Discovery: Clayton Cubitt

1. Clayton Cubitt's site.

2. Click the images.

3. Awe and break.

3 New Summer Poems in WWR!

"Hush" by Laury A. Egan

Hush like yellow butterflies

to marauding ravens

like lambs to lions.

"NorthSouth" by Dawn Leas

Faces streaked

with dirt, we gulp

lemonade, wipe

our mouths on T-shirts.

"Hong Kong Summer" by Tammy Ho Lai-ming

The old men playing chess in the park

say a typhoon is brewing.

Booty Call: Where I Stay, Scorch Atlas, and Big World

Yesterday was a great day for books. I received a review copy of Andrew Zornoza's Where I Stay, which I just might end up teaching this fall in my neo-nature writing course. 

Will definitely be teaching Blake Butler's Scorch Atlas, which I also received a copy of (and holy crap, it's a good looking book: absolutely stunning). 

 

And to top it all off, I also received a copy of Mary Miller's Big World, which I've heard a lot about. I'm excited to get reading. And, p.s., it was great seeing everyone here in Phillytown.

Writers Respond: An Interview with Kyle Beachy

MOLLY GAUDRY: Hi Kyle. Thanks for agreeing to this interview. When I first contacted you about it, I thought we would discuss your first book, The Slide, and leave it at that. Instead, over time, the interview evolved into a sort of multi-layered discussion. Likewise, most interviews include an introduction of some sort, but because we cover so much I thought we should just jump right in.

KYLE BEACHY: I'm happy to talk with you, Molly. You're interesting and friendly. 

MG: Well, thank you. I feel the same about you, obviously, and am grateful for your time and willingness to take part in this Writers Respond interview.

1.

Divorce, Sadness, and Autobiography

MG: I'd like to begin by asking you about the parents' divorce in The Slide. It seems to me that their split is one of the final sadnesses in your novel. I know this book is sort of loosely autobiographical, but I'm interested in the fictional element of creating this character, Potter Mays, having him return home after graduating from college, and then having him witness (among other perhaps less-personal tragedies) the end of his parents' marriage. I wonder, how does their divorce work on a larger, more symbolic level for the novel as a whole? Or does it?

KB: I always thought of the divorce as one of several rifts. I see the book sort of like a network of arrows of forces and different colors that all operate at the same time. Like that Faulkner line, what he calls trying to move your arms and legs with strings when the same strings are hitched to everyone else's arms and legs. But I see rifts over strings and I wanted big rifts and little rifts, and I also wanted collisions, forces working in opposition and concurrence. I would hope the divorce connects somehow to the other sadnesses.

MG: Why sadness? 

KB: It's not too removed from that great notion of I am trying to break your heart -- here we all are, post-millenial and cool, yes yes we're terminally evolved and disaffected and far too enlightened to be touched, sentimentality has been written off, we all sigh in unison and say, of course. But if you can succeed at sadness you've at least reached into the reader somehow and twisted something or other. It's not the only way, but it was the way I thought to try. Now I can try something else.

MG: And what can you share with us about the autobiographical elements in The Slide? From other interviews I've read, I gather you're pretty open to the novel being read as loosely autobiographical.

KB: I'm open to the book being read however people choose to read it. There is overlap between Potter's life and my life at age twenty-two, but it stops the moment the book becomes interesting. Writing this was a process moving further and further away from what I had experienced, and as this happened the writing became easier. But yes I drove a water delivery van briefly, yes. I have had troubles with love and jealousy and betrayal, yes. I have found myself unable to decide what's right and wrong given the circumstances, definitely. And I do truly love the St. Louis Cardinals.

2.

Character, Mystery, and Fucked-Up Gifts

MG: Who is your favorite character in The Slide and why? 

KB: Audrey, absolutely. I spent so much time with everyone else. She is still a ghost.

MG: Oh, that's a good answer. She's something of a mystery to me, too, and probably to other readers as well. One reason for this might be that she enters the novel mysteriously, by sending Potter a starfish with two broken legs. Why, in your mind, does she send Potter the starfish? And is there any particular reason it winds up where it does?

KB: It's a confusing gift. Maybe she wants to confuse him. Probably she sends it for a lot of different reasons, and definitely not for other reasons. I would guess it's a complicated mixture she doesn't totally understand. Vengeance and cowardice, at least. Justice. And I'm not totally sure where it does end up. Have you ever sent fucked up gifts to someone you're not sure if you love?

MG: I don't think I've ever sent anyone a fucked-up gift. I don't think I've ever been unsure about those I've loved. It's backfired, certainly, but anyway. So I think the next question is: What fucked-up gifts have you sent in the past?

KB: No bad gifts since elementary school, which was a dog bone I handed to a pretty girl to make a point and look funny in front of other kids. It was mean and fucked-up. Generally I try to give good gifts.

MG: That is so mean! I did something terrible like that, too, but to a friend who, for some reason, I arbitrarily decided I didn't need or want as a friend anymore. I was a piece of shit back in my junior high days, definitely. Mostly because I was unhappy and tired all the time. The last gift I gave someone that really went over well was maybe two or three years back: a steamroller. That went over better than I'd expected. I have no idea how or where that person is now. Alas. And you? The last good gift you gave someone?

KB: I gave my nephew this super rad bulldozer toy with working parts everywhere, rubber plastic metal and big and strong and sharp and pointy and probably unsafe. I really enjoying giving books to my mother because it's so easy. The big secret is this: my mother will like almost any book I choose simply by virtue of me thinking she will like it. It is almost like throwing a ball and trying to hit the ground.

3.

Character, the Seven-Year Novel, and Popularity

MG: Hands down, my favorite character is Ian. Would you mind telling us about the genesis of his role in this novel?

KB: The book originally included a number of these divergent vignettes that started with Potter's water deliveries. He'd deliver somewhere and the narrative would flop over to this other character from the delivery, then it would catch back up to Potter. I liked Ian and started making his story bigger. I wanted a kid who wasn't precocious, and I wanted certain reflections of Potter's life, certain concavities in the mirror. There's a line in there about a dog staring at a horse. Like that.

MG: Here it is (as if by magic): "I felt like a dog might feel, staring at a horse. We were the same shape, roughly, but the difference in scale and skills were immense." It is lovely. It is moments, lines, like these that make The Slide such a touching novel. Well done. So I think I read somewhere that it took seven years for you to complete this novel. If the original format was a series of vignettes, then I'm curious to know if there were other formats and how you ended up with the traditionally narrated sort of novel that you did.

