Alli Marshall's Blog, page 13

Happy birthday Wilma Dykeman!

Wilma Dykeman was born in the Beaverdam Community (now part of Asheville) on May 20, 1920. In her writing, she explored the people and land of Appalachia. Her 18 books included The Tall Woman (1962), The Far Family (1966), and Return the Innocent Earth (1973). In her first book, The French Broad (1955), she “made the first full-fledged economic argument against water pollution (seven years before Rachel Carson),” according to wilmadykemanlegacy.org.

Dykeman sitting on the Clifton Heights balcony, early 1960s

 

“Sometimes it seemed that work was the only certainty, the only lasting truth in a human world of fitful change. Work and the mountains remained.” — Wilma Dykeman

Filed under: inspiration, writer quotes

Indie 500 flash fiction contest!

In case you hadn’t heard, Mountain Xpress has brought back its Indie 500 flash fiction contest. Submissions are open through Tuesday, May 31. For details and to enter a 500 word story, click here or scroll down.

All writers are invited to submit a Western North Carolina-set story of up to 500 words. Prizes include $50 plus publication for 1st place and publication plus bragging rights for two runners up.

The final judges are Katey Schultz and Jake Bible.

Katey is the author of Flashes of War. A graduate of the Pacific University MFA in Writing program and recipient of the Linda Flowers Literary Award from the North Carolina Humanities Council, Katey teaches workshops, mentors via correspondence, freelances and travels for her work. She lives in Celo. Learn more at kateyschultz.com.

Jake is the author of the bestselling Z-Burbia series set in Asheville, NC, the bestselling Salvage Merc One, the Apex Trilogy (DEAD MECH, The Americans, Metal and Ash) and the Mega series for Severed Press, as well as the YA zombie novel, Little Dead Man, the Teen horror novel, Intentional Haunting, the middle grade scifi/horror ScareScapes series, and the Reign of Four series, which he calls “medieval space fiction,” for Permuted Press. He’s a Bram Stoker Award nominated-novelist, short story writer, independent screenwriter, podcaster, and inventor of the Drabble Novel. Learn more at jakebible.com.

The rules:

• This contest is for works of fiction only. Poetry and essays are not accepted.

• Works must not exceed 500 words (title not included).

• Works must be set at least in part in Western North Carolina — and clearly identified as such.

• Entries must be received by 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, May 31.

• Writers may enter as many stories as they like. A $5 fee per entry will be collected for each entry.

• This contest is not open to Xpress employees or their family members.

• Your attachment (as a Word Doc, DocX, or Rich Text file) must NOT contain your name or any identifying information.

Important dates:

• Contest runs Monday, May 2, though Tuesday, May 31

• Deadline for submissions is 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, May 31

• The winners will be announced in the July 27 issue of Xpress and online at mountainx.com

• Winning stories will be published in the August 24 and 31 issues of Xpress

Prizes include $50 plus publication for 1st place, and publication plus bragging rights for two runners up. Enter here.

Filed under: contest, creativity, fiction, flash fiction, Uncategorized

How to Talk to Rockstars turns 1!

Time flies. This time just a year ago How to Talk to Rockstars was making its debut.

Celebratory cookies were eaten, wine was imbibed, books were signed, and a tour was launched. I’m so glad that I got to share the journey with all of you and, since we can’t get together for an anniversary cupcake, I’ve decided to hold a giveaway.

All you need to do to win a copy of How to Talk to Rockstars is name your favorite rockstar, either in the comments field of this blogpost or on my Facebook page.

Two winners will be selected at random on Monday, May 30.

Filed under: contest, giveaway, How to Talk to Rockstars, Uncategorized

The shape of the hole you leave

Earlier this week I wrote about the farewell show of stephaniesid, a local band I’ve loved for more than a decade. You can read the full story here. I’m very passionate about local art, though, and I wanted to share some of my feelings about the connection between the musicians and fans on the Asheville music scene. Here’s a bit of that:

Photo by Michael Oppenheim Photography

To those who had been listening — remember stephaniesid classing up Bele Chere on the Battery Park stage? Launching Downtown After 5 during a warm spring rain? Workshopping an album’s worth of music during a monthlong residency at Isis Restaurant & Music Hall? — there was raw edge. The sound filled the auditorium, Tim Haney’s drum kit propelled each song forward, Chuck Lichtenberger’s piano was mostly lovely and occasionally wild. Vocalist Stephanie Morgan (who has always explored the capabilities of her voice, cajoled it like an untamed horse, with its danger and might equal to its grace and beauty) danced her way through each song, shaking the lyrics from out of her own being.

