FOUR FATHERS interview series: BL Pawelek

It's the third installment of our four-part author interview series! We partnered with Cobalt Press, a brand spanking new small press publisher, to help spread the word about their kickstarter event for FOUR FATHERS, a collection of fatherly essays and stories by contributing authors Tom Williams, Ben Tanzer, BL Pawelek, and Dave Housley. (The kickstarter event closes on Monday. Feel free to check it out and if you are so inclined, throw a few bucks at it. You know you want to. Would I steer you wrong?)

Yesterday, we featured Dave Housley interviewing fellow contributor Ben Tanzer.

Today, BL Pawelek attacks a handful of questions from Tom Williams:

The Four Fathers Interview Series:

BL Pawelek

Tom Williams: Who were some important dads in your life?

BL Pawelek: When it comes male/fatherly influences in my life, there are really only two: writers Edward Abbey and Charles Bukowski. I first started reading them when I was 20, and I stuck with both of them for the next 15ish years. For me, that was a crucial timeframe of growth and development.

Both writers had many, many positive and negative aspects. Both of them were great examples of what a man/father could be, as well as should not be. I took bits and pieces of both of them to start growing into the father I am today.

I try to thank them every opportunity I get.


TW: What, if any, impact has fatherhood had on your writing life?

BP: For me, the biggest impact was in added/different subject matter. I am a huge “write what you know” type of writer. Before children, my writing was squarely centered in hiking, adventure, or nature writing. With the birth of my kids, it all changed. Almost all of my writing, and certainly some of “the best”, has something to do with my family.

  
TW: How do you do it all: husband, father, writer, wage-earner, triathelete?

BP: Well, out of all of them, the writer takes a back seat. The writing only happens when there is extra time and some motivation, which does not happen often lately.

As for the rest, I really think they aim toward the same goals: a successful and loving family.

As a husband, I truly believe I am the first and most important example of what a husband is supposed to be like to my son and daughter. An example of how a husband should treat and support his wife.

As a wage-earner, I have been so lucky and fortunate to have an awesome career in communications that is flexible and family friendly. Although I have been tempted with other “better” jobs, I have always declined for the fringe benefits of walking my kid to the bus stop, school lunches, and gymnastics practice.

As for the athlete, to be frank, I want to be as healthy as I can to stick around with my family. So I run a lot, and I hike a lot, and bike a lot. Plus, I actually really like to do those things, and I am a bit of a competitor.

Also, the honest truth. I could not do any of this well if I did not have an awesome wife, partner and love.


TW: Of we four, you're the only one with a daughter: is your dadhood any different with the boy and the girl?

BP: Completely different, mainly because they are different children with very different personalities, traits, and interests. However, it is the little things that make the biggest differences. For example, while I am writing this, my daughter is sitting on my feet, brushing her dolls hair, asking me if it is ok if we name her “Tangled” because her hair is so tangled, waiting for her mom to paint her nails. Her brother is doing what I did as a child – watching Spiderman after wearing himself out playing outside.

One of the best things about raising a daughter for me was that I knew absolutely nothing about it. I was one of three boys in my family, raised mostly with boys in the neighborhood. It wasn’t until I was 40 that I started watching the Disney movies with my daughter, realizing the differences between Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Cinderella – which eventually became some of the subject matter of my writing for this project.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

B.L. Pawelek is a husband, dad, and hiker living in Eden Prairie, MN. He attended to Loyola Marymount University and has had his poetry and photography published in numerous journals. His previous poetry collections include Always/Siempre (Concepcion Books - 2013),  So Hold Me Tight and Hold Me Tight (Artistically Declined Press - 2012) and The Equation of Constants  (Artistically Declined Press - 2011). He has also been nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net prizes.

FOUR FATHERS interview series: Ben Tanzer

It's the second installment of our four-part author interview series! We partnered with Cobalt Press, a brand spanking new small press publisher, to help spread the word about their kickstarter event for FOUR FATHERS, a collection of fatherly essays and stories by contributing authors Tom Williams, Ben Tanzer, BL Pawelek, and Dave Housely. (The kickstarter event closes on Monday. Feel free to check it out and if you are so inclined, throw a few bucks at it. You know you want to. Would I steer you wrong?)

Yesterday, we featured Ben Tanzer interviewing fellow contributor Tom Williams.

Today, Ben Tanzer tackles five questions from Dave Housley:

The Four Fathers Interview Series:

Ben Tanzer

Dave Housely: You're a very prolific writer, especially for a writer who has a full time job and two children. How do you do it?

Ben Tanzer: The simple answer is plastics. And ball bearings of course. But the more boring answer is a constant effort to schedule the opportunity to write on a daily basis, looking sometimes days ahead and figuring out where writing will fit and doing everything possible to stick to that opportunity. I also look to take advantage of opportunities where they didn't exist before. My wife and kids suddenly leave the house for an hour, and I grab it, and I write, immediately. I never wait for inspiration, sometimes I don't sleep, and I keep the more spontaneous fucking around to a minimum. All of which sort of makes me sound very boring, somewhat compulsive, and kind of like a dick. Was that your plan?

DH: In reading the pieces for this book, and in all of your writing, I'm struck by how honest you are about the daily frustrations, petty emotions, and all of the unattractive or ungenerous things that might go along with being a dude at a certain period in his life -- middle-agey, with responsibilities, frustrations, etc. In contrast, you're one of the most generous, positive, warm people -- especially writers! -- that I know. Do you worry at all about how your work will be perceived, especially by the people in your life?