KB: It was like shaking one of those archeology screens, how they dump dirt onto it and shake and the fossil or gold nugget is either there or it's not there. I just had to shake for a long long time because the dirt I put onto the screen didn't know what the hell it was doing. Did you watch Voyage of the Mimi at any point in school? It was about discovering things and I think also about whales. As for the traditional narrative, I wanted propulsion, things moving quickly and cohesively. Plus I don't fall into this camp that treats this word traditional as derogatory.

MG: What is Voyage of the Mimi? Oh god, I feel unpopular again. Like, is this something I was supposed to have been watching? Is this what all the cool kids were watching? Were you a cool kid? And popularity--overrated or a necessary thing?

KB: It's what seventh graders watched in Social Studies class, a PBS mini-series starring a tiny Ben Affleck. I am 95% sure that I was cool. I played sports and felt up girls and rode a skateboard and smoked cigarettes at the mall. I think of popularity as an artificial value system, like Beanie Babies. I'm also curious of longer-view popularity narratives, like e.g. people today who were nerds growing up and now find themselves at the center of attention because they're talented, because adult nerds are talented and valuable and smart, but when they're popular suddenly they turn into vengeful smug assholes. It's like Fortune's wheel. Here's an unglamorous thing I believe wholeheartedly: people should just be nice. Forget who is writing what and who is reading where and with whom and why aren't I reading, why isn't this my show, and just be a friendly motherfucker. It's so much easier. Make pleasantness the only factor for popularity and I'll get on board.

4.

Blogs, Websites, and the Internet

MG: You have a blog. Will you tell us about why you began blogging? And will you direct us to your favorite blog post and tell us about it? 

KB: I'm not good at blogging. I come and go in waves. I tried to be a baseball blogger and write something about every Cardinals game this season, then after one game I realized it was going to be hard. I retired. My favorite post is so totally obviously this one here, in which I address a beautiful photograph of a squirrel that died marvelously outside my home. I read the thing you wrote about impermanence and love and the challenges. That strikes me as a personal thing to throw out there; do you ever overstep and say too much?

MG: I didn't know you read my blog! Aw, thanks, Kyle! So yeah, that squirrel picture is crazy. What a good neighbor you have! Oh man, I don't know. I mean, the truth is I don't feel I put anything personal on my blog. It's a very tricky, very fine line. For instance, my friends and family rarely make appearances. Even so, they have on more than one occasion requested I not blog things they share in confidence . . . um, despite the fact I never have before. Still, I know what you (and they) mean: I can really emo it up sometimes. But if you notice, those are the posts that generate the most comments, and I think people connect to those posts, the things I share, and then feel compelled to respond. And this is why I began blogging in the first place: to connect with others. I also do my fair share of commenting on others' blogs. And it's true: I always respond to posts that detail someone's personal struggles. If it seems someone needs encouragement or a pat on the back, I like to provide that, if I can. What about you? Are you much of a commenter? And what, if any, blogs or websites do you visit every day?

KB: My instinct has been to go without comments on the site. My thought is: toss the thing into the void and let it live or die, then move on to the next thing. Comments complicate this arrangement, and it becomes a question of who's listening. But I like your point about connection, like a conversation. I don't often comment, and everyday blogs and websites of mine are sort of embarrassing. Certain gossip sites and Drudgereport to see how other people think. Gauge public interest, like palpating. I come to yours rather often because there's always something. There's drama there, a lot of moments leading up to what feel like important decisions. How much do you see your blog as its own narrative? 

MG: I do see it as a narrative, though I've never thought about it in this way. It is, though, definitely. I mean, so far it's seen me in four different cities, through four different jobs, has been, incredibly, perhaps the only constant throughout. Weird. And yes, regarding drama, I certainly blog about sadness and confusion and angst fairly regularly. But while the sadness and confusion and angst are true and real, I feel the blogging about them, the public sharing of them, is writing, and that the language embellishes, perhaps. As a writer, though, I like having an outlet to share that kind of emotion-heavy language, which I probably couldn't get away with in fiction--probably not even in non-fiction. That those emotions are real and true is an added bonus: that others respond is the only reason I've kept it up.

5.

Teaching and the MFA

MG: Although this interview is a living document, currently, that won't resemble the final product exactly, I'll share with readers that you're in Iowa City right now (at the end of June), teaching (I think). What are you teaching and what can you share with us about the experience? 

KB: I taught three classes for the Iowa Summer Writing Festival: a weekend class on a-realism or anti-realism or whatever you want to call that which isn't strictly governed by reality; then two weeklong sessions, one on first chapters and one on scene-building. The whole thing was impressive as hell. I always had this fanciful notion of Iowa City as a competitive warzone of some sort, with aspiring short story writers offing one another in back alleyways. And maybe it's a different place during the school year, but my experience was just peaceful and inspirational and nothing but great. I met outrageously interesting people. The other faculty especially because they'd all found a way to make writing into a sustainable practice and career, each unique in their task, and it's rad when people reach a point where competition is moot, everyone is doing their own thing and curious, even respectful of everyone else. And whiskey in that town flows as if downhill.

MG: I'm so jealous! I wish I could have been there. Did you meet any awesome (famous) people?

KB: I kept trying to get Nick Dybeck into a my dad's smarter than your dad argument, but he wouldn't bite. Man, I don't know, a lot of really damn talented people. It's just a hub of terribly interesting people who value stories and wordplay and imagery and technique, and moving among these people, socializing with them and sharing ideas, is a hell of a thing.

MG: How did your anti-realism class go over? What were your students like?

KB: Enthusiastic, varied, curious. I was pleased as hell with the class. Ghosts and talking frogs and mysterious doors in bedroom floors.

MG: And on the subject of Iowa, what are your thoughts on the whole MFA debate? You have one from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, right? Why did you choose that program? Why not shoot for a fully funded program?

KB: The debate, as I understand it, seems to miss the real point of an MFA, which is basically a gift, to yourself, of two years dedicated to writing. Certainly I have opinions about the benefit of the workshop method and the risks of homogeneity, but I really think people will get out of an MFA program exactly what they put into it. It is not a magic gateway to publishing. Nor is it a complete waste of money. SAIC is non-traditional in that they don't divvy up their poets into this corner, prose writers over here. There you're first and foremost an artist, and a writer next. That's it. You're a writer -- write whatever the hell you please. At SAIC I was boring whereas at other programs I would have been the weirdo.

