Katey Schultz's Blog, page 6

Flashes of War at the US Air Force Academy (part 1)

It's been an interesting two days, with two more to go, and my mind is buzzing with fragments from the conversations I've been able to have so far during my visit to the United States Air Force Academy. Today's post will focus on the faculty. Thursday's will focus on the cadets.



To address the Faculty of the English and Fine Arts Department, I was invited to read a few pieces from Flashes of War and then speak about my process (notably, as a civilian). I decided to begin by reading "While the Rest of America's at the Mall," "With the Burqa," and "Poo Mission." It takes 7 minutes to read these stories and when I feel like I want to introduce folks to the work, this is my go-to triumvirate. (Many had read the book, but not all--their are nearly 35 of them teaching 4 sections [including core classes] to 4,000 cadets.)



I spoke briefly about flash fiction as a form, quoting Charles Baxter who once wrote that "the novel can win you by points but flash fiction has to win you by TKO." I described flash a precise exploration of an intimate moment in time, typically involving a situation that outsizes the character. In my stories, that situation is the wars, but it doesn't always have to be so large. A mother grounding her teenage daughter for month presents a situation that outsizes the character (of the daughter) and likewise a perfect set-up to write a flash focused on that daughter's reaction to her circumstances. I also described flash as leaning heavily on that reaction; it's the reaction that gives our characters nuance, even in a story that's just 1-3 pages. Reaction, when handled precisely, can reveal that the truth (of our desires, of our predicaments, of our failures, of our potential) is in the immediate details of our lives. That's why flash doesn't have to "go big" and build monumental settings or epic character arcs and plots. It can stick to the small--indeed, bully the reader with the small--and in so doing, evoke the grandiose.



In order to explain "why I write about war" or "how I wrote what I did," two questions I wanted to answer before they were even posed, I paraphrased the epilogue of my book by explaining my interest in language. I showed a brief video I'd made, "Where Research Meets Imagination," and talked about parallel imagery, imagery as gateway, and using researched language and imagery to bring myself to a moment of disconnect. In short, I explained that my process for writing the book became a matter of researching my way toward a moment of disconnect--a moment where I felt speechless, a writer without words--which then prompted me to imagine exactly the right words and scenarios that would enable me to write a story I could believe in.



The questions that came over the course of the next 40 minutes were smart, open, and thoughtful. The fact that I was sitting in a room full of PhD's, many of whom were also high-ranking officers, was not lost on me. Indeed, I confessed that I hadn't taken a literature course since my senior year of high school; I found the English Department at my undergraduate school profoundly intimidating. I know that the USAFA's faculty questions prompted me to talk about doing purposeful work in life. I know I discussed the limitations of discipline (more on this tomorrow). I know there was an inquiry about the people's army and the role of the political on the spectrum of research and the imagination. Others wanted to know about why I felt it was important to get the facts right, even in fiction. We likewise talked about the different "brain" it takes to write flash versus writing a novel. But what I want to talk about in this post is the very first question that came at me, or at least, the very first question that got my heart thrumming: "Did soldiers ever get angry at you for writing these stories?"



This question has come at me, and many other civilian war lit authors, in so many different forms, that you'd think I'd have my response down pat. But here's the thing, and I'll be frank here: It's a question that hints at the endless debate about authority and authorization in fiction, and that debate tires me. The debate also frustrates me, because it has a way of making me feel suddenly very distant from most humans and therefore very isolated. Let me try to explain...



In anticipation of this moment, I'd leaned heavily in the war lit friends I've made over the last 2 1/2 years. Fine folks like Matthew Hefti, Colin Halloran, Emily Graay Tedrow, Jerri Bell, David P. Ervin, Peter Gordon, Ron Capps, Peter Molin, Kayla Williams, Charlie Sherpa, Jay Moad, and Roxana Robinson--all of whom have helped me in one way or another by sharing their thoughts on this topic along the way. I also re-read Roxana's fine essay for The New York Times, titled "The Right to Write." And then I did a few deep breathing exercises, because, honestly, when I have to talk about authority in fiction it makes me feel like the world has failed to value the imagination, and a world without the imagination is a world that is beyond stagnant; it's a world not worth living for.



