A list of Central Florida Literary Events for May 2012:

5/3 ~ Sam Gennawey, author of the newly released Walt and the Promise of Progress City, will be doing a reading and signing at the Downtown branch of the Orlando Public Library in the Albertson Room at 6pm. His new book is a behind-the-scenes look at the process of conceptualizing, constructing and purposing Disney’s EPCOT project.

5/ 8 ~ The Best of There Will Be Words, year one! The Burrow Press prose reading series yearly capstone event is 6pm at Urban Rethink. The talented J. Bradley rides again as the fan favorites – James Fleming, Whitney Hamrick, Hannah Miller and Burrow Press’ own Ryan Rivas – read their latest. Limited edition chapbooks of the evening’s prose are $5.

5/13 ~ Parcels: MFAs in Progress. The UCF Creative Writing MFA’s reading series. 7pm @ Urban ReThink. It’s FREE. It’s CONSISTENTLY GREAT. Be there!

5/15 ~ Speakeasy open mic night is 9pm at Will’s Pub, hosted by Tod Caviness.

5/18 ~ Page 15 book release party for Wars are Dumb: Orlando High Schoolers Write the Wrongs of Adults. 6 – 9pm @ Urban ReThink. Free. Come support the young authors featured in the book, and support Page 15 by purchasing a copy.

Outside the Burrow

Vanessa Blakeslee has a great Florida essay at PANK about gators and yankees (er… Mets).

Nathan Holic chats about FL vs. Cali settings with Lavinia Ludlow at Curbside Splendor.

J. Bradley’s got a chapbook out, We Will Celebrate Our Failures, published by NAP.

Recent Stories, Articles & Books We Found to Be Exceptionally Good

As for what we’ve found fascinating from April, Nick Harkaway’s genre-bending and Colson Whitehead’s Zone One continue to impress. We’re a bit late for the unfortunate two-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf, but China Mieville’s hyper-imaginative, surrealist short on the subject never fails to give chills.

What have you been reading? Let us know in the comments.

As soon as we figure out how to feed recent posts from there onto our homepage, there will be no more need for this note. But for now, go to BP Review and read some stuff.

A Probably Incomplete But Sizable List of Orlando Literary Events

3.30 ~ Not listed on last month’s post but coming up this Friday: Orlando Literati. A social, networking event for anyone with a passion for books. 7:00 – 10:00pm at Urban ReThink. Free.

4.5 ~ KIDNAPPINGS, DRAG QUEENS & EXTRAMARITAL AFFAIRS.
A 15 Views of Orlando Reading & Signing featuring Mark Pursell & Jay Haffner
FREE. 7:30pm @ Sip. 724 Virginia Drive.
Bask in the glow of the Parliament House. Listen for the ghost-town whistle of an abandoned Albertsons. Even if you attended the 15 Views book release party, come to this one (I mean, come on, it’s free). Hear Jay Haffner’s strangely nostalgic story about crushed hopes in Oviedo, and Mark Pursell’s glittery portrait of Orlando’s drag queen sub-culture (for the purpose of verisimilitude, Mark has promised to bring some actual drag queens). Come for the readings, stay for the drinks and the food trucks, and buy a book if you haven’t already.

4.8 ~ PARCELS: MFAs in Progress. Reading series featuring current UCF MFA students. 7:00pm at Urban ReThink. Free.

4.10 ~ There Will Be Words # 11 featuring Vanessa Blakselee, Hunter Choate, Jason Eaton & J. Christopher Silvia.
FREE. Show starts at 7:00pm @ Urban ReThink, 625 E. Central Blvd.
This month’s edition of Orlando’s favorite (according to us) prose reading series will answer questions such as whether or not seagulls explode if you feed them Alka Seltzer, what our world will look like when aliens use entertainment to make us their puppets, and other troubling queries that have plagued human existence since the dawn of time, and iPhones. This much is free. If you want to read along, you can buy a chapbook for $5 cash.

4.14 ~ OCLS 2nd Saturday – 15 Views of Orlando Reading / Signing / Discussion
featuring Nathan Holic, John King, Jay Haffner & Susan Hubbard
FREE. 2:00 – 5:00pm.@ The Downtown Library on Central Blvd.
Editor Nathan Holic will be on-hand to discuss his own views of Orlando, John King will read from his satirical I-Drive-skewering “Crocodile World,” and Jay Haffner will round out the 2011 contributors with his story “Lifting Veils.” Also, Susan Hubbard will be on-hand to read “Greenway,” the first installment of the 2012 edition of “15 Views.”

4.15 ~ Holly Tavel reading. 7:00pm at Urban ReThink. Free. Last time she read in Orlando she brought an accordion and played a song while reading a satirical piece about the Swiss.

4.17 ~ Speakeasy open mic @ Will’s Pub. 9:00pm-ish. Almost anything goes, whether you write on that month’s theme or not. It’s rowdy, it’s smoky, it’s fun, it’s hosted by Tod Caviness. This month’s theme is ZOMBIES!

4. 19 ~ We Will Celebrate Our Failures Release Party. Free. 7pm at Sip. Celebrate J. Bradley’s new chapbook + readings from Anna Claire Hodge, Ashley Inguanta, Whitney Hamrick, Elle Malcolm, J. Christopher Silvia, Jamie Jessup.

Outside the Burrow: BP Contributors Elsewhere

Nathan Holic & Lindsay Hunter released THIS amazing e-book (for free, by the way) through Artistically Declined Press. Originally a short story called “Kitty,” Nathan turned it into a demented graphic narrative. Well, Lindsay’s text-only version was pretty demented, too.

