Carissa Halston's Blog, page 2

Stewardess sighting in Boston

We’re at Boston’s Japan Festival, where Japan Airlines had flight attendant and captain cosplay. Just in time for “Emergency Exit.” I couldn’t resist. ❤️

A photo posted by Carissa Halston (@carissahalston) on Apr 24, 2016 at 1:32pm PDT

Cover art for “Emergency Exit”

My story about a compulsive Stewardess is almost here! She drops next week, but you can have an early peek at her cover:

So grateful to be in such good hands with the crew at MR. The book will be available via Kindle and Kobo by this time next week, so keep your eyes peeled for the link!

See me at UMass Boston, OBERON, & Mass Poetry Fest this month!

If you’re in Boston, you’ve got three chances to see me this month. First, on April 14 at 11am at University of Massachusetts Boston for a Creative Writing/Professional Writing panel alongside Christopher Janke, Jon Mael, and Michele McPhee. We’ll be talking about writing and working as writers, and there’ll be a Q&A, so come ask us questions!

Obehi Janice in WGD (Company One)

Then I’ll be performing on Tuesday, Apr 26 at OBERON as part of a post-show event for Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die (starring Obehi Janice!). Music, theatre, storytelling—basically, my favorite things. And Obehi is not to be missed, so I hope to see you there!

And finally, on Saturday, April 30, I’ll be a panelist during the The Massachusetts Poetry Festival for an event featuring small press editors. Liz Kay and Jen Lambert from Spark Wheel Press, and Enzo Silon Surin from Central Square Press will also speaking with Randolph and me, so there’s going to be a wealth of experience at the table. Swing by the Peabody Essex Museum at noon on 4/30 to hear us talk about publishing poetry. And if you’re going to be at the festival but can’t make the panel, I’ll be at the Small Press Fair for the rest of the day (11am-5pm)! Stop by and check out the latest issue of apt, dedicated entirely to long poems!

AWP recap + “Emergency Exit” published this month

Still bouncing back after AWP, but I had a great time in LA. So many things happened that made me grateful to be there, not least of which being that it’s always lovely meeting apt contributors in real life (this year, I met Kendra Fortmeyer, who is such a sweetheart), plus talking in person with writers and editors I’d only spoken to online (Cal Morgan, Jamie Mortara, Ray Shea, Kelly Luce), meeting new writers and hearing about their novels and comics and poems (Erin Judge, Mel Wells, Emily Carr), and seeing so many friends who are often quite far away (too many friends to name, but special thanks to Simeon Berry, who I see all the time, but who still accompanied me to Santa Monica and didn’t even get slightly miffed when we got stranded there, even though it was totally my fault—Sim, you’re a genuine trouper).

The guy who drove us to Santa Monica was hilarious. Once he found out we were writers, he said, “Yeah? Like what? Scripts? TV shows? Treatments?”

“No, no,” Sim said. “We’re literary.”

“Oh yeah? Like Hemingway when he was broke?”

“Carissa does some of that. And I write poetry, which has even less value.”

NB: Sim loves writing poems and does it very, very well. He also loves self-deprecation.

The driver wanted to hear about what I wrote, because “Everybody says they want novels. But nobody wants novels! Novels are too long! Filmmakers want short stories and novellas!” (Honest. This man truly said that.)

So, I told him about “Hacking and Packing,” and it reminded him of The Machinist, which Sim hadn’t seen, so I was explaining that it’s not really clear how reliable anything is in the film, but the stakes are high because of the plot, e.g., “There’s this kid who has a seizure and he starts foaming at the mouth,” which was when the driver said, “That happens in your story?”

“No. That happens in The Machinist.”

“I don’t want to hear about that! I’ve already seen it! I want to hear about your stuff!”

I was equally charmed and totally thrown off my his demands, so I told him about “Emergency Exit,” which is about a flight attendant who has sex with passengers while she’s at work (i.e., while the plane’s in the air). She does it because she’s trying to stop comparing herself to her coworker—and here’s where he stops me.

“That sounds great! I can see that! Like somebody takes a selfie for a souvenir, and then the jealous husband finds out, and then the jealous husband shows up on the plane, and then everybody gets in on the act! And there’s got to be some lesbian stuff.”

“Oh, I’ve got that covered. There’s plenty of lesbian stuff.”

Lesbian stuff. If I were said to have a brand, that might be it.

Speaking of “Emergency Exit,” I’m thrilled to say it’s due out from Working Titles this month! I got to spend some time with Emily Wojcik-Thurston, MR’s Managing Editor, at AWP, and she was super excited so I got super excited all over again. Cover art coming very soon. Keep your eyes peeled.