BT: You're very generous and I completely retract that comment about your possibly wanting to make me look a dick. I do appreciate the kind words though, all of those traits are very important to me. As far the work goes and perceptions, that's a great question, and no, I don't worry about that. Not as a writer anyway. For the most part I don't walk around expressing those kinds of feelings, I find that embarrassing. But as a writer I feel permission to say what I want as long as I am not hurting anyone besides myself, and I work with the assumption that the people who read these things see them as a writer trying to say something they can relate to. I also don't mind if people think that maybe I'm more petty and frustrated than I let one, which I suppose is one advantage to being middle-agey, and married. That said, I also hope it sells books. Andrew, thoughts?

DH: Related to the question above, but something I've been thinking about a little as I edit my piece for FOUR FATHERS: what would you tell your kids if they were sitting down to read FOUR FATHERS? How old do you picture them being when you think about that (if, indeed, it's a thing you've thought about)?

BT: I have thought about this, and what I would like to tell them is that they will see slices of our lives, sometimes mine, or theirs, and that these slices were spun into something else, things I was trying to figure out, and stories that people can relate to. It also feels like there is a subtext to this question about whether I think they will be offended or upset by what they read. Which I guess is the subtext to my answer as well. I don't think these stories as a whole will be upsetting. They reflect more poorly on the protagonist if anyone, though as I re-read them, they are mostly about confusion and how we communicate, feeling abandoned, coping, and the million small things I constantly think about. And from that perspective, my kids only play a small role in these pieces, significant, but small, despite the content. 

DH:I'm curious about this one because I always write maybe five years after my own personal experience -- for some reason, it takes me awhile to process things in my own life and for them to start working into my fiction. When did this idea of dads/parents/sons/kids start working into your writing? Were you surprised? Afraid to go there? Or did you just Ben Tanzer the shit out of it and write like five books in row?
BT: I suppose I Bent Tanzer'd the shit out of it in one sense. Which makes for an awesome descriptor, thank you, but no doubt sounds very pretentious all at the same time. I always strive to write things in real time though, moment to moment, and so I am doing some of that processing you reference while I write and then seeing what happens. On the other hand Four Fathers is unusual for me to some extent. My novel Orphans that is coming out was a conscious effort to explore being a parent, a husband, and how work, and the need to work, can impact and warp those relationships. Four Fathers though emerged from a conversation we had and your invitation to participate. At the time I had just written a piece of flash fiction that was dad related, but that was only the piece I had written like that. Four Fathers made me wonder if I could continue doing dad-centric flash fiction pieces and I ran with it. I've also recently completed a series of essays for a collection titled Lost In Space, and in that case, I had always wanted to do something like that, but had no plans to do so until I was asked to develop a collection. After the request, I started seeing everything as an essay on this topic, and I started working on them. Which I guess is part of it for me, both in writing and work, the smallest suggestion can blow-up for me into an idea and when they do I try to follow the path that's emerging. The path has been dad-centric at the moment, and I am in it, so it's ripe, but it will pass, and in some ways it already has. 

DH: What are you working on now? Does it deal with these same kinds of matters? Or something completely different. 

BT: I sort of began to answer this question above, but as a coda, I've started plotting out and writing a series of things, a short story collection centered on a flooded town, a sort of third chapter to my New York Stories project; a novel with a teenage female protagonist, a missing brother, and UFOs; and an essay collection of pieces that may have nothing to do with dads. In fact none of these projects really have anything to do with dads at all on the face of it, though when I write, no matter what I set out to do, I endlessly circle back to fathers and sons, something that's inescapable for me apparently. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ben Tanzer is the author of the books My Father's House and You Can Make Him Like You, as well as, the forthcoming Orphans and Lost in Space, among others. Ben also oversees Publicity and Content Strategy at Curbside Splendor and day to day operations of This Zine Will Change Your Life. He can be found online at This Blog Will Change Your Life the center of his growing lifestyle empire.

Book Giveaway: Happy Talk

Since July 2010, TNBBC has been bringing authors and readers together every month to get behind the book! This unique experience wouldn't be possible without the generous donations of the authors and publishers involved.

I'm excited to to bring you next month's 

Author/Reader Discussion book!

We will be reading and discussing Happy Talk 

with author Richard Melo

In order to stimulate discussion,
Red Lemonade has offered up 10 print copies to US residents

and 10 PDF copies internationally

Here is the goodreads description to whet your appetite:

Gun-slinging American student nurses and boozy New York playwrights-turned-educational-filmmakers find themselves stuck in the Haiti of 1955 as part of a government plan to pump up tourism and turn the Magic Island into the next Hawaii. The story follows the travels of Culprit Clutch, who appears mostly through rumor and innuendo, and his strange encounters with a plane-hopping British spy, Haitian street magicians, and a Scandinavian zombie. Josie, Culprit's ghostly paramour with a morphine habit, may or may not have voodoo spirits flowing through her, but the power-mad doctor channeling Baron Samedi is sure as hell bent on Culprit's destruction. The novel’s cascading epilogues include a legendary car race down the length of Mexico; street theatre in Golden Gate Park, circa 1968; a Skylab mutiny; origins of the musical comedy Godspell; and cameos by the Nation of Islam and early followers of Jim Jones.

This giveaway will run through August 8th. 

Winners will be announced here and via email on August 9th.

Here's how to enter:

1 - Leave a comment stating why you'd like to receive a copy of the book, and if you are a resident of the US or live outside the US. 

2 - State that you agree to participate in the group read book discussion that will run from September 15th through the end of the month. Richard Melo has agreed to participate in the discussion and will be available to answer any questions you may have for him. 

