality of your writing has gotten a little dodgier?
Yeah, not like the stack of genius tomes I produced during the Clinton-Gore era.
If you couldn’t write what would you do?
Dictate.
Gertrude Stein said: “I have destroyed sentences and rhythms and literary overtones and all the rest of that nonsense, to get to the very core of this problem of communication of intuition.” The relationship of form to content. Form as it facilitates communication, particularly communication of the remote, of the mysterious. Form as it permits the dramatization of states of mind. As it serves to make comprehensible the incomprehensible. What are your views on this subject?
My view is, Gertrude Stein sure could be a pompous boobie sometimes.
O
Next — Alan DeNiro
Rosalind Palmero Stevenson – Trampoline Interview
Wed 1 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Trampoline: an interview
Rosalind Palermo Stevenson (Insect Dreams)
Writers/Stories that influenced “Insect Dreams”
Carole Maso, Anne Carson (especially Autobiography of Red and The Anthropology of Water), Marguerite Duras (The Lover), Clarice Lispector (The Stream of Life). They are all writers who break from traditional forms, and whose work exists on that blurred line, or intersection, between prose and poetry. I had been working on “Insect Dreams” for a very long time and had most of the text written, but was having difficulty making it cohere. I knew the solution would be in finding the right form. I started re-reading these writers and that gave me the push I needed to embrace rather than resist the fragmented nature of my material. I knew absolutely that that was the way the piece had to be expressed, was, in fact, expressing itself. Carol K. Anthony, in her translation of the “I Ching” says of the hexagram The Well, ‘Don’t remain locked in a conventional view of the way things work.’ My natural tendency as a writer is to work in somewhat experimental forms, and pretty much always on the line between prose and poetry. But I find that it fuels and inspires my work to read others whose works are also driven by language, rhythm – who write prose that is lyric, poetic. It is, perhaps, more a matter of inspiration than of influence.
Is my Trampoline story representative?
I would have to say that “Insect Dreams” is stylistically representative of my work. The stories I write usually contain the same basic elements of style as “Insect Dreams,” that is, a prose narrative style driven by language, rhythm, image, pacing. And in “Insect Dreams” as in most of my stories, there is generally more white space than is typical of traditional prose. The white space accommodates the compression — allows for the breath and silence. I’ve also worked with historical material before. In “The Temple Birds Love Incense” I worked with the 1993 events leading to the death by fire of cult leader, David Koresh, and his followers in Waco, Texas. “The Guest” is a fictional account of Mussolini at the time of his rise to power. “Kafka At Rudolf Steiner’s” is an imagined narrative based on two incidents in Kafka’s life: his visit to the mystic philosopher, Rudolf Steiner, and his love affair with a young Italian girl during a ten-day stay at a Sanatorium in Riva. I would say that “Insect Dreams” is longer than usual. I didn’t intend that originally, but there was so much ground to cover. I think it’s true anyway that every piece has its own length. What was ‘new’ for me in writing “Insect Dreams” was the degree of research required and the exotic nature of the subject matter. It required a level of research beyond anything I had ever done before. I had to ‘imagine’ my own story within the context of this massive amount of historical and related material: Surinam, 17th century Amsterdam, ship travel in the 17th century, entomology, jungles, clothing, customs, food, conditions of the slaves under Dutch rule, etc. I don’t know that I would characterize the approach as a ‘new direction’ for my writing going forward, but I expect to push it further — in my planned novel, for instance, (which is in the early research stages right now).
Favorite cocktail?
Manhattans are a family tradition.
Favorite deadly sin?
Sloth. Though it’s not a bed of roses.
Favorite rule of thumb?
Follow your first impulse.
Writer’s role in inhabiting commercial spaces of publishing?
I don’t know that there can be an intentional role. I think of Samuel Beckett who actually tried to make his writing (in the early days) more commercially viable. And could not. So he wrote the only way he could write. And was basically obscure until “Waiting For Godot” generated so much interest. I respect the independent publishers the most, and the writers they publish. My personal interest, or aspiration, is for my work to be respected by those I respect. For someone to pull me off the shelf when they are looking for inspiration.
O
Next — Christopher Barzak
Christopher Barzak – Trampoline Interview
Wed 1 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Trampoline: an interview
Christopher Barzak (Dead Boy Found)
What’s your favorite cocktail?
The sort that people buy for me.
Which of the seven deadly sins is your favorite these days?
I’ve been favoring sloth myself, but sloth doesn’t favor me.
What’s your favorite rule of thumb?
Forget about the possibility of it ever being green.
So, come out with it, already — you really believe in alien abductions. Don’t you? All sci-fi writers do…right?
Are you implying something here?
What is the writer’s role in inhabiting the commercial spaces of publishing?
Curl into a fetal position and begin sucking your thumb.
Who’s been eating my porridge?
Not me. I’m a toast man.
Where have all the flowers gone?
To all the little capitalist flower shops.
Who cleft the Devil’s foot?
That’s a personal matter, I’d imagine.
Does she or doesn’t she?
She does. Quite often, actually. And she’s good at it, too.
Did he ever return?
Eventually he returned, though changed of course, as these events would change anyone. I myself wonder if, by returning, his life has come full circle and will begin again, but one can only hope.
What has it got in its pocketses?
Broken fortune cookies.
How far is it to Babylon?
I’m not good at measuring, but I can give directions. Take 680 out to Mahoning Avenue. Turn right off the exit ramp, then turn left at the first light. You’ll be driving down a long driveway, and then suddenly a large building — you can’t miss it, it’s decked out in neon palm tree signs — will appear in the darkness. Have ten dollars, or you won’t be admitted.
Can I get there by candlelight?
I suppose you could, although that’s awfully dramatic, don’t you think?
“Where is last year’s snow?”
The snow monkeys ate it all.
Why is a raven like a writing desk?
I give up. Why?
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Only if you buy me a cocktail first.
Can this cockpit hold The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram Within this wooden O the very casques That did affright the air at Agincourt?
Get cramming.
Can you call spirits from the vasty deep? Will they come when you do call for them?
I can’t call spirits from the vasty deep. I have better luck with spirits from the surfacey shallows. They come when anyone calls, though they’re hard to get rid of.
What have you done with Dr. Millmoss?
Nothing. I swear!
Where is fancy bred?
In Europe, I think. Oh wait. That’s fancy bread. Fancy is bred in small quiet moments, in the interstices of interactions.
Best trampoline story you know (or, in lieu of story, rules for best trampoline game you’ve played).
When I was in elementary school, the gym teacher would sometimes have this really huge trampoline that an entire class of kids could fit on. We could line up on around its perimeter and she would have us all jump up and down while singing a round of Row, Row, Row Your Boat. The first of us would start the song and jump, and when that person landed, the next one would jump up and start singing. And we’d all be going like pistons at a certain point, singing Row, Row, Row Your Boat, and there’s no real story to this, no beginning or end, only a moment where it felt like I was part of something really magical.
What’s the most favorable sort of weather for your creative process?
