Jason Rodriguez's Blog, page 9

Promo flyer for TRY LOOKING AHEAD, to be distributed at this...

Promo flyer for TRY LOOKING AHEAD, to be distributed at this weekend’s ECBACC.

A reminder for the afternoon crew/west coasters. My new web...

A reminder for the afternoon crew/west coasters. My new web anthology,TALES FROM THE FOREVER HOME, is live today. Issue #1 features five stories of animal adoption. This week’s stories (as well as all stories going forward) focus on what happens after the adoption papers are signed, how the pets’ lives are improved, and the impact the pets have on their owners. 

I’m editing and curating this anthology to hopefully make it the kind of place that dispels some of the myths surrounding shelter and rescue dogs and encourages folks to consider adoption before going to a breeder (or follow one of those terrible “PUPPIES!” signs you see on highways). I want it to eventually be a resource for potential adopters and rescue organizations and shelters, a place that they can point to and say, “There’s nothing more satisfying than giving an animal another shot at a fantastic life.”

So please go check it out. Like it, follow it, share it, and submit your own stories. I hope to hear from you!

Tales From the Forever Home #1

talesfromtheforeverhome:

Welcome to the first issue of TALES FROM THE FOREVER HOME, an online anthology featuring real stories of pet rescue and adoption. My name is Jason Rodriguez and I’ll be your host here. Let me introduce you to today’s stories and then I’ll show you around a bit.

So, we have five wonderful stories this week:

1) First we got a story about Duke (aka Big D), the Great Dane that learned to trust people and, in turn, taught Libby Dufour a thing or two or ten about patience.

2) Next up, Jon Wye tells a story about Fred, his sidekick, wingman, best friend, and occasional competitor for alpha-dog status.

3) Then there’s Robin Castoldi and her story about Lucy, the foster she nursed back to health and, afterwards, couldn’t bring herself to adopt out.

4) Elizabeth Rodriguez tells the story of Charley, the mutt that she nursed back to health while training to be a nurse.

5) Finally, I tell the story about Becky - my pint-sized muse for eight years who turned me into a dog person, an animal person, and just an all around better person.

Now, as for the site, the first thing you should be asking yourself is, “Why does this website exist?” Short answer: Because I wanted to have a website that focused specifically on stories that begin after the adoption process ends and, most importantly, how the pet adoption experience had a positive impact on both the pet and the pet owner. I feel this website can be a resource for potential pet adopters as well as rescue and adoption agencies to get over some of the myths that are sometimes associated with pet adoption. Long answer? You can find that in the About section of this webpage.

Now that you know what we’re about you undoubtedly want to know if you can contribute. Of course you can! We want to publish your stories about your experiences adopting a pet. We don’t care if you’re a professional writer or not - I will work with you to shape your story so that it’s the tale you want to tell and help you make it something that’s inspiring and heartwarming. For more information on how to submit your story, please visit our submissions page.

And now that you know what we’re about and you’ve read this week’s stories you undoubtedly want some suggestions on where you can adopt your own animal. Well, we have a featured rescue page you can check out but, at the moment, it’s light on rescues. If you have a rescue or shelter you’d like us to feature, please send us a link and a short blurb about the place. 

That’s all for now! Through the week we’ll be posting up little bits here and there and every Monday (pending submissions, of course), we’ll be posting up a new issue with new stories. Hope you all enjoy!

And don’t forget  to  follow this blog on Tumblr or Facebook to get new stories as they’re posted!

Sometimes you find yourself writing a short piece where the ghost of Rod Serling tells a future...

Sometimes you find yourself writing a short piece where the ghost of Rod Serling tells a future version of you (who’s now living in the present) all about Bill Gaines, Fredric Wertham, and an old EC Comics story called “Judgement Day” as a framing device for a story about the fifty-five year relationship between a transgendered astronomer and her father, which is the final and titular story from your Twilight Zone-inspired collection of young adult targeted sci-fi short stories entitled TRY LOOKING AHEAD, coming out in September from Rosarium Publishing.

