Tag: Sarah Leamy

Review: Bigfoots in Paradise by Doug Lawson

Doug Lawson’s upcoming collection of short stories, a review.

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Book Review: Doug Lawson’s collection of short stories is set in and around Santa Cruz, California, between Silicon Valley and the Pacific Ocean. There are eight stories, each about 20-30 pages, and many have been previously published in journals such as Gargoyle, Glimmer Train, and Mississippi Review amongst others.

Doug Lawson writes with confidence and his prose is lyrical, poetic and he comfortably blends dark comedy and empathic observations. Lawson pays attention to those details that sum up characters in only a sentence or two. A car belonging to the boss in Catch The Air has “empty Starbucks cups, a stained Stanford sweatshirt, a pair of heels, a familiar lace bra, a dismantled circuit board.” I can picture Helen now and it’s also telling of the narrator as to what he notices within the chaos of her cluttered vehicle.

In Jersey Devils, Alpo is described with such vivid specifics: “With a string-haired, rounded head, arms the seem just a little too long, and small wrinkled hands clasping a shopping bag.” The image lingers as I read of their job visiting farms, innocuous enough sounding yet isn’t. These stories often take wonderful unexpected turns and I found myself reading one story after another, wanting more.

Opening lines bring you in fast: “Several weeks before he died, my father showed up for my wedding on time, riding a meticulously restored World War II army motorcycle with Jessica, his nurse, in the sidecar.” Don’t you want to know more about this dad? I did.

There are also moments of such tenderness that made me sit back and absorb them before moving along, especially at the end of House on Bear Mountain. There is an unexpected and funny turn when Claire stands up for herself and then ends with a gentle truth of how she “found her true voice.” You’ll have to find it for yourselves, and read the story she tells her daughter about the dogs’ dinner times. Sweetly done.

Lawson knows the territory and it comes across, I picture the landscape and personalities. The environment is clearly described and the characters could only live there, it’s a unique world he’s created and shared here.

Wonderful work.

Big Foots in Paradise

Doug Lawson

Fiction

Red Hen Press, CA.

Tentative Details are

Pub Date: 10/16/18

214 pp $15.95

MFA in Writing: is it worth it?

May 2017-2018: In the last year, my writing life and career has taken off incredibly. Why? It all started when I moved across country to start my MFA in Writing and Publishing at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

I thought I’d list the changes here. This isn’t for bragging rights but to say thank you for all who support me, encourage me, and all that good stuff. You know who you are. So, thank you.

  • MFA writing program began in Vermont and from there…
  • Met so many inspiring writers, building a sense of community, peers and friends.
  • My own writing has opened up in new ways and forms.
  • Discovered a joy in writing short-shorts/ micro-memoirs.
  • Short stories published.
  • Book reviews pubished.
  • Director’s Award (MFAWP).
  • Vermont Book Award Fellowship.
  • AWP Mentorship.
  • PGWC partial scholarship.
  • Merit scholarship (MFAW).
  • Honorable mention – Glimmer Train – short story.
  • Top 25 finalist – Glimmer Train – flash fiction.
  • Top 5 finalist – Writing by Writer’s contest.
  • “Headhunted” by the top US Land Rover magazine, Rovers North.
  • Started Wanderlust-Journal, learning how to run an online journal, using Submittable, marketing, growing an audience, and with over 19,800 views in six months.
  • Editorial work with Upstreet and Hunger Mountain Reviews.
  • Developed a stronger social media presence to create a larger community of writers, especially via Twitter.
  • Learned how to develop a teaching philosophy/ lessons for workshops and lectures.
  • Written professional CVs and resumes, a media kit, updating regularly.
  • Created a professional submissions letter which has rewarded me with many a rejection (68 to be exact) plus all the new accolades and scholarships.
  • Connected with various indie presses and publishers, and I plan to stay in touch with a few of them.
  • Written artist statement/ letter of intentions for applications which serves to focus my goals as a writer.
  • I’ve had some encouraging conversations with literary agents who decided not to take me on saying the writing was intruiging and solid but my aesthetic/ voice wasn’t their style.
  • Two new novels written and are being revised alone and in workshops.
  • Over 100 short stories written and currently being collected/ revised/ played with.
  • Joined the South West Writers Association and have a profile on their website.
  • Reached out to the Sante Fe Writer’s Project/ Quarterly, they’re going to publish a book review in July.
  • Set up a writer’s retreat at my place in NM via Wanderlust journal website and submittable.
  • Pubishing on Medium.com with travel essays.

In other words, for me, the MFA has been more than worth it and I’m only just finishing the first year. I’m switching to a low-residency program so that I can live and study from home for the second year. I’ll be able to continue working freelance, writing, and putting into practice much of these new skills. My only concern is losing that sense of a writers’ community when I’m back in New Mexico and so a large focus will be for me to reach out and maintain connections and conversations with other writers and creatives.