Heavy weather.
When’s the last time you changed your mind about something? I think I mean a radical shift of personal values — regarding art (“Suddenly, I’m not crazy about Billie Holiday, in fact, I’m not even sure I’m spelling her name right”), regarding anything (“Actually, you can go home again”).
Regarding art, I had a radical shift in values probably last year, when I realized I could do anything I wanted in art, as long as I made it work. Regarding anything, or life in general, I had a radical shift in values about a year ago also, when I realized I could do anything I wanted, as long as I made it work.
Did you ever go to a really low rent amusement park that had trampolines stretched over shallow pits and bounce and bounce and bounce and get really confident and start bouncing from one trampoline to the next but then kind of lose it and bounce in to your cousin Jeff and cause him to fall into a split timber fence and knock out one of his teeth? Did you ever do that?
Those places are outlawed in Ohio, and my cousin Jeff still has all his teeth, as far as I know.
What can we, as a group, do to increase the popularity of multi-stage bicycle racing as a spectator sport in America?
We could throw parties and give out pencils with the website for the Society for multi-stage bicycle racing as a spectator sport in America printed on them.
I once had a creative writing teacher tell me that he didn’t understand why authors used science fiction or magical realism to tell a story or impart a theme. Why do you think we do, when good old realism might do the trick?
Even if realism might do the trick, sometimes how you impart a theme or tell a story is as important as what the theme is.
Have you found that during the Reagan-Bush-Bush-Quayle-Bush-Cheney era the quality of your writing has gotten a little dodgier?
Not so much dodgier as filled with a sense of dread.
What is the meaning of life?
A reviewer once criticized a story of mine for raising this question and not answering it. I’m still not answering. Unless you buy me a cocktail.
Can you say something, particularly in light of these grave times, about the writer’s role or responsibility in the creation of work that is purely literary, that is the work of the imagination, as opposed to work that serves more overtly and diras a voice of conscience?
I think that writing can be purely literary and still serve overtly and directly as a voice of conscience. And I think that writers, like anyone else, have a choice in how they make their work. I myself think we need writing that is purely literary, writing that is purely a voice of conscience, and writing that is both literary and a voice of conscience. We need the purely literary as a form of healing for our imaginations. We need the voices of conscience as a form of healing and direction for our cultures. We need writing that is both purely literary and a voice of conscience that bridges reconnects our conscience beings with our imaginations, so that we can begin making the world over again, for the better, I hope.
Gertrude Stein said: “I have destroyed sentences and rhythms and literary overtones and all the rest of that nonsense, to get to the very core of this problem of communication of intuition.” The relationship of form to content. Form as it facilitates communication, particularly communication of the remote, of the mysterious. Form as it permits the dramatization of states of mind. As it serves to make comprehensible the incomprehensible. What are your views on this subject?
It’s important to allow new forms to arise out of states of mind, to allow for new, possibly remote, possibly mysterious, or perhaps necessarily remote and mysterious ideas or feelings to come into being. With each new name, the world becomes a bit more complicated, and in that complication, a bit easier to understand each other.
O
Next — Richard Butner
Dave Shaw – Trampoline Interview
Wed 1 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Trampoline: an interview
What’s your favorite cocktail?
Golden-laced Wyandotte roosters have striking plumage, but not too striking. It’s not overdone, you know, like the tails on White Leghorns. Unless I’ve misunderstood the question. Then it’s whatever W’s drinking.
Which of the seven deadly sins is your favorite these days?
In honor of the War on Terror (and Other Abstract Concepts), my favorite of the Seven Deadly Sins is Justice.
What’s your favorite rule of thumb?
In W’s words: Ignorance Is Strength.
Do you have any pets? How many? And if so, how do they affect your writing (if at all)?
We have five cats and a half-dozen birds. I write in shorter sentences than I used to. The birds are all pro-war. The cats are too smart for the rhetoric.
So, come out with it, already — you really believe in alien abductions. Don’t you? All sci-fi writers do…right?
How can you not believe in alien abductions? Or, more specifically, in alien abductions and replacements, as in the case of the current President of the United Now-Completely-Safe-&-Terror-free States?
What is the writer’s role in inhabiting the commercial spaces of publishing?
Never ever sell out. Ever. Especially if you can maintain your integrity while drinking a nice cool beverage like Coke, driving your Ford, and cruising around on good old fashioned American-made Exxon unleaded. Did you know that Exxon averages only one habitat-obliterating oil spill for every Persian Gulf War they underwrite?
Who’s been eating my porridge?
Sadam Hussein. Don’t you watch the White House briefings?
Who cleft the Devil’s foot?
Good question. Donne right? I prefer his famous:
“Who smokes crack in the White House, in back?”
Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the subject-verb agreement in the first question? I believe the cavalier idiot who’s asking for whom the trumpet toots is running for reelection in 2004.
What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?
John Ashcroft’s fearful hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry with a load of wiretaps and surveillance. He knows you’re reading this right now, by the way. I bet you’ll vote twice next time, won’t you, if martial law is ever lifted.
What has it got in its pocketses?
My Colin Powell crucifix. My Fox News War Ticker text imager. My duct tape. My color guide to Terror Alert Codes. My Republican get-out-of-jail-free card. My “All Animals Are Equal, But Some ARE More Equal Than Others” Bush in 2004 stickers.
What rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
Yeats, right? Okay, enough with the poetry quiz. Donne, Blake, etc etc. Enough is enough.
What has it got in its ‘pocalypse?
Stumped. Milton? Joyce? Shakespeare? Chaucer? Ari Fliescher?
How far is it to Babylon?
Not far. It’s just ahead, under that giant oil well fire.
Can I get there by candlelight?
If you’re carrying an AK-47 and have a ton of air support.
“Where is last year’s snow?”
Siberia, Antarctica, the Himalayas, the last State of the Union address, or in some other repository for the sickenly sentimental.
Can you call spirits from the vasty deep? Will they come when you do call for them?
I can’t even get my two and a half-year old daughter to come when I call her.
What have you done with Dr. Millmoss?
What have you done with the real questions?
Best trampoline story you know (or, in lieu of story, rules for best trampoline game you’ve played).
I wasn’t allowed on the trampoline when I was a kid because we lived down the street from the Bushes and “Georgie” got a cranberry stuck in his nose and had to go to the hospital and my Mom said that’s not the kind of boy whose trampoline you’re going to play on.
What are your favorite kids’ books? What was your favorite when you were a kid (say, 10)?
“The Bewitched Anthology,” “Dagwood Loves Samantha,” “The Trials of Tabitha,” “Let’s Play Doctor with Dr. Bombay.”
What’s the most favorable sort of weather for your creative process?
Sandstorm of sufficient strength to interfere with bombing Iraqi children.
When’s the last time you changed your mind about something? I think I mean a radical shift of personal values — regarding art (“Suddenly, I’m not crazy about Billie Holiday, in fact, I’m not even sure I’m spelling her name right”), regarding anything (“Actually, you can go home again”).