Vanessa Blakeslee’s “Clínica Tikal” appears in Ascent.

Jonathan Kosik’s “Pensacola” will appear in the June edition of Bartleby Snopes.

Recent Stories, Articles & Books We Found to Be Exceptionally Good

A non-lit-related but nonetheless excellent essay on the limits of free markets and a discussion of what should and shouldn’t be for sale… in the Atlantic Monthly.

Over at The Rumpus: A level-headed assessment of the non-level-headed assessments of / a review of The Lifespan of a Fact by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal.

Harper Perennial just released a fantastic book of short stories by Kevin Moffett called Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events. It is awesome. Read it.

A Probably Incomplete But Sizable List of Orlando Literary Events

3.1 ~ Jack Kerouac: Orlando’s Own Dharma Bum. Bob Kealing, author, journalist, and co-founder of the Jack Kerouac Writers in Residence Project of Orlando will discuss the avant-garde scene in the 1950′s and share a film clip from his Emmy award winning story. Kerouac’s original typescript of The Dharma Bums, now archived at Rollins, and Fred DeWitt’s signed photos of Kerouac producing the typescript will be on view. 6:30pm. Cornell Fine Arts Museum.

3.1 ~ Full Sail Reading Series. 6:30PM @ Urban ReThink. Featuring Elise McKenna, Joshua Begley, N.T. Brown, Arielle Goldfarb, Doeray Griffin and Vincent Crampton.

3.2 ~ There Will Be Quickies! @ AWP Chicago. The midwest meets the south-but-not-south when Quickies!–Chicago’s favorite flash fiction reading series–co-hosts a reading with There Will Be Words, Orlando’s favorite reading series. Readings/Chapbook features: Jocelyn Bartkevicius, Natalie Edwards, Andy Farkas, Kirsten Holt, Samantha Irby, Jonathan Kosik, David James Poissant, Joseph Riippi, Jess Stoner, Jill Summers, Chris Terry. Tandem-hosted by Lindsay Hunter & J. Bradley. 3pm at the SAIC Ballroom, 112 S. Michigan Ave. FREE.

3.2 ~ Uncouched: a handbook for a richer life, book signing by David Michael Dell’olio. 5:30pm – 8:30pm @ Urban ReThink.

3.13 ~ There Will Be Madness. Yes, there will be words, too, but the idea of placing 8 writers in a  competitive format is simply mad. Who else is gonna show those college boys that basketball ain’t the only game in town in March? Oh, and there will be brackets, instead of chapbooks. Brackets cost a buck and will benefit Page 15. Winning brackets will get a prize! 6pm @ Urban ReThink. FREE.

3. 20 ~ Speakeasy. Our favorite open mic that is grandfathered into this list. 9PM-ish @ Will’s Pub. Hosted by Tod Caviness.

3.31 ~ Applications due for the 2012/13 Kerouac House Writers in Residency Program.

Outside the Burrow: BP Contributors Elsewhere

Gene Albamonte got a short story, “Dancing with Bowie,” published in The Rattling Wall. How nice to have your name next to Yusef Kumunyakaa and Henry Rollins. Congrats, Gene!

Vanessa Blakselee appears again at The Paris Review Daily with “The Fetish.” We are in no way jealous. Okay, just a little.

Ed Bull’s “From Very High Up” was featured fiction on The Good Men Project & his “The Elizabeth Years” is all up in Yemassee.

50% of those stories were read at There Will Be Words. We are in no way bragging. Okay, just a little.

Recent Stories & Articles We Found to Be Exceptionally Good

Lesson’s I’ve Learned Starting a Micropress by Roxane Gay, posted at HTMLGiant. This is what you call real talk.

Smutty book covers posted at Caustic Cover Critic.

On Getting Paid: Literary Magazines and Remuneration by Nick Ripatrazone, posted at The Millions.

Local Publications

SPECS (lit mag out of Rollins College)
The Florida Review (lit mag out of UCF)
Cypress Dome (student lit mag out of UCF)

Did we leave your publication out? Email Ryan.

Book Clubs & Writing Groups

Are you a book club or writing group that wants to be listed on this monthly post? Email Ryan.

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Do you have an upcoming literary event that is not an open mic? Send it to Ryan by the last Tuesday of the month that precedes your event and we’ll list it. If you send us something after that, we might still post it, but we will be quite annoyed.

1 of 3 – Intro

All my life, my reading habits have been at the mercy of my surroundings. When I was a kid growing up in Venice, Florida, I read books by lamplight on the lower level of my bunk bed, the only place in my house where I could shut myself away from the sounds of a five-person family (CNN Headline News on the living room TV, oven timers blaring and chili pots bubbling, front door opening/closing, younger brother reciting vocab words aloud). When I traveled the country for my first job after college, I trained myself to read anywhere, so long as I had at least fifteen minutes to kill: I’d read books while waiting for meetings to start, or while holed up in some middle-of-nowhere hotel, or while sitting on a bench in the middle of some unbelievably busy campus (Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Texas Tech), paying no attention to the constant activity around me. I prided myself on being able to read not just during long flights, but during take-offs and landings…I knew the precise time to finish a page and stash the book away, too, so that I could rise with the other passengers and move forward and not regret a single moment of reading time lost.

I think that, when most of us picture the act of “sitting down to read a good book,” we have a warm and idyllic image in mind: we picture a fireplace, a long couch where we can kick our feet up on a coffee table, an endtable upon which we can place our glass of red wine or—if it’s summer and the sun is shining—our tall glass of iced tea or lemonade. We picture uninterrupted intimacy with our “good book,” a feeling of “sinking in” to a novel and “losing ourselves” in its “world.” We picture ultimate relaxation and/or escape, a brain massage for hours and hours, maybe even the sensation of falling asleep with the book spread across our chest.