Because I can’t be objective — I love these musicians and want to cheer for them as much as I want to weep for them (read their personal blogs and Facebook posts if you want to know the story behind the band’s breakup) — I’ll say this: I wonder what shape hole the absence of stephaniesid will leave in the fabric of Asheville.

Not everyone will feel it. And no band is responsible for forever composing the soundtrack to the town that birthed it. Asheville is a launching pad for those who dare to dream and try and leap; those who leap must make that jump count. So Steph and Chuck and Tim are in mid-leap now. Those of us at Diana Wortham got to see them unfurl their wings and take to the air. I suspect everyone in the crowd felt the liftoff, our own hearts jarred and swayed in that break with gravity.

… Here’s the thing: We Asheville music fans have a special relationship with our bands. They’re our neighbors, our friends, our collaborators. We come to know them and we’re (knowingly or unknowingly) contributors to their sound. We move around, swimming in the same stream of inspiration. We share a language. We touch those who touch us. These songs aren’t just markers of a place in time, they actually tell us something about ourselves. So to love a band in Asheville really means something, because that love comes back to us. And to participate in that chain reaction, to feed art and be fed by it, is a miraculous thing.

Filed under: creativity, Music

Good advice

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
— E.M. Forster

Filed under: inspiration, writer quotes

Sometimes it snows in April

I can’t remember the exact reason my cousin Andy quit speaking to me — it was twenty-eight years ago — but it had to do with Prince. I vaguely remember the argument. We were in front of the lockers before band class and we disagreed about some finer point of the musician’s genius. We both liked Prince. It was 1987 and really, who didn’t. But Andy, who was a dedicated musician when I was on the verge of quitting band, liked Prince more.

Prince came to me through my sister. She was nearly three years younger and usually I discovered music first, but she discovered Prince. She told me his real name was Prince Rogers Nelson. She learned everything she could about Minneapolis. She talked about going to college there. She bought the soundtrack to Under the Cherry Moon. My sister probably had other Prince albums, but that’s the one we listened to most together.

The film itself wasn’t so great. I remember it as weird and hard to follow. This is the Wikipedia entry: “Under the Cherry Moon is a 1986 American musical drama film directed by and starring Prince in his directorial debut. The film co-stars former The Time member Jerome Benton, Kristin Scott Thomas (in her feature film debut), and Steven Berkoff. The film was a critical and commercial failure, winning five Golden Raspberry Awards, including Worst Picture, tying with Howard the Duck.”

Movie poster image

I kind of like it that Prince tried something that flopped — it means he wasn’t afraid to take a risk, especially early in his career when expectations were high. This was decades before the rumor of a secret vault somewhere containing tens of thousands of unrecorded Prince songs, the untapped potential for brilliance outweighing the possibility of professional disaster.

The music of Under the Cherry Moon was strange — a strange fit for the film and odd in and of itself. Not dance songs like 1999, not theatrical drama like Purple Rain. The songs were poetic and moody, shot through with sadness and a palpable chill. The soft pink of spring blossoms mingled with late-season snow flakes. There were characters who drifted in and out of the songs, dreamlike, though these were dreams that woke to tear-dampened pillows. Who was Christopher Tracy? He haunted the record, though we only caught glimpses of him. Prince shared his secret and kept it at the same time. Really, that’s how he lived his life, an orchestrated slight of hand. A hide and seek disguised as a public spectacle.

I thought right away — right after I thought of my sister and my cousin Andy and wondered how they took the news of Prince’s death, how their teenage selves mourned — of the prophetic lyrics of “Sometimes it Snows in April.” I’m not the only one. “Sometimes it snows in April / Sometimes I feel so bad, so bad / Sometimes I wish life was never ending / And all good things, they say, never last,” he sang. But it wasn’t a prediction. Anyone who’s lived in the snow belt knows the particular melancholy of April snow.

Lyric are poems, metaphoric and encapsulating of a moment or an emotion. Albums are a record of a time or an idea. But if there is a lyric from Under the Cherry Moon to look to for meaning, I’d say it’s the start of the title track: “How can I stand to stay where I am? / Poor butterfly who don’t understand / Why can’t I fly away in a special sky?”