Well, it’s been suggested to me recently that the Vice President actually is still alive. I’m open to considering it.
What book or books do you press upon friends?
Fixing Daddy’s Big Mistake: How W Only Sacrificed Thousands of Innocent Iraqi Children to Satisfy His Unrequited Homosexual Obsession with Sadam Hussein.
What can we, as a group, do to increase the popularity of multi-stage bicycle racing as a spectator sport in America?
We can demand that all cyclists wear facsimiles of the American flag while racing their courses through, around, and over carefully placed Iraqi little girls, aged two to six. We can play the national anthem throughout, slightly louder when a collateral obstacle gets taken out. Fox News can update fans on the changing status of terror alerts as the stages unfold.
What is the meaning of life?
It’s better to fly planes carrying weapons of mass destruction or be able to order men around who fly planes carrying weapons of mass destruction or to live in a country on whose behalf men fly planes carrying weapons of mass destruction than to (formerly) live underneath planes carrying weapons of mass destruction.
If you could live in a book, which one would it be?
I’d like to live in a satire of the War on Terror and other Abstract Concepts, because, being a satire of the insane, it would, I guess, have to be about a perfectly reasonable, contemplative country full of critically-thinking citizens, governed by caring, thoughtful, and mostly non-substance-abusing democratically-elected statesmen.
Gertrude Stein said: “I have destroyed sentences and rhythms and literary overtones and all the rest of that nonsense, to get to the very core of this problem of communication of intuition.” The relationship of form to content. Form as it facilitates communication, particularly communication of the remote, of the mysterious. Form as it permits the dramatization of states of mind. As it serves to make comprehensible the incomprehensible. What are your views on this subject?
I have to admit that at this point in the exam I’m worried most about whether I’ve exhausted every possible avenue to earmark myself for an FBI file. Some of my friends have them, why can’t I? Frankly, it’s embarrassing having worked for so long for a liberal university and not having caused the FBI to waste tens of thousands of dollars of surveillance on me. Thus far, though, it seems I haven’t provoked anything more than the occasional peeping of my neighbor Gus, who I’ve twice caught on a ladder outside my bathroom window in his French maid’s outfit.
O
Next — Vandana Singh
Carol Emshwiller – Trampoline Interview
Wed 1 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Trampoline: an interview
Carol Emshwiller (Gods and Three Wishes)
Were there any particular writers or stories that influenced the writing of the story that will be appearing in Trampoline? If so, how exactly did they influence the writing of your story?
I don’t think I was influenced by anybody in this story except maybe so long ago I don’t remember. Maybe thirty years ago, my class with Kenneth Koch.
Is your Trampoline story generally representative of the sort of story you usually write? To elaborate: is this story a departure in style or subject matter (or any other sort of departure, for that matter) for you? If so, what was different or new for you in the writing of this story? Do you think it is a new direction for your writing, or simply an experiment?
This story is written in a style I use every now and then when I get tired of writing more “standard” stories. I think maybe every third or fourth story comes out like this.
(More about Carol)
O
Next — Jeffrey Ford
Beth Adele Long – Trampoline Interview
Wed 1 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Trampoline:an interview
Beth Adele Long (Destroyer)
Were there any particular writers or stories that influenced the writing of the story that will be appearing in Trampoline? If so, how exactly did they influence the writing of your story?
Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People” provided the overall structure of the story. Thus “Destroyer” began as a writing exercise in which I intended to follow O’Connor’s story scene by scene, but as the story developed, I realized that the set-up I had originally envisioned would have been completely wrong-headed. The structural and even thematic links are still obviously there, but morphed into something quite distinct.
Is your Trampoline story generally representative of the sort of story you usually write? To elaborate: is this story a departure in style or subject matter (or any other sort of departure, for that matter) for you? If so, what was different or new for you in the writing of this story? Do you think it is a new direction for your writing, or simply an experiment?
My writing style seems to have as much direction as a drunken housefly; lots of directions, but none of them consistent or predictable. But this story is representative of my usual sort of story in that I tried to be as true and naked and real as I could manage, which was particularly excruciating in this story.
What’s your favorite cocktail?
Long Island Iced Tea
Which of the seven deadly sins is your favorite these days?
Hmmm…let me get back to you on that one. Still trying them on for size.
What’s your favorite rule of thumb?
No pain, no pain.
So, come out with it, already — you really believe in alien abductions. Don’t you? All sci-fi writers do…right?
What? We’ve been abducting aliens?
Who’s been eating my porridge?
A hippo.
Where have all the flowers gone?
I believe they followed the cowboys.
Does she or doesn’t she?
Whichever she pleases.
Did he ever return?
Yes, but he was never the same.
Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
What’s your record for consecutively asked questions?
What is sharper than the thorn?
The false rose.
What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?
The eye of the tyger.
What have you done with Dr. Millmoss?
Fed him to a hippo as punishment for eating your porridge.
Where is fancy bred?
Northern Saskatchewan.
What book or books do you press upon friends?
Stranger Things Happen, Kelly Link
Clouds End, Sean Stewart
The Magician’s Assistant, Ann Patchett
What can we, as a group, do to increase the popularity of multi-stage bicycle racing as a spectator sport in America?
Encourage the use of hallucinogenics?
I once had a creative writing teacher tell me that he didn’t understand why authors used science fiction or magical realism to tell a story or impart a theme. Why do you think we do, when good old realism might do the trick?
Why eat creme brulee when you could eat Twinkies?
Have you found that during the Reagan-Bush-Bush-Quayle-Bush-Cheney era the quality of your writing has gotten a little dodgier?
Why not… what hasn’t gotten dodgier?
What is the meaning of life?
Office supplies & summer mornings.
Can you say something, particularly in light of these grave times, about the writer’s role or responsibility in the creation of work that is purely literary, that is the work of the imagination, as opposed to work that serves more overtly and diras a voice of conscience?
Work that is purely imaginary, that is the work of the imagination and not of dogma, that emerges from the soul instead of being shaped out of held notions and inherited conceptions – this is the work that feeds true conscience and gives us hope of understanding that Other is none other than Self.
Gertrude Stein said: “I have destroyed sentences and rhythms and literary overtones and all the rest of that nonsense, to get to the very core of this problem of communication of intuition.” The relationship of form to content. Form as it facilitates communication, particularly communication of the remote, of the mysterious. Form as it permits the dramatization of states of mind. As it serves to make comprehensible the incomprehensible. What are your views on this subject?
Beth’s Simplified Dichotomy of Approaches to Form:
Approach 1: Jokes are funny. A joke has a set-up and a punchline. If it has a set-up and a punchline, it is funny.
Approach 2: If it makes me laugh, it’s funny.
I subscribe to Approach 2.
O
Next — Christopher Rowe
Jeffrey Ford – Trampoline Interview
Wed 1 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Trampoline: an interview
Jeffrey Ford (The Yellow Chamber)
Were there any particular writers or stories that influenced the writing of the story that will be appearing in Trampoline? If so, how exactly did they influence the writing of your story?