 

The State of the Union

An hour before I broke my leg, Randolph told me to wear boots. The snow had come and gone two days prior, but Baltimore isn’t particularly keen on cleaning its sidewalks. He and I had learned, over and over that winter, each time we’d tried to go running after a storm, that Baltimore will plow and salt its streets and leave its sidewalks to wither under ice.

But the morning of my fall, the sun was out, and by the time I was showered and dressed, I’d forgotten the snow and slipped into a pair of clogs and out the door. I ran down the two flights of stairs that I’d been wary of when we first moved in—steep, narrow, with a handrail nominally screwed to holes in the wall. But it didn’t matter then because I didn’t touch the railing. I’d taught myself not to. Besides that, my hands were full with the bags I carried each day for balance—I always split my books and everything else into two bags to keep myself level. Otherwise, I ran the risk of falling during my commute. A mile from my door to Penn Station, where I’d take the MARC to New Carrollton, then wait twenty minutes in the station for a bus to take me directly to campus. Two hours, all told. But first, I had to start with the walk down Charles Street. And before that, I had to leave Maryland Avenue, a near impossibility once I saw the sidewalks.

I lived in New England for seven years before moving to Maryland for grad school. I was missing their historic winter as I stared at the islands of ice claiming wide swaths of the sidewalk—Boston would break its record for the most snowfall in a single month. They didn’t know where to go with it. They didn’t know how to unbury themselves. But I wasn’t in New England then. There hadn’t even been six inches of snow in Baltimore. But there it was still, frozen overnight, frozen over two nights: fields of compacted snow turned into ice all over the sidewalks.

I hesitated and thought only once of going back. I told myself I’d miss my train. I was so rarely early. The ice would slow me down, but if I pressed on, I’d be on time. So I went, and still, it proved too slow for me, so I literally took to the street. It was clean and dry and easy to navigate. I stuck to the edge, avoiding cars, and made good time to North Avenue. I stayed in the street another block. On Charles and Lafeyette, I was faced with a bus that had stopped at the intersection. No space for me to slip between its side and the curb—I had to go back to the sidewalk. I was there for two steps, maybe three. Had I looked up, I could’ve seen the bridge—the one over the tracks that led to Penn Station, the train I’d never ride again—but I was looking down, looking to avoid the ice, which was easy to spot without salt. The rest of the sidewalk looked like it had survived, at the very worst, a light rain.

What happened to me didn’t happen slow. Other injuries have. Other falls I’ve taken. Other paths to scars. I’ve seen time unhinge. In those moments, time opens itself, bleeds awareness freely. You are about to be hurt. You will remember this: your last moment before the pain. But first, you will hover in the instant when you see your injury born. You will watch each step taking you closer to injury. You will see between rocks and hard places. You will see the pedal snap before you feel your body lurch, as your bicycle crumbles beneath you. You will see the wall plowing toward you in the rain, as you squirm in the passenger seat of your father’s car, and even though you don’t drive, you will stamp your foot repeatedly against a phantom brake. You will see your hand thrown out like an underwater wave, to catch your scrawny fifth-grade body, propelled by a rollerskating mishap that will lead to your first two broken bones.

Time had, so often, given me access to the moments between who I was and who I’d become, had slowed and spread and nearly stopped the seemingly immeasurable moments during. But for my leg, time had no time for me. I was in the air, then on the ground, and it happened quicker than I could scream, so quick I couldn’t do anything but watch. That’s how my leg broke—twisted and split in two places, when I tried to land on my heel, my shin moved in a way bones can’t—I knew before I was told it was broken. I still see it. Nights when I can’t sleep. Days when I stumble or nearly fall. I see it again, my shin bending. I always make an involuntary fist.

I can’t help worrying that I’ll never get back to the person I was before, the person who can step onto a curb without thinking about it ten steps early, the person who can run and jump and land and not worry about potentially slipping, the person who walked ten miles each week, who jogged three miles besides, who took steps two at a time, who could walk and talk and laugh and get worked up without getting winded.

I’m worried about the person I am now, a person in chronic pain, a person with metal threaded through her bone, the tip of which protrudes from my knee—only when it’s bent does it tent the skin under my patella, but there are times when it hurts when I’m lying down. Worse than the pain though is wondering whether this is part of the healing process or part of some larger system of discomfort I’ll have to learn to endure. Either way, I won’t get it checked because I honestly can’t afford it.

When I fell, I’d bought insurance through school. Now, I have insurance through the state, which we pay hundreds of dollars for every month, but only to be the luxury it is: insurance. A back-up plan. A thing not to be used unless there’s an emergency. And my daily pain isn’t urgent.

