Drew Myron's Blog, page 73

Tell me a (short) story

For readers and writers, will the fun never end?

Hot on the heels on National Poetry Month, we roll into May and National Short Story Month. Now in its sixth year, Short Story Month was initiated by the Emerging Writers Network, a site offering reviews and interviews. 

Joining the festivities, Fiction Writers Review is hosting The Collection Giveaway Project, a community effort to champion great short story collections.

To celebrate, I'm revisiting some of my favorite short stories, and looking for new collections to add to the list.

[image error] Death is Not an Option
by Suzanne Rivecca

In her 2010 debut, Rivecca delivers piercing prose. "Most of Rivecca’s ruthlessly frank and lonely characters have left religion, and the saving they seek in this modest, engaging and disquieting collection is from the plague of isolation," explains the New York Times Book Review. 

 

Music Through the Floor
by Eric Puchner

"The nine stories in his debut collection are executed with such fluency, constructed with such surprising plot twists and blessed with so many bright, memorable lines that they rise above the contemporary din," the New York Times Book Review says of this 2005 collection.

 

 

Birds of America
by Lorrie Moore

A New York Times Book of the Year that is "at once wise, punchy, funny and sad," writes Powell's Books. "With language that is clever and crisp, Moore deftly strips the disguises and barriers we spend our whole lives building and exposes us for the quirky, vulnerable and often confused individuals we are."

 

My Life in Heavy Metal
by Steve Almond

"The big thing in Almond's stories is that his characters really like to have sex," notes the The New York Times Book Review. "Almond writes well about the act itself, a pretty rare talent. But his stories take off when he . . . looks beyond the bedroom at the world around him."

 

 

Chilly Scenes of Winter
by Ann Beattie

I came to appreciate short stories in the 1990s with the discovery of Ann Beattie, a master in the art and ache of yearning. She takes what her publisher calls an "uncannily accurate look at the nostalgia suffered by people yearning for deeper feelings in a culture that turns feelings into cliches."

 

Do you read short stories? What are some of your favorite collections?

Big Poetry Winners

And the winners of the Big Poetry Giveaway are . . .

Diane Lockard
won Fuel by Naomi Shihab Nye

Tara Mae Mulroy
won Sweet Grief by Senitila McKinley and Drew Myron (that's me!)

This was great fun; thanks for playing.

Wind-down & win

April is winding down, and with that National Poetry Month comes to a close. After a rush of readings, writing and events, I'm exhausted, in that good, full-of-words kind of way.

But wait, there's more!

Let's finish on a high note — with the Big Poetry Giveaway. I'm giving away two great books; enter the drawing by midnight on Monday, April 30, 2012. I'll announce the winner on Tuesday, May 1st.

Go here to enter for the chance to win.

 

Thankful Thursday: Unofficial

photo by Jennie Marie Schell
Gratitude: An Unofficial, Unfinished List

breakthroughs

breaks for coffee

breakfast

meaning well

well wishes

wishing wells

well drinks (2 for 1)

daisies, wild

daisies, store-bought

friends, faraway

friends, near

work, paid

work, heart

work, out

patience

impatiens

wild patience

It's Thankful Thursday! Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise. Please join me in a weekly pause to appreciate the people, places & things that bring joy. What are you thankful for today?

 

Clip, Carry, Share

Are you ready for Poem in Your Pocket Day?

Call me goofy, but I love this annual opportunity to share poems with abandon. As part of National Poetry Month, the Academy of American Poets celebrates Poem in Your Pocket Day on Thursday, April 26, 2012.

The idea is simple: select a poem you love, carry it with you, and share it with friends, family, neighbors, co-workers and more. I also like to share poetry with strangers, and sometimes leave poems on car windshields (instead of a ticket, a poem!), in mailboxes (instead of a bill, a poem!), and often pop a few in the mail to farwaway friends.

This year, I will carry the poem above. Need a poem? You can print this page and clip, carry and share it with others. Already picked your poem? Please, will you share it with us?

 

Sweet Grief

Sweet Grief, a collaboration of paintings and poems, opens tonight at the Windermere Gallery in Seal Rock, Oregon. Can't make it to the show? We've created a book featuring the 12 paintings paired with 12 poems.