The writer would be Farrid Ud Din Attar, author of the great Sufi poem The Conference of the Birds and also a book on the quantum phenomenon of Entanglement. I’m not exactly sure how they influenced me, but I know they did.
Is your Trampoline story generally representative of the sort of story you usually write? To elaborate: is this story a departure in style or subject matter (or any other sort of departure, for that matter) for you? If so, what was different or new for you in the writing of this story? Do you think it is a new direction for your writing, or simply an experiment?
Some stories I write because I feel I know the story, some I write to discover them. This was a discover story. Every time you take the boat out it’s a new departure, even if you stick to that part of the bay you know best. With this one, I braved the inlet and made it out into the deep ocean. There, I discovered a floating island.
What’s your favorite cocktail?
My favorite cocktail is the dry martini with olive, but the view from the floor isn’t my favorite, so I’ve switched to VO on the rocks with a little bit of water. The descent is slower and more manageable for one of my advanced age and declining sensibilities.
Which of the seven deadly sins is your favorite these days?
Jeez, it’s hard to pick one. My specialties are hubris and sloth, and I practice them simultaneously. Greed has never been a favorite, but gluttony is a close friend.
What’s your favorite rule of thumb?
Sometimes you have to have the courage to do nothing.
Who’s been eating my porridge?
I have. Refer to my answer previous to the previous.
Where have all the flowers gone?
To Iraq for the graves of the thousands who have succumbed to shock and awe so that we might continue to wonder where all the flowers have gone.
Who cleft the Devil’s foot?
The Almighty foot clefter.
Does she or doesn’t she?
If she doesn’t, she ought to.
Did he ever return?
Yes, and he brought souvenirs.
Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
The horse is blowing the horn and the rider is blowing the horse.
What is sharper than the thorn?
My left big toe nail.
What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Roll your cart over the bones of the dead.
What has it got in its pocketses?
Holeses.
What rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
That would be my mother-in-law.
What has it got in its ‘pocalypse?
A cup of coffee and a come hither glance.
How far is it to Babylon?
It was a short bike ride from West Islip when I was a kid. Now, it’s a half step to the side.
Can I get there by candlelight?
A taxi is still quicker.
“Where is last year’s snow?”
Right here, baby.
Why is a raven like a writing desk?
They both eat worms. Neither of them pays the bills.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Knock yourself out.
Can this cockpit hold The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram Within this wooden O the very casques That did affright the air at Agincourt?
No and no.
Can you call spirits from the vasty deep? Will they come when you do call for them?
Only after a meal of beans and Pineapple Sangria. They’ll come but I’d rather they didn’t, especially in public.
What have you done with Dr. Millmoss?
I stole his road map, kicked his ass, and sent him on his way.
Where is fancy bred?
The fancy bakery.
Where do you hope to haunt when you’re gone (or, I guess, when you come back)?
A five dollar window at Belmont Race Track.
What are your favorite kids’ books? What was your favorite when you were a kid (say, 10)?
I’m a big Curious George freak, but I guess that was younger than 10. Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet, Doctor Dolittle, Tarzan, Treasure Island, King Solomon’s Mines, The Time Machine, Off on a Comet.
What’s the most favorable sort of weather for your creative process?
Overcast. Like Goya, I don’t like the sunlight interfering with my inner light.
Tell me a little about when you left home to live on your own.
Lived in a motel room. Ate a lot of Pilgrim Franks, the bright red color of which would come off on a paper plate, and Showboat Pork & Beans (pale little bags of dust in a brown sauce with a thimble size loogie of fat in every can). Drank 99cent six packs of 16 oz. Pabst Blue Ribbon and smoked a lot of Coney Island Green (a dime bag was as big as a bed pillow). Worked grouting bathrooms at the motel. Read the greats, the near greats, and the hopelessly obscure. Wrote stories in black and white composition books with a pencil (tales of snooze inducing brilliance). Lived with this girl with long, blonde hair. We hung out in the graveyard behind the motel, talking cosmic and messing around. One night a ghost came to our room and turned the pages of a big book on the dresser. We climbed the mountain across the highway, drinking from a bottle of Tequilla every few hundred yards. At the top, we found a broken down shack. Inside, in an old book, there was a love note, written in pencil, dated 1932. The salutation was: Love you forever.
If you could have a writer of your choice come live with you, who would it be and what writerly stuff would you want to talk to them about?
Emily Dickinson because I think she would be a quiet house guest. I would ask her what the dashes were all about and what I should do to better tell it slantwise.
When’s the last time you changed your mind about something? I think I mean a radical shift of personal values — regarding art (“Suddenly, I’m not crazy about Billie Holiday, in fact, I’m not even sure I’m spelling her name right”), regarding anything (“Actually, you can go home again”).
I went on a conscious crusade to read books, one a month, I was sure I would not like. I ended up liking many of them, loving some of them, didn’t finish the rest. It taught me that I don’t know what I like all the time, so almost everything is at least worth a look or a listen.
What book or books do you press upon friends?
The Woman in the Dunes – Kobo Abe
The Conquest of New Spain – Bernal Diaz
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts – Amos Tutuola
The Four Wise Men – Michel Tournier
The Mothman Prophecies – John Keel
End Product: The First Taboo – Sabath & Hall
Mickelsson’s Ghosts – John Gardner
Did you ever go to a really low rent amusement park that had trampolines stretched over shallow pits and bounce and bounce and bounce and get really confident and start bouncing from one trampoline to the next but then kind of lose it and bounce in to your cousin Jeff and cause him to fall into a split timber fence and knock out one of his teeth? Did you ever do that?
No, I never did that. Trampolines always scared the shit out of me. I don’t like heights and in gym class in school, before you got on the trampoline, they went through a list of all the ways you could break your neck and wind up a vegetable. I realized at a young age that this was something I was not particularly interested in.
What can we, as a group, do to increase the popularity of multi-stage bicycle racing as a spectator sport in America?
Drive your car crazy like a crackhead and give everyone the finger.
I once had a creative writing teacher tell me that he didn’t understand why authors used science fiction or magical realism to tell a story or impart a theme. Why do you think we do, when good old realism might do the trick?
The pursuit of truth has made beautiful monsters of us.
My story has a semi-wild chimpanzee in it; does yours?
Sort of, in the narrative voice.
Have you found that during the Reagan-Bush-Bush-Quayle-Bush-Cheney era the quality of your writing has gotten a little dodgier?
Not really, but I certainly despise all those mother fuckers.
What is the meaning of life?
I don’t know the meaning of life, but I know what gives it meaning. Love your friends and family, be kind to strangers, do your work well, respect nature, pets and wild animals, follow your dreams.
What, in your opinion, is the relationship, if any, between the so-called real world and your particular imaginary one?
The older I get, the less the difference is noticeable. I would say I’m somewhat better looking in my imaginary one.
If you could live in a book, which one would it be?
A Moveable Feast by Hemingway (for only a week, though. Then I’d move on to Travels With a Donkey by Stevenson for a week, etc….).