6.

Travel and Vacations

MG: Soon you're off to Denmark. Why Denmark? What will you do there? 

KB: It's a month-long residency at Hald Hovedgaard, where I'll be one of four international authors who will work and live at this 18th century villa on a lake in the countryside, not far from the town of Viborg. There are four of us and I think eight or so Danish writers, and the point is to mingle and inspire while also staying out of one another's way, since we're all going to be solitary and productive and probably batshit crazy by the end of week one.

MG: Do you have any favorite vacation destinations? A favorite vacation memory?

KB: My mother's side is all English, from the Bristol and Bath areas. I try to make it there whenever I can. Last time I drove up through the Lake District and into Scotland, over to the Isle of Skye, the single most beautiful location I've seen. Plus the Talisker Distillery is there. I was also lucky enough to travel with my father when I was a kid, he'd drag me along to his lectures and meetings in China or Europe and elsewhere. We got conned once outside of The Vatican, just an old-fashioned gaffling, and the mutual embarrassment we felt afterward was and is a key reason we're so close.

MG: Everything you just wrote there is amazing. I was going to make a Lady of Bath joke, but then I realized what an asshole thing that would be. In any case, it all sounds so wonderful.

KB: You were going to make a Chaucer joke? Shit, man. We had two rules going into this, and one was no Chaucer jokes.

MG: Okay, a picture then, which has nothing to do with anything.

7.

Interviews and Run-Ins with Famous Authors

MG: What question have you always wanted to answer but never been asked in an interview? And the answer?

KB: I keep waiting for someone to ask about run-ins with famous authors. Like: Kyle, what famous author might have death-stared you in a particular Vermont barn because you might have been dancing with someone he wanted to get his lecherous fingers around? And I'll say I have no idea what you're talking about. Hey lemme ask you this...do you ever write with a partner? I'm thinking of writing something with a friend and I always like to survey people before I do anything at all.

MG: I have and do. I have a thing about weeping and growing in decomP, which Blythe Winslow and I co-wrote. At the end of our session, she gave it to me, washed her hands of it. Thanks, Blythe! And for some time now, Donora Hillard and I have been exchanging couplets, working our way toward a longer poem. And a friend of mine here in Philadelphia sent me the first paragraph of a romance novel that I'm to add to one of these days; our aim is to make some money, get famous under a terrible pseudonym. Wish us luck. Anyway, what are you thinking of, specifically? Sounds intriguing, definitely.

KB: I have these friends who are stupidly talented. But I've always clutched onto a hallowed notion of solitude for writing, and part of me fears losing control of where a thing goes. But certain projects would almost seem to demand teamwork, like comedy. I suppose the big fear is schizophrenia or some lack of cohesion. What about arguments? I'm a stubborn person sometimes. Will we stop loving each other? Will our friendship fall to pieces?

MG: Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. I just had a creative Gchat exchange with a Philly / soon-to-be NY writer in which we didn't chat but collaborated on a sort of poem-type thing. He can do whatever he wants with it, and I'm going to take select lines and fashion some sort of story, perhaps. Maybe when it comes to collaboration the best thing is to remember it's a collaboration, with no pressure on the final product? I don't know.

KB: This guy is a genius, who I'm going to work with. So mainly I'm just excited to see what comes of it. 

MG: Oh yeah, hey, why aren't you allowed to answer questions on Franzen? 

KB: I appreciate what you're doing here. I really do.

8.

Second Book Struggles and Online v. Print

MG: You and I are sort of in the same boat right now: we both have first books available for purchase. The differences, though, are huge. First, you got a five-figure advance for yours; and second, you have an agent who sold yours to Dial Press, an imprint of Random House. The question is why? Why the big house and not a small press?

KB: While I was writing the goal was to get my book into the hands of readers. And like any hungry young person, I wanted to be paid for my work. My plan was to exhaust all the chances for big houses and when that didn't pan out, work my way through the independents. So it wasn't an issue of choice as much as opportunity, for me. And Dial is wonderful because it's a small, dedicated imprint beneath the great sprawling Random House umbrella. And I'm honored to be associated with the other Dial authors. Nor is this any kind of knock on the indie presses, which I support fully and am grateful to for all the authors I get to read who don't, for whatever reason, fit into the plans of the big houses. Brian Evenson and Amelia Gray...but I didn't write the same sort of book they wrote.

MG: That's a good point: that yours isn't like theirs. I think that says it all. So how about this: is there a second book in the works? If so, how's it coming?

KB: It's coming slowly, but yes. I painted myself into a lot of corners with this first one, and I worked a lot to undo things I'd worked a lot to do in the first place. So I'm planning more now, drawing graphs and charts. It's about fun, the new book. And bones. And safety.

MG: Since The Slide came out, you've been publishing short pieces in some of the online journals. Hobart and decomP, to name two. What other journals do you like and what are your thoughts on online journals versus print journals?

KB: When a thing appears online it is there, for better or for worse, for all to see, always. Barring some meltdown, you'll always have that address to refer readers to. Print journals appear in relatively small numbers in a relative few stores and are consumed by a small group of very avid readers. I want my work to be available -- that's sort of the bottom line. 

9.

The Million Dollar Questions

MG: Do you ever think "Fuck it all" and wonder why you're not doing something else with your life? If you weren't a writer, what would you be?

KB: I don't really think writing precludes being other things. I teach college students, currently. Maybe someday I'll learn to fix a muffler. I'd like to be more of a gypsy.

MG: Someday I'd like to learn to change my oil. $40 seems like a lot; the bastards. Okay, so what's your biggest pet-peeve?

KB: Assholery by default. A close second is assholery by entitlement.

MG: Hardback or paperback?

KB: Paper, rolled into back pocket, underlined and marked to hell and back.

MG: I like books so old you can't dog-ear them because the corner breaks off. Blondes or brunettes?

KB: Brunettes. With brown eyes. 

MG: Coffee or tea?

KB: Coffee all day long.

MG: Backpack or fanny pack?

KB: Really backing my friend Dave's purse, which he swears is a camera bag converted into what he calls a "smoking carrier". For his tobacco tin and things. But it's so totally a purse.

MG: Ha! Cats or dogs?

