Bare Bulbs Swinging by the Meg Tuite, Michelle Reale, and Heather Fowler, and the Winner of the 2013 Twin Antlers Prize, is so preorder.

For real. More here. And do hit it, now, like right now, it just might change your life.

Exquisite Duet 2013 Anthology we are. Quite fine company there is. And big thanks to the Meg Tuite for all of it.

So do hit it. Here. Here. And even here.

New joint. Languid. As an Exquisite Duet with the Anna March. At the JMWW.

Yes, that Anna March. And big thanks to the Meg Tuite for all of it. Excerpt? Word.

"Baby you are raw and nothing can scorch you. And we are naked, scuffed, and covered in a fine layer of glistening sweat and scum. Smiling and languid, as we eat Ben & Jerry's, and ignore all those things that must be ignored, dying fathers, dead-end jobs, and baby's that won't make themselves."   

We are Mass 2012 Connotation Press Retrospective. So big thanks to the Meg Tuite for that.

We are also in some awfully fine company. And we are here.

We are Connotation Press. And Darger.

We are also much appreciative. There is new interview. And new piece, "Mass," a riff on Henry Darger. Big thanks to the Connotation Press and the endlessly awesome Meg Tuite. Now, how about some excerpt? Cool. 

"I loved this story, Mass. At first, I’m reading this exceptional inner dialogue of this magnificent OCD character. His every move must be methodical or the next move cannot happen.

“You make coffee. There can be no spilled grounds, grounds bring ants, ants bring pestilence and pestilence brings death. You drink your coffee, one cup, no milk, no sugar. If the coffee spills you start again. You make toast, one piece, butter, no jam, never jam, jam brings ants, ants bring pestilence and pestilence brings death.”

Then, as I’m reading on, I am sure that you have drawn an incredibly moving picture of a day in the life of Henry Darger. I saw the documentary on his life and was mesmerized by him. No question, the story of Henry’s life is inspirational, but how did you come to write this beautifully poetic and disturbing piece.

“You go to Mass. You absorb the words as they float across the pews, taking flight, changing shape, and color, nuanced and beautiful and bending in and around the light. You do not think about the asylum. You take this time to kill all thoughts of self-abuse, or pleasure. There can be no release of any kind until you are home again.”

First off, thank you for the invitation to submit a story, the kind words and your interest in doing an interview. And second, I had this story “I Am Richard Simmons” published by ML Press a couple of years ago and I initially thought it might be cool to try and write some similar pieces in that vein, first-person ruminations on obscure or somewhat inscrutable quasi-celebrities we think we know something about and how they cope with confusion, pain and their inability to wholly communicate what they struggle with. I didn’t pursue the idea because I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to capture the tone and vibe I had with that piece. More recently though I started thinking about this again and for a month or so just wrote down the names of people who I thought might fit what I was going for, including Henry Darger, who I have been alternately fascinated and repulsed by for years. I am also fascinated and repulsed by OCD and the crippling nature of it in the extreme is endlessly upsetting to me... I didn’t want to romanticize this, nor do I frankly know anything really about Darger, but that’s part of my goal with these pieces. They’re my impressions and reactions to people we think we sort of know, but don’t, and can’t, and if they turn out poetic or beautiful, I’m thrilled, that’s really wonderful and humbling.

Like totally Exquisite Quartet.

It's true. The endlessly sublime Meg Tuite invited us to participate in the awesomely ongoing Exquisite Quartet series at the also endlessly awesome Used Furniture Review and participate we did, along with the equally sublime Len Kuntz and Linda Hedrick, the final product being "Ask and You Shall Receive," which dare we say is not just awesome, but sublime as well.   

This Book Will Change Your Life - Domestic Apparitions by Meg Tuite.

 

Travel. Read. Fast. Amanda Knox. And apparitions. In the air. Cars. On living rooms floors.  We are movement and read and  Domestic Apparitions by the Meg Tuite. It is story as sketch. Family as fragment. Life as a series of disturbances that bounce into one another and congeal. It is also the female experience as filtered through violence and oppression and we recognize that women's experiences are far more wide-ranging than what we're reacting to, that there is love, friendship and family as a nurturing and safe place, but in a world where men endlessly project their sexual and aberrant fantasies onto women, where women's voices have been suppressed historically, and ignored, and continue to be suppressed in ignored in various forms in the literary world and beyond, these stories need to be told, highlighted and given a place to be broadcast. And in that way Domestic Apparitions is reminiscent of other work we've had the chance to read recently, books like Slut Lullabies by Gina Frangello, Sweet Charlotte's Seventh Mistake by Cori Crooks and The Lost Episodes of Beatie Scareli by Ginnetta Correli, books that eschew metaphor and magical realism and try to capture something in real time in all its ugliness. Which makes them important and necessary, but aren't reduced by this necessaryness as something merely important, not when these books are this creative, thoughtful and bursting with storytelling talent.    

Connotation Press. The March. Quasi-self indulgence. And Interview Sundays. Part Two.

More, yes, more interview, more Connotation, more excerpt, and more terrificness from the Meg Tuite, this time talking with TBWCYL, Inc. favorite and big-time supporter, the Anna March. Enjoy. And word. Big word.

Who have been some major influences in your writing career?

Soooo many.......James Baldwin. Richard Russo.  John Irving.  Ann Beattie.  Tillie Olsen.  Zora Neale Hurston. Ray Carver.  Daphne Merkin.  Lois Lowry.   Alice Walker.  Marie Howe.  Jack Gilbert.  Dai Saijie. Bob Dylan. Ellen Gilchrist.  Quincy Troupe.  Faulkner.  Faulkner.  Faulkner.

I keep a little note on my computer that says:  "Where's the heart?" -- that's from Michael Stearns.   The other note I keep there says:  "Does it hurt yet?" -- that's from Pam Houston.  Those two questions guide me.

Connotation Press. The Bradley. Quasi-self indulgence. And Interview Sundays. Part One.

Yes, true, that, the quite terrific Meg Tuite and Connotation Press talked Prize Winners with the Ryan W. Bradley this week, which can only mean one thing, Interview Sundays are back, we are most geeked, we think you might want to take a look and we are even providing some excerpt because we are good like. 

The title story, “Prize Winners,” is the one we are publishing and quite a powerful and memorable story. What was your inspiration for this story?

To me it feels shamefully obvious that I was reading Aimee Bender when I wrote this story, but it probably wouldn’t necessarily come to mind for others, so I’ve ruined the romance of it now. I don’t remember much about what spurred the story other than that when I read something I really like I often have an urge to write my version of that story. So, in this case I had read some Aimee Bender and thought, “what would my version of an Aimee Bender story be?”

Originally it had a much more Bender-esque ending (which I just now re-read for the first time since it was changed), but in revisions the ending changed to its current version, which is much more consistent with my style, if I have what can be considered a style.