I feel like I’m about to take off and fly. Thank you my friends. For all you have done for me, for believing in me, for wanting me to succeed.

Sleam

Craft: Writing Prompt

How to find the themes that you are drawn to writing about.

Do you want to reach deep inside? Find the areas and themes that make your writing uniquely yours? Try this. Over and over. Random lists of nouns. No editing. Free write. Nouns. Word associations. Just write. Try it. Over and over. Put the lists aside and come back when ever you doubt your own voice. Try it.

I did.

It’s funny how the same things repeat in my work that I’d not consciously chosen. Obvious to some but I’m only just being aware of myself as a writer and this is the incredible benefit of my time in the MFA program, being a conscious writer.

Well, there you go, try it, free write this morning with your coffee and the sunshine.

1.

Tomboy. Dirt. Cows. Boys. Rules. Why? Why? Dad. Bedroom. Mum. Darkness. Waves. Camping. Trucks. Boys. Tools. Yes. Why? Jeans. Scruffy. Dirt. Cows. Patty. Why? Not.

2.

Female. Femme. Butch. Tires. Trucks. Fix it. Talk. Tellings. Beer. Drama. Girls. Pain. Drama. No. Dreams. Nightmares. Outside. Failed. Failed. Why? Dead. Gone.

3.

Rovers. Community. Passion. Talking. Tools. Girls. Boys. Camera. Bodies. Shapes. Lighting. Too much. Details. Seats. Engine. Leafsprings. Bears. Dogs. Family. Friends.

4.

Camping. Woods. Bears. Why? Fire. Food. Quiet. Calm. Sleep. Stevie. Dogs. Gods. Fire. Leaves. Wind. Window. Reading. Writing. Food. Beer. Calm. Quiet. Finally.

5.

Nightmares. Coma. Choices. Decisions. Christmas. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beer. Beer. Beer. Books. Read. Hide. Pubs. Hospitals. Nightmares. Mum.

6.

Camping. Fields. Trees. Decisions. Fires. Food. Camping. Vans. Trucks. Tents. Beetle. Dogs. Cats. Camp. Out. Away. Smiles. Hide. People. Less. More. Me. Me. Found. Peace. Smiles. Hide. Out. Side.

Don’t analyse but write. It’s a fun little game for your own pleasure in word associations.

 

 

 

Shorts

What if I told you

What if I told you that some days I’m scared to write? And others I’d cry if I didn’t? What if I told you that attention makes me want to walk the hills with notebooks and pens stuck in the truck at the bottom of the trail. What if I told you that I love to write but when I don’t, my world wobbles, days drag out, and a damp depression creeps in like a mold? What if I told you that even when I’m listening to you, making great eye contact, smiling, making jokes with you, I’m also wondering how Ernest would talk to you, and what would Janice say right now? Where would she sit? Would she want to chat to us or would she stay away, distracted by someone behind us? What if I told you that my head hollows out when you tell me the same old story of what you ate for breakfast, watched on TV, saw on the drive over, blah blah blah. What if I told you that I don’t get it, the usual conversational flow of back and forth, yet some times it feeds me a spark, an idea, and then imagination takes it out by the hand and sets it as free as a kite in a breeze tethered lightly by my attention. What if I told you that when a tropical storm slams that kite into the air and if I blink or nod or respond to you in any way, I’ll lose sight of that flash of color in my mundane life of eat, sleep, walk and write. What if that kite flies in a sky and no one looks up?

Bryan Hurt’s Everyone Wants to be Ambassador to France

Book Review: Wonderfully absurd and weird stories fill this collection by Bryan Hurt.

His characters range from astronaut-artists, a British aristocrat with his adopted girls, a goat and seagull questioning the after life on the edge of a cliff, and a run-down American writer panicking about the demands of his agents.

The opening lines are often so succinct and direct that Hurt pulls you in immediately: “Thomas Day was rich but very ugly.” Oh really? I wanted to know more, would he be an interesting man to know? I kept reading.

The simplicity of language is compelling, it’s concise and precise as short stories need to be, there are no wasted words. There is a great rhythm and Hurt comes across as a narrator to trust. We know where we are immediately upon starting a new story, he grounds us as readers yet there are such great turns and unexpected digressions and drifts that demand you pay attention. I did.

Panic Attack is one of the more touching stories for me with a great moment of tenderness. That’s all I’m saying. Look for it.