Maybe that's hypersensitive, but that's the place I go--in my mind and in my heart--when I have to hold the torch and start defending the imagination again, because somehow we've forgotten its power, indeed, it's necessity--not only in great writing, but in the survival of our species. (To be clear: The person who asked me this question, in fact, knows full well about the significance of the imagination; his intent was literal--he wanted to know if I'd run into other people who did not understand the imagination and therefore got angry with me, though that's not how he phrased his question. I answered his question [No, no one got angry, not to my face] and then proceeded to talk about authority in fiction, because that, of course, was the underlying issue at hand.)



How did we get to this place as a nation? Have we always been so literal, so uncertain about something we can't hold or touch? When did discipline trump the imagination? When did the imagination take a back seat in classrooms, in teacher trainings, in tactical military training? What is it, precisely, that we are so truly terrified of--our own minds, our own capabilities? The imagination isn't something to fear; life without it, indeed, a nation or a military run by anyone without it, is damn near the scariest thing I can call to mind. Just yesterday, I saw a 600 year old book in a glass case in the Academy's special collection room. The book details Alexander the Great's "dream set up" for warfare, in which he'd have a high, scaffold-like structure with large birds (which a soldier could ride upon) posted at each corner for overseeing battles. That's the imagination. This room also had early sketches of humankind's fascination with flight, further evidence of dreamers and of the mind at its creative best. The [rank] who showed me this room had only been in it twice during their 4 years at the academy: once on their tour, and once by chance. They were too busy, they said, to explore a special collection such as this one. I have no doubt they were too busy--they're all working their tails off here--but what if they had been invited to dream for a little while in that room, as part of their curriculum? What if...

From the USAF Academy's aeronautical history collection.

Maybe we do still imagine with our military might. Someone schemed of "man bats" a century ago. Someone likewise schemed of un-manned planes. Now we have drones. Surely that's the imagination at work, you might say, but where's our moral compass that goes along with it? I'm not sure the use of drones is fueled by genuine inquiry--that is, without the intent to indoctrinate or appropriate (or destroy). I don't know...I just don't know, which is why this line of thinking can very suddenly make me to go a dark place and why I didn't say a single word of that previous paragraph in my presentation to the faculty.



Back to the task at hand, in that room, with 35 insanely bright minds waiting on me: I explained that anyone can write anything they want, so long as they have strong writing skills, a willingness to research, effective empathy, and a genuine imagination. I told them I believe that experience isn't the only teacher and that curiosity goes a  long way toward genuine inquiry--which is to say, research infused with a sense of discovery, rather than an agenda to indoctrinate or appropriate. Finally, I expressed that coming at literature from the question of authority was, in fact, to come at it all wrong. Writing, I told them, can have a lot in common with serving your country--both require empathy, integrity, skill, and...yes...the imagination (the ability to think outside the box). At the end of the day, nobody owns the copyright on these skills. Nobody.



How this relates to being a leader in the United States Air Force is something I'll talk about later today, with the cadets. With a little more gusto, I'll talk about that dark place, too, and maybe see where the conversation can take us. Stay tuned...






              

On Writing: The 5 S's of Flash Fiction

I'm delighted to share this brief, instructional video with my readers today. This was filmed last February at Interlochen Center for the Arts, an amazing arts center in Michigan where I teach four times a year. Their YouTube channel is full of inspirational videos, including this series of mini-lessons from faculty members like myself. I use this lesson in classrooms ranging from third grade to adult, varying the complexity (and the number of S's, for the younger kids) and the types of examples provided. Short and powerful, just like flash! Here goes:


              

On Writing: Zooming Out, Zooming In

Writers often talk about zooming in or zooming out, not only as a technique to manipulate setting and time, but as a way to draw a reader's attention toward something very specific, by way of contrast to what's large or small around it. Because I like to write about landscape and use a character's reaction to landscape, in particular, as a way of moving story forward, I'm always interested in these ideas. Here's an example from a story that I wrote eight years ago (!!!) that, to me, represents some of my early experimentation with this. The beginning of the story, "The Naming of Things," can be read at Writer's Dojo. (I don't know why only the first section is linked; it used to be online in entirety. Maybe it still is, somehow.)