 *If you are chosen as a winner, by accepting the copy you are agreeing to read the book and join the group discussion at TNBBC on Goodreads (the thread for the discussion will be emailed to you before the discussion begins). 

 3 - Your comment must have a way to contact you (email is preferred). 

GOOD LUCK!

FOUR FATHERS interview series: Tom Williams

Welcome to the first installment of our four-part author interview series! We partnered with Cobalt Press, a brand spanking new small press publisher, to help spread the word about their kickstarter event for FOUR FATHERS, a collection of fatherly essays and stories by contributing authors Tom Williams, Ben Tanzer, BL Pawelek, and Dave Housely. (The kickstarter event closes on Monday. Feel free to check it out and if you are so inclined, throw a few bucks at it. You know you want to. Would I steer you wrong?)

If you missed the publisher's introduction yesterday, click here to get yourself caught up. And then sit back and enjoy as Ben Tanzer asks fellow contributor Tom Williams why he parents and how parenting has impacted his writing..... 

The Four Fathers Interview Series:

 Tom Williams

Ben Tanzer: People always say why do you write, so I would like to ask why do you parent?

Tom Williams: To both questions, I think the answer’s the same: do I have a choice?

In parenting, though, it seems there’s a difference between being a parent and parenting. You can’t have one without the other, but to parent implies one is doing more than providing chromosomes, one is actively trying to balance a desire to shape and mold with a desire to open and avail one’s child to the world around him. I parent because I was parented well, too, and want to know that my son feels the kind of connection to me that I feel to my parents.

BT: How does being a father impact you as a writer, be that approach, time, themes, any, or all of it?

TW: I think we all have less time to do the kind of doodling and ceiling-staring that we used to do before. And in that way, I think that becoming a father has made me use that time more wisely and use it in a way that’s more productive. Also, when you’ve got, as I do, a little guy running around and wanting to hear ghost stories about his friends, the fiction I might be trying to put together at my desk becomes less important. And in becoming less important, that fiction becomes easier to write, because, like the ghost story I’m telling my son, it’s just finding the right words.

It’s funny. Whenever Finn wants a story, I’ll set up the exposition and he’ll say, “Suddenly, they heard a spooky noise.” And while I’ve not incorporated too many spooky noises into my fiction, I have been keenly more aware that all readers want more than just set up and intellectual endeavor; they want something to shake them up.

And you know, another significant change, which is evident in my second story in Four Fathers, “What It Means to Be,” is that fatherhood has made me think a lot about being a son: both the child I was and the adult I am now. I know that you, too, Ben, had the tragedy of losing a parent while you were rearing children of your own. And it feels so unmooring, so thorough, such a loss, and yet the one thing that never disappears is the connection you have. The memories you keep. And I don’t think I’ve even got that stuff started yet, that writing.

My biggest fear, though, is that becoming a father has turned me soft. My wife and I can’t even hear mention of tragedies involving children, will turn off the TV if the news anchors are talking about a day care scandal or school bus accident. Yet it’s hard not to be sentimental when you see a little human learning new words or eating with a utensil for the first time or chasing a butterfly he will never catch.

Of course, I wouldn’t be any kind of parent at all were it not for my amazing partner and wife, Carmen Edington. Since conception, she's the one who's been doing the real work.

BT: Has writing about being father caused you to re-think how you parent or your previous perceptions about the experience?

TW: I feel like I didn’t want to write about being a father, to be honest. Every time I’d start to write “What It Means to Be” I’d worry that in writing down my fears that they’d come true—which echoes fully my character’s concerns in sharing his past with his son. In actually committing to completing the fiction, I found myself maybe exaggerating rather than examining, as if to distance my true fatherly self from that in the fiction. I hope that I’m a better dad than James, my protagonist, is. Plus, I think there’s a certain narcissism in writing about yourself as a great father. And, to go back to one of my earlier thoughts, who wants to read about a dad who has nothing go wrong? What spooky noise upsets the balance in that idealized portrait?

BT: Even when writing fiction, what obligations do you think we have to our children in terms of reflecting some of element of their lives in our work?

TW: I think we owe them a fair analysis of their lives. It’ll be interesting to see my son when he’s four—the age of the son in my story “What it Means to Be”—because I’m doing a lot of guessing what a four year old is like. Yet I’m fixing for that character a foundation where he shares much more with my son than with my imagination.

BT: Do you think it’s possible to write pieces such as you have for this collection and not think about your own father and you relationship with him?

TW: Right now, at the risk of sounding schmaltzy, it’s the best it’s ever been, my relationship with my dad. But what’s particular to it is that we never had an easy relationship before. Here’s why, I think: My dad grew up without a father and in being my father he had no one clearly to model himself after. Now he’s a grandfather and it’s different: he did have a grandfather (even though that gentleman, my great-grandfather, was born in the 19^th Century). And I’d have to say he’s warmed to the role of grandpa far better than I have as a dad.

But looking forward, and spinning off far from your question, Ben, I’m projecting into a future where my son has a son and how he’s got so much more to look back to for guidance. Not just me, but my dad. His stories. I hope I’m around then. And if I’m not, I hope Finn shares with his son my stories (the ones in this book and the ones I’ve told him), and my dad’s stories.

Did I mention my fear that becoming a father has made me the worst kind of sentimentalist? Cue sunset. Cue Ian Dury singing “My Old Man.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tom Williams is the author of two books of fiction, The Mimic's Own Voice, and the forthcoming novel Don't Start Me Talkin' (Curbside Splendor). The Chair of English at Morehead State University, he lives in Kentucky with his wife, Carmen Edington, and their son.