But the truth for serious readers, I’ve realized, is that reading is far messier than the above fantasy. Most of us do not read in front of fireplaces, do not enjoy every word with a perfectly paired glass of wine. Most of us have to carve out our reading time in chunks: on that flight from Houston to St. Louis, on the subway in the mornings and afternoons, on the toilet in the mornings, on the couch as we wait for company to arrive, on our lunch breaks. Sure, most serious readers can point to a time in our lives and say, “Wow, I had it good. I want to get back to those days!” When I was in grad school and living in my final bachelor’s apartment, for instance, I took my book to the community pool and read every single morning (a real benefit to studying in Florida). I made long and thoughtful reading lists, scratched off books that I never thought I’d ever get to read, plowed through 75 pages in a sitting, two books a week. I was on fire. I was tan, too. Most of us have those memories, and we wonder how much we could read—how many books, how many journals, how many magazines and newspaper articles—if we ever got that time or that environment back again.

But right now, despite still living in Florida, I’ve grown pale, and erratic in my reading habits. Quite simply, I take what I can get.

On January 5^th of this year, my wife gave birth to a healthy and beautiful baby boy named Jackson William Holic, and…well, for anyone that’s had children, you understand pretty clearly…it’s a magical event, a magical experience, and your heart pulls a Grinch and grows three sizes overnight, and you wouldn’t trade it for anything…but any control that you once had over your personal schedule—your sleep/wake time, your workouts, your breakfast/lunch/dinner, your reading—slips away so fast that you never even get a chance to say goodbye.

For the past month, I’ve been reading while burping baby Jackson. Before I even sit down to feed him, I arrange the burping cloth on the couch’s arm rest, the bottle on the coffee table, and a book on one couch cushion. Then I give Jackson the bottle, feed him, wipe his face, and bring him up to my shoulder for some hearty back pats. With my free hand, I grab the book, and I get in however many pages I can; one paragraph here, a few sentences there; with any luck, I’m able to lull little Jackson to sleep, and he rests on my chest as I read. That’s how I carve out my reading time. But of course, like a formulaic sitcom, things are bound to go wrong, right? A sudden terrible cry, an unleashing of spit-up (or worse), a quick end to the three-page reading experience. But we’ve been dealing with it, me and Jackson, father and son, burper and burpee, reader and napper.

Even in the hospital, waiting to pack up my wife and son and head home, I was wondering how Jackson’s arrival would affect my overall reading life. (For those who have never had kids: you get a lot of time in that damn hospital to just sit and stare and think.) As 2012 started, I was finishing up The Best American Non-Required Reading 2011, a collection I’d assigned as the textbook for my “Writing For Publication” course, and I was getting anxious that I might not finish before the semester started. No matter what, there was no getting around this book: I had to read it because I’d assigned it. But…hospital…baby…could I do it?

In the early days of Jackson’s life, I found myself reading the shortest articles and stories from Non-Required first. Usually, I read anthologies the way I listen to albums: I just go in order because, hey, someone probably thought that this particular order was important. But now (baby squirming on my stomach, on my shoulder, clawing his way around), I was skipping ahead to page 355 because that story was only nine pages long, and I knew that if I couldn’t get through a story in about fifteen minutes, the page would be dog-eared and the book would be set down and I would go change a diaper and get peed on and scream in terror and then something else would happen, and something else, and then I’d be making bottles of formula and scarfing down a bowl of pasta before the baby woke up but then he’d start to stir and cry and then would need to be rocked and then—hours later—I’d suddenly find myself sitting on a chair with the baby in my arms and wondering about the book I placed on the table. Did I ever finish that story?

Best American Non-Required Reading was indeed finished by early January, and I was able to enjoy it, too. I fell into Anthony Doer’s “The Deep” and J. Robert Lennon’s “Weber’s Head,” and was appropriately absorbed by the nonfiction from Mother Jones and Esquire and Sports Illustrated. So I knew that I could do this. I knew I’d find a way to maintain a strong reading life even while maintaining a writing/ teaching career and caring for a child. But I was still anxious, still curious about how.

And listen, there are thousands of blog entries and academic articles and craft essays  in print and online that discuss the “writer’s process,” how we’re able to find the time in our busy schedules to sketch out stories and novels and memoirs, but so few consider the precious time that we devote to our reading lives. This series is my attempt to do that, to track how I read now that I’ve become a father, how the reading habit has changed, how the books themselves (and the selections of books) change now that a baby is grasping at my neck. For the most part, I’ll try to tackle small-press literature and stay positive while also giving the authors the courtesy and respect of delivering honest criticism, but—on the graph of book blogging—this series exists somewhere to the south of “review” but still north of “fawning reader site.” I apologize in advance for any graphic depictions of diaper changings, but I hope that I’ll be able to come to some honest conclusions about why we select books and how we read, and that I’ll also be able to offer some strong recommendations for your own reading lives (baby or no baby).

>>Read Part 2, “Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine”

2 of 3 – Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine

And so, during my first month with Baby Jackson, I searched the tall stack of books on my living room end table for anything with a thin spine. The fewer pages, the better. I would not be opening Gravity’s Rainbow or Sister Carrie or Infinite Jest, or even Essex County or Fortress of Solitude; at the end of 2011, I’d dedicated myself to Jennifer Egan’s Look at Me, a 400-page multi-POV monster that—in those frantic December days that involved final portfolios from students, holiday parties, family visits, bed rest for my 8 ½-month pregnant wife, trips to the OBGYN and the hospital—had taken me a more than a month to finish. Sometimes there were full days between reading opportunities, and I’d need to reread pages and pages just to understand where the hell I was, and really, Egan’s book did me no favors: both characters in Look at Me are named Charlotte, and sometimes the point-of-view shifts mid-chapter, or mid-page, or mid-paragraph, and sometimes we unexpectedly travel back in time, and it’s a book about identity loss and identity creation and really? I chose to read this during the hectic third trimester?