"Thursday then, we'll have the first handful of cuts made and—crap, I

didn't tell you. Coach wants you working with the new kicker."



"Phillips. I know the kid. Fucker can punt like a battering ram, but

Jesus, Gates, could you give me a minute?" Jet fanned his gaze across

the field. The players huddling around Coach were difficult to

identify from where he and Gates stood at the opposite end zone, but

he recognized a few by number and remembered, for a breath or two, how

much he loved his work. Jet rubbed his eyes then touched the cut on

the side of his face. He swore to himself he wouldn't go out drinking,

not with O'Toole, but he'd gotten whooped so bad O'Toole promised free

drinks, even for the losers. And admit it, an easy decision in light

of the breakup.



Jet groped his pockets for sunglasses. It had been a wet summer in the

valley, fields filling out in greens laced with flecks of yellow and

the predictable patches of muddied earth centerfield. Far in the

distance, modest peaks formed foothills just south of the Smoky

Mountains, each summit weathered and rounded like a bent kneecap

raised to the sky. He felt a sudden ache in his legs, a bolt of

lightning that couldn't break out. Jet slipped his sunglasses on and

turned his back to Gates. He wanted to run, breakneck against the

breeze, yards unreeling behind him like a line of chalk, abandoning

the practice punts and drill calls, the pussy talk and macho mouth,

sprinting toward a deeper voice set somewhere below the horizon.



This video from the New York Times science section, demonstrates zooming in and and out to an extreme, and quite nicely. A team of scientists attached a GoPro camera to a balloon (a very special ballon, I'm sure). It made it all the way to outer space and back. It was found two years later by a hiker. Here's the footage, in time lapse:







http://www.nytimes.com/video/science/...
              

Revising the Novel: Before & After Examples

Continuing the conversation about forbidden words—which is really just a discussion of the ways in which our own rules can work against us—I wanted to share a few more “before” and “after” sentence samples as I work my way from the fifth revision of the novel, toward the sixth.

In some sense, a business-savvy reader might tell me that I shouldn’t share my own “mistakes” publicly on the same website where I likewise promote my business as a writing coach and editor. But that kind of thinking never sits right with me. The writing experience is so private and intangible, I figure it’s the least I can do to apply a little X-ray vision now and again, in the spirit of learning. We’re all in this together, even if we’re competing on the bookshelves. At the end of the day it’s more about writing sentences that ring closer to the truth than it is about earning an extra buck.

With that in mind, note the changes I’ve made below in response to the feedback that I needed to “cushion” my prose a little more. This led directly to adding more “to be” verbs and “filler” words (such as “that”). I quickly saw that I’d been omitting pronouns quite often as well, so I’ve forced myself to add some of those. Mind you, these changes are painful for me. I’ve trained myself to be efficient to the point of “killing be’s” and “killing fillers” often before they even appear. Now, I’m seeing that—at least within the scope of a novel—there’s a time and place for that level of efficiency, just as there’s a time and place for a cushion. I still strongly dislike sentences that require more words than necessary, but I’m taking this feedback to heart. If I’ve done my job, perhaps the sentences will have so much cushion they can start to pillow fight on the page. My fear, of course, is excess, loss of personal style, and distillation of the work. We’ll see if the feathers go flying…



The other feedback I received was that, at times, my prose seemed too formal. This appears mostly in the Afghan narrative and I’ve known this for quite some time but wasn’t sure how to fix the problem. I think it arose partly because most of the translated writing from “the Arab world” that I’ve read is actually translated into British English. It also comes from the subconscious but not-so-subtle way many of us think about anyone who speaks with English as a second language. Of course, my characters are speaking Pashto (but I’m writing in English). That means there’s this weird, jumbly, semi-conscious notion of “translation” that resides in the back of my brain while I write, even though I’m not actually translating. The result is prose that’s too tight, too formal, too rigid. Below are some of my minute attempts to fix that problem.

