virtually yours

With the Desert Split Open Mic, like all in-person literary gatherings, still on hold, I miss that live energy exchange, the intimacy of truths told in confidence to those who will hear. I miss watching us step up and swing and sometimes miss, but always try to listen hard to each other and ourselves. I miss my physical response to words read in halting voices that grab me and shake.

Reading to you from my office, alone, is not the same, but it is something. I am interested in how video might share our work more widely and creatively. Why not, I suppose. Video allows me to deliver my work in autobiographical context. I made a YouTube channel.  I’ll update it now and then.

I’ve followed social distancing recommendations for about 10 weeks. It feels like so much longer, doesn’t it? Maybe because it’s been 10 weeks of chaotic change and uncertainty, underlain with faint, abstracted, persistent fear. Even in the flurry of creativity I retreat into in order to cope, I feel the worry slip in. I catch it in the corner of my eye, a reminder that I might as well make the art I want to make, now.

I can be dramatic—I already knew this. 10 weeks in relative isolation isn’t making that less true! I suspect the videos I record in this strange time will become a visual diary of deconstruction or transformation. I will try to embrace my changes, for lack of another choice. We are all, already, different. Nothing is the same, but we are something.

Playlist: virtually yours

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.

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.

 

 

 

Susan Does Sci-Fi

Okay, I admit it: I was a snob, when it came to sci-fi. Isn’t that for boys? Isn’t that lighter, pulpier stuff, nerd fantasy, spaceships, oversexed aliens? It doesn’t tackle the Big Questions like Lit’ry Fiction. Okay, I was ignorant. But I smartened up!

Jean-Paul Garnier, publisher of Space Cowboy Books, which last year released my chapbook of tiny stories Swap / Meet, suggested I try my hand at science fiction. He produces a monthly science fiction and speculative podcast called Simultaneous Times (available on itunes, spotify, googleplay etc.), which is beautifully produced with full-cast recordings, custom music, sound effects. Each episode is like an old radio play, but the stories are of this moment and far beyond. Writing “From The Angels to Snakes,” the story that appears in Episode 14, I learned so much about what sci-fi can do, in terms of storytelling. Researching as much female-driven sci-fi as I could, and thinking deeply about what might be possible in a story unconstrained by the factual reality of present or past, I found myself quite inspired. “From The Angels to Snakes” is a dystopian, feminist story that I’m proud of and can’t wait to share. I’m grateful to everyone who worked on it: Music by loopool & RedBlueBlackSilver; Read by Susan Rukeyser, Zara Kand, Danu Heatherly & Jean-Paul Garnier. This was truly a community effort. If you’re so moved, please give it a listen. And subscribe to this terrific podcast.

Some Small Good News.

The latest issue of Cholla Needles is out, and I’m thrilled to have 3 short pieces included. Buy it here for just 5 American dollars. Cholla Needles Press started earlier this year and has published books in addition to the magazine, which is now on Issue 12, so that gives you an idea of the literary energy here in Joshua Tree, CA. They hold monthly readings on an outdoor stage behind local bookstore Space Cowboy Books, drawing together a vibrant and welcoming crowd that includes many talented local writers and others who regularly come through to visit and read.

These are my first publications since moving out here. They were all written in this ecstatic creative flurry I’ve happily and gratefully surrendered to since I finally unpacked my boxes. There is something about this place: the expanse, the silence, the glorious sunshine.

My 3 pieces are: “About a Month In The Desert,” flash CNF about my experience moving to the desert from someplace very different; “HUMAN | NATURE,” micro prose inspired by the view from the mineral-encrusted “rainbow” terraces, or cliffs, of Thermopolis, WY; and a flash piece called “1 table, 2 chairs: ugly,” part of a series I’m working on called SWAP/MEET (virtual).

There is so much good work within these pages and I am honored to have mine included. And I’m thrilled to see my name against the brilliant blue sky that is making me a writer again, at last.

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

 

It is necessary.

iStock_000009325754_LargeThis morning, Facebook — keeper of our collective if incomplete memories — informed me that exactly one year ago today I officially took the reins as Reviews Editor for Necessary Fiction. Back in 2012 they published my story The Worst Girl’s Best Day, followed by two book reviews. Editor Steve Himmer helped me sculpt my story into what I’d intended from the beginning. When Michelle Bailat-Jones decided to move from Reviews Editor to her current position as Translations Editor, I came on board. I’d enjoyed working with both of them and knew them to be nice people and excellent editors. I was thrilled and honored to join them.

Each Monday we publish a review of a recent book from an independent press. There are outstanding works of fiction included here: novels and novellas and collections and forms that defy easy categorization by authors from all over the world. They are inventive, risky, ambitious. They are obsessed with language or big questions or both. Every week of this past year I heard from publishers, publicists, and authors with news of books forthcoming. My own debut novel was published last month by a small press: Twisted Road Publications. It was a remarkable experience, preparing for my book’s publication (for the first time, seeing it from the inside), while editing reviews to help introduce other small press books. As someone who was once mostly concerned with “big pubs” and high-profile titles backed by national media campaigns (as a Book Buyer for the wholesaler Baker & Taylor), what I saw and learned this year was enlightening and empowering.

If you’re like me, you try to be a good “literary citizen” but it never feels like enough. Sure, I give time to Necessary Fiction and the journal escarp. I buy small press books from the publisher (usually). I live way out in the Atlanta ‘burbs but I go into town for (some) readings. I’ve written reviews, not nearly enough. I try to share other writers’ good news on social media. But so much is missed. So much isn’t done. We have our own writing to nurture, after all, not to mention careers and families.

This morning, after the latest review went live at Necessary Fiction, I listened to Episode 3 of the Citizen Lit podcast, which states an intention to explore “what it means to be an active member of the writing world.” This week’s episode features poet and Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA) founder Erin Elizabeth Smith. Host Jim Warner describes her as someone who “is a builder of community and epitomizes the term literary citizen.” A lot of you probably already know Erin but I just met her last month, when I read from Not On Fire, Only Dying as part of the SAFTA Reading Series. I knew of her involvement with Sundress and Firefly Farms but did not fully understand the number of irons she has in the literary fire. I enjoyed listening to her discuss, among other things, how she creates opportunities and spaces where writers can learn, get work done alone, or share it with others. Give the episode a listen and then subscribe to the Citizen Lit podcast. (In Episode 1, you’ll hear me read a small excerpt from my novel.) Consider donating to SAFTA’s “Jayne for President” campaign, raising funds needed for a barn at Firefly Farms.

As I celebrate one year as a slightly more active literary citizen, I’m reminded that there is always more we can do to support this community of upstarts and artists and writers who are readers. It’s not just the right thing to do, it is necessary.