Hurt plays with the form of these short stories, more so in the second half of the collection, as if he’s trusting us to come along with him however it now looks. The Contract follows a CEO’s own contract with life and relationships, and yes, form follows content. There are more pieces in the remainder of the book where form changes to suit each story, such as lists in some places, or when some paragraphs have their own titles and other paragraphs are seperated with numbers. Titles are evocative although mostly in hindsight, you read the chapter and then the title will pop out at you again, such as the last chapter, Good With Words. Here is our struggling writer overcome with the demands of an agent hungry for more words. He turns to his toddler once back home. There he is reminded of the power of language. He asks his child, “tell me something about love.”

“Mama.”

Red Hen

978-59709-077-0

168 pp $15.95

Tentative pub date: 6/28/2018

pavement stains

Flash Fiction: Pavement stains. I broke your wings on the way home. Sorry about that.

I broke your wings on the way home. Sorry about that but your fingers were like antennae and my skin split. The mess, it’s all mine, and now that stain on the sidewalk won’t wash away. I tried, I did, I hosed it down. I’d even bagged you up, stuffed into a grocery bag from Trader Joes, and you bled, still dead on the sidewalk’s dust and time screamed slow down under foot pushing me back into those glorious guts that didn’t bring you back. Jealousy’s a killer, isn’t it my love, that burn of shame and those black-outs drowning with desire and desperation and I’m thinking of how all the stupid things I’ve said are now caught inside but I never meant to cause you trouble or do you harm or kill you, not really, sorry love. Your belly button and all its fluff tossed me sideways alone and alive with me begging you still breathless wrapped up in arms. You bled me dry scraped on pavement and nameless and numb without eyes. Confusion steeps in the clouds pouring down in the drizzle like chilled tea. What if you’d wanted me back? You’d waited too long to leave: I blame those flying broken dreams. My landlord won’t return my deposit now there’s yet another stain in front of my home.

Review: Midlife Crisis with Dick and Jane by Nin Andrews

Wandering through the basement of the college library, I was looking for prose poetry collections. I didn’t know who or what exactly but I wanted to see what others were doing with the form. The title Midlife Crisis grabbed me and I smiled. Took it out and opened it. Yes. This was a funny book.

The Truth about Penis Envy was the first title I came to. “If Dick really wanted to know, Jane didn’t like his penis. And she sure didn’t want one of her own.”

Yes, the are many Dick jokes, such as the introduction that there was a “Dick sleeping in her bed, a Dick in the White House, and the god of all Dicks was in the heavens above.”

Oh, yes, such a great start. Andrews isn’t afraid to tackle politics, religions, and gender stereotypes of America’s suburbia. She is exactly what I needed in my search for quirky prose poems. This collection is a wonderfully absurd look at the lives of Dick and Jane in bland white Middle American suburbia. It’s not my background but I get it enough to find it hilarious and also moving, pretty touching really.

She’s written a memoir in a sense, a life story expanded from the first grade books of See Spot Run.

Under Creation Stories, she wrote; “of course Dick knows his story. How once upon a time there was an American Dream, and as part of the dram, Dick was created.” The second paragraph on the same page turns darkly funny though. “Each night, while he slept, Jane’s breasts turned into laboratory rats and gnawed tiny homes in Dick’s heart.”

Midlife Crisis has three sections with a hundred compelling and telling titles for each one-page piece. Instructions for a Little Dick on how to Become a Big Dick gives a list of fifteen actions to take, such as Beat Things, Kick Things, Suck Things, Fuck Things, and Kill Things. On the opposite page, we read how Jane also likes things, “especially new things” and that “her therapist suggested Jane was trying to buy a new Jane. But who would new Jane be?”

Midlife Crisis is full of short paragraphs, or list-like questions, some written like an interview, as well the prose of dreams, nightmares, and descriptions of incidents like visiting that therapist. The pages flow easily and effortlessly building a insightful look into what if Dick and Jane had lived into middle age. Yes, there are many plays on words, on sexual double entendres and although the language is simple and straightforward, that light touch builds into a collection quite heart breaking.

I found it silly, laughing out loud, and also certain pieces made me catch my breath, striking home. Andrews combined forms, tone and language with depth – and beautifully. The story of a regular couple of kids from Ohio and look at them now. I felt for them both, even knowing this is a story of the characters from a children’s’ book, yes, it was that insightful. Hilarious, engaging, and striking.

What do I take from this as a writer and reader? The playful use of titles, sections, and form kept the flow of the story moving in a compelling way. It built a tension and depth while making me laugh and think. The thematic narrative arc set the tempo and held all the thoughts and what-if scenarios together. Andrew’s use of simple and witty language, playful, inventive, creative came across as light but she wrote with poignancy.

Midlife Crisis is a wonderful collection of funny, moving stories of Dick and Jane in a unique snapshot rapid-fire format. I’m glad I found it.

Midlife Crisis by Nin Andrews

Del Sol Press, 2005. Short fiction/ Prose poetry/ poetry. $15.95

Midlife Crisis