KB: Dogs, especially mine, the most beautiful dog alive, Lolita the mutt.

MG: Why Lolita?

KB: You'd have to meet her.

MG: East coast or west coast?

KB: Mid. West. Holler.

MG: Cupcakes or muffins?

KB: I swear I still don't fully know the difference. It's like the difference between seeds and nuts.

MG: Hmmm, let's try again. Cupcakes or muffins?

KB: So what if I put icing onto a muffin? What's the score then?

MG: I'm not sure icing on a muffin would work. They're totally different things! Getting tired of these yet?

KB: I love these.

MG: Okay, your turn.

KB: Brooklyn or Brooklyn?

MG: Um, I don't know. Brooklyn, maybe.

KB: Alright. Chicago or Philly?

MG: Philly's not so bad, but find me a job and somewhere to live in Chicago and I'm there. (Do it fast: I'm about to sign a year lease and submit syllabi to my dept. head for approval.) Chicago's lit scene, whew. Just thinking about it . . . 

KB: Chicago is full of unused condos -- they saturated the market during the bubble. You could squat! Shane Jones or Blake Butler? You must pick one.

MG: I'm not much of a squatter. And Shane. Such a nice boy. 

KB: Single or married?

MG: Shane? He's getting married this summer. 

KB: Harry Nilsson or Jim Croce? There is no wrong answer.

MG: This one was tough. I had to sleep on it, but in the end: Nilsson. 

KB: Kindle or pee in your eye?

MG: Kyle Beachy, folks. For more, visit him here.

Guest Post: Jeremy Ahn

The Halo Rule Hella Rules, Says One Ahn

Teresa Leo is one of the most talented and visceral poets writing today. Yet she has not had any new work published in a few years now. Could it be due to her first poetry collection not generating enough attention or praise in the community of poets? Could it be her lack of internet presence that has allowed her amazing book to go relatively unheralded and fly under the radar while Billy Collins’s latest and weakest shoots to the top of the NY Times Bestseller List? Indeed, this was suggested in my flash fiction, "Teresa Leo Helps Me Steal Cable," in which the antihero narrates, “I wondered why she [poet, Teresa Leo] was mad at me, and not at the person who threw away her book to the trash, where it did not belong? After all, I salvaged her work and praised it to complete strangers and wrote short fiction stories about how awesome her poetry is for no reason other than to obsolete the MacGuffin as a constant plot device while promoting her shit because she doesn’t even have a Facebook account.”

The only web presence Ms. Leo seems to officially run is http://www.teresaleo.com, but no Facebook or Twitter or other social networking site. If anyone knows otherwise, please let me know. I sincerely believe that, like a cult classic having found its following only through its second life on home release via VHS or DVD, Teresa Leo’s monumental achievement of poeticism and “eroto-emotional” rollercoaster, The Halo Rule, will find the appreciative audience it so richly deserves and yearns for, and earns in aces . . . via the Internet-word-of-digital-mouth that is the blogosphere.

With this guest entry on the always charming Ms. Molly Gaudry’s blog, I hope to evangelize some converts on over to the joy of knowing the writings of this unsung diamond in the wasteland. Teresa Leo – discover her and her work. She truly is a treasure.

--------------------------

Jeremy Ahn blogs here.

My Fall Term Mentors

Oh man. So the mentors have been assigned, and I remember now why I applied to this specific program in the first place. I got worried there; the money scared me; but I applied knowing it's a low-res, knowing I would go if I got in, knowing I would pay the tuition (so please forgive my whining and crying in the posts below). 

Right. Mentors. Mine, this coming fall term. One of the three has a City Lights book; the second of the three has a Dalkey Archive book; and the third is a stupendous mystery surprise whose identity will soon be learned! The first two are women. When asked, in an interview, about her unusual form and who influenced it, one had this to say: 

Poets. Poets, poets, poets. I think at some point I discovered that other people, like Laura Mullen or Thalia Field, were doing work like this, but to my disappointment it was often labeled 'poetry.' I continue to find this unfortunate for those of us who call or think ourselves as prose writers (and I'm not saying that Mullen or Field do, but I've seen the phenomenon with fair frequency), because it continues to thwart the development of literacy for this kind of challenge of the sentence, the paragraph, the chapter, and so on. Prose readers need and deserve a wider ability to read and appreciate language. 

I like how she thinks. She's got a PhD. She's married to a poet. You will understand that these things resonate with me, quite deeply.

The other has neither PhD nor MFA; however, she has many books. You will understand that this resonates with me, perhaps even more deeply. She has taught poetry to inmates at the San Francisco County jails. After teaching the GED at the halfway house this year--which wore me out, wore me out--I'd like to hear about her experiences; I'd like to hear that they weren't as perfect and lovely and rose-tinted as Wally Lamb's years of teaching fiction to inmates (as reported in Oprah's magazine, which I read this morning at the crack of dawn while sitting in a coffee shop people watching--Saturday mornings are best).

I feel relaxed, like water, like this, like I'm in the middle of BFE (ha ha, Roxane, I had to look that up). Thanks, everyone, including all of you who emailed your thoughts. Can't thank you enough, truly, for weighing in. I'm going to do what I set out to do: kick some ass, work my ass off, have fun, learn. In two years, let's hope I've kicked some ass, worked my ass off, had fun, been schooled. The whole point, right? Right. Okay. Ocean waves. Enjoy 'em. As I do, every morning. 

The Future Revisited

Due to the positive responses received as a result of the post below, I thought that rather than delete I'd do a little followup today. But first, another link list.

Literary Dating Website? I seem to remember having this idea and selecting Matt Bell's catchphrase as the winner--Keyhole Matchmaking: Stop Picking Your Own Lock!

Check me out, over at What to Wear During an Orange Alert. Odd, my answer to "What's next?" Considering the subject of this post.

Slush Pile, a good-looking online mag. I want to date it. What? Never mind.

I liked everything about this but the last line. Weird coincidence: I have a "fact" in anderbo, too, and I hate the last line. I will keep an eye out to see if this trend continues.