Still, I’m worried that my refusal to see a doctor is dumb. That it’s something a dumb person would do, to wait out an injury until it proves “serious.” What does serious mean in this case? More than my body can handle? Dumber still, I sometimes think my pain is time’s means of telling me the injury is ongoing. Time couldn’t slow down my fall or that day because I’d see it again. The injury wasn’t just the fall, but it’s also my mind healing around the hurt. And every day until I’m healed will still feel slow and deliberate, even though the surgeon who opened my knee had praised the rate of my healing. Even though she told me, five months after she put two screws in my leg and three in my ankle, that spiral fractures can’t be called non-unions until nine months after surgery. Even though, the day she told me, she said neither break was even visible on an X-ray. Even though I made jokes about feeling like Wolverine, my leg was still broken.

Right now, I’m putting off putting on running clothes, and going outside to get it done. That’s what running and walking is now—a job I may never be good at, a thing I’m punished for doing either way. Do it and you’ll feel weak. Don’t do it and you’ll never be strong.

Today marks nine months since the day I broke my leg. Tomorrow, nine months since my surgery. After tomorrow, it’s officially a union, or so I’ve been led to believe. I can’t know and won’t until the pain eventually subsides. From here, the next milestone is February—a year since my fall—and after that, I hope, the luxury to lose track.

Honorably mentioned for the Schiff Award + “Call It a Map” in print!

Received some lovely news from The Cincinnati Review yesterday: my story, “The Exact Same Prize,” was honorably mentioned for The Robert and Adele Schiff Award! Can’t wait to see the issue and read the winning story: Robert Long Foreman’s “Awe,” which “features a documentarian who, adrift after a project gone tragically wrong, has quit his profession and is seeking…well, is seeking renewed access to the sublime, to awe. His bizarre stratagem is to arrange through Craigslist to watch a woman give birth. In Foreman’s nimble hands, Bill’s alternately comic and poignant (mis)adventures with the couple who agree to allow this make for a delightfully askew, surprisingly emotional story.”

In other good news, I was overjoyed to get this beauty in the mail on Monday–felt very lucky to have worked with the crew at Willow Springs to bring this story into the world. (You can read “Call It a Map” at Willow Springs, and if you want, buy your very own print copy!)

Honorably mentioned for the Schiff Award + “Call it a Map” in print!

Received some lovely news from The Cincinnati Review yesterday: my story, “The Exact Same Prize,” was honorably mentioned for The Robert and Adele Schiff Award! Can’t wait to see the issue and read the winning story: Robert Long Foreman’s “Awe,” which “features a documentarian who, adrift after a project gone tragically wrong, has quit his profession and is seeking…well, is seeking renewed access to the sublime, to awe. His bizarre stratagem is to arrange through Craigslist to watch a woman give birth. In Foreman’s nimble hands, Bill’s alternately comic and poignant (mis)adventures with the couple who agree to allow this make for a delightfully askew, surprisingly emotional story.”

In other good news, I was overjoyed to get this beauty in the mail on Monday–felt very lucky to have worked with the crew at Willow Springs to bring this story into the world. (You can read “Call It a Map” here, and if you want to buy your very own copy, you can order it here!)

“Emergency Exit” forthcoming in Working Titles

Since I’ve been writing long stories (as a break from working on my long novel), I was happy to learn earlier this year that The Massachusetts Review would soon be publishing longer fiction as stand-alone ebooks via a platform called Working Titles.

Last week, I was happier still to find out that my story “Emergency Exit” will be among the first group to be published. The story follows a flight attendant attempting to gain some control over her life, and the [un]professional acts she resorts to in order to maintain the upper hand. I’m so excited to have placed it with The Mass Review. I can’t wait to see it live.

“Call It a Map,” online at Willow Springs

I’m thrilled to have work in the latest issue of Willow Springs. They’ve published so many writers whose work I admire–Andrea Barrett, J. Robert Lennon, Lydia Millet–so I’m honored that they chose my story, “Call It a Map,” as this year’s recipient of the Willow Springs Fiction Prize.

You can read the full story here.

And there’s an accompanying interview here.

And if you want to order a copy of issue 76, you can do so here (ordering the issue is swell for a couple of reasons: 1/they do great work and your order would support future issues, and 2/literary journals introduce you to writers you may not have heard of before).

Winner of the Willow Springs Fiction Prize

I’m honored to say that my long story, “Call It a Map,” has been chosen for the 2015 Willow Springs Fiction Prize!

I’ll have more information soon, but for now, I’m basking in the glow of the official announcement, and reeling over the idea that I’ll have work alongside so many writers whose work I admire.