Art in the Time of COVID

Here in Joshua Tree, CA, every second Saturday is Art Walk. All the galleries stay open late with displays of new work; there is live music; refreshments are served; friends meet up and hug. It’s not like that, this month. It’s different here, as everywhere. Quieter and more distant. It’s something we’re all mourning, as we reluctantly explore other means of connection. One of our local galleries, the Beatnik Lounge, just opened a virtual show, “Alone Together: Art in the Time of COVID.” As soon as I heard the name of the show, I knew what I wanted to write for it. I decided to record myself reading it, as I’ve started doing, here and there. It’s not like reading live, but it is something.

Here I am reading “DESERTed,” written in response to a beloved painting by high desert artist Zara Kand. As always, thanks for listening.

You Were the Girl Who

This month’s Desert Split Open Mic, and so much else, was interrupted by Covid-19. Life stopped and we held our breath, braced for grief. We covered our faces and hands and stepped back from life. We retreated indoors and watched everyone else do it wrong.

This month, I feel the distance between us acutely. I want to hear your words, online, if not in person. I want you to hear mine.

I’ve written a lot in this socially distant time: more feminist, dystopian science fiction, more pages for a long story in progress that may yet insist on becoming a novel. If we’d held the Desert Split Open Mic this month, though, I’d probably read this, though: You Were the Girl Who, a queer little flash published in Black Heart Magazine back in 2013. Thanks for listening.

No wonder I’m tired.

In 2019, my writing did not make any “Best Of” or “Favorite” year-end lists. I wasn’t expecting it to. I did write a fair amount—less than I should’ve. But my writing brought me to some singular experiences this year, opportunities to read intensely personal work in front of larger audiences than I’d encountered until now. I started the Desert Split Open Mic in an effort to continue the conversation started by 2018’s Feckless Cunt Anthology. Every month I wrote something for it, and a few pieces were published. I planned literary events for Joshua Tree Pride, participated in a staged reading of a friend’s novella-in-verse, helped plan two events celebrating composer and poet Lou Harrison, and more. A few times each month, it seems, I found myself standing before a microphone as myself. Did I forget to mention that I’m an introvert?

As 2019 limps to its overdue end (just me?), I feel overwhelmed by exhaustion. It was a tough year, personally, and that’s part of it. But the truth is, I was busy. So busy that I forgot some stuff by the time those year-end lists cropped up. Gathering these photos, I realized that almost everything here required me to step beyond my comfort zone. No wonder I’m tired!

Most writers labor on without much if any external appreciation. We open our veins for the page and—maybe—get an acceptance or a “Like” or word of praise. Sometimes that’s enough, that small acknowledgment from a reader: “Yes. For me, too.” But, in the quiet between acknowledgements, it’s important to remind yourself that you are amazing. You are doing the work and, sometimes, it’s good! Thank you for indulging me as I reminded myself. Wishing you health, happiness, and—most importantly—hope in 2020.

NEA Big Read – Morongo Basin

A month devoted to all things literary? Yes, please!

Our community celebrated September’s NEA Big Read with many events, all inspired by one extraordinary book: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel.

Joshua Tree-based literary journal Cholla Needles devoted their September issue to the theme of survival, taking a cue from Station Eleven. I’m thrilled to have three CNF pieces included: “Pathological,” “Listen for What I Don’t Say,” and “Desert, Mother, Home.” I read them at a number of community open readings held throughout the Morongo Basin, including the one I hosted at Joshua Tree’s Space Cowboy Books.

I was especially honored to participate in this Author Panel on literary genres. I found our conversation interesting and useful—hope you will too. Click below to listen:

 

 

We Have Your Connie Moody

My latest sci-fi story, We Have Your Connie Moody, can be heard on Episode #18 of the sci-fi and speculative podcast Simultaneous Times. It’s my second story for them and features multiple voice actors, sound effects, and original music by Phog Masheen. I wasn’t sure how this unconventional story would translate to an audio drama, but I think it’s perfect. What a THRILL.

The story is constructed of online posts to private social networks and is a pointed look at suburban life through alien eyes. Many thanks to Jean-Paul L. Garnier and everyone who helped bring this to life. Click below, or find it streaming on all your favorite podcast players.

If you like what you hear, have a listen to my first story to appear on this podcast (Episode #14), From The Angels to Snakes, a feminist dystopia set in Los Angeles and Joshua Tree:

I am still new to writing in this genre and I’m excited by the possibilities, especially in terms of how it might frame smart and subtle social commentary. In the last year, I’ve thought a lot about my former misunderstandings about genre fiction and in fact what genre means for both writer and reader. On September 21, as part of the NEA BIG READ Morongo Basin, I will participate in an author panel discussion of science fiction and what defines literary genres. Local friends, I hope you’ll join us! Let’s expand our minds like the universe.

The Desert Split Open

At the end of 2018, as the Feckless Cunt Anthology promotional tour wound down, I thought about how much I wanted to continue that conversationabout politics, feminism, the patriarchy, race, class, gender, binaries, queerness, oppression, everyday abuses, and the moments that change everything, forever. I hoped that others in my local community of Joshua Tree, California, wanted to talk about the things we can’t ignore. The Desert Split Open Mic was born. One evening a month, we meet in a cozy, funky lounge and share words and work in progress. We keep it simple: read your own poetry or prose–or the work of a favorite writer–8 minutes max. Our first meeting was in January 2019, and we met again in February, March, April, and May. We took off June, as we helped plan Joshua Tree Pride. We love seeing some of the same faces return each month, and there are always a few new faces, too, which is thrilling. The evening is shaped by the truths each reader brings, and there always seems to be a balance.