I guess this is an announcement?

TALES FROM THE FOREVER HOME is looking for your stories!

TALES FROM THE FOREVER HOME is looking for your stories!:

I have a new anthology/website that’s officially launching next Monday with a handful of stories about life AFTER pet adoption. I’m making a soft-announcement now to open the submission process up to folks who may be interested in telling their own stories about the little (or large) critters who changed their lives in some way. You can read my story about Becky here, the girl who made me a dog lover, animal lover, and all-around better person. 

Why am I doing this? I tell the whole story here, but here’s the short version: After we lost Becky I’ve been looking for an outlet where I can tell her story. I’ve found a lot of places that tell the stories about pets before they were adopted, and that’s necessary, but nothing that collects stories about how the pet and the owner’s lives were made better through pet adoption. After talking to a couple of friends about this, I came to the conclusion that something like this could be both cathartic for the pet owner but also a resource for adoption and rescue  agencies. One of the myths is that pets that come from breeders or (usually unknowingly) through puppy mills are that they’re “better” than pets that come from shelters or rescue organizations. Better genes and no baggage, a clean start. 

However, the bond that’s forged between a rescued animal and its new home is life-changing and unbreakable. Whenever I talk to people involved in rescue (or even just people who were convinced to adopt through a rescue organization or shelter), you learn that the myths quickly melt away, and the gratification of giving an animal a second chance at a healthy life is rewarding, necessary, and, in retrospect, the only was to really take a new pet into your home.

So please, tell me your stories. We have five lined up for launch but want to keep them coming afterwards. If you don’t have a story just yet, please send a blurb about a rescue organization or shelter that you work with or adopted from so we can feature it on the site.

And spread the word - this is a site that I want people to know about when they’re thinking about taking in a pet. 

Thanks for listening and I hope to hear from you all!

TRY LOOKING AHEAD

It’s coming.

September.

More to come.

I lead two writing workshops at Arlington Adult Education. I...

I lead two writing workshops at Arlington Adult Education. I often get retirees in my workshop, folks with extra time on their hands and years of experience behind them who are looking to try something different. Quite often these older students will read a piece for the class and the first thought that pops into my head will be, “You should have been doing this your whole life.”

This semester I had a new student sign up for my class. Her name is Libby. She’s been writing poetry for quite some time but never read any of it for an audience. Her poems were wonderful, stories of people and places and times that she used to know. I wanted her to share her poems with a wider audience so I organized a class excursion to Iota’s monthly open mic poetry reading. In order to support her, I asked all of my students to write their own poems. Two students got up and read their very first poems, written just this week. I wrote mine the day of and it was the first poem that I’ve written in close to twenty years. And even my 16-year-old student, a girl who had to get special permission to take my class due to her age but who I allowed in once I saw that she was mature enough to handle the group, got up and read a poem. She seemed super nervous but did a great job.

We brought friends and family members and took up a nice chunk of the lounge. Ordered drinks and food and signed up to read, a total of five poets among a list of 25 plus two featured poets.

Libby must have been excited to read - she was the first of us to get there and she was tenth person to go up. She did a wonderful job, as expected, and we all got up and cheered for her once she was finished.

All of my students nailed it, it was wonderful. The poetry reading is going to be a part of my workshop going forward. Everyone should try it - at least to see if they like it. I liked writing a poem although, honestly, I think I’ll just do one a semester, specifically for this Iota trip. 

This past April my accountant said that my teaching job wasn’t worth it. Due to how little it pays compared to my other endeavors, it all gets eaten up in taxes and I often end up having a bill at the end of the year because of it. When you factor in expenses that aren’t reimbursed, I basically pay the government to lead workshops. 

But I don’t do it for the money. I do it for days like yesterday, when I can help someone gain the confidence they need to do what they love. After the reading I asked Libby if she plans on coming back and she smiled and said she would. And that’s why I do it. Because I reached someone.