Anyway. During the baby’s first month in our house, I would not be “challenging myself” to any other long or difficult reads. That was the lesson I learned.

The first book I pulled from my stack was Ben Tanzer’s Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine. 172 pages (soaking wet), with an average-to-large typeface (if this book had been printed in Look at Me’s tiny typeface, it probably wouldn’t have cracked a dozen pages). And Tanzer writes in quick back-and-forth dialogue, short two-page chapters, so—in a world of constant disruption—I just figured this would make a nice confidence-building start to my 2012 reading life. That was the plan, anyway.

But I don’t know that it turned out exactly the way I’d hoped: while there were moments in Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine that I was able to genuinely enjoy (more on this in a moment), it was also difficult for me to ever get truly comfortable. Full disclosure: I know Ben Tanzer, and I like him, and I enjoy hearing him talk, and I’ve even worked with him (“The Gift”), so I don’t think I’ve got to pile on the praise that we’ve seen on so many book blogs and review sites…he’s talented, and he knows that I recognize his talents, so no need to make this into a tribute page. For purposes of this particular review, I’d rather focus on the reading experience itself.

And here’s the thing: I think that the short fragmented chapters in Tanzer’s books can sometimes work against his stories. From a general storytelling standpoint, it’s like the movie Syriana: a half-dozen different narratives, and constant scene shifts. This sort of structure can certainly work if the reader has got time to do a lot of work on his own, a lot of concentrating (and in the case of Syriana, pausing the movie and turning to a friend and asking, “Where are we again? Who’s this guy?”), but the structure also prevents the reader from sticking with a single character and—in spending a great deal of time with him/her—understanding the character’s motivations; the constant jump-cuts can prevent true immersion, in other words.

In Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine, Tanzer is so quick to change scenes and perspectives that I was rarely able to settle in one place before moving on to the next. Adding to my difficulty was Tanzer’s trademark dialogue, something that most of his fans absolutely love: Tanzer might deliver two full pages of dialogue with only a few sparing “dialogue tags” to show attribution. Often, he won’t even introduce the scene with a paragraph of exposition or description; he just opens the chapter and jumps immediately into the conversation. The result of this strategy is that the individual chapters will read like transcribed conversations, scripts. And while I acknowledge that some of it is very honest conversation, and that Tanzer’s ear is perceptive (wait, am I mixing senses? can an ear be perceptive? We’re going to ignore this potentially mixed or misconstructed metaphor), I also wanted—in my current reading environment—to see Tanzer slow down to set his scenes, rather than revealing location through a clip of easily missed dialogue. I wanted to see the conversations slowed down, as well, so that I wouldn’t get lost in deciphering Character A from Character B. I wanted to see what the characters were doing as they talked, also. What was happening around them? I know the conversation itself was important to the characters, but what about their gestures, their facial expressions, their taking notice of (or ignoring) their surroundings?

Of course, my current reading habits lead me to wonder how much of this criticism is valid, and how much is simply the result of having a baby on my shoulder. Tanzer is wildly popular in the indie lit world, so am I—the guy who is constantly disrupted as he reads, and who will be jolted from the read by a sudden terrible cry as my baby farts (yes, that’s definitely the case: he closes his eyes and squints and concentrates and screams and then FART!)—alone in this feeling? Is this an instance where my criticism is a result of my reading habit, no different than my freshman writing students who will complain that an assigned essay takes “sooo long” and/or is “sooo boring,” but that’s only because they tried to read it while watching Jersey Shore? When I read dialogue and get lost in the back-and-forth, am I wrong (or just old and crusty) to suggest that Tanzer slow down?

Because listen, there was a moment in my read of Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine when all of Tanzer’s authorial skills came together and the narrative became so fluid and impeccably paced that even Baby Jackson seemed to recognize it, falling asleep on my chest and allowing me to get into a steady rhythm so I could plow through the book’s final quarter in one sitting. Geoff, fresh off a decision to leave his girlfriend, follows another woman (on whose inner thigh he has noticed a tiny tattoo, both of them sitting across from one another on the subway) from the train to the streets of her neighborhood, the prose direct and introspective and free of the script-like dialogue from earlier chapters:

The girl gets up to leave the train. It is not Geoff’s stop and he has no reason to exit here. Then again, there are the girl’s white panties and her tattoo, her beautiful skin and the possibility that he might one day see her killer hair spread across his pillow. These are all good reasons to exit immediately.

There is also the fact that he is back in the game, and when you are in the game you have to play. He follows her off of the train.

Geoff walks up the stairwell behind the girl, trying not to walk too close. While it is true that he is more or less stalking her, he doesn’t want to feel like a stalker, and he certainly doesn’t want her to perceive him as one. They are meeting randomly. They have just happened to get off of the same train at the same stop and isn’t it amazing how these things happen. (126-7)

The chapters are still short (in fact, the above passage occurs over two chapters), but we don’t ever switch point-of-view or scene; we only push forward with this one single important moment in the character’s life. There is no chance that a reader can get lost in back-and-forth dialogue, either, because we are literally watching a Taxi-Driver-esque scene of a solitary man descending into stalker status. At this point, you can’t put the novel down. You’ve got to see what he does next, where he goes, what will happen to him. It’s Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God set in Bret Easton Ellis’ New York, touched with Nick Hornby’s darkly comic A Long Way Down. It’s twisted and honest, and it’s deeply affecting, though perhaps the effectiveness of this section of the book directly revealed to me what I felt were the weaknesses of the book’s first half.