The Desert Split Open Mic allows me to continue in the role of facilitator of other writers’ words, which I have come to realize is a role I love. It also gives me motivation to keep writing my own new work in this vein. I am grateful to those who have or soon will publish work written for this open mic:

My satirical, imagined conversation, “What’s Your Problem with Joe Biden?” recently ran at The Weeklings, just days after Joe announced his 2020 candidacy.

My furious, feminist, flash rant, “Ingrown Rage,” is set to appear in Cliterature‘s forthcoming HAIR-themed issue.

On Saturday, June 29, I will perform “ID, please,” a piece about fluidity, contradiction, and queerness, at the Art Theatre of Long Beach, for OUT LOUD: A Cultural Evolution.

These pieces exist because The Desert Split Open Mic exists.

Joshua Tree goes quiet in the summer, thank goodness–or quieter, at least. We slow down, conserve energy in the staggering heat. Should we resume The Desert Split Open Mic in July? Or wait until September? We’re still considering. But, soon or very soon, we will meet again. Please join us, if you can. Everyone is welcome. We’re listening.

“…if you are a man, you need to read this.”

I’m so grateful for Kristen M. Ploetz’s fierce, thoughtful review of Feckless Cunt: A Feminist Anthology, just published at JMWW Journal. It means everything to know that our intention was understood and that the quality of the outstanding work collected in this book is appreciated. ??

Writing, Frenzy.

In 2017, I moved home to the Mojave, although I grew up in Connecticut. I’ve been in a writing frenzy ever since, trying new things, playing with form, opening up to everything I might want (need) to write. Lately, it seems my words are landing with enthusiastic publishers, and that is so good I almost don’t want to say it out loud lest I jinx it.

Today, Pine Hills Review published my little story-as-answering-machine-message Neighborhood Watch, circa 2009. Just last week, The Weeklings posted my short, satirical and all-too-timely piece What’s Your Problem with Joe Biden? Last month, my contemplative, desert-y flash I Was a Pink Bath Bomb went up at Mojave He[art] Review.

I even tried my hand at sci-fi and wrote From The Angels to Snakes, which was performed with a full cast and original music on the Simultaneous Times podcast.

As always, a full list of my publications can be found HERE.

I am (forever) grateful to all those who publish, produce, read, and share my words.

 

 

 

Not Feckless: How a Writer Becomes a Publisher in a Moment of Rage

Huge thanks to Read Her Like an Open Book for allowing me to explain how Feckless Cunt: A Feminist Anthology came to be. As Editor Bill Wolfe said on Twitter: “When enough is enough, it’s time to take out the bullhorn.

From Not Feckless: How a Writer Becomes a Publisher in a Moment of RageI became a publisher impulsively, in this moment of rage. My own words failed. But I knew there were writers who still had theirs, who could articulate their fury, indignation, sorrow. That’s how it works, in this resistance marathon: we take turns. We share, and our collective words carry us. … I had no idea how to publish a book. I figured I would learn.

 

 


 

 

 

Unsettle that dust.

I move in 30 days. The house I’m moving to is quite small, less than half the size of this one. So far I’ve culled mountains of STUFF: donated most, tossed some. It is glorious, that unburdening. The more STUFF you shed, the more easily you see what might be shed next, and next! Space opens up and, as you move what hasn’t moved in years, you literally shift the air. You release swirls of dust and complacency you hadn’t noticed accumulating beneath furniture, behind books, in the crevices of knick-knacks that used to mean more. Suddenly, STUFF is hindrance: literal weight on a truck you will pay for. Ask: Does it serve me? Do I love it? It seems like a lot to ask STUFF to “spark joy,” but, sure, ask that too.

In the back of one closet I found a box of books and papers, mostly research for Not On Fire, Only Dying: the Ashokan Dam, New York State sentencing laws, missing child procedures, the Romani people, psychiatric meds and diagnoses, strains of marijuana. Bus schedules. A Hudson Valley street atlas. Poems and paintings that inspired NOFOD from its beginnings. I’m getting rid of more than you might think and holding onto more than I should.

The box also held a binder of stories and miscellaneous literary efforts I’d published in online journals, printed out as if I’d worried the internet might suddenly, permanently crash (not gonna lie—sometimes I do worry about that.) I came across a tiny list I wrote for Treehouse Magazine:I hadn’t known, but I’d needed to find and re-read this. I needed to be reminded of the Susan who wrote it. I needed to remember that I’ve found inspiration after long silence before and I will again. In the midst of this move, people sometimes ask, “Are you writing?” and I want to kill them (maybe not all the way dead) because NO—of course I’m not writing. I am cleaning and sorting and packing and getting my only child off to college and changing my whole life—but no, I’m afraid I am not writing. Some writers write through everything—storms much worse—and many more panic when they can’t. For me, occasional silence is expected and necessary. I still absorb material and dialogue and formulate ideas, but for now it’s a one-way process. Maybe I’m okay with breaking rules like “WRITE EVERY DAY” because I’m finally old enough to see how many rules are bullshit.

In any case, I’ve given myself permission to fall short.

“Five Paintings” accompanied a flash piece published by Treehouse Magazine: “Just Like Lily.” I went online and re-read it. I liked it, a few years on. That’s always a relief. It was a departure of sorts—something about the tone. It was also one of my most openly feminist pieces. I think I need to write more of those.

This got me thinking about Treehouse Magazine, which I hadn’t seen anything from in a while—years, it seemed. A quick search found a recent announcement of their relaunch this October! I am thrilled. Who doesn’t love a comeback? What’s better than a return to words? I look forward to mine. And if yours are also somewhat out of reach at present, please take a look at one or all of those five paintings. Anywhere is a good place to start. The words will come when you’re ready.

Proserpine, Dante Gabriel Rossetti