Occasionally I reach someone. I also make some people super upset, but it comes with the territory.

Anyway, my next workshop starts April 2nd. I cap the class at ten students but there’re still plenty of spots. If you live in the Arlington area and if you’re not really sure whether or not you can do something like this, I’m here to tell you that you can. 

Finally, here’s the poem I wrote. I wrote it for my wife, obviously, who was in attendance. 

You came outside and I told you that the moon, in a way, is always falling into us.

But it’s always missing us because we’re always falling into the sun which is always falling into the galaxy which is always falling into a cluster which is always falling into the universe.

I told you gravity’s an odd thing.

All bodies fall into all bodies all the time, no matter how far away they are from each other.

It’s not really falling, tho, it’s attraction. It’s a pull.

We call it falling because one thing always seems to be fixed in space and time.

But nothing is ever fixed, everything is constantly falling and fooling itself into believing that it’s on stable ground.

I pulled you into me and kissed you.

I fell into you, again, as you fell into me as we fell into a rock that fell into the sun that fell into a galaxy that fell into a cluster that fell into a universe.

Charles imagined his own feet, pressed against the floor of his house. He realized that if the floor...

Charles imagined his own feet, pressed against the floor of his house. He realized that if the floor were to disappear, he’d fall until he hit another floor. He never thought about the floor in this way, that he was always falling into the floor, and that the only thing stopping him from getting hurt was the floor itself.

Charles’s father saw the confusion on his son’s face. “Don’t think about falling,” he said, “Just try looking ahead.”

Photo

Cover Process

I won’t be linking all of the posts, but the Colonial Comics blog is getting active again. First post is about the evolution of the cover.

colonialcomics:

After some unfortunate delays, Colonial Comics Volume One (now titled Colonial Comics: New England, 1620-1750) is readying for a September 2014 release, only six months behind the original schedule. There is still frantic work going on behind the scenes, but there’s enough material coming in now that I can start sharing some awesomeness pretty routinely. And what better way to start than with the cover?

Scott White and I met up at an Anita’s New Mexican restaurant (we were supposed to meet at BonChon Chicken but they were inexplicably closed at 11PM on a Sunday) sometime in mid-December to talk about the cover design. I had some ideas, Scott had some ideas, and combined we had way too many ideas.

I remember saying that I wanted this linear collage that showed England in the upper left corner, the Mayflower crossing, winter, livestock, wars and massacres…just everything. Basically a cover that told every story that was going to be in the book. And Scott was on board! We were going to have the busiest 8x8 cover ever created. And it probably would have been terrible.

It took Scott all of a day to inform me that we were going for too much and he pitched a cover that had the Mayflower landing with Native Americans looking on. The original design can be seen below:

 

I thought it looked great, but the Native Americans looked very threatening and that wasn’t the story we were trying to tell here. At all. So I asked him to lose the weapons and got:

 

Again, it looked great…but it didn’t tell a story. So I pitched something a bit crazy to Scott. I asked him to make the focus of the cover the land. This vast amount of empty land. Empty beach, empty forest, very few people. One Native American and one landing boat – all in the distance. Small and not the focal point. Make the story about how much LAND existed, so that the eventual story of English colonists completely taking this land, unable to share it, becomes so much more tragic.

This first volume, after all, is about the establishment of the American identity – the good, the bad, and the ugly. So Scott gave me this cover, and I knew we had our cover the minute I saw it.

 

And then he colored it:

 

And then we needed to title it. I went with 1790 Royal Printing Font in order to make it look like old copy. I also grabbed some pages from the Bay Psalm Book and copped some of the design elements. Designed a title I really wanted to use…

 

….but it didn’t fit with the cover. So I had to lose some elements to finally deliver…

 

…but I needed the title to be bigger. So here’s where we’re at right now and I think it’ll stay this way…the (hopefully) official cover to Colonial Comics: New England, 1620-1750:

 

Dig it.