BEFORE:Thinking of him now, she feels a sudden bolt in her chest, as if a bird tugs her by the heart, outward, toward the street. (25 words)

AFTER:Thinking of him now, she feels a sudden bolt in her chest. It’s as though a bird istugging her by the heart, beckoning outward, toward the street. (28 words)



BEFORE: At the crossroads, she turns down the main thoroughfare. A few rusted cars park haphazardly, half on the pedestrian pathway, half in the road. A blue scooter lays in a ditch, kickstand mangled. The neighborhood itself remains quiet, hardly a hint of human occupancy other than the occasional tails of smoke rising from courtyards where, surely, many more women tend to various tasks. Aaseya holds herself above these women, a fact that doesn’t aid her tumultuous social standing. But those women never had Ms. Darrow, the visiting English teacher. Those women weren’t born to such a worldy father. She knows she should wish these blessings on others now, but the gifts are only true for Aaseya in memory. She doesn’t intend to share, their private comfort like the lead thread in an embroiderer’s hand. Lose that, and the entire pattern disrupts, so much gone to waste. (146 words)

AFTER:At the crossroads, she turns down the main thoroughfare. A few rusted cars are parked haphazardly, half on the pedestrian pathway, half in the road. A blue scooter lies in a ditch, its kickstand mangled. The arrangement feels like home, her town always on the edge of disarray because of one thing or another. There’s comfort here in the randomness; an admission that anything, even a scooter that’s been tossed aside, will someday prove useful. The neighborhood itself remains quiet withhardly a hint of human occupancy other than the occasional tails of smoke rising from courtyards like little prayers. So many women tend to those fires amidst various daily tasks. Aaseya holds herself above them, a fact that doesn’t help her social standing. But those women never had Ms. Darrow, the visiting English teacher. Those women weren’t born to such a worldy father. Those women don’t look at the skyline and see a line to follow. She knows she should wish these blessings on others now, but the gifts are only true for Aaseya in memory. She can’t afford to share her hope, its private comfort like the lead thread in an embroiderer’s hand. If she loses that, the entire pattern will be disrupted, so much gone to waste. (210 words)

[The other feedback I received was to amp up my references to landscape and the sense of home. I’ve been working these concepts at opposite angles through quite a number of drafts and apparently it’s working, but my reader suggested turning the dial up even more—hence some of the added sentences in the above example.]

BEFORE: Her nonchalance unnerves him, the way she insists on remaining so calm and aloof. Does nothing disrupt this woman? Most days, it feels as though he’s barely been heard. Other times, the defiance across her face temps a tightening of his fists, a flash of anger down the middle of his body.



AFTER:Her nonchalance unnerves him, the way she insists on remaining so calm and aloof. Does anything disrupt this woman? Most days, Rahim feels like he’s barely been heard. Other times, the defiance across her face makes his fists tighten, a flash of anger down the middle of his body.
              

Revising the Novel: Adding Forbidden Words

Anyone who has ever taken a class with me or worked with me through my mentorship program, Writer at Large, will laugh out loud about this post...



I just met with my novelist friend for feedback on the full draft of my novel (after she kidnapped it) and she said--above all other concerns she had--that I needed to "cushion" the language a little more.



I leaned back into her luxuriously wide sofa and cocked my head. "What do you mean?" I asked. Maybe whatever she was going to say next would have something to do with "letting the prose breathe," another thing people like to talk a lot about.



"I mean, do you ever use a 'to be' verb?" she asked.





A snapshot of the whiteboard during my last ICCA Memoir course.