And now, back to the heart of the matter: money does not grow on trees and I am twenty-eight years old. Confession, that I include here for no other reason than to provide a little hope to those of you out there who can't help but despair: I was such a terrible undergrad (2.1 GPA) that at some point during my sixth (seventh?) year one of my enough-with-this-bullshit professors, Brock Clarke, pulled me aside and said something like, "If you ever want to go to graduate school, you're going to have to let us help you." Translation: by some miracle act, Brock, Michael Griffith, Joanie Mackowski, and Maria Romagnoli (professors of writing and English courses in which I actually did well) convinced the graduate committee that I should be allowed to prove myself, that without UC doing me the favor of letting me into their program I might never be admitted elsewhere, simply due to my poor academic record. To which I promptly responded by failing another quarter of freshman math and second-year Spanish, which I had to take (last chance!) during summer school. After bargaining with the heads of those departments, I was allowed to forgo coursework in exchange for two-day "independent studies" during which I was given the midterm (day one) and then the final (day two). Do you want to know why I failed those courses repeatedly four years in a row? Attendance. Give me a break. I liked drinking and I was working full time as a restaurant administrator. Anyway, I passed those exams, at long last. I then forgot to apply for graduation. So while technically still an undergrad (who would graduate in December 2006), I began the M.A. program  (somehow while also on academic probation). But, rest assured, I got my shit together and did well; to this day, I hope I did those four profs proud. I even took theory courses--three beyond my required one, in fact, just because I liked feeling my brain hurt, and the A minuses and B pluses I received in Psychoanalysis, Foundations in Feminist Theory, Diasporic Traditions in Literature, brought down my otherwise perfect GPA. I wonder if this will hurt me? I wonder if my 2.1 undergrad GPA and my 3.56 Master's GPA will count against me on my law school apps? Them lawyer types be havin' perfect 4.0s and shit.

All right, am I really considering law school? The truth is I'm not sure. I did really well on the practice LSAT, which I took on a whim. Maybe seeing that score jump-started the notion. Not kidding. Anyway, coupled with my current economic realities (unemployed because the school where I was teaching decided, overnight, to cut back; soon-to-be employed as an adjunct instructor, but on an as-needed basis, which means if spring enrollment is down, I'm out of a job, again), the desire for financial stability is more than a daily stress. It keeps me up at night; it gets me up early, cold-sweat style; it knocks me out for hours, super-hard-core-depression style. Signing a year-long lease scares the crap out of me. What happens if I get let go this spring? What am I going to do next summer, when school's out of session? It has been a long time since I've waited tables; my references no longer work in the business. I've forgotten how many counts it takes to get to an ounce and a half. I'll get laughed right out of a restaurant. Booted right out of a bar. Maybe not in a sleepy little town in the suburbs, but for fuck's sure in a city. You know how many servers and bartenders there are in these parts? On the day my local coffee shop advertised for a barista, over 300 applications were received that afternoon. Welcome to the city, I say.

Am I worried about taking on this $40,000 for WestConn's low-res MFA? Hell yes. And the reason why has everything to do with I AM NOT A MAINSTREAM WRITER and will probably not SELL A BOOK WITH COMMERCIAL VALUE. Shane Jones was asked in an interview recently something about money and he said something like money and art don't belong in the same boat. Which is fine and great and admirable and respectable. But why can't a person desire to make a living doing what she wants and likes? Why do all my literary heroes have to work? They all teach! Hello reality!

Now then. My mother asked why I'm getting an MFA. I told her that at this point, if I don't get one, it's like I'm quitting. I started this writing thing back in 1999 when I declared creative writing as my high school major. I declared it as my major at the University of Redlands. I transferred to the University of Cincinnati and declared the closest thing to it: English, and got the creative writing certificate. I worked my ass off while in the MA program at UC, hoping beyond hope that I would prove myself worthy of an MFA program. I applied to nine programs for the fall 2008 academic year. I received acceptances from Emerson and Mills, neither of which offered full funding. Deciding against debt, I graduated from my MA program and got a job in a coffee shop. Read my early posts on this blog to find out how happy that made me. Good God I was miserable. So I tried again. With very limited funds for app fees, and having learned from my experience of being accepted to programs I couldn't (wouldn't) attend, I picked one dream school, the University of Alabama, hoping for an acceptance for the fall 2009 academic year. Rejected! Man, did that hurt. Even so, you know what? I'd moved to Philadelphia, anyway, before receiving that rejection letter. The past year has been one of serious upheaval, confusion, bobbing along without direction.

Back to Mom, back to quitting: I said, "If I don't get this degree, which I need to be able to teach, it's like I'm giving up. I can't quit now." So in yet another miraculous turn, Brian Clements at WCSU accepted my late application (sent well after all their offers had already gone out), just last month. Why WestConn? Two answers: (1) Sentence is by far my favorite journal; it rates as #1, and my next favorites constitute a five-way tie for 6th; (2) Brian Clements, who sent me a very nice letter after I learned my manuscript, "Problems of Depiction," had been selected as a finalist for the Firewheel Chapbook Award. Cool things going on at WestConn. And I'd have mentors instead of peers (truth be told, with over 30 workshops under my belt since 1999, I'm weary of them). But WHAT ARE THE ODDS THAT TWO YEARS FROM NOW, WHEN I'VE GOT THIS DEGREE IN HAND, I'LL FIND A CREATIVE WRITING POSITION?

Scary.

Which is why all this time I've been like, "Okay, so why not a PhD?" And I've been researching the programs. I loved the PhD students at UC. They were freakin' rad; the only people I'm still in contact with were/are in the PhD program. I don't even remember the names of people who were in the MA program with me. Faces, sure; names, not so much. I'm terrible. Whatever. But yes, I would love being in a PhD program; I believe the other candidates and the quality of our workshopping would be pretty great. But am I ready for eight more years of school? I'll be 30 when I graduate from this MFA. If I'm even accepted immediately after for a PhD program, that'll put me at 35 when I graduate and go on the job market. 35! And what if there are no jobs? Then what? Wait tables? Make lattes? At 35? 

Thoughts? Please share 'em, not just for my sake but for anyone else who's reading and wondering and contemplating and worrying.

The Future and Stuff

So. This writing full time thing? Yeah, right. What I do isn't going to support me, can't even feed me let alone pay rent. And my rent here is cheaper than it was in Ohio, where I was in a graduate program that paid me to be there, to teach. The stipend I received for teaching one class a quarter was more than what I made teaching three GED classes out here in the real world, was more than what I'm about to make as an adjunct teaching two classes per term. And on top of that, now I'm the one paying my own tuition, and it is steep. On the far end of school, I'll be somewhere in the $90,000 in debt range, taking into account my B.A. loans, etc. I keep thinking, Man, this writing thing's been great while it lasted, and I can't wait to take these classes, but what's waiting for me on the other end of these degrees? 