Cobalt Press: FOUR FATHERS Kickstarter interview series

TNBBC is a proud funder and promoter of many amazing small press kickstarter projects. We try to do everything we can to help spread the word about the incredible, innovative, and passionate underdogs of the literary community. We want to see these small press and self published ideas become reality and we love knowing that we played a part, no matter how small, in getting great new literature out into the world and into your hands.

This time, we've joined forces with Cobalt Press - a brand new publishing company that is growing up out of the fabulous Cobalt Review. Their kickstarter project, which terminates Monday, will fund their first release FOUR FATHERS, a collection of fatherly essays and stories. 

TNBBC partnered with Cobalt Press's publisher, Andrew Keating, and the authors of FOUR FATHERS - Tom Williams, BL Pawelek, Ben Tanzer, and Dave Housely -  to bring you a four part cyclical interview series, in which the authors interview themselves, to help you get to know them a little better. (and perhaps fall in love with the project, which is still a few hundred shy of its funding goal...)

To kick it all off, here's an introduction to Cobalt Press and the Kickstarter project, from the publisher himself:

There are few subjects richer than fatherhood. I won’t lie, the first time I heard someone use the phrase fatherhood fiction or dick-lit (it was Greg Olear, a couple years ago when Fathermucker was happening), I snorted a little bit. This, of course, is the reaction of a non-father, of a son who admittedly believes that being a dad isn’t all that complicated. Then I read this manuscript. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, other than that I knew two of the authors pretty well and loved their stuff. So I read, and kept reading, and I laughed, and I felt my chest tighten with anxiety, and I might have even cried. How wrong I was.

Four Fathers, and each of its authors, delivers fatherhood in a multitude of thought-provoking, heartfelt ways: from Tom Williams’ pair of long short stories which define a man by who he is as a son in relation to his father, and who he is as a father in relation to his son; to BL Pawelek’s poetry, dedicated to his daughter, Abbey Road. Then you have Ben Tanzer's flash fiction pieces, which all seem to reflect up on the idea of "I'm a dad…what the heck do I do now?" and Dave Housley's novella begging the Osbornesque question "What the f*** is a 'Bieber?'" There are moments of absolute sweetness, and moments of perversity. There are points where you’ll want to laugh out loud, but you’ll stop once you realize you’re only laughing at yourself, your own fears, your own misgivings about what it means to be a dad.

The idea for this book was hatched by its authors at the 2012 AWP conference, and by the same event in 2013, they had put the manuscript in my hands and we were signing the contract. While the works by the individual authors may not seem directly linked in anything other than the general exploration of fatherhood, the connections between the pieces run much, much deeper. The interview series you are about to read, kindly coordinated by Lori Hettler of The Next Best Book Blog, is a great example of how these authors work together, despite living hundreds of miles apart. They clearly speak the same language, and they are so clearly dads.

Cobalt Press is honored to have the opportunity to publish Four Fathers as our first full-length book, and we are grateful to all who have helped us to get it off the ground. There has been a generous outpouring of support from the community through our Kickstarter campaign (www.kickstarter.com/projects/cobaltpress/cobalt-press-start-up-where-you-should-be) and we still have a few days left to reach our initial fundraising goal of $2000, which will fund the launch of Cobalt Press, and the publication of this fine book. Please, if you have a moment, visit the campaign and pledge to help us put great books out into the world.

Thanks,

Andrew Keating

Publisher, Cobalt Press

Kelly Davio's Would You Rather

Bored with the same old fashioned author interviews you see all around the blogosphere? Well, TNBBC's newest series is a fun, new, literary spin on the ole Would You Rather game. Get to know the authors we love to read in ways no other interviewer has. I've asked them to pick sides against the same 20 odd bookish scenarios. And just to spice it up a bit, each author gets to ask their own Would You Rather question to the author who appears after them....

Kelly Davio

Would You Rather...

Would you rather write an entire book with your feet or with your tongue?

With my feet—no question. I have oddly dexterous feet, so I don’t think I’d be slowed down too much.

Would you rather have one giant bestseller or a long string of moderate sellers?

A long string of moderate sellers. I’d rather be someone with a career than someone with quick but short-lived fame.

Would you rather be a well known author now or be considered a literary genius after you’re dead?

I’d rather be well known now. The best thing about being a writer is touching other people’s lives with your work. It would be very unsatisfying to be dead when that finally happens!

Would you rather write a book without using conjunctions or have every sentence of your book begin with one?

Some people might argue that I already come dangerously close to opening every sentence with a conjunction! It’s a bad habit of mine. I think it wouldn’t be too tough for me to write “The Book of And, But, Yet, So, For.”

Would you rather have every word of your favorite novel tattooed on your skin or always playing as an audio in the background for the rest of your life?

Tattooed. No question. I’d love peeking down at my arm and reading a great passage whenever the mood struck.

Would you rather write a book you truly believe in and have no one read it or write a crappy book that comprises everything you believe in and have it become an overnight success?

In the long run, I’d rather write what I believe in and let readers do with it what they will. It would be pretty delightful to be an overnight success, but the fun would be fleeting if I couldn’t stand behind the work.

Would you rather write a plot twist you hated or write a character you hated?

A great deal depends on what we’re thinking of as “hate.” I’ve written—and thoroughly enjoyed writing—some characters who are loathsome and awful people. In that sense, I do hate them. I’d much rather have deeply unlikable characters than a plot twist that seems off.

Would you rather use your skin as paper or your blood as ink?

I’d rather use my skin as paper. Blood makes me woozy.

Would you rather become a character in your novel or have your characters escape the page and reenact the novel in real life?