A flip-book of images of every course I've taught for the past six years ran through my mind's eye. I saw whiteboard after whiteboard, handout after handout, marked with my suggested edits and corrections of "to be" verbs. "Kill your be's!" I always tell my students, making a point that verbs are the only part of speech we have to move the story forward, therefore they'd better be doing their work. Words like "was" or "is" hardly hold their weight, with a few exceptions. Of course, there's more to verbs than just action (they're the key to metaphor, but that's a different lecture). Suffice it to say, I found myself frozen.



"Oh," I said to my friend. "Well, no. Not really. Not often, at any rate."



She nodded. "The novel is gorgeous, but the prose is flashy. It's so tight. I want to rest sometimes, as a reader. I want a cushion. I miss the word 'that.'"



Another bullseye! The companion dictate to my "Kill your be's!" theory is "Kill your fillers!" (as in, words like: that, the, just, most, seem, and many more).



"Ok. I said. I think I might die. Like, actually die, if I did that." I took a sip of tea and let the advice roll over me. What did I have to be afraid of? If I can cut words, surely I can add them just as easily. "Omitting be's and fillers is what I do. It's how I wrote my last book. It's how I taught myself flash fiction. It's so pervasive in my fiction that I don't even miss those words anymore."



She smiled. Sipper her own tea. Thumbed patiently through a few more pages of my manuscript on her lap.



I smiled back; squirmed a little. "But I hear you," I confessed. "So can you show me an example?"



And like the amazing friend and writer that she is, show me she did. Here are a few:



BEFORE: Spartan missed Mail Call the day before, out on a mission, and now Nathan sees someone plopped it here for him to do the honors.



AFTER: Spartan missed Mail Call the day before, out on a mission, and now Nathan sees that someone plopped it here for him to do the honors.



BEFORE: The soldier worries him slightly, that look of insane confidence plastered across his face in the same way a corpse's expression might pull tight into a smile, days after death, heat bloating features into clownish proportions.



AFTER: The soldier worries him slightly, that look of insane confidence plastered across his face in the same way a corpse's expression might pull tight into a smile, days after death, heat bloating its features into clownish proportions.



Through further conversation, I expressed concern about losing my style as an author if I added too many be's and fillers in, and we studied a few more examples together. In time, I was able to see that there's a reason to give the reader a cushion during certain scenes or junctures in the novel, and there are other reasons to give the reader zero cushion when the stakes are high in the story. Killer fillers and killer be's, then, aren't just a sentence-level tool for tight prose. Such edits aren't just a gateway to metaphor, either. They're a pacing tool; a way of manipulating language to control the heartbeat of the reader, to so speak (or in the very least, control the tempo of your own plot). Stay tuned for further thoughts on the feedback I received, as well as how my 6th revision kicks off at the desk.
              

Online Resources: Flash Fiction & Flash Nonfiction Publications

Preparing for next month's Weekly Flashes program has brought me back to some of my favorite online sources for fine flash writing. While I often prefer to peruse my bookshelves for treasures buried in anthologies or story collections--where flash sneaks its way in unannounced more times that most folks realize (Hemingway wrote flash? Yes. Raymond Carver wrote flash? Yes. Steve Almond writes flash? Yes. Deb Olin Unferth writes flash? Yep indeedy.)--sometimes, I come up short. That's when I turn my computer on and start sifting.



Here are my go-to sites for flash fiction and flash nonfiction:



Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary NonfictionSmokelong QuarterlyFlash Fiction .netFiction Southeast (flash in audio!)River Teeth Journal (their "Beautiful Things" archive--nonfiction!)The Vestal ReviewWord RiotJournal of Compressed Creative Arts (scroll the archive for pieces labeled CNF)Tri-Quarterly (scan table of contents for nonfiction with title heading "A Note...", which is how they identify their flash nonfiction pieces)Meantime, in my search, I came across this video snippet of esteemed author Dinty W. Moore talking about flash nonfiction at AWP:





There are still a few spaces left for my flash fiction and flash nonfiction weekly prompts program offered in October. Email me for details. The cost is $120.