I took a practice LSAT today. Next up, the real one. No idea if I've got what it takes to get an acceptance somewhere, but at least the financial prospects on the other end aren't so bleak. Car. Car payments. Car insurance. My own apartment, preferably in a city, in a building with a doorman, in a building with a gym. Or maybe a condo in an association with a gym. In any case, furniture. Clothes. Shoes. Regular hair appointments. Manicures! Groceries. Not to mention, eventually, the single parent adoption thing, of not just one child but siblings. I want them to have things. A piano, perhaps. Amusement park tickets (so expensive!). School supplies, summer camp, college. With any luck, before I'm too old to enjoy any of it.  

I'm going to delete this post soon. But for now it should stay up, I think.

Invention!

Temporary tattoo business cards?

Go out, stick 'em on people, 

say, "Call me!"

Yes? No? Maybe?

A Green City Joint: "Burned"

Whoa, two pieces in one day. 

"Burned" in Unscroll #2

alongside 

Eric Burke's "Quick and Dirty"

Ben Spivey's "Gossamer"

J. A. Tyler's "[when the hotel and Jimmy, they first met]"

CL Bledsoe's "Postmodernism"

Eric Beeny's "Just a Normal Greeting"

Discovery: Julian Beever (Plus More Things and A New Story in WWR)!

Joseph Scapellato's "Her Dream of Ending" in Issue 4 of WWR, which continues to grow. Submit!

Oh man, I really want to go to The Deep Moat Reading Series on July 18th. Alas, Cambridge is too far away and I'm too poor. 

Read this: Heller Levinson's "from green therapeutics this whale." Soon I'll be reviewing his book, Smelling Mary. Keep an eye out.

How about this interview with Denise Oswald about the future of Soft Skull?

Yo yo yo, flash fiction and prose poets: Gulf Coast's Second Annual Donald Barthelme Prize for Short Prose. The 2009 prize-winning entry will be selected by Mary Robinson, author of Why Did I Ever? and One D.O.A., One on the Way.

Plaid Pony Vintage, online!

Hmmmm, "Five Generations of Female Longing, Frustration," as reported by NPR's Maureen Corrigan.

PANK does it again. 

And what are the odds that I'd be sandwiched between Scott Garson and Jamie Gaughran-Perez, both male, both writers I actually know? So weird. Well boys, and Jamie in particular, I think this is the beginning of a long alphabetical friendship.

And, finally, wish me luck. This Friday night I'm competing in a Flash Fiction Slam. Wouldn't ordinarily do this sort of thing, but Philadelphia Stories is hosting and I can only imagine who else is going to take part. I picture old ladies with blue hair. I picture poets. I picture me, taking all the glory! Kidding. Who knows? I'll be sure to report, no matter the results.

A Green City Joint: "faith"

A message from Dorothee Lang, 

editor of blueprintreview . . .

the new issue of blueprintreview is online!

#21: shortcuts / detours

"shortcuts / detours (geographical, emotional, practical, experimental, philosophic, stylistic, controversial, etc)" said the call for this issue. truth is, i wasn't sure what to expect when submissions opened. (which is why we try those things, right?)

first arrivals were: a beginning. a railway poem. a future invasion. a set of road pictures. and a pale heart, with just the right beat. up to that point, the issue unfolded in fast forward shortcuts.

yet the road turned strange. the next arrivals consisted of ghosts. and killer tales. there were great images, which didn't want to connect to texts, and vice versa. i tried time and time again. and got nowhere. detour, it was.

then faith arrived, in a story. together with a walk home. to get there, i went fishing for clues. and received a lake. and a chief thought. plus, more coffee. which made the pages finally start to click. 

now the issue is complete, reaching from classic to postmodern and from first to second to third person. the shortest cut: "revision" - a parallel world in 40 words. the farthest detour: "library" - with a loop that even includes Othello and Emily Dickinson. 

also in this issue: a literally cutting memoir. a certain cooper, appearing twice. a long panorama of one moment in a second time. and an experimental blog question.

Read it here.

Contributors: Natalie Abadzis, Greta Bolger, Mel Bosworth, Jolie Braun, Sean Burn, Jeff Crouch, William Doreski, Lori Fredrickson, me, Brian Greene, Paul Hostovsky, Clare Howdle, Rose Hunter (yay!), Penn Kemp, Luigi Monteferrante, George Moore, Brigita Pavsic, Michelle Reale, Christina Rosalie, Peter Schwartz, Molly Sutton Kiefer, Ocean Vuong, Steve Wing, David Wolach, Nicole Wong, Diana J. Wynne, Sandra M. Yee.

List of Things That Make Me Happy #5

1. Keanu Reeves headlines at the Columbia University Press blog.

2. Opera-singing man-shaped pasta timer.

3. $20 for a poem, and then a book deal!

4. Amy Newman's The Sin Sonnets, at Scantily Clad Press. Beautiful. Beautiful. Utterly.

5. My contributor's copy of Pear Noir! is on its way!

6. Shome Dasgupta, sharing things with me and J. A., most recently, this.

7. J. A. Tyler, who mailed, for free, a total of 451 copies of Charles Lennox's A FIELD OF COLORS; who is really great to work with (re: We Take Me Apart), who is slaughtering me in our publications battle! 

8. Making link lists, even though when I see them on other people's blogs, my eyes glaze over.

9. This guy.

In the City of Rain

I've been working on something lately.

Two goals: (1) primal, (2) sexy.

And now, after seeing this image, a third:

(3) a colorful flourish every now and again.

Things, things, things.

I've been away from the wonderful world of the Internet all day and have over 200 unread items in my Reader. Ah god. Well, I'll get to those later. But for now, some things I've been meaning to blog about.

Your favorite artist and mine is live with a new thing (at left). For more, visit Daniel Gillen here.

Frank Dahai wonders about the elimae aesthetic, which is a thing I've wondered about quite a bit myself. I like what Frank has to say; certainly, it's better than anything I've ever come up with. The best I've got is: short? And even that's not always the case.

Tim Jones-Yelvington wrote a Contributor's Note, after the Michael Martone thing, mayhaps? 

Did anyone else read this thing Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote about Bill Clinton? 