Tanzer’s book was the first novel I was able to read in my earliest days of fatherhood, and as I mentioned earlier, I think it was important to build my confidence. This is something that I think I’ve been doing my entire life: when I step away from an activity (reading, writing, exercising), I need a baby step to convince myself that I’m still the same guy. I can still run three miles, I can still write ten pages of prose, I can still finish a book in a reasonable time frame. Ben Tanzer, who is a big name in indie literature, and who (bless his soul) is a strong supporter of small-press fiction all-around, was my guinea pig. My apologies to him (and his fans) if I haven’t done justice to his work with my discussion here, but many thanks to Mr. Tanzer for helping me get back on track in my reading life.

<<Read Part 1, “Intro”
>>Read Part 3, ” Prize Winners, Ayiti”

3 of 3 – Prize Winners, Ayiti

Best American Non-Required Reading 2011, and Ben Tanzer’s Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine: finished. Also finished: Artifice Issue 4 (which I read, but can honestly say that I probably wasn’t in the right frame of mind to understand or comment upon, so we’ll take a pass on that one…Artifice is a great literary magazine, but man, its unique mix of poetry and prose that is “aware of its own artifice” isn’t always the best choice for a man running on two or three hours of sleep). But if you’ve been reading this series, you get the general theme, right? Short. Short books, short stories. Short short short.

The other two thin volumes I decided upon for the month of January were even shorter than Tanzer’s book: Ryan Bradley’s Prize Winners and Roxane Gay’s Ayiti, neither more than 120 pages, and both from the rising small-press publisher Artistically Declined (who also published Tanzer’s popular You Can Make Him Like You). And maybe this sounds a little strange, but as I held each book, I instantly realized that these were the perfect-sized books for a man with a baby in his arms. Smooth surface, but not slippery-smooth. Not too heavy, not too tough to hold with a single hand. And no, I don’t need two hands to lift a paperback (I’m not that out-of-shape), but some books can be very difficult to hold one-handed; you’ve got to have your fingers in the perfect position to prop the book open, to pin the pages back on either side. And when I opened Prize Winners to read the first story, I felt…happy…comfortable.

So did the book’s content live up to the first impression formed from the book-as-accessory? (After all, approaching a book with a good attitude can do wonders. I approached Alice Munro’s Selected Stories with disdain and negativity, and so I wound up hating way more of it than I should have.)

Though I’m familiar with Ryan Bradley as a writer, editor, and cover artist, I hadn’t read much of his work before ordering Prize Winners. Maybe an online story here or there. And as I positioned Jackson on my chest and settled into the rocking chair in my living room, I think I even had some misguided view that Prize Winners would be a series of Alaska stories. When that wasn’t the case, I assumed—judging by the title—that this book would be some satirical send-up of pretentious “prize stories” one might find in a dry academic anthology. And while I don’t necessarily think that was Bradley’s over-arching theme for his book, I do think that my characterization of the collection is helpful for the outside reader deciding whether or not to pick up Prize Winners. The back cover promises “stories not for the faint of heart…or loins,” and I guess that’s pretty accurate. No false advertising. This is a collection of sexually explicit and/or lewd stories, a heavy focus on sexual conflict or even deviancy. There’s a story called “Pubes,” FYI, so if you buy this and expect the dry academic prize winners, it’s really your own fault.

Each of Bradley’s fictions is short, which (in addition to the awesome size of the book itself) was helpful for me, allowing me a quick read while rocking Baby Jackson before taking a break and zooming him around the house on an airplane ride, or putting my full attention into bouncing him on my knees and forcing a massive burp. Truth be told, I’ve always had a nagging fear—while reading in situations where my attention could be compromised at a moment’s notice—that I won’t get to the end of a page in time, or that I will be stuck in the middle of some gigantic dense paragraph, and I’ll look over, and the (let’s just say) pasta pot will be boiling over, or my friends will ring the doorbell, and I’ll need to jump out of my seat to turn off the burner or open the door or whatever, and when I return to the book, I won’t know my place. Such a stupid fear. But I’ve had it all my life. Anyway, from that perspective, Prize Winners was perfect for me, the right book at the right time. Stories of three pages, four at most.

But I’ve got to admit that this conception of “perfect” was also a scary thought: while reading Bradley’s collection, I started to wonder if I would need to give up on novels for awhile. Yes, I’d finished Tanzer’s book, but I already mentioned the downsides of chapter-by-chapter novel reading in my last post. And sure, I enjoy short fiction (and flash fiction), but nothing compares to the experience of reading a good novel. Not a short story, not a poem, not an essay of any length, not a movie. A good novel invites all of those reading clichés about “losing yourself in another world,” or “becoming another person for awhile.” Giving up novels, for me, would be almost as bad as giving up on beer and pizza.

So anyway, Prize Winners was quick, and some of it was clever and new, and the reading experience was light and fun, but it wasn’t an “experience.” In fact (and this is my problem with short-shorts and flash fiction as a form), too often it allowed itself to be satisfied only with being clever. A clever image, a clever anecdote, a clever punchline, a clever concept. That story called “Pubes,” for instance, or a story about a girl with an obsession over Tom Selleck’s mustache. I’m not complaining that the book should have been stale and un-clever (if that’s a word); as I said, the book was quick and light in a way that I wanted, that I needed. Bradley’s prose was often patient, and suitable for the characters he was sketching. It was original, too: I’ve never before read a story called “Wishes and Blowjobs,” or a story about prize-winning lettuce  used as a parallel for a girl’s breast growth (“Maybe it’s ridiculous to imagine breasts are anything like lettuce,” the character says). But as a general philosophy on reading, cleverness only really takes me so far. It doesn’t offer an emotional experience, but instead just a quick reaction.