              

Weekly Flashes in October

Flash stories are often called a work of art on a grain of sand.

Here are some grains of sand viewed under a microscope (source).I'm pleased to announce that the next offering of my popular Weekly Flashes program will be this October. I'm taking sign-ups for this program right now, which involves 1 prompt (plus sample texts) per week for an entire month, and then feedback on each of your 4 pieces of flash writing. Most prompts are also accompanied by supporting sample texts. This program is for flash fiction or flash nonfiction writers and the prompts are varied, unique, and customized. Returning students won't get repeat prompts.



How it works: In short, you get a prompt from me every Friday, have 1 week to respond, and then get feedback from me within a few days (and your next prompt a few days after that). We do this for one month and it establishes a fine balance between discipline, inspiration, accountability, and the habit of writing.

Bonus: I've added n optional Google Hangout component at the end of the month where all Weekly Flashes participants will "sign in" for a live video reading, q&a, and celebration lasting about 1 hour.

Cost: $120. As of today, if you sign up and you bring a friend who is new to my services, you both get to register at a discounted rate of $108.

Next steps: Email me and state whether you're interested in flash fiction or flash nonfiction. Details about the program can be viewed in this handy PDF download.

More: Info on services from my Writer at Large business is right here.
              

Jogging Writer: Gearing Up

This time one year ago, I backpacked 93 miles around an active volcano. I came home with a wide grin and a bad case of plantar fasciaitis. The saving grace was acupuncture treatments and my previous experience with this painful foot condition. I was able to recover in several months. Meantime, I fell into “racing” somewhat accidentally. I’m not sure what I was thinking—perhaps that running was well-suited to novel-writing (which it is). Perhaps that if I could hike around a volcano, surely I could race for a few miles (which I can). Or perhaps all the (wonderful!) life changes that came with 2015 demanded I claim something as “my own” (which it did). 

Running became my foundation—something to return to, even when everything else seemed in flux. In this regard, training and preparing for races is absolutely akin to writing, which is also a foundation in my life. The two activities continue to feed one another, day to day, week to week, page by page. At a certain point, I figured I might as well “race.” I signed up for my first 5K race held locally among friends, then upped the ante with a 10K trail race in rainy, slick conditions. Last March, I saw my first Half Marathon finish line. Now that summer (my least favorite season) is finally coming to a close, I find myself setting down the freeweights more times per week and lacing up my Brooks Ravenna running shoes instead (yep, I switched from the Cascadia to the Ravenna, at least for now).

This spring and summer, I never stopped running entirely, but a joyful wedding, indulgent honeymoon, retreat directorship, writing residency, and extended road trip were surely enough to throw any training plan off track. For these reasons, I didn’t keep to a training plan. Also, a very minor (my first) case of iliotibial band (ITB) syndrome forced some alternate training, as well as research for recovery.

In August, I started back up with delight—running mostly long, slow miles each time and ending those runs with sprints and splits a few times a week. I ran 20 miles one week. Then 22 the next. Then 25 miles (including one 10-miler). Then…sprinting on a sandy road in the Upper Peninsula, I moderately strained some muscle or tendon on the top of my foot. The sensation was so odd, at first I brushed it off. Three weeks of not a single run later, I’m humbled once again. While I did enjoy many miles-long walks during that three weeks, I didn’t elevate my heart rate much or challenge my endurance. Instead, I enjoyed soy ice cream with friends in Chicago, beer with friends in Milwaukee, and road snacks all the way back home to North Carolina.

Pain free this week, I’m rip-roaring ready to go. And guess what? I’m still not going to run. Not yet. While I had hoped to be up to a modest 32 miles per week by now, aiming for a max of 47 miles per week by November, if I’ve learned anything this past year it’s that if I push it too soon, I’ll loose more training time in the end. Thanks to Strength Running, a website headed by running coach Jason Fitzgerald, my mind is full of sage, slow-and-steady, advice.



