short fiction

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Pearl #38 – I Hate The French

January 3, 2008 in pearl literary zine, short fiction, writing | 11 comments

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So I’m (finally) officially published.  Yea!  This piece I Hate The French is the first piece I ever submitted (in July of 2006 – why oh why does this stuff take so long!) and it is truly wonderful to see my words in print that doesn’t belong to my home computer. 

It IS a pretty great start to the new year.  Let’s hope there is much more of this to come.  In case you are intersted in supporting a great literary magazine, and of course reading the first stepping stone on what I’m sure will be the wild unabashed success of yours truly (of course, right?), then go here: Pearl #38 and click on order to buy thousands of issues… :)

Short Fiction Rejection #6

January 3, 2008 in mcsweeney's, short fiction, short fiction rejections, writing | 4 comments

Ah, sigh.  McSweeneys.

How I love thee.  How thou does not yet love me.

I got my rejection today from McSweeney’s for a story I submitted months and months ago, so I knew it was a no, but it was good to have the final word, if only so I can send that story back out.  It is one of my favorites, but I can see why it might not quite be a fit for my beloved McSweeney’s.  But it’s okay, I’ve been working on (in my mind only) another little story that might be great for McSweeny’s…just have to sit down and put pen to paper, or fingertips to keys…whatever. 

I have to say, one nice thing about a McSweeney’s rejection…it comes on an awesome little postcard (in my SASE of course so nobody can see my shame).  It was also fairly encouraging for a rejection letter.  I suppose I should have expected no less from them.

Okay, so the official count is now:  1 for 7

And that’s all that have gone out…I’m preparing a new group though.  Let’s hope these are more potent (or lucky).

#49. Loneliness is Lonely

December 24, 2007 in book reviews, books, entertainment, short fiction | Permalink

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#49.  The Loneliness Of The Long-Distance Runner.  Alan Sillitoe.  Short Fiction Collection.   3.0 Stars

First of all, can I just say, best freaking title ever.  The cover is pretty awesome as well (the one above is pretty great, but not near as great as the version I was reading, I think it was the verison printed in 1987, which I cannot seem to find online).  The two (cover and title) together was deadly for me in my “system for picking books” and then this first sentence:  “As soon as I got to Borstal they made me a long-distance cross-country runner.” totally put me over the edge.  

I love that sentence, I suppose it doesn’t look like much, but the simplicity and matter of factness of it, I just love it.  So considering all of these things, and the fact that I already have romantic ideas about long-distance running anyway, I had my expectations up pretty high.  I think that is one of the reasons I was ultimately let down.  Additionally this book was loaned to me by Adam and I for some reason assumed it was a novel, but it is actually a collection of short fiction, which initially upset me, however this turned out to be for the best, because I really liked some of Sillitoe’s pieces, but fundamentally I found the title piece (Loneliness) to be pretty repetative and frustrating, and I was excited when it was time to move on to the next story.  

I found Uncle Ernest, Mr. Raynor The School Teacher, and On Saturday Afternoon to all be quite good, and The Fishing Boat Picture to be heartbreakingly good.  The Decline and Fall of Frankie Buller and The Disgrace of Jim Scarfedale were good and had great titles (Sillitoe has a way with titles I must say), but left me a little wanting.  The Match, Noah’s Ark, and Loneliness I found pretty greatly wanting, but I suppose only Loneliness really let me down because I had just wanted so much to love it. 

I often dream I’m a runner.  Not that I am running, but that I AM A RUNNER.  Like a great one.  Like it is what I was born to do.  They are incredibly freeing and wonderful dreams.  However, the universe definitely put me in the wrong body for that…so either the universe likes a joke…or it’s just mean (probably the latter), because I will never be a runner, not in this body…even at a drastically different weight, I’m just not built for it.  I suppose it’s not Sillitoe’s fault that I wanted his Loneliness And The Long-Distance Runner to fulfill some deep seeded running void that I will never be able to fulfill, but I’m damned if I could keep it from affecting how I ended up feeling about the title piece and in the end the collection overall. 

However, even with my lost hopes and dreamlike runner expectations being shattered, the writing was still creative and interesting, and for its time it was particularly beautiful and probably aggressively new I guess, which is pretty impressive.  The theme throughout the book was a very obvious Loneliness – more obvious in some stories than in others – and it was a haunting and sad read.  Maybe it just wasn’t the right time to be trying to read this book…while the world around me is trying extra hard to be happy and joyous and filled with anything other than loneliness, but I had thought maybe that would make it the perfect time…

3 Stars.

#40 Rosie Little’s Cautionary Tales for Girls

November 19, 2007 in book reviews, books, short fiction | Permalink

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#40.  Rosie Little’s Cautionary Tales For Girls.  By Danielle Wood.  Short Fiction.  3.5 Stars

I enjoyed this collection.  It’s a beautiful little book, the shape and feeling of some of the awesome McSweeney’s imprints, although not quite with the same detail as McSweeney’s.  I liked the idea behind this book, some stories are told first person, from the perspective of Rosie Little and others are told third person and are mostly women somehow connected to Rosie (although that is not always directly indicated, but rather just subtley implied).  Each story is separated by word chapters such as Virginity, Love, Trust, Beauty, etc.  I found most of the stories to be well written and at least somewhat powerful and I admit to crying a bit on the Love chapter, which tells me it was at least very powerful for me. 

Like I find in all collections, this collection a bit uneven with some truly powerful stuff and some ho-hum stuff.  Regardless I enjoyed every cautionary tale and liked that I felt transported to a slightly different/fantastical world than ours, though not too far that I felt lost.  My one real complaint, other than the previously mentioned uneven-ness is that each short piece has an excerpt wedged into the middle called “Notes From Rosie” and that basically acts as a little aside to something going on in the story.  These were sometimes lovely, but overall I found them distracting.  And when they weren’t brilliant, but just so-so inserts I found myself a bit annoyed.  I appreciate what Wood was going for and it was a unique and interesting idea, but for me it just wasn’t quite successful.

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