Because isn’t that the human condition? The simple, unanswerable why of being — the loveliness entangled with the agony?

Under the Cherry Moon was not Prince’s most popular album. It didn’t have a hit. But it was art for art’s sake, a private world meant to be shared. It’s the album I listened to most, the album that most reminds me of my sister, and who we were when we were still becoming us.

Filed under: creativity, memoir, Music

Bless Beatrix

Filed under: Books, fiction, inspiration, writer quotes

Music is the muse

A review of Eleven Dialogues from jazz trio Up Jumped Three, originally published at mountainx.com.

Those who know bassist Bryan White know he’s a dedicated runner and coffee drinker. So it’s fitting that Eleven Dialogues, the newest release from jazz trio Up Jumped Three, leads with the track “Espresso (Evening).” It opens with a moody run of strings. The double bass is a low grumble and yet its deep timbre is more purr than growl, its lithe skip and shuffle a complex poetry.

That rhythmic voice also serves as a platform for Tim Winter’s guitar and Frank Southecorvo’s saxophone. And while the instrumental compositions of those three seasoned players are an intricate dance of textures and perspectives, there’s also a smoothness of vibe — an underlying warmth and polish that allows the listener to relax into the groove before returning to the headier melodic conversation. That conversation is the centerpiece, though — hence the 11-track album’s name.

Jazz is having a moment in Asheville, but free jazz can be among the more challenging iterations of the genre. It’s not mere background music. But Up Jumped Three rounds the sharper edges and tempers exploration with sonic ease. On “Zlateh’s Dream,” the guitar takes flights of fancy and the entire track burbles with a kind of Friday night anticipation. It glows and cavorts. The bass is a stylized amble; the saxophone and guitar meet and part and meet again, playing in friendly tandem.

“Not Forgotten (For Charlie Haden)” is a diaphanous dream. The guitar sweeps and dips, its lilt hinting at salt breezes and aquamarine waves. The saxophone is a breathless rasp in one moment and then a supple keen in the next. Not quite a mimic of the human voice as a clarinet or violin might be, Southecorvo’s instrument still draws melodic inspiration from birdsong and water. White’s bass solo in that song, a muscular exertion, expands into white space. The musician’s own respiration is heard like a counter-rhythm for just a moment — another texture in the recording.

“Baudrillard,” fleet and adrenaline-charged, feels utterly contemporary until the saxophone and guitar part ways. Then, like two dance partners taking simultaneous solos, they explore their various tones. The saxophone is sonorous and bright, the guitar resonate and vintage-tinged.

Each song is an audible dance, an endless variety of duets and triplets and solos. Sometimes the instruments augment each other’s parts, sometimes they flit and jab simultaneously into the spotlight. But there’s a balance that’s always maintained and, for all the flourish and high-wire drama, this is an ensemble free of showboating tendencies. Every run and trill feels as necessary as the weighted thumps and the stabilizing rhythm parts.

There’s a lush, unhurried mood to “In the Early Morning,” one of three live recordings on Eleven Dialogues. The conversation drifts like smoke across a boozy evening or — more likely, considering the song title — mist rising from a pond at day break. The saxophone sighs, its upper register wistful as the guitar provides soft ballast.

The album ends, aptly, with “The Setting Sun.” The thoughtful composition lives in the space between dusky melancholy and late-night enchantment. While the conversations between the instruments are active and cerebral, moods wash through the music so that it’s felt emotionally as well as intellectually. And perhaps that’s the greatest achievement of Up Jumped Three’s fantastic collection. But the dialogue theme also offers an open invitation to the listener to engage with the music; to enter into each song and add to the story as it unfolds.

Filed under: creativity, inspiration, Music, review

The best magic

Filed under: Books, inspiration, writer quotes

Short story award!

I’m so delighted to share that my short story, “Catching Out,” won the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize. The final judge was Ron Rash — I actually entered the contest (and agonized over my story) in hopes that it would make it far enough along in the contest to be read by him. For that reason, this award means so much to me.

I’m also excited to share this story. It’s about a college registrar who fantasizes about riding the rails and was inspired, in part, by a woman I saw at the gym. It will be published in The Thomas Wolfe Review in late autumn.

Read the press release from the North Carolina Writers’ Network here.

Photo by Michael Ranta from Vice

Filed under: contest, fiction, short story