Brevity's doing a thing: "End of Life Stories."

Here is a really cool looking thing: a film by Luca Dipierro and Michael Kimball, titled I WILL SMASH YOU. I can't wait to see it, actually. It's a "documentary in which dozens of people each tell a story about an object that has some personal meaning for them and then destroy that object in whatever manner they wish."

The ever-amazing PANK blog posted this thing about Kore Press's book-length poetry manuscript competition, "open to any female writer who has not published a full-length collection of poetry." Do it up, ladies. That means YOU. Yeah, you know who you are.

Thanks to Jason at What to Wear During an Orange Alert for reposting my thing called "Light Boxes: The Movie."

A WTF-type thing: WTF is this about "the now somewhat dreadful genre of 'the prose poem'"? Seriously! I mean. Seriously?

A confession-type thing: I love Terese Svoboda.

Ninth Letter is having a yard sale thing.

A whoa, crazy!-type thing: the girl who plays Hermione Granger is going to Brown!

I want to read this thing and I have no idea why except the cover really hooked me. Get it? Hooked?

Speaking of hooked, I also want to read Fish Bones, by Gillian Size. Please somebody start a book fund for poor little old me.

Here's a thing I've NEVER, EVER done on this blog: say something negative about someone else. Well, here goes: I think that [               ] is really fucking annoying. I subscribed to his blog, receive his posts, and can't handle it anymore. Sorry, dude. Maybe one of these days I'll point a finger. But for now I just can't quite. Um, first name starts with "N."

I TOLD you Philly went nuts over some fireworks!

Redivider's fiction editor, Matthew Salesses, has a chapbook titled We Will Take What We Can Get. Buy it from Publishing Genius today!

Okay, I'm down to 103 items in my Reader.

The Warren Adler Short Story Contest thing.

OMG: "Two Chinese writers locked themselves up with coffee and cigarettes, no cell phones, and no sleep for 48 hours--and emerged with a finished Michael Jackson biography."

And that's all. I'm sick of scrolling through Reader. Good night, everyone. Thanks for everything.

* * * UPDATE * * *

It is NOT Nelson Mandela. 

Confession!

Yes, it's true: I have been known to buy the occasional grocery store paperback, usually about this time of year. And this summer, I have the added bonus of hitting up the Jersey shore with my selections. Although I probably won't. I have a feeling that instead I'll sit in the backyard and read in the garden, get some sun. Maybe with some iced tea. So, without further ado, July's pick . . .  

I don't know why I picked this book. Maybe the title is just too good. Probably because of the cover (I totally had a wand like that when I was that age). Or maybe because the back cover reveals that the protagonist has "a great shoe collection." Maybe because there's a cat on the back cover. Maybe because Rowan Coleman's author photo is priceless: she's adorable. Really. Maybe because there's a part of me that wants to write a good beach-reading novel. I don't know. I really don't. Maybe it's just because I didn't want to read some neuroscientist's debut novel about Alzheimer's. And I really, really didn't want to read Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper. And I really, really, really didn't want to read Philadelphia writer Sarah Segal's Murder at the Mikvah. No joke, billboards all over the Philadelphia highways feature Segal's cover. Apparently it's her father's doing. More power to her, I say. Right on.

Anyway, I also bought this issue of marie claire. Because Cameron needs me! And because it'll be useful to know what to do "when white-collar husbands land in jail." God, it doesn't get any better than this. Folks. This is what unemployment does to a girl. Interviewing serious writers one day (see post below), then reading crap like this. Somebody save me.

* * * UPDATE * * *

The magazine was fine. And maybe nailed the crap out of my horoscope! But the book? I'm four pages in and want my goddamn money back. Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, needs to f-ing hire me to copyedit. And can you believe there's a sequel? An Accidental Family. Ugh. I feel sick. Sorry, Rowan. Writing books doesn't always go according to plan: and, usually, the plan for writing books is to write well. I mean, I was totally ready for the crappy storyline, the sentimental shlock, the eighth-grade reading-level prose. But this is totally unreadable on a sentence level. 

Example 1. The first line: "Sophie considered the question Jake Flynn had just asked her." Why is "had just" necessary? Or, for that matter, "her"? Why not go with the simple and direct "Sophie considered Jake's question," hmmm?

Example 2. The last line of the first full paragraph: "The question was--what kind of lunch had he asked her out to?" What's up with ending with "to"? I feel like a small part of me died.

Example 3. And I'll stop after this. I mean, what did I expect, right? "Sophie sat back in her desk chair and swiveled it so that she could see out of her office window and down onto the plaza below where the wind swept an errant piece of brightly colored litter in whirls and swoops across the near-empty expanse. One of Sophie's main difficulties in life (not a problem, she refused to admit that she had a problem despite her personal assistant, Cal, constantly assuring her that she did), was knowing when men were attracted to her." Um, did Sarah Palin decide one day to write a novel under a pseudonym? 

That I am pissed is one hell of an understatement. What was I thinking? What was I thinking!

* * * UPDATE * * *

God help me but I'm 171 pages in and can't put it down. (Maybe, though, because--as is no secret--I believe in single parent adoption. And it looks like Sophie's headed in that direction. And because I'm willing to let the two girls be precious and precocious. So. There.) Oh, right, I did catch a typo on page 136: "then" should be "than." Simon & Schuster, CALL ME!

* * * UPDATE * * *

Finished the beast, and it was both terrible and perfect--even if Sophie does get the guy (which, as I've said before, loudly and publicly, should never happen (because I'm a pessimist, and anti-romantic, yes)). So, um [sheepishly]: Where's the sequel? I'm ready for it, dear God. All because those girls won me over. And [drum roll] my real confession: I am so ready for two girls; not kidding; it's so true. Soon as I get this degree and a real job, pay down some student loans, well, yes, what I would like most is to adopt siblings who shouldn't be separated from one another. Here are five, for example. Read their story here (BG09_148).

I wish I weren't poor and that I had decided to become a lawyer or something, not a writer. Truly. 

Writers Respond: An Interview with J. C. Hallman

J. C. Hallman is the author of The Chess Artist (St. Martin's, 2004), The Devil Is a Gentleman (Random House, 2006), and the recently published collection of stories, The Hospital for Bad Poets (Milkweed, 2009). This fall, Tin House Books will release The Story About the Story, a Hallman-edited anthology about writing that boasts an impressive array of writers--from Oscar Wilde to Susan Sontag, D.H. Lawrence to Milan Kundera. And another book, In Eutopia, which explores the history of utopian thought and literature, is forthcoming from St. Martin's Press in 2010. J. C. has been kind enough to take time out from his busy schedule to answer a few questions.