This morning, I believe I unlocked the final key to my next training plan. According to Strength Running, one of the four main injury-causing scenarios is when a runner is trying to increase weekly mileage. Another cause is when a runner is trying to increase pace or speed. The plan I’d been developing for myself, based on research and personal body feedback, included slow but noticeable speed and volume increases. Now, I’m revising that plan to start with the volume increases, then add the pace increases. The only race I have in sight is the same Half Marathon I ran last time; I want to perform better and feel that sense of accomplishment. I may sign up for other races between now and that April 2 date, but all that can be decided later. For now, it’s heal heal heal, plan plan plan, eat right, and get ready to gear up for a lifetime of strength and running!
              

Special Feature: Interview with Bunny Goodjohn

Longtime followers of The Writing Life will know that I occasionally give a shout-out to truly inspiring authors whose work I admire and respect. Past posts have featured Helen Benedict and Anne-Marie Oomen. Today, Bunny Goodjohn joins The Writing Life. Her new book of poetry, Bone Song  (published by Briery Creek Press), is one of the most powerful, accessible, vivid collections I've read in years. I can already tell this book will be my "go-to gift" for the next year--I can already think of a dozen friends who simply must read these poems. My thoughts:



Bone Song hits every bullseye of locked-up longings, broken promises, and tiny victories in life’s grapple with love. These poems weave a raw, emotional tapestry into moments as vivid as film: a husband’s final insult, a mistress’ barefaced need, a daughter’s stealth observations, a dog’s unapologetic loyalty, friends struggling with sobriety, a sister facing cancer. From the familiar territory of a mishandled heart, to the playful newness of words re-defined, to tongue-in-cheek instructions on how to train a dog, author Bunny Goodjohn has built a neighborhood for readers to explore. Each block, each entryway, each uniquely fashioned home, offers an image precisely rendered, a thought keenly realized. I find myself wanting to take risks, to get hurt or dirty again—as if a child, yet with all the hunger and pent-up impossibilities of being an adult—because Bone Song has shown me it will be worth the consequences. Reading this book feels like holding a life lived full-throttle in the palm of your hands. Even during its quietest intervals, Bone Song keeps time, revving insights toward their powerful, crafted release.



I reached out to Bunny via email with a few questions:



Katey Schultz: Please share a little bit about books you have read that have proved instrumental in shaping how you write, or how you think as a writer.



Bunny Goodjohn: I read the short story "Lizzie, Annie and Rosie's Rescue of Me with Blue Cake" by Carolyn Chute in my Intro to Creative Writing course in college. It changed everything for me in that it gave me permission to really shift into child voice in  my fiction. Of course, I had encountered other kids' voices in fiction. I was dragged through childhood with readers like Janet and John (your version is Dick and Jane) and struggled with Dickens and Henry and all manner of bad young adult titles. But Chute's story was the first time I had encountered a voice that nailed the reality unhampered with the weight of adult experience. I then read all of Chute's work and fell in love with her and her work. She's blurbed my next novel--it doesn't get better than that. 



The same happened for me with poetry when I read Linda McCarriston's Eva-Mary. That voice--in this case, the adult voice returning to the childhood world--is bluntly honest and lets the poetry go where it needs to go. 

Maybe this obsession with truth through the child voice speaks to a sense that I have of my own emotional life stalling at around age nine. I was...how can I say, "sexualized" by an older boy. It seems, at times, that my view of the world is often her view--particularly when I sit down to write.  Everything feels like a secret, like an exposure.

Katey Schultz: Can you tell us about your ritual or discipline at the desk? You work a very full time job, have very full time pets, live in an interesting town, have a social life, and write multiple books. What works for you? Give us the nitty gritty.