And maybe that’s unfair to Bradley. Maybe he didn’t want to create an immersive experience; he’s not writing House of Leaves, after all. Maybe this is my long-standing prejudice against flash fiction, that the short-short form invites work that relies upon surprise rather than sustained suspense. (And maybe this is also the reason why I tend not to write very good flash fiction!)

Forgive the quick professorial intrusion here, but I guess I should clarify what I mean by “surprise vs. suspense.” What’s the difference? Alfred Hitchcock gave the famous example of an average card game. A group of men sit around a table, swapping stories, smoking cigars, winning games/ losing games, when suddenly—boom—a bomb goes. That’s surprise. We’re jolted for a second, but our surprise lasts only a second. Suspense, on the other hand: Hitchcock tells us that we can have the same boring card game, but perhaps the camera can cut away to show a bomb under the table, ticking…now we have a real danger, and now we will watch from the edge of our seats, wondering how everything is going to play out, when/if the bomb will go off. We’ll watch for thirty minutes, a full hour, sweating it out. Who will survive? Who is responsible? When one character goes to the bathroom, is he going to make it out alive? When another character suggests one last game, does that mean they’ll all die? Suspense requires the careful build-up of danger in a particular situation. Almost by definition, it is going to make the reader more involved in the story than surprise. But in a piece of flash fiction, it’s very difficult to accomplish, and so—the more flash fiction I wind up reading—the more I see the use of surprise rather than suspense.

I don’t know whether there’s an answer as to which is better, surprise or suspense, but maybe you want to share your own thoughts in the comment section. Maybe flash fiction is so popular in the online world not simply because we have short attention spans when reading online, but because we crave a quick fix online, and prefer a long and involving trip when reading in print.

Okay. Creative writing commentary is over. Back to the books.

Roxane Gay’s Ayiti was the final book I finished in January, and though the two books share the same publisher, the content couldn’t be more different. Gay’s book attempts to capture the Haitian diaspora experience, using a combination of short and long pieces to focus on a variety of different characters in various stages of their relationship with their home country. We have Haitian immigrants in American schools who long for the old familiar life in Haiti, and characters in Haiti longing for escape and opportunity, and characters on rafts and longing for…land of any sort. Viewed as a whole, the collection has real power, painting a multi-dimensional portrait of Haiti and granting us quick access to a dozen different lives we might not normally have glimpsed. Take, for instance, Lucien, a character who visits the 7-Eleven and “thinks about the sweet things he would buy for his children if they were with him and how much it would please him to watch them eat a Twix or a Kit Kat,” who sits outside the convenience store and enjoys the warmth of a Hot Pocket and “thinks he’s holding the whole of the world in his hands” (53). There’s a great deal of empathy in this book, a great deal of hope and sadness.

But really, I had some of the same thoughts about the flash fiction in Ayiti that I had while reading Prize Winners. The longer stories were powerful: “In the Manner of Water or Light” (which begins with the amazing line, “My mother was conceived in what would ever after be known as the Massacre River” (57)), and “Things I Know About Fairy Tales.” But many of the shorter pieces—while well-written and careful—often settled for cleverness or surprise. Some even had endings that felt like punchlines. For instance, one story ends with a character going Bruce Willis on his classmates (when he is made fun of, “he adds a little something extra to his Yippee Kai Yay”), while another ends with the shocking revelation that two characters—following a rape—will be seeking a pregnancy test. This, of course, is a classic illustration of Hitchcock’s “surprise vs. suspense” distinction. One very quick “surprise” to leave me thinking about the awfulness of the situation…but at the same time, I found myself longing for a deeper study of what these moments ultimately meant for the characters. What is more emotionally involving, after all? A couple who learns that—after rape—the woman might be pregnant? Or a couple who—in the above situation—is forced to deal with it?

Because ultimately that is the true shortcoming of the short-short story. (God, I really didn’t intend for that terrible pun, but in the interest of self-deprecation, I shall leave it.) Often, we come just shy of truly knowing and understanding the characters. In Ayiti as a whole, it seemed that “Haiti” became the most important character in the book, a puzzle constructed from many small pieces throughout, a rich and complex portrait that we can only understand if we read the collection from beginning to end. But if Haiti is the main character in the spotlight, then the humans sometimes feel like props in the country’s hands, supplied in the book to prove certain points about American abuses, or Haitian responsibility or irresponsibility or identity; one story is narrated in the first-person plural (“We were told lots of things about The Americans…” (81)), but really, nearly all of the flash fiction pieces could have been. We know Haiti and we know Haitians, but we don’t know any of the individual Haitians.

I thought Ayiti was a balanced collection overall, a great and quick read, and Gay exhibits tremendous skill (and tremendous promise for a lengthy career). Like both Ben Tanzer and Ryan Bradley, she’s an important part of the small-press community, and regardless of why I chose any of these books to read, I’m glad that I did.

But my lasting thoughts at the end of January were now centered on the form of flash fiction, its inherent challenges and drawbacks. It was definitely easier to read while rocking or burping my baby, but was it the candy in my food pyramid? Fun in small doses, but definitely not a substitute for a full meal? Are the criticisms I’ve attempted to record here valid, or are they unfounded, and simply my own coming-to-terms with a new reading life that does not always allow for those big, rich novels that line the bookshelves of my past? Should I take each form for what it’s worth, rather than asking it to do the work of a different form?