O
Next — Greer Gilman
Vandana Singh – Trampoline Interview
Wed 1 Jul 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Trampoline: an interview
Vandana Singh (The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet)
Were there any particular writers or stories that influenced the writing of the story that will be appearing in Trampoline? If so, how exactly did they influence the writing of your story?
I read a beautiful short story by Walter Tevis in some ancient anthology and loved it, although I have forgotten its name. But I also wanted to pull its leg. Hence my story.
What’s your favorite cocktail?
The juice of fresh mangoes.
Which of the seven deadly sins is your favorite these days?
Gluttony, especially as applied to mangoes. Real mangoes, that is. Not the ones you get in the Western Hemisphere.
What’s your favorite rule of thumb?
Faraday’s Right Hand Rule. (If your thumb points in the direction of a current in a wire, the magnetic field lines due to the current will wrap around the wire in the same sense as your fingers).
Do you have any pets? How many? And if so, how do they affect your writing (if at all)?
I have a venerable 14-year-old Corgi dog who is a constant companion, without whom I would not be able to write a word. He lies under the table and sighs while I type. I discuss character development and plot lines with him, and he gives me this extraordinarily wise, patient, Buddha-like look in return.
What is the writer’s role in inhabiting the commercial spaces of publishing?
To subvert the dominant paradigm.
Who’s been eating my porridge?
Certainly not me, since that is not my idea of breakfast.
Who cleft the Devil’s foot?
I don’t know, but you could ask Dubya and his cohorts since they seem to be intimately acquainted with the aforementioned gentleman.
Does she or doesn’t she?
You are assuming she is a binary system.
Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the dyspeptic camel? Where is the green grass growing?
What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?
The unskilled fingers, the blind eye of a god called Evolution, perhaps?
What has it got in its pocketses?
Several new stories. Interested?
What has it got in its ‘pocalypse?
Ask Dubya.
O
Next — Rosalind Palmero Stevenson
A. DeNiro – Trampoline Interview
Mon 29 Jun 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Trampoline: an interview
A. DeNiro, Fuming Woman
What’s your favorite cocktail?
Not much of a cocktail drinker…should I be?
Which of the seven deadly sins is your favorite these days?
Dopey.
What’s your favorite rule of thumb?
Not to always trust rules of thumb (or is it rule of thumbs?).
Who’s been eating my porridge?
I think the world would be a better place if people ate more porridge. It just sounds so good. Porridge! So, the answer is: everyone, I hope.
Who’s there? Betty. Betty who?
I’ll pretend Mr. Barzak answers this question for me: “Betty get your freak on.”
Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
I’ll leave this one for Robert Jordan to answer…
Kennst du das Land wo die Zitronen Bluhn?
Actually, I haven’t listened to Def Leppard’s “Rock of Ages” for awhile now.
How should I your true love know?
Skywriting. And bookmarks.
What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Roberto Alomar.
What has it got in its pocketses?
A wallet, a piece of lint, a key. The usual.
What rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?
Richard Perle. Wait, did you say “Bethlehem”? I thought you said “seventh circle of Hell”.
What has it got in its ‘pocalypse?
By me or according to Olaf?
Where do you hope to haunt when you’re gone (or, I guess, when you come back)?
Maybe a Starbucks, or a Fuddruckers. Or go the Ringu route, and maybe upgrade from VHS to DVD. I could haunt an iPod!
What are your favorite kids’ books? What was your favorite when you were a kid (say, 10)?
My favorite book when I was ten? Dungeons and Dragons Basic Edition Player’s Manual.
What’s the most favorable sort of weather for your creative process?
Not too hot, not too cold. Porridge weather.
When’s the last time you changed your mind about something? I think I mean a radical shift of personal values — regarding art (“Suddenly, I’m not crazy about Billie Holiday, in fact, I’m not even sure I’m spelling her name right”), regarding anything (“Actually, you can go home again”).
About every three weeks or so for smaller stuff, every six months for larger paradigms.
What book or books do you press upon friends?
Book of the New Sun, by Gene Wolfe, any poetry by Lisa Jarnot and Jennifer Moxley, The Age of Wire and String by Ben Marcus, The Tremor of Forgery by Patricia Highsmith.
Where did you grow up?
Erie, Pennsylvania.
Did you ever go to a really low rent amusement park that had trampolines stretched over shallow pits and bounce and bounce and bounce and get really confident and start bouncing from one trampoline to the next but then kind of lose it and bounce in to your cousin Jeff and cause him to fall into a split timber fence and knock out one of his teeth? Did you ever do that?
Accidents involving teeth give me the willies.
What can we, as a group, do to increase the popularity of multi-stage bicycle racing as a spectator sport in America?
Do what we, as a group, do about any major societal problem in America: make a zine about it.
I once had a creative writing teacher tell me that he didn’t understand why authors used science fiction or magical realism to tell a story or impart a theme. Why do you think we do, when good old realism might do the trick?
Ray Davis said it best: “Restricting yourself to mainstream fiction in the late twentieth century is like restricting yourself to heroic tragedy after 1650.” Even more true in the early 21st.
What is the meaning of life?
“This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”
— Walt Whitman, from the Preface of the first edition of Leaves of Grass, (1855)
What, in your opinion, is the relationship, if any, between the so-called real world and your particular imaginary one?
I have about twenty imaginary worlds. And they’re not even worlds since I am not very good at consistent “world building”. Tendrils instead of worlds. This is sounding really dorky, so I should probably stop.
Can you say something, particularly in light of these grave times, about the writer’s role or responsibility in the creation of work that is purely literary, that is the work of the imagination, as opposed to work that serves more overtly and diras a voice of conscience?
I think all times are more or less grave, and it is only the snowglobe shellac that our now-ness, which our present tense provides us, that we think the “now” is somehow more grave than any other point in history. The Merovingians, the Picts, the late Victorians, the Toltecs…all more or less grave. To the question…I don’t think any work is “pure.” Language itself isn’t ever pure but is always borne by societal expectations. So in theory all writing should be able to bring something to bear to a larger “conscience.” Doesn’t often seem that way. But I don’t think it’s an either or proposition. Good writing, by nature, is subversive. It doesn’t mollycoddle the reader. And so even if it’s subtle, or might not seem political with a capital P, good writing is nevertheless part of a POLIS.
Gertrude Stein said: “I have destroyed sentences and rhythms and literary overtones and all the rest of that nonsense, to get to the very core of this problem of communication of intuition.” The relationship of form to content. Form as it facilitates communication, particularly communication of the remote, of the mysterious. Form as it permits the dramatization of states of mind. As it serves to make comprehensible the incomprehensible. What are your views on this subject?
I think Ms. Stein hit the nail on the head, and if she were alive I’d buy her a beer or three.
O
Next — Carol Emshwiller
Pretty Locus Monster
Mon 29 Jun 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelly Link, Publishing, To Read Pile| Posted by: Gavin
Excellent news! Kelly’s story “Pretty Monsters” received a Locus Award this weekend:
- NOVELLA: “Pretty Monsters”, Kelly Link (Pretty Monsters)
which is awesome!