I think it would be best for everyone involved if I became a character in my current project. I don’t think I want these characters running around in reality—some of them aren’t nice folks.

Would you rather write without using punctuation and capitalization or without using words that contained the letter E?

I’m a grammar nerd. I embrace punctuation, its rules, and its strictures. I think my stomach would turn were I to throw all the wonderful evolution of the English language over for my own stylistic oddity. I’d rather take the challenge of eliminating “e” from my work.

Would you rather have schools teach your book or ban your book?

I’d rather be banned. As a teacher, I know that the moment a book comes into the high school curriculum, the evil empire of Sparknotes writes a dreadful summary and analysis, posts it on the internet, and kids regurgitate that summary in class. If my book were banned, kids might actually be tempted to read it.

Would you rather be forced to listen to Ayn Rand bloviate for an hour or be hit on by an angry Dylan Thomas?

I’d rather be hit on by Dylan Thomas. It would be interesting to see if he had any game. Also, while I’m a non-violent person, my antipathy for Ayn Rand is so great that I don’t know whether I could resist pulling her hair helmet.

Would you rather be reduced to speaking only in haiku or be capable of only writing in haiku?

I’d rather have to speak in haiku. It would make me think well before opening my mouth, which some people in my life might say would be an improvement on my current approach.

Would you rather be stuck on an island with only the 50 Shades Series or with a series written in a language you couldn't read?

Were I on a desert island, I think I'd have ample time to (attempt to) crack the code of a foreign language. A series in a language I don't speak would likely give me far more hours of useful brain-application than would Fifty Shades. 

Would you rather critics rip your book apart publically or never talk about it at all?

As someone who’s only just beginning to be reviewed, I’m constantly frightened that the next review is going to be eviscerate my work. There’s an awful period of heart-pounding when I scan the review for pejoratives, followed by only slightly lesser heart-pounding as I re-read for veiled snarkiness. I might pass out if I read something that openly ripped my work to shreds. Even so, as a writer, I signed up for a life in which people get to form judgments of my work, so let them have at it; it’s better than no one ever hearing about my book at all.

Would you rather have everything you think automatically appear on your Twitter feed or have a voice in your head narrate your every move?

I think it would be rather funny if a voice in my head narrated everything I did. It might also be informative:

“Kelly put on the old pair of jeans that made her look like beached whale.”

“Hey, I though I looked good in these…”

“A beached whale bloating in a hot summer sun, flies swarming in the foul stench of decay.”

“Okay. Not those jeans.”

Would you rather give up your computer or pens and paper?

I’d rather give up pen and paper. While I do still draft some things by hand, my writing is so sloppy that I have a hard time reading my own longhand.

Would you rather write an entire novel standing on your tippy-toes or laying down flat on your back?

Some parts of my current works in progress have been written while flat on my back! I have a tendency to throw out my neck, so I have become familiar with flatness. It’s not a bad way to write, actually.

Would you rather read naked in front of a packed room or have no one show up to your reading?

I’d rather have no one show up. Then I could at least have a nice time chatting with bookstore staff (book sellers are my kind of people) and make some new friends that way. No one wants to be friends with the naked reader.

Would you rather read a book that is written poorly but has an excellent story, or read one with weak content but is written well? 

So, Twilight or anything by Jonathan Franzen? Can I skip both?

And here's Kelly's response to the question Sarah Habein asked her last week:

Would you rather have to give a reading about the worst thing you ever did (with your parents in attendance), or would you experience that worst moment all over again?

I'm a poet, first and foremost. We poets have a habit of airing the worst of our personal laundry in our writing, whether for good or for bad. I'd give the reading, even though I'd probably want to crawl in a hole afterward. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Check back next week to see what Kathe Koja would rather

 and see her answer to Kelly's question:

Would you rather have to use profanity on every page of your book, 

or nowhere in your book? 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kelly Davio is Managing Editor of The Los Angeles Review, Associate Editor of Fifth Wednesday Journal, and a reviewer for Women’s Review of Books. Her work has appeared in Best New Poets, Verse Daily, and others. Her debut collection of poetry, Burn This House, was published by Red Hen Press in 2013. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, and she teaches English as a second language in the Seattle area.

Indie Book Buzz: Tara Books

We are knee deep in Indie Book Buzz here at TNBBC. Over the next few weeks, we will be inviting members of the small press publishing houses to share which of their upcoming releases they are most excited about!

This week's picks come from Missi Smith, 

Assistant Publicist at 45^th Parallel Communications.

Gobble You Up! by Sunita and Gita Wolf

Published by Tara Books
October 2013

What is it about?  Gobble You Up! is a delightful new children’s book based on a Rajasthani (North Indian) folktale about a wily jackal who, one by one, gobbles up his animal friends in an attempt to silence their criticism of his behavior. Yet after stuffing himself full of twelve fish, a peacock, a cat, and an elephant—just to name a few— the slightest sip of water causes his belly to burst open and all of his animal friends come tumbling out. But unlike in the similar folktale, The Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly, the jackal and all of the animals survive to play another day together in the forest.

Why am I excited about publishing it?  Gobble You Up! is the latest creation from Tara Books’ handmade book workshop. Here at Tara Books, we specialize in titles made completely by hand (silkscreened on handmade paper). Each copy of Gobble You Up! is a hand-numbered, limited edition work of (affordable) art.  The beautiful book, when opened, delivers a sensory experience of paper and ink rarely found in mass produced books and never found in digital reading. 

The book features illustrations by Sunita, an artist of the Rajasthani finger painting tradition called Mandna.  Historically a women’s art, mothers teach their daughters to paint in the Madna style.