For now, it’s back to changing diapers. But I’d love to hear your perspectives in the comments, and if we’re lucky, maybe we can get the authors to chime in with their own thoughts.

<<Read Part 2, “Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine”

Dun tek. Dun dun tek.

One of my favorite props in Bellydance is the cane, or assaya. Last week, my Sunday Master class began to learn a cane choreography for the upcoming dance show in April—exciting since I’ve only had one previous opportunity to perform a cane dance, over two years ago now. The cane is a traditional prop of saidi, the folk dance native to upper Egypt. Men dance with canes in choreographies that resemble stick fighting; when women perform the dance, twirling and thwacking the canes on the ground, we are essentially parodying the men. The movements of saidi dance are more earthy and bouncy than cabaret-style Bellydance, executed with pride and a splash of sassiness. Saidi is a dance of the country, of farmers and harvests. Dun tek, dun dun tek is its signature rhythm.

I love saidi dancing not only because it’s pure fun to twirl a cane and smack it on the ground now and then, but because the dance isn’t typically what Westerners expect when they think of “Bellydance.” Yet the cane is a far more traditional prop than say, the sword, for example, and poses as many challenges (on more than one practice session, I’ve sent my cane whirling like a helicopter to the corner of the room—this is bound to happen sooner or later). Saidi dancing serves as an apt reminder that what we in the West term “Bellydance” is derived from folk dancing, and shares roots with Greek, flamenco, Romani, etc.—all brought by the Roma people as they dispersed throughout the Middle East and Europe.

This is why I don’t mince words when I reveal to people that I’m a Bellydancer, not because I’m embarrassed but because most of the general American public harbors such misconceptions about what Bellydance is and isn’t. Some people’s misconceptions even place Bellydance in the same category as stripping or pole-dancing. I tell them that Bellydance is rooted in folk dance, and explain the school I attend focuses on numerous types of world dance: Tahitian, Polynesian, Bollywood, etc., not just “Bellydance.”

Yet I continue to be amazed and dismayed at how many people laugh, point to my mid-section, and remark, “But you don’t have a belly!”

It reminds me of the ways people used to react when I announced that I wanted to be a writer as a teenager. “Oh, so you want to teach English?” was the standard reply, or something similar about working for a newspaper, becoming a journalist. I didn’t want to do either of those things if I could help it, and I always answered, “No, I want to be a writer. I’m going to write novels, like Virginia Woolf or Jane Austen.” Back then I viewed such encounters with irritation and impatience. Now I see them as opportunities to educate the less-informed about what it is I do and don’t do.

This duty of informing—educating—others who don’t gravitate in the same subcultures as you isn’t relegated to writing and dance, of course. Any vocation or career field comes with its inherent misconceptions, often fed by shoddy movies or TV (perhaps even quality screen portrayals), but the misconceptions abound nonetheless. When I was teaching college courses, I had to clarify countless times to relatives over Thanksgiving dinner or well-intended neighbors that no, I wasn’t getting a professor’s salary—not even close. The person’s eyebrows shot to the moon every time I clarified exactly what an adjunct received in compensation—and didn’t.

So rather than get irritated when I’m thrown the “but-you-don’t-have-a-belly” remark (I’m still puzzled at how those who say this find it hilarious—the few times I’d seen belly dancers prior to taking lessons, they were pretty attractive and fit), I take the opportunity to dispel the myths, just as I do when laypersons ask me about writing fiction and publishing (“So, will you be self-publishing your novel? ’Cause I hear that’s the big thing now”). Err, not exactly. There are polite ways of taking the reins of the conversation, and you should take them—every time, because you’re an ambassador of your craft.

Remember, too, that people may react in an off-putting way without meaning to, perhaps because they simply don’t know what to say—they’ve rarely seen or met someone who does what you do at the level of a professional, not an amateur, and claims to do so with such enthusiasm and confidence. Whether they are nervous, rude, or curious, don’t be afraid to stand up and set them straight. Who knows, you may change forever their impression of whatever it is you practice—this could apply to tai chi as much as dance or writing. You speaking honestly about your craft may be the bright spot of inspiration in their otherwise gloomy day.

The biggest myth I enjoy bursting about Bellydance? That mostly men are interested in it. In my experience, men are perfectly willing to tag along to a show, but grow bored more quickly, proving the adage that Bellydance was invented by women, for women—when I look around, it’s almost always the fellow ladies in the audience who are transported and transfixed, on their faces written the question, I wonder if I could do that. Become a dancing goddess of sequins and light.

The myths will always abound, unfortunately—that Bellydancers are either lusty vixens-bordering-on-strippers or, apparently, big-bellied mamas, and that writers are either starving in a garret somewhere or landing six-figure advances. Most of the time, neither extreme is true. Most writers cobble together a living by teaching and editing alongside writing, and certainly aren’t in it for the fame and glory—the latter happens between you and the page. Some of the women I dance with took ballet and jazz growing up and transitioned to Bellydance, many discovered it later, but we take our craft seriously. We don’t dance primarily to transform ourselves into sensual vixens or impress our mates—although that may happen as an afterthought. We dance because it is fun and challenging, and keeps us fit in mind, body, and spirit. Because dance captures something that can only be expressed via music and the body, just as literature seeks out its truth in words.

For now I’ll continue to practice my saidi steps and twirl my cane—cracking open a misconception with every happy thwack.