Cutting and pasting from the gender and country breakdown of previous posts: who are they, where do they come from?
Winners (if a person is in a category twice they were counted twice. Numbers are hopefully accurate):
- 10 men (USA)
- 3 women (USA)
Nominees:
- 50 men (32 USA, 9 UK, 6 AUS, 3 CAN)
- 16 women (14 USA, 1 UK, 1 AUS)
ad op
Fri 26 Jun 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Uncategorized| Posted by: Gavin
we’ve been offered a spot in an ad with some other publishers — it will be 4 books on a page with some text and the covers — in a national pop culture mag. Cost is $9,100. Anyone want to pay up? Come on, what else are you going to do with Aunt Aggie’s bequest?
(We will give you some books, and, er, stand you a drink or two when we next see you.)
Benjamin Rosenbaum
Fri 26 Jun 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Benjamin Rosenbaum grew up in Arlington, Virginia, and received degrees in computer science and religious studies from Brown University.
His work has been published in Harper’s, Nature, McSweeney’s, F&SF, Asimov’s, Interzone, All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories, and Strange Horizons. Small Beer Press published his chapbook Other Cities and The Present Group published his collaboration,Anthroptic, with artist Ethan Ham. His stories have been translated into fourteen languages, listed in Best American Short Stories: 2006, and shortlisted for the Hugo and Nebula awards.
Rosenbaum lives near Basel, Switzerland, with his wife and two small, rambunctious children. There are cows, steeples, double-decker trains, and traffic lights for bicycles in his neighborhood.
Photo credit: Photo by Jessica Wallach/PortraitPlaytime.com
Download for print.
Elizabeth Hand
Fri 26 Jun 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
A couple of years after seeing Patti Smith perform, Elizabeth Hand flunked out of college and became involved in the nascent punk scenes in DC and NYC. From 1979 to 1986 she worked at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air & Space Museum; she was eventually readmitted to university to study cultural anthropology, and received her B.A.
She is the author of many novels, including Winterlong, Waking the Moon (Tiptree and Mythopoeic Award-Winner), Glimmering, and Mortal Love, and three collections of stories, including the recent Saffron and Brimstone.
Her fiction has received the Nebula, World Fantasy, Mythopeoic, Tiptree, and International Horror Guild Awards, and her novels have been chose as New York Times and Washington Post Notable Books. She has also been awarded a Maine Arts Commission Fellowship.
A regular contributor to the Washington Post Book World and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Hand lives with her family on the Maine Coast.
Elizabeth Hand is represented by the Martha Millard Literary Agency.
Author photo © Norm Walters.
Download author photo for print.
Reviews + Quotes for Generation Loss
“Thirty years ago, Cassandra Neary’s grim photos of punks and corpses briefly made her the toast of the downtown art scene. Now an alcoholic wage slave, Neary accepts a magazine assignment to interview one of her reclusive photographer heroes on a Maine island, where a rash of missing-teenager cases and an off-kilter populace grab her attention. It takes time to warm to the self-destructive, sour-tempered protagonist –she drives drunk, pops Adderall and Percocet, and generally tries to not stick out her neck. Luckily, Hand’s terse but transporting prose keeps the reader turning pages until Neary’s gritty charm does, finally, shine through.” (B)
— Entertainment Weekly“Although Generation Loss moves like a thriller, it detonates with greater resound.”
— Graham Joyce, Washington Post Book World“This novel disturbs like Cass’s photos of dead junkies and squalid club scenes. While in some ways she’s just another self-destructive person, Cass’s intelligence and talent make her an appealing mess. Hand propels this oddly appealing character through an old-fashioned mystery-thriller with stirring results. In the end, Generation Loss is a conventional story of sin and redemption. With darkly inventive polish, Hand reveals a character so deeply disordered, she’s both unlikable and compelling.”
—Time Out Chicago“Cass is a marvel, someone with whom we take the difficult journey toward delayed adulthood, wishing her encouragement despite grave odds.”
— Los Angeles Times“This smart, dark, literary thriller will keep you up at night. A photographer who has been drinking, doing drugs, and alienating everyone around her since the ’70s goes to Maine to interview a legendary photographer and gets caught up in the case of a missing girl.”
— Megan Sullivan’s Pick of the Week at the Boston Globe“This long-awaited fantasy novel brings an end to the critically acclaimed Aegypt quartet that takes ‘the vast jigsaw that Crowley has assembled in the first three books – and places them in a picture that’s open, smiling, filled with possibility….gracefully written, beautifully characterized, moving, and thought-provoking…. [Graham Sleight]'”
— Locus Notable Books“Just as lives that are only momentarily brilliant deserve celebration and respect, though, so do such novels, because life is dark enough that we need whatever illumination we can get, and there’s plenty to be had in Generation Loss.”
— Strange Horizons“A formerly famous punk photographer attracted to the dead and damaged stumbles on a serial killer case when she takes a job inteviewing a famous reclusive photographer in this dark thriller of art and damaged souls, and despite only a hint of the supernatural, ‘…something of a departure for the author, but fully as elegant and significant as her overtly fantastic works. There is grave beauty her, and great thematic power.’ [Nick Gevers]”
— Valley Advocate“Hand (Mortal Love, Black Light) expertly ratchets up the suspense until it’s at the level of a high-pitched scream near novel’s end.”
— Milwaukee Journal Sentinel* “Hand (Mortal Love) explores the narrow boundary between artistic genius and madness in this gritty, profoundly unsettling literary thriller.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Ægypt is a metamorphosis, a metensomatosis, a memory play and a meta-novel; a story about many stories, a book with a larger book inside it. The further in you go, the bigger it gets.”
— Elizabeth Hand, F&SF“Cass Neary, Elizabeth Hand’s unlikely heroine in her latest novel Generation Loss, may be hard to like, but I found her story is easy to love.”
— Feminist Review“A dark, literate mystery that’s easy to appreciate and hard to put down.”
— The Olympian“The novel crackles with energy: it is alive.”
— Nicholas Rombes, (The Ramones and New Punk Cinema)“Intense and atmospheric, Generation Loss is an inventive brew of postpunk attitude and dark mystery. Elizabeth Hand writes with craftsmanship and passion.”
— George Pelecanos“Lucid and beautifully rendered. Great, unforgiving wilderness, a vanished teenager, an excellent villain, and an obsession with art that shades into death: what else do you need? An excellent book.”
— Brian Evenson, The Open Curtain
Praise for Elizabeth Hand’s previous novels:
” A literary page-turner . . . deeply pleasurable. . . . A delightful waking dream.”
— People (****)“One of the most sheerly impressive, not to mention overwhelmingly beautiful books I have read in a long time.”
—Peter Straub*”[Hand’s] language has an incantatory beauty.”
— Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Random Happy Birthday shout out
Thu 25 Jun 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., the world| Posted by: Gavin
There’s a reason for this search buried in our Writer’s Daily Planner. So happy belated birthday George. It’s the 25th iteration of the year 1984 and we the citizens of Oceania thank you for your prescience.
Happy Birthday, George Orwell, Author of “1984”
Early Days
Eric Arthur Blair, later known as George Orwell, was born on June 25, 1903, in Motihari, Bengal, then a British colony in India. As The Literature Network explains, his father, Richard Walmesley Blair, worked for the Indian Civil Service and his mother, Ida Mabel Limouzin, stayed at home with Eric and his two sisters, Marjorie and Avril.
Podcast of “The Hortlak”
Thu 25 Jun 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Audio out, Creative Commons, Kelly Link| Posted by: Gavin
By Frank Marcopolis courtesy of Creative Commons. He’s split the story into two: part one is here, part 2 TK.
“Can Erik and Batu revolutionize convenience retail? And what about all those zombies? ”
– Is the All-Night Convenience a metaphor for life itself? If so, how?
– What other symbols are used in the story (if any)?
– Is a new style of retail, one that will usher in a revolutionary era, on the horizon?
– Do you believe in ghosts? Zombies? Dog ghosts? Why or why not?
– Do you sleep in pajamas?
– What themes/issues/whatevers from the story do YOU want to talk about?
I’d love to know your thoughts. Listen to the story, and let’s discuss in the comments section.
Other Cities – Bradley Denton quote (pt. 5)
Wed 24 Jun 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Other Cities, a Chapbook
Benjamin Rosenbaum
Quoting Mr. Denton:
Dear Ben,
You sure you’ve never been to Austin?
Deep in the heart of Texas,
Brad
Other Cities – Bradley Denton quote (pt. 2)
Wed 24 Jun 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Other Cities, a Chapbook
Benjamin Rosenbaum
Quoting Mr. Denton:
Dear Ben,
Having said that, I confess that I’ve been struggling with writing an appropriate blurb. The best I’ve come up with so far is:
“My God, these are beautiful.”
— Bradley Denton
Other Cities – Bradley Denton quote (pt. 1)
Wed 24 Jun 2009 - Filed under: Authors| Posted by: Gavin
Other Cities, a Chapbook
Benjamin Rosenbaum
Quoting Mr. Denton:
Dear Ben,
First of all —
Other Cities is wonderful. Thank you for the privilege of reading these stories.
— Bradley Denton
get that woman a beer, dammit
Mon 22 Jun 2009 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Literary Beer| Posted by: Gavin
Great piece about the only woman beer inspector in the UK (thanks Michael, Erin!). Apparently 80% of women in the UK haven’t tried real ale. How is this possible? Ok, so stout is no longer prescribed when women are pregnant, but still, come on! Next round, here’s some advice:
“The other thing is that women are more sensitive to bitter flavours,” says Annabel, “so if a woman’s first experience of real ale is a very bitter pint, she may never go back to it.” Better to start with something more floral, such as Caledonian Deuchars IPA or Theakston’s Old Peculier.
Previous Books of Carol Emshwiller
Fri 19 Jun 2009 - Filed under: Authors, Carol Emshwiller| Posted by: Gavin
Praise for Carol Emshwiller’s previous books:
Carol Emshwiller’s stories have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Century, Scifiction, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, The Voice Literary Supplement, Omni, Crank!, Confrontation, and many other anthologies and magazines.
Ledoyt
Mercury House, 1995
Ms. Emshwiller is so gifted. . . . She describes the ragged, sunswept Western countryside with a vividness and clarity that let us see it as her characters do — and understand why they love it as they do. There are moments of [Ledoyt] that are remarkably moving; there are scenes of great power.
—The New York Times Book Review
[Ledoyt is] as haunting as the song of a canyon wren at twilight.
—Atlanta Journal
It’s always cheering when an unclassifiable writer suddenly grows a little more unclassifiable. That’s the case with Carol Emshwiller, the feminist-fantasist author of three short-story collections and one earlier novel…. With Ledoyt, Emshwiller offers a historical novel of sometimes gothic intensity, but one remaining well within the realm of physical possibility…of all things — a Western…a story of unlikely love and destructive jealousy.
—San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
A fierce and tender portrait of a girl growing up fierce and tender; a sorrowful, loving portrait of a man whose talent is for love and sorrow; a western, an unsentimental love story, an unidealized picture of the American past, a tough, sweet, painful, truthful novel.
— Ursula K. Le Guin, author of Tales of Earthsea
— read the full review
Ledoyt is sweet and true and heartbreaking, echoing with the actualities of our old horseback life in the American West. Carol Emshwiller has got it dead right.
–William Kittredge, editor of The Portable Western Reader
Leaping Man Hill
Mercury House, 1999Leaping Man Hill is a satisfying novel, with complexities not susceptible to easy summary, as well as those quirky characters and some playful language. Finally, though, it is dominated by Emshwiller’s sure development of Mary Catherine. Readers who grow with that young woman may remember this book a long time.
—San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
[Leaping Man Hill is] another strong, satisfying western . . . a headstrong young heroine succeeds in finding her niche in the ranch country of post-WWI California. . . . An exuberant yet exquisite portrait of a woman coming into her own.
—Kirkus Reviews
Emshwiller is particularly good at showing the ways we aspire to self-sufficiency to insulate ourselves from a world beyond our control…. Leaping Man Hill is, if anything, a love story…. Love, strange and complicated, has been a theme of Emshwiller’s from her earliest, fantasy-tinged short stories, in which characters float, shrink, grow wings, and cohabitate with aliens under its influence. As Emshwiller knows, implausibility and affection seldom rule each other out, and in some cases the combination effects amazing transformations. In Emshwiller’s carefully drawn, realistic western context these changes are less pronounced, but no less revealing or remarkable.
— San Francisco Bay Guardian
— read the full review
Carmen Dog
Mercury House, 1990** Small Beer Press reprinted Carmen Dog in June 2004 through their new Peapod Press imprint. More.
Emshwiller has produced a first novel that combines the cruel humor of Candidewith the allegorical panache of Animal Farm. In the hyper-Kafkaesque world ofCarmen Dog, women have begun devolving into animals and animals ascending the evolutionary ladder to become women. . . . there has not been such a singy combination of imaginative energy, feminist outrage, and sheer literary muscle since Joanna Russ’ classic The Female Man.
—Entertainment Weekly
This trenchant feminist fantasy-satire mixes elements of Animal Farm, Rhinoceros and The Handmaid’s Tale…. Imagination and absurdist humor mark [Carmen Dog] throughout, and Emshwiller is engaging even when most savage about male-female relationships.
—Booklist
An inspired feminist fable…. A wise and funny book.
