This Podcast Will Change Your Life, Episode One Hundred and Four - He Loved Me, starring the Sheldon Lee Compton.

We love us the Sheldon Lee Compton. We are Skype. And we are podcast. But we are also Appalachia, tragic fathers, flash fiction, children, brain space, labels, Harry Crews, and much, much more. So do hit it, because it just might change your life as it has ours.

"Tanzer has flexed muscles some writers may never discover they even have." Lost in Space. And massive appreciations to the Revolution John and Sheldon Lee Compton for that.

Massively massive. Excerpt? Word.

"I carried Ben’s book around the house hunting for my wife after reading this passage.  At one point, I stopped and thought, My new goal is write so that I make someone hunt other people down to show them something I’ve written.  We should all write this way, I think."

In which "Here We Are" and talking violence at the Revolution John.

And big thanks to the Sheldon Lee Compton and the whole Revolution John crew for that. Excerpt? Word.

"So, we were faced with a situation, not a major one certainly, not life and death, but still a major situation for us, that wasn’t getting settled by being polite.

It was settled by the threat of violence, not even an actual act, just the suggestion of it.

What am I to take from that, and what does it tell me, that in the moment I was fully prepared to back it up?

I was going to get in a car, drive six hours, get out of that car and hurt someone. And yes, it involved my mother, and yes, I was enraged, but it seemed so rational to me, though not even merely rational, but logical, and then not even just logical, but weirdly triumphant, and fun, and this despite the muscles contracting across my chest.

And if I can even begin answer this question for myself, how should I explain any of this to my children?"

This Book Will Change Your Life - Where Alligators Sleep by the Sheldon Lee Compton.

Travel. Read. Rinse. Repeat. Reflect? We are on a beach and yes that makes us dicks. Which is to say we have been travel and read and beach since June, and work, yes, sure, but travel, and read and beach, rinse, repeat, all summer, and so we are dicks. The summer is over though, one last weekend of sand and books and such now behind us and the children back to school tomorrow. It may have been the busiest, if not, best summer in some time, and with each stop there was read. Slouching Towards Bethlehem in Los Angeles, Conquistador of the Useless in Philadelphia, Apocalypticon and Annihilation in South Carolina, and so many other books, and beaches along the way, including, but most definitely not limited to Where Alligators Sleep by the Sheldon Lee Compton. What struck us between train rides and books and so many drinks, is that a summer is comprised of moments, eating donuts in L.A. strip malls, listening to podcasts about Robin Williams while running on the beach, the endless Gin & Tonics, and that these pieces while wonderful in and of themselves, merge and twist into something else: a picture of something whole, nuanced, and full of details that make for a life lived. This too is what Compton has done with Where Alligators Sleep, pieces of flash and fiction, that linger in your brain, but then as a whole become something, a picture of what it means to be a man, full of violence, work, death, relationships, children, and what it means to be alive and part of the world. That Compton writes so descriptively, including passages like: "In two years I'll be gone. My end and your beginning. When you speak to people, any people,try to be polite. Don't look directly at them. Keep your tone soft and never let them see what you are, where you came from. It most likely won't help, but try anyway. And have a son. Teach him to hold his head high. Teach him to take it like a man. Teach him something, anything;" or stands so ably among his peers, especially the Appalachian writers such as Charles Todd White and Rusty Barnes, is merely a bonus, that his work may just change your life, is certainty.

Vaughan. Compton. Lit Pub. Storm.

We do love it so when our friends get together and talk writing, especially when old friends find new friends, and so it is with old friend Robert Vaughan talking with new friend Sheldon Lee Compton at The Lit Pub about a variety of writerly things including his new joint The Same Terrible Storm. Delightful it is. All of it. So please do hit that. Because it just might change your life.

Books Mamet Algren Royko Language Tribes Chicago Peterson Greaney Compton Winter 2013 WordPlaySound.

Right here totally hit that yes please and tell Ryan Singleton just how beautiful he is too go now thanks.

Mel Bosworth gets Bent.

After taking the day off yesterday from hyping interviews by and about people and things we are quite digging, we decided to continue this trend for at least one more day after reading a most excellent interview with TBWCYL, Inc. favorite and podcastee Mel Bosworth at Sheldon Lee Compton's quite fine Bent Country. Please feel free to imbibe on all the Bosworth you can handle and then we suggest that you sit back and savor the experience as it will certainly change your life. And mostly for the better at that. Also, and as always, please feel free to wet your appetite with the below excerpt.


SLC: The West Virginia writer Breece Pancake was once asked if he "wrote his stories for certain markets." His response was to say, "I don't write to make a living." Of course we'd all like to make a living doing only this good work, but where do you stand on the issue of writing for publication (that is with publication in mind) as opposed to writing simply for the sake of the story and then moving on from there?

MB: Great question, Shel. And hm. I suppose I write stories for the sake of the story for the most part. It's fun to create. And at this point in the game (for me, and for a lot of us, really) it's not about making money, or being able to make a living with our writing. That's simply not realistic. Not when over 90% of the markets (I'm just throwing that number out there but I'm confident it's close) don't offer much in terms of monetary compensation. And even now, for me, with one small collection available in print and a novella on the way, I'm not expecting to make anything. And even the bit of money that I do make from my writing goes right back into the machine. It's not buying me the necessities of life. It's buying books, or paper, or ink. For indie writers and publishers, money is laughable. We're all taking a hit. We're dumping gallons of time and energy (and often our own money) into a process that rewards us by allowing us to be a part of it. We're running a race for the thrill of the run, because it makes us feel good. We're junkies, Shel, the lot of us. The rush of creation. The rush of knowing that something decent, perhaps even readable, can gush from our fingertips. I don't always write stories with a particular market in mind (although I have on occasion) but I am very cognizant of wanting to write something worthwhile, or what I deem worthwhile. And luckily, a lot of my favorite pieces to write have found good homes.