A big thanks is due to the massive crowd who showed up to the 15 Views of Orlando book release party, and to those who supported both Burrow Press and Page 15 by picking up a copy. Those of you who missed the party and haven’t yet bought the book, you can now listen to the fantastic readings that you missed. Impressed? Buy a copy online or swing by Urban ReThink between 10am and 4pm Mon. – Fri. to get one. It is pretty much the only way to support a small press, and, in this case, you’re helping Page 15 continue to offer free tutoring, writing programs in and out of school, creative writing summer camps, and their latest project, an anthology of Orlando student work.

Photos by Lesley Silvia

J. Bradley – It’s a Hollywood Summer

Hunter Choate – The Gentelest of Bends

J. Christopher Silvia – The Little, Little Death

Ashley Inguanta – Deconstruction

Obligatory crowd shot that happens to feature Burrow blogger Rachel Kapitan.

Stay tuned for more “15 Views” readings featuring different authors!

Over the past two weeks, I’ve begun my first season as a member of the Gypsy Sa’har troupe at the Orlando Bellydance Performance Company. Troupe practices take place at night, following the regular classes, and dancers learn choreographies at a much faster pace. Thus far it’s a fun challenge, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit that the jump up from Master-level class to professional isn’t an adjustment. The artist in me is excited and a little bit nervous for the challenges ahead—and likely the dramatic question of this year’s “Shimmying Writer” column will remain, is it possible to dedicate oneself fully to two art forms? What will that look like? And to a lesser extent, will I remain sane?

Regarding the latter, I am only half-joking.

No matter the lurking doubts, I wouldn’t have gone for it if I didn’t love to dance and believe I could dedicate myself to the rigorous practice and artistic growth. I’m happy and proud that I took this next step in my dance journey—and suspect the importance of doing so won’t become evident for months down the road.

But why? one might ask. Wasn’t it enough to perform with the Masters’ classes several times a year? Couldn’t you have “grown” on your own terms, without joining a troupe?

These questions unearthed a discussion pertinent to anyone who believes in excellence and desires to join the ranks of history’s greats. Since my audition two months ago, I’ve pondered what it would be like if artists of other disciplines had to “audition” and be accepted by the masters (dead included) to be deemed worthy, a professional? What might that look like for writers? Scary, perhaps, to think of Flannery O’Connor, Tolstoy, and Alice Munro facing you i.e. some kind of literary Flashdance, but what if that’s how advancing to the next level worked? Now, I’m well aware that there are plenty of ways emerging writers “audition” to join the ranks of the established—defending a creative thesis, publishing in literary journals, winning awards and fellowships, and the like—but I’m talking about a bona fide audition, where one of your mentors says, as my dance instructor, Suspira, asked immediately following my audition piece, “So, why do you want to join the dance company?”

There are no definite answers here—only that your response must be true to you. Mine was to push myself and to gain confidence as a performer, because often it’s not until you venture into uncomfortable, challenging territory that you realize what you’re capable of. And that’s when you may truly astound yourself.

So, why do you want to join the greatest writers in literature?

Several crucial points are embedded in such a question as well as the asking of it—namely, who is doing the asking, and why. The question itself is a test of the artist’s self-awareness about her practice. Recently I attended the Key West Literary Seminar, and after one of the panel discussions, someone in the audience asked the authors on stage, one of whom was Margaret Atwood, a question akin to why writers write, and is it to express themselves? The panelists exchanged looks and I believe it may have been Atwood who answered quite glibly that no, the aim of the literary writer was not to express oneself—if one wanted to do that, he or she could run outside and scream—but rather, the literary writer serves the story as it develops on the page. I couldn’t have agreed more. Expressing oneself is perfectly fine when journaling or putting on music and dancing at home, and it may remain part of what the artist does, albeit in a more sophisticated aspect—but “expression” ceases to be the overarching aim if that artist aspires to the highest standards of the discipline, and serving his or her craft.

But why ask this question in the first place? What’s behind it? Again, place yourself on the stool in front of O’Connor, Tolstoy, and Munro (or feel free to imagine other, scarier great authors you admire). They’re staring down at you from the lofty panel because they’ve climbed there, and climbing requires struggle, pain, and sacrifice of ego if not actual physical sacrifice. Their work didn’t attain greatness without perseverance through hardship, rejection, dedication to craft—and now, what’s that you say? You’d like to join them? Well, are you willing to do the same? Hold on, now. Think about it. Are you really willing to take up what they are asking of you?

For when you play out the scenario this way, you realize what they are asking you to commit to—achieving a professional level of artistry—is as serious as marriage vows. Can you answer yes to in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, for better or for worse? For art may take you there. It’s no coincidence Lady Gaga’s song “Marry the Night” is an analogy of the pivotal point in which she decided to “marry her art” as she would a spouse.

Lastly, but just as important, the question is asked by a person or persons representative of the community the artist wants to join. An artist may create in solitude, but as soon as that piece of writing or dance solo is sent out into the world, he or she becomes a representative of those who practice that same craft. The audition question of why do you want to join the dance company? or why do you want to join the greatest writers in literature? is a vital one for fellow serious artists to ask of you, to hear your intentions and commitment to create at a level of excellence. Amateurs, hobbyists, and dabblers need not apply.

I encourage you to write down your fantasy audition and discover what your response is to the question of joining your art form’s top ranks—the answer may take you by as much surprise as the exchange I had several years back, midway through my MFA in Writing at Vermont College. I was studying under Douglas Glover when he stated that a writer should aim to make every piece of writing the best it could be—whether it was an essay, a letter, or an email. That’s the standard to which a master artist aspires. After I swallowed my shock (every piece of writing?) and absorbed his wisdom, I vowed never to take my words for granted again. My craft—blog posts, status updates, and tweets included—has never been the same since.