Gobble You Up! is a work of art as well as a fun, whimsical story for children.  The jackal grows larger as his tummy fills with the other animals, and the illustrations show each one jumping into his belly.   Sunita’s illustrations and Gita Wolf’s story serve as an accessible art lesson as well as a conversation about traditions and stories that will spark the imagination.

Alone in the Forest by Bhajju Shyam, Gita Wolf, and Andrea Anastasio
Published by Tara Books
September 2013

What is it about?  For the first time, Musa goes into the forest to fetch firewood all alone.  A loud crack in the darkness and shadows between the trees terrify him, but he fights his fears with triumph.  Alone in the Forest is illustrated by Bhajju Syam in the traditional Gond style that derives from the decorative patterns painted on the mud floors and walls of their houses in Madhya Pradesh in Central India.

Why am I excited about publishing it?  Like all of the titles published by Tara Books, there is a story behind the story.  Based in south India, most of our books feature traditional Indian art styles as illustrations—often for the very first time! Alone in the Forest is bright and colorful, and many young readers will relate to being fearful in the dark or on their own.  It is the perfect book to help children find ways to conquer fear, and it also serves as a lovely reminder to adults that sometimes we all need to face our fears in order to step out into the light.

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Missi Smith is an Assistant Publicist at 45^th Parallel Communications, the publicity and marketing firm representing Tara Books.

Melanie Page Reviews: The Kind of Friends Who Murder Each Other

The Kind of Friends Who Murder Each Other

by Chris Rhatigan

100 Pages

KUBOApress, Released April 30th, 2013

By guest reviewer Melanie Page

I’ve never read Rhatigan before, but I can appreciate a man who gives it all away in the title. The Kind of Friends Who Murder Each Other starts with three friends in a bowling alley who end up confessing the worst thing they’ve ever done. Two admit murder, one confesses to breaking into homes to watch people sleep. But does anyone overhear this conversation? That’s where things get crazy in this novella. The Kind of Friends Who Murder Each Other starts out like a common “I’ve seen some things, man, and you wouldn’t like ‘em!” kind of story and has the typical male in his twenties who smokes and drinks too much. He works a job he hates, and I wasn’t sure if he had any ambition. I’ve heard this story before, and it’s kind of boring.

But Rhatigan does something unusual with his narrator. Simon fits the description above, but what pulls him together and rounds him out is his inability to worry. He just doesn’t seem to panic because he’s on a track (mind you, this doesn’t mean a five-year plan) and he won’t be able to get off regardless of what he does. So, Simon just “is.”

The comedic imagery helped me relate to and laugh at this character, and Rhatigan pulls from stereotypical characters around the narrator to make the narrator more lifelike. At work, Simon is stopped by an officer who is borderline stalking him:

“Maxson crossed his arms in that way cops do, they were certain about themselves,

about their surroundings, about the way the world worked, so certain about everything, they could see out ten steps ahead. If I had a gun I would have shot him, but I didn’t have a gun so I stood there, not knowing if I should put my hands in my pockets or at my sides or on the counter so I kept alternating between all three, a couple of seconds at one, a few at the next.”

Struggling to know what to do with one’s arms will be a human problem until we all get robots to do the heavy lifting, but thinking about Simon switching arms every few seconds, probably trying to look casual while he’s doing it, makes him a little ruffled, a little more real.

He’s even concerned about what others may think of him, though it’s not often. His concerns come from symbols, not what he actually thinks or says: “I ordered a bottle of domestic beer, sat in a booth, peeled off the label. I’d heard somewhere that that was a sign of sexual frustration so I tried to reaffix the label but it kept curling back.” The dry humor Rhatigan inserts matches with Simon’s can’t-change-things attitude, but the imagery, again, makes him a little flawed (and a bit funny in his own body).

In the beginning of the story, I was really bothered by the comma splices. They’re in the whole novella and appear to be a stylistic choice. My personal opinion is that there are more effective ways to make a story read faster, but I got used to them. Sometimes, the sentences ended up being difficult to read as a result, though. Here’s one that starts as a subordinating conjunction but doesn’t end with an independent clause, which made me feel lost: “Soon as I reached my building, ran to the elevator, four people inside, recognized none of them, every sound they made--sniffle, twitch, clear of the throat, shook me, swarmed my mind, a catchy jingle I couldn’t be rid of.” I shouldn’t have to read a sentence several times to get the idea, but maybe Rhatigan wanted the reader to feel lost with Simon. I recommend this book for its dark humor and short length!


Bio: Melanie Page is a MFA graduate, adjunct instructor, and recent founder of Grab the Lapels, a site that only reviews books written by women (www.grabthelapels.weebly.com).

Small Press Short Story Collections

2013 has been the-year-of-a-million-distractions for me so far. My few unannounced weeks away from the internet, my boss's disappearance (at my full time corporate job) and the endless overtime it necessitated, and my new side-gig as marketing director for CCLaP notwithstanding, I've been sucking so badly at reviewing the things I've been reading. And I really have no good excuse for it.

Accept then, if you will, this mini-review post of sorts, in which I gush and goo all over some of the small press short story collections that found their way into my hands these past 6 months.

If you have heard of these collections, and haven't read them yet, for shame. Rectify this immediately. If you haven't heard of them before, consider yourself officially informed, and get them in hand asap. You can thank me later.

The Girlfriend Game by Nick Antosca
(releases this fall / Word Riot)
4 Stars - Easily the best short story collection I've read this year
Read 7/20/13 - 7/21/13

Nick Antosca has a dark and twisted mind. One that I enjoyed crawling inside. He's got a strangle-hold on reality, force feeding its wide, gasping mouth with the stuff nightmares are made of.