—The New York Times
–review from Vector: The Critical Journal of the British Science Fiction Association
— review from Strange Horizons
The Start of the End of It All
Mercury House, 1990
— Winner of the 1991 World Fantasy AwardEighteen short fantastic fictions comprise Emshwiller’s third superb collection. . . . again, her improvisations include inventive fabulisms and feminist satires, many with a science-fictional spin to them…. Emshwiller’s fabulisms court a sense of the sacred but cleverly undercut that sense with tongue-in-cheek playfulness. The ensuing deft balance between mystery and skepticism is touching — and often aesthetically triumphant.
—Kirkus Reviews
Emshwiller’s characters embrace the unexpected and extraordinary; their lives leap from the mundane to the wondrous in a surreal instant, and the reader feels transported too.
—Publisher’s Weekly
— review by Gwyneth Jones on the Broad Universe site
—L. Timmel Duchamp on “Peninsula,” a story from Carol Emshwiller’s first collection, Joy in Our Cause
— review from Strange Horizons
Verging on the Pertinent
Coffee House, 1989“I have loved her work for years. Her imagination is fierce and funny, never mean.”
–Grace Paley
“[She] must be read, watched for, nurtured as an original and exciting new talent.”
— Doris Grumbach
Venus Rising, a chapbookEdgewood Press,1992A stunning story of an alien exiled to an exotic world, the peaceful inhabitants he finds there and his attempts to “civilize” them.
“I have always thought that Carol had the most inventive mind in science fiction. It is not possible to summarize her work as a whole nor describe it satisfactorily piece by piece, but it does all have a particularly tough kind of feminity that appeals to me very much. Her heroines generally rise to the occasion and they do this with only their courage and their imagination and they do this in ways no one else would. And yet, as a reader, you always liked her heroines just fine before they were heroic, so there is a bit of sadness there, that the world is the sort of world that forces nice, ordinary people into heroism. Other writers can be funny one moment and heart-breaking the next, but Carol is routinely both at once and she makes it look effortless or accidental.”
— Karen Joy Fowler
“Here is a female living out among the breakers. Here is a man from the land-dwelling culture. When they meet, the encounter touches on culture-clash, gender politics, evolution in its manifold forms, relative civilization, even murder and kidnapping. No one else has a voice like Carol Emshwiller’s. She should be heard.”
— Locus
Venus Rising is wonderfully Emshwillerian: lyrical in its language, delightfully idiosyncratic in its thinking, filled with laughter and strange pain.”
— Pat Murphy
Another review. (Warning: this is a slow-loading PDF file.)
Emshwiller knows well the marvelous inexplicability of love, jealousy, and heroism.
—Library Journal
First and foremost, Emshwiller is a poet — with a poet’s sensibility, precision, and magic. She revels in the sheer taste and sound of words, she infuses them with an extraordinary vitality and sense of life.
—Newsday
Notes Toward an Article on Carol Emshwiller
Fri 19 Jun 2009 - Filed under: Authors, Carol Emshwiller, Not a Journal.| Posted by: Gavin
Notes Toward an Article on Carol Emshwiller
Gavin J. Grant
Carol Emshwiller, who has been publishing superb, stirring, challenging fiction for over 50 years, is a perfect Guest of Honor for Wiscon, the only Feminist Science Fiction convention.
If someone were to compile one of those futile lists of the top hundred writers in the world right Now! I’d have to hack into the results and replace the name of one of the politely-angry young men in the top ten with Carol Emshwiller’s. I wouldn’t put her in the top five, but only to avert the pollsters suspicions. Number six then, or number seven.
I imagine that when they discovered I’d spoofed their poll, said pollsters might be ticked off. But if they attempted to track me down, I expect there would be a Spartacus moment (perhaps without all the cleft chins) as writers from all around the world would stepped themselves forward to say, “I put Carol Emshwiller in the top ten,” or, “It was I who fixed your silly poll,” and so on.
Carol Emshwiller’s writing, and she herself, inspires that kind of action.
But why would someone need (or want) to put Carol’s name forward that way? Surely the cream will rise to the top? Well, some will, but for the most part, it takes work to get there (as well as some odd mechanical processes which aren’t an appropriate extension of this metaphor). As sharper critics than I have pointed out, Carol’s writing manages to both demand the reader pay attention and at the same time depends on the willingness of the reader to invest their imagination in the story to be fully appreciated. This is why I would fix that poll. This is why others would defend me. This is why Carol’s readers are very happy people and are always putting her books into other people’s hands.
Carol’s writing can rarely be satisfyingly pigeon-holed. Her latest novel which we were extremely happy and proud to publish, The Mount (2002), is science fiction; but it can also be described (or defended or attacked) as allegory, a coming-of-age story, or fantasy. Or even romance. Ledoyt(1995) is a biographical historical Western coming-of-age story. Carmen Dog (1990), a novel that I hope every Wiscon attendee will read, is transformative in many senses of the word. As for Carol’s short stories: they are many, they are awesome, and each one is worth an essay to itself. Carol, of course, is well aware — and not at all bothered — that her fiction is not easily categorized.
Among the many resonances and influences in Carol’s writing are the mountains and landscape of the American West, personal relationships, the odd moments of war, and the actions and effects of people who may or may not be more damaged than the rest of us.
Recently, Carol has written a series of war stories including “Boys” (Scifiction), “The General” (McSweeney’s No.10), and “Repository” (F&SF), which explore war from typically Emshwilleresque viewpoints. Soldiers are unsure of who they are, who they are fighting, or why. War is the question, not the subject.
I look forward to reading many more of Carol’s questions.
More
Report to the Men’s Club and Other Stories
Originally published in the Wiscon 27 program book.
Author photo by Susan Emshwiller.
-
- We are closed to submissions.
- The Book of Love
- » by Kelly Link
- » A Limited Edition
- Not a Journal
- » updates &c.
- Books
- » Latest Title
- » Chapbooks
- » Big Mouth House
- » More ...
- Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet
- » Subscribe
- » Submit
- » Advertise
- Read!
- » Creative Commons
- » Samples
- » Listen
- About
- » Guidelines
- » Catalog
- » Contact
- » For Academics
- » Of Small Beer
- » Links
- Shop here
- » Preorder
- » Mail Order
- » I Hear You're Working on a Novel and more zines
- » Bundles
- » Bookstores
- Updates
- » Events
- » Bonus Materials Email List
- » Occasional Email List:
-
Tags
-
A. DeNiro
Art
Audio out
Awards
Ayize Jama-Everett
Benjamin Parzybok
Benjamin Rosenbaum
Books
bookshops
Carol Emshwiller
Cons
ebooks
Elizabeth Hand
events
Free books
Greer Gilman
Howard Waldrop
Interstitial Arts
Joan Aiken
John Crowley
John Kessel
Karen Joy Fowler
Karen Lord
Kathe Koja
Kelly Link
Kij Johnson
Laurie J. Marks
LCRW
Literary Beer
Maureen F. McHugh
Nathan Ballingrud
Pop
Publishing
readings
Sarah Pinsker
Sofia Samatar
Susan Stinson
the world
To Read Pile
Uncategorized
Ursula K. Le Guin
Vincent McCaffrey
website bumph
Year's Best Fantasy & Horror
YouTube
-
Archives