From the Sweet Grief Introduction:

Sweet Grief: Paintings and Poems on Love and Loss

by Senitila McKinley and Drew Myron

Dying sucks.

A creative collaboration began with those two words.

The collaboration — 12 paintings paired with 12 poems — is the work of Senitila McKinley and Drew Myron, two women who met in 2005 and bonded over an appreciation for children and families in need. At Seashore Family Literacy, the nonprofit organization that Senitila created and runs, Drew serves as writing instructor.

Sweet Grief began in the summer of 2011 when Senitila’s husband of 33 years was diagnosed with cancer. David McKinley died just a few months later.  

At what turned out to be his last visit with Drew, he was clear and direct.  “Dying sucks,” he said. “I’m not gonna lie.”

Later, with her friend, Senitila was pragmatic: “Death is not a crisis,” she said firmly. “It’s a beautiful part of life.”

With that in mind, Senitila and Drew explored love and loss through their art. What was initially specific to David’s death became a larger meditation and appreciation for the weighty beauty of being with the ones you love to their very end.

“Grief is a beautiful thing,” says Senitila, “not something to be afraid of, but to enjoy because it is still a gift. We think that only mystical people have a meaningful understanding of death. But it’s not true. To look at death and grief as a gift is not reserved for those who have a defined spiritual journey, but for everyone that has known love.”

 

Special edition exhibition book - $10

 

 

Thankful Thursday: Three Things

It's Thankful Thursday.
Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise.
Please join me in a weekly pause
to appreciate people, places & things.

1.
I'm running. Bedraggled (read history here), I am ready to surrender to my wheezing lungs when a runner approaches. She's fast and beautiful in that slender-lean-young runner way. As we pass each other, she raises her arm to a high-five. No words are exchanged, just my stunned smile and a sudden lift in my step. Thank you Anonymous Runner for a kind gesture that encouraged me on. 

2.
“Grief is a beautiful thing, not something to be afraid of, but to enjoy because it is still a gift," says artist Senitila McKinley. This Saturday night, Senitila and I will debut Sweet Grief, our collaboration of poems and paintings. The show runs April 20 - May 20, 2012 in Seal Rock, Oregon, and we've also published a book. I am thankful for this heart-changing project with a heart-changing friend.

3.
It's been a full week. When I get wrapped up in deadlines and demands, I'm thankful for this survival strategy from Jessica Hagy at Indexed:

 

Enough about me, what are you thankful for today?
 

On Sunday

God

Maybe you're a verb, or some
lost part of speech
that would let us talk sense
instead of monkey-screech

when we try to explain you
to our loved ones and ourselves
when we most need to.
Who knows why someone dies

in the thick of happiness,
his true love finally found,
the world showing success
as if the world were only a cloud

that floated in a dream
above a perfect day?
Are you also dreaming our words?
Give us something to say.

- Michael Ryan
from New and Selected Poems

 

Last week I tell a friend about poems I am writing. He is heartbroken with the death of one he loved. I do not find beauty in this pain, he says. There is no sweetness in my grief.

I don't have enough words, or the right words, to console. Each death is our own. But later that day, in my purse, among gum wrappers and old receipts, I find this poem.

Some days words arrive, and I accept them as precious gift.

 

Thankful Thursday: A larger view

While we cry ourselves to sleep,
gratitude waits patiently to console
and reassure us; there is a landscape
larger than the one we can see.

- Sarah Ban Breathnach
author of Simple Abundance

 

Writers give voice to their words

An enthusiastic audience, lively writers, great musicians, and spring weather made Off the Page, on April 6, 2012, a great success.

In its sixth year, Off the Page continued to offer an encouraging spirit of creative expression. Writers from the central Oregon Coast — Lincoln City, South Beach, Waldport and Yachats  — shared their work to a capacity crowd of 80 people at the Overleaf Lodge Event Center.

Many thanks to the writers, singers, songwriters, and the wonderfully supportive crowd for helping Off the Page soar. Our words came out of the dark and cloistered journal and into the world. Thank you.

Tim LoweryNina, one of the young writers from Seashore Family Literary

Richard Sharpless Khlo BratengSusan Fagalde LickBarton Howe