In this collection of stories, we read about a teenage boy who, after he slips into a depression that no amount of therapy or drugs can touch, is faced with a radical treatment that is guaranteed to leave him happy but beastly. We watch helplessly as aliens seduce our most beautiful human specimens onto their ships, allowing some to return, of their own free will, back to their homes while others are found on the ground with their faces scooped out. And we see the employee of an animal testing lab as he's served up a gigantic heap of karma when he adopts a stray and starving dog and has a too-bad-so-sad belated change of heart.

I devoured this collection over the course of 24 hours, unwilling, no.. unable!, to put it down for long without finding myself reaching out for it again. I dare you to find a bad story in the bunch. Actually,I double-dog dare ya.

Hair Lit Vol 1 edited by Nick Ostdick
(released Feb 2013 / Orange Alert Press)
4 Stars - Stories inspired by hair metal, hellooo?!
Read 3/31/13 - 4/5/13

Where to start with this one?!  It contains stories by small press superstars Ryan W Bradley (who also designed the kickass cover), Roxane Gay, Lindsay Hunter, Ben Tanzer, and Steve Himmer... among others.

Every story is inspired by a metal song, and even if you're like me and never got the whole "metal" thing back when it was a thing, you'll totally fall for all the nostalgia those ridiculous songs stir up in this collection.

And it's got fucking LINER NOTES at the end of each story. LINER NOTES!! I know, right?!

Participants by Andrew Keating
(released December 2012 / Thumbnail Press)
4 Stars - Smooth like Sunday morning
Read 3/23/13 - 3/25/13

I stumbled across this collection and its author at AWP this March. I watched as he read from "Triple Berry Pie" and ad-libbed the word "hot" after every single sentence, encouraging the audience to repeat it with him. I enjoyed each and every story, thinking they couldn't get any better than the last, and being proven wrong each and every time. From the opening story about a guy who sells himself to science, obsessively signing up for participant studies to the man who awakens in a hospital, aware that something bad has happened and determined to put all the pieces back into place, Keating's ability to suck the reader in is bar none.

You know it's a good collection when you sigh at the end and wish it was 100 pages longer!

Whatever Don't Drown Will Always Rise by Justin L Daugherty
(released  2013 / Passenger Side Books)
4 Stars - Wickedly deceiving and sassy
Read 4/6/13

So I might be cheating here a little. This collection is most definitely a chapbook, clocking in at a very tiny 30 pages. But these stories read like little giants, deceivingly large of heart and head though incredibly light on words.

Justin massages the English language and makes the most of his simple and specific style. There's this lovely poetic-ness, a clear-blue-sky-and-green-green-grass sort of feel to his stories. They become places in which you want to curl up, places you wish you could call home. It's interesting to me - the words on the page are so confident and sure of themselves, a sweet contradiction to the author himself. And I mean that in the best of ways.

I'm Not Saying, I'm Just Saying by Matthew Salesses
(released February 2013 / Civil Coping Mechanisms)
4 Stars - Flashiest of the Fiction
Read 3/13

A very interesting book, this, and another potential cheat from me. Called a novel in flash fiction, I prefer to look at it as a collection of interconnected stories. Either way, it's written by a guy who knows the confusion of love and the power of hidden secrets coming to light.

I read this at the exact inappropriate time, without realizing it until I was a few stories in, but I was hopeless to stop. I was disgusted and pissed at the narrator, yet at the same time, I was intrigued. And the breaks between each segment urged me to read on even though I knew I shouldn't. Salesses writes as though he is speaking. His words hit the page fluidly, and run quietly down the edges and into your lap, and suddenly you realize you are carrying them with you.

Spectacle by Susan Steinberg
(released January 2013 / Graywolf Press)
3 Stars - Stories for all styles
Read 4/8/13 - 4/14/13

You can really never go wrong with a Graywolf Press title. Their short story collections always impress me and this one was incredibly interesting - Steinberg plays around with story structure here AND retells the same story multiple times throughout the collection. A trickster, this one!

Though I totally got into it for the first few stories, I began to tire of the switching styles and different perspectives, and found myself rushing through the current story just to see if the next was any better. What began as promising and intriguing soon became distracting and disjointed for me. I wonder what impact spacing the stories out - pacing myself through the collection over a longer period of time - would have had on me? If you give this a go, that would be my recommendation to you. Space the stories out. Give yourself time to read other things in between. I bet their magic would work better that way.

Sara Habein's Would You rather

Bored with the same old fashioned author interviews you see all around the blogosphere? Well, TNBBC's newest series is a fun, new, literary spin on the ole Would You Rather game. Get to know the authors we love to read in ways no other interviewer has. I've asked them to pick sides against the same 20 odd bookish scenarios. And just to spice it up a bit, each author gets to ask their own Would You Rather question to the author who appears after them....

Sara Habein

Would You Rather...

Would you rather write an entire book with your feet or with your tongue?

Feet. I may be able to touch my nose with my tongue, but I don't think its dexterity extends to holding a pen. Also, licking a computer in order to type sounds … gross. Feet it is, then! I'd make it work.

Would you rather have one giant bestseller or a long string of moderate sellers?

I would definitely prefer a long string of moderate sellers because I've got more than one story in me, and it would be frustrating to only have one of them take off into the world. I certainly wouldn't turn my nose up at a giant bestseller, but a long string would be preferable.

Would you rather be a well known author now or be considered a literary genius after you’re dead?