MOLLY GAUDRY: Hi J. C., thanks for agreeing to this interview. I'd like to begin by asking about "Ethan: A Love Story," which is my favorite story in The Hospital for Bad Poets. The emotional core of this piece centers around the narrator and his six-year-old nephew. Their relationship begins when, home for the holidays, the narrator accidentally shrinks a sweater in the dryer and gives it to Ethan: "I tugged the collar over his head and told him the sweater had come from a lovely girl. The boy's eyes tested this, and he decided to take a chance. 'I like pretty girls,' he said. 'They make my eyes turn to hearts.' Ethan and I fell in love." My question, then, is this: How does this story define, or redefine, the love story?

J. C. HALLMAN: Well, traditionally, we probably think of the "love story" as being limited to those stories among people--among adults--in which there is at least the possibility of romantic/intimate/sexual love. This story plays off that, but I hope that play enables it to get at other things. The backdrop of the story is the buildup to our invasion of Iraq, and something I wanted to depict was the way in which families suffered as a result of the war--not always because someone went off to fight, but because the fight was right there in the living room as the debate over the wisdom of the war waged here. To some extent, the love of a family can fall casualty to that, and that, I think, can be a love story too, a sad one.

MG: There is so much more going on in this story: it comments on the isolation one feels when home for a family gathering, surrounded by relatives who do not share his political beliefs; and by exploring the violence of children's video games asks us to rethink the violence in our adult worlds, both abroad and domestic. What is this story about, to you, and what can you tell us about its genesis?

JCH: This is a pretty autobiographical story--a lot of it actually happened, except for a fairly fabulist turn the piece takes toward the end (and even then the action describes feelings I actually had). It would probably be easier to go through the story and pull out the invented bits than it would be to document the fictionalizations . . . but all that, I think, is neither here nor there: stories must prove their worth not because they've actually happened, but because they matter regardless of whether they happened. As to what it means--well, for me, it's an attempt to understand how our society could have made such a profound mistake, operating off such fundamental hypocrisy. That meant using this family situation to demonstrate that everything from video games to a media without a fairness doctrine helped to create a climate where something very bad was capable of happening. At the same time, love is inside there, trying to survive, trying to weather it all.

MG: Wow, that is lovely. Which is your favorite from the collection and why?

JCH: I don't think I have a favorite. I don't think that one can think about one's own work the way readers do. That is, as readers, we are discriminating, choosy--maybe even kind of provincial. As writers, though, you have to sign on wholeheartedly to everything you do.  Some stories, you might be able to acknowledge, are more successful than others, but you can't really disown them. They are as important to the creation of the ongoing collage of yourself as any of the others. That said, I think the more recent stories in the collection are probably stronger . . . but even that has been shot down by some readers who have felt the best work was material that is quite old. Who knows? Robert Hass once said that the whole business of favorite poems was impossible--and he was speaking as a reader. As a writer, it's even more difficult.

 

MG: Do you consider yourself a short story writer?

JCH: Sure. And a nonfiction writer. The line between those things blurs sometimes, obviously. It's all just writing in the end--the medium, or the genre, or whatever, doesn't matter as long as you're engaged in literary endeavors. The only thing I don't consider myself is a poet--which is a compliment to poetry.

MG: Well, now that is very interesting, considering the collection's title: The Hospital for Bad Poets . . . 

JCH: Yeah, I guess it's possible for poets to bristle at the title. It's not meant that way. The secret of that story is that I was dating a poet and taking an EMT-Basic class at the same time--I finished the class, but not the poet. The phrase itself comes from Nietzsche, which the poet had recommended to me, and when the relationship fell apart, it occurred to me to take Nietzsche more literally than he surely intended, and write the story as I did. That said, I feel like the story itself is a defense of poetry--a defense of the literary, in general. One wants, I think, to set out to be ambitious, even intellectual, but if you simply indulge in the obscure you launch literature on a trajectory toward silence.

MG: What advice do you have for younger writers?

JCH: Aspire to truth. Indulge in detail. Trust your curiosity. Invest in yourself.

MG: What question have you always wanted to answer but never been asked in an interview? And the answer?

JCH: Q: Why write? A: I think this is actually answerable--at least for me. Because the world, or civilization, as it stands, creates a pressure of deceit and propaganda, fools itself into a cycle of tepid progress punctuated with horrific cataclysm and backsliding, and people of good conscience, in viewing this, step back and respond to it, offer up some kind of observation and critique, and thereby serve as a sort of correction, a conscience, that makes the world a little less bad and sustains at least the possibility of the good.

Please check out this favorable NYT Book Review of The Hospital for Bad Poets, and visit J. C. Hallman's website for more.

Happy 4th, Everyone! (Or "She did not have any pets.")

I had one goal: to find the single most patriotic image I could. 

Mission 

Accomplished

(From this site. And if you do nothing else on this fine day, 

read the comments section. The comments are going to kill you.)

Duotrope Kills Me

First let me just say a few words about Independence Day goings-ons in Philadelphia, a.k.a. Land of the Liberty Bell and Home of Independence Hall: cannons are frickin' booming. I mean, not really, but if thems ain't cannons then they be some big motha-crappin' fireworks. Whew! My house just shook! Anyway, the map at left shows something to do with fireworks planning; and I think there's one big show tonight on the river, and then the major boom-tacular is tomorrow over the Art Museum. Maybe I'm full of shit, but good lord, the car alarms are going off 'round here like crazy. Girl can't get any work done. 

Oh, right, here's what I want to say about duotrope: I hate how you can see the latest response times. Like, I've got something in somewhere that was submitted very early in 2009. According to duotrope, this place has a 0.0% acceptance rate (of course, we know this isn't technically true: just that nobody from duotrope has had an acceptance there). In any case, rejections have been received by people who submitted three months after I did. One might think: "Yay! Hooray! I have a shot!" But the truth is (I know, it happens to me all the damn time) I just have longer to wait for my handy-dandy form rejection. Argh. Why does duotrope do this to us? Who is it really helping, knowing response times? Nobody, that's who. I tell you, nobody.