Bunny Goodjohn: My writing life is fraught with challenges--four-legged, financial, work-related, and personal. I teach full time in order to pay my bills. So for the fall semester and the spring semester, I teach. My students are great, but they leach away my words. Or maybe I hand them over in an attempt to show these new writers how brilliant this writing life can be. Anyway, add that to two one-mile plus dog walks a day, grocery shopping, an intimate relationship with Netflix and the need to sleep, and you have why I don't write poetry and fiction during the semester. I do write reviews. I'm the Book Review Associate Editor for Mom Egg Review and that's really the focus of my spare time during academia. So in the spring break and over the summer, I take myself off to cabins in State Parks, to writers' residencies and to cheap motels and hotels. I hole up for a few weeks and kickstart the process and this lets me shift away from academia and into creativity for the breaks. It has to be enough at the moment. 

I have to say that my addictive personality helps here. I can be tunnel visioned when it comes to all manner of destructive things: alcohol, working out, shopping, relationships. I turn this same compulsion to writing. It's nothing for me to say, "Bunny, for the next ten days, you sit in this particular chair for 4 hours and 17 minutes and turn out three revisions and one new piece. Then you can eat. Then you can walk the dog. Then you can watch 'This Life' on Youtube." And I do that. For four hours and seventeen minutes (the duration is unimportant, it's the idea that's core), for ten days, I write like that. 

It's working. Two books this year and a new project begun. I think I'll keep on doing what I'm doing!



Want more? Bunny Goodjohn's writing, including Bone Song and her novel Sticklebacks and Snow Globes, are available via Bunny's Etsy store (which is a whole other story!), where she makes the most money on each sale. Her work is also available online through Amazon, including her new novel, The Beginning Things, forthcoming November 2015.
             

Landscapes We Never Forget

by Rockwell KentIt's no secret that Alaska is my greatest muse. Having visited in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2014, and also having written nearly half of Flashes of War there during a three-week period, I will always carry a piece of The Last Frontier in my heart. For writers (and for many artists, I suspect), there are places we encounter that become elevated; they speak to our subconscious, they tug at our imagination, they leave us haunted in humbling and inspiring ways.



One way to sum up how I knew that Alaska was "my place," is this quote from Rockwell Kent's Wilderness:



“Always I have fought and worked and played with a fierce energy, and always as a man of flesh and blood and surging spirit. I have burned the candle at both ends and can only wonder that there has been left even a slender taper glow for art. And so this sojourn in the wilderness is in no sense an artist's junket in search of picturesque material for brush or pencil, but the fight to freedom of a man who detests the petty quarrels and bitterness of the crowded world--the pilgrimage of a philosopher in quest of Happiness!...It is this that we are living for, and art is but the outward record of our progress...So here you have a sort of profession of faith. We are part and parcel the big plan of things. We are simply instruments recording in different measure our particular portion of the infinite. And what we absorb of it makes for character, and what we give forth, for expression."

Like Kent, I too felt most wholly myself in Alaska. I felt so small and aware of my tiny place in the gigantic world, yet I also felt the work I did carried a sense of importance and worth. That paradox held my mind in a place of wonder and openness for days on end, inviting unparalleled creative flow.

Where are these places in your writing life? They can exist only in your memory--a classroom, a family vacation place. They can exist in the mundane--a backyard, a city park, a cluttered desk. But most often, they contain something slightly larger--an ecosystem, a blending of cultures, a meeting of worlds and ideals. In these stomping grounds, our minds can open up, our eyes can widen, and our hearts can shed layers of uncertainty.

I can't say that spending time in the Upper Peninsula and along Lake Superior did that for me on my first trip there this month (though part of me hoped it would), but the door isn't completely closed. Despite 5 days straight of rain and not a single star visible in the night sky, There were indeed moments of great quiet, calm, and pause; moments that invited wonder.





I want to go back--that much is clear. Whether or not the U.P. or Lake Superior can become my "next Alaska" (and conveniently a few thousand miles closer to home), is still up for debate. Meantime, it's back to the desk, back to Appalachia, and back to work. Here goes!