I'd rather be well known now. I don't need to be considered a genius. If I can do my thing and people continue to enjoy it, then that would be good with me.

Would you rather write a book without using conjunctions or have every sentence of your book begin with one?

So I think I would like the challenge of having ever sentence beginning with a conjunction. But could I sustain that over an entire book? And then there's the challenge of there being only so many conjunctions. Yet I would prefer doing this over losing them entirely. Because you see what I did here with just this short answer, yes?

Would you rather have every word of your favorite novel tattooed on your skin or always playing as an audio in the background for the rest of your life?

My all-time favorite book is Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon, so it would take up less real estate on my body than some of my other favorites. Because I have days where I am a bit sensitive to noise, I'd think I have to go with the tattoo by default.

Would you rather write a book you truly believe in and have no one read it or write a crappy book that comprises everything you believe in and have it become an overnight success?

While it would be tempting to write the crappy book and then turn it into performance art during all the press interviews, I know I'd rather write the book I believe in.

Would you rather write a plot twist you hated or write a character you hated?

Character, definitely. Characters do not have to be likeable.

Would you rather use your skin as paper or your blood as ink?

Isn't my skin already covered in Mysteries of Pittsburgh?So I suppose that makes it to where I'd have to use my blood, though maybe I'd make it go a little further by cutting it with water. Besides, tattoo or not, my body won't be around forever, but blood-ink on paper can be passed along.

Would you rather become a character in your novel or have your characters escape the page and reenact the novel in real life?

Oh, both of those sound quite fun, in their own way, but I'm quite happy with my life. The characters can escape the page because my novel involves a really great rock band, and I'd love to hear what those songs sound like. I'd rather be friends with my characters, flaws and all, than bethem.

Would you rather write without using punctuation and capitalization or without using words that contained the letter E?

I could get used to no punctuation or capitalization, but it would annoy me to think of the right word and not be able to use it because it has an E. Isn't E the most common letter in the English language?

Would you rather have schools teach your book or ban your book?

Banned books do get a lot of press, but I'd rather it be taught. Infinite Disposable is ripe for all sorts of school projects — flash fiction workshops, using photography, theme, ideas on how we perceive life. I'd enjoy knowing that somewhere out there that a teenager was thinking about these things and also perhaps being saved from reading The Scarlet Letter.

The novel, whenever it gets out into the world, wouldn't be taught in high schools. Too much swearing with a splash of drug use.

Would you rather be forced to listen to Ayn Rand bloviate for an hour or be hit on by an angry Dylan Thomas?

Bring on Dylan Thomas. I think I might find him amusing.

Would you rather be reduced to speaking only in haiku or be capable of only writing in haiku?

Hell, my brain hiccups enough with the whole of the English language at my disposal, and speaking in haiku would further complicate that. Plus, it'd drive everyone nuts. Bring on the writing challenge, once more.

Would you rather be stuck on an island with only the 50 Shades Series or a series in a language you couldn’t read?

I would rather have a series in a language I couldn't read because if I'm stuck there, I'm going to need something to do, and I think I'd figure it out eventually.

Would you rather critics rip your book apart publicly or never talk about it at all?

They don't have to talk about it. Critics are one thing, readers are another. As long as people are reading it, and I'm happy with my work, that's fine.

Would you rather have everything you think automatically appear on your Twitter feed or have a voice in your head narrate your every move?

Twitter does not need more of my rambling bullshit! Plus, I'd get myself in trouble, somehow, I'm sure. A voice in my head would be much more preferable.

Would you rather give up your computer or pens and paper?

A computer entirely or just for writing? If it's just for writing, I'd rather give up the computer. I could always hire someone to transcribe for me, and sometimes I do better thinking on a pen and paper anyway.

But if you're taking away my internet too, then I will cry about it and hand you my many notebooks. And then cry some more. Hardly anyone would know anything about me without the internet, and I'd lose friendships with so many people.

Would you rather write an entire novel standing on your tippy-toes or laying down flat on your back?

I've got both chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia, so I'm pretty sure it'd be near impossible for me to do tippy-toes — unless I was only writing a couple sentences per day. Give me a nice lie down instead.

Would you rather read naked in front of a packed room or have no one show up to your reading?

I'll read to just the staff of the bookstore, if need be. It's fine. The nakedness resistance is part embarrassment, yes, but also, that sounds chilly.

Would you rather read a book that is written poorly but has an excellent story, or read one with weak content but is written well? 

Give me a compelling story! I can look past poor writing if I am really into what is happening. Good writing is of course fantastic to have, but you need to be saying something with all those pretty, pretty words.

And here's Sara's response to the question that was asked of her by Jessica Anya Blau last week:

Would you rather write a bestseller anonymously, or a moderate-seller under your name. (And no one can ever find out that you wrote the bestseller!)

Hmm... if "bestseller" translated into financial stability for my family and it wasn't the only book I'd ever write, that would be fine with me. Artists' kids aren't exactly going to be rolling in the college tuition dough, and there are also other projects the Mister and I would like to do that would be assisted by extra cashmoneyz, so I would be fine with anonymity in this particular instance in order to make those other things work. It's not all about me!

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Check back next week to see what Kelly Davio would rather

and see her answer to Sara's question:

Would you rather have to give a reading about the worst thing you ever did (with your parents in attendance), 
or would you experience that worst moment all over again?

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Sara Habein is the author of Infinite Disposable, a staff writer for Persephone Magazine, and book reviewer at GlorifiedLove Letters. Her work has appeared in Little Fiction, The Rumpus, and Pajiba, among other venues. She is the editor for Electric City Creative, an arts promotion organization based out of Great Falls, Montana.