We are Davis Schneiderman Big Other interview. We are not Ryan Gosling.

Here. Not here. And excerpt.

Davis: Discourse the third, please…

Ben: And then most recently, my latest short story collection So Different Now was released by CCLaP who is based here in Chicago, both as a stand-alone e-collection, but also combined with an earlier collection I did with CCLaP called Repetition Patterns, a limited edition, hand bound, “hyper-fiction” collection titled The New York Stories. Repetition Patterns was a series of loosely related small town stories based on growing-up in upstate New York in a town named Binghamton, a place I know you know as well (Note: Davis went to grad school there).

Repetition Patterns was very much about teenagers and their interactions with the town, their parents, and becoming parents themselves. I did a blog tour for Repetition Patterns and, in answering questions about those stories, I started getting ideas for new stories, complimentary stories, and responses to the earlier ones. These stories became So Different Now and are more focused on those “teenagers” as adults and how the sins of the father impact them, us, in our adult lives.

Recently I was talking about this collection and started seeing how there might be a third set of stories in the offing, the death, or maybe re-birth of a dying town, and how people might be intertwined in that process. This was partially influenced by reading about Ethan Hawke and how there is talk of doing a third movie in the Before Sunrise, Before Sunset series. And no, I am not comparing myself to Ethan Hawke, though, for the record, unlike Ryan Gosling, he is not Canadian, and so the differences between us are just a little harder to discern.

"This novel reads like a sitcom. It’s a litcom about you and your friends. A fun, quick read." You Can Make Him Like You gets some year-end best of list love from the William Walsh at the Big Other. And likes it. A lot.

Most true that. Most appreciated. And most thrilled to be included on such a kick-ass list. Drinks on us for sure sir when next we meet.

"Tanzer has a way of being so intimate with his fiction that you feel like you know the people, that you are talking with them face to face, that their pain is your pain." My Father's House gets Big Other'd. And likes it. A lot.

Bring the pain and appreciations. Look, Ryan Bradley is not objective, he is a supporter and champion. He also loves literature though, and the dude is always raw and always honest, and we love him for that and because of this, his writing prowess, and his awesomely damaged self, he is one of a number of writers who's reactions to our work is important to us. All of which is to say, big thanks to the Ryan Bradley for his way thoughtful review, and yes, reactions, to My Father's House at the Big Other. It means a ton. Now how about some excerpt before we start getting all soft? Thanks.

"I consider myself lucky to have had a small role in the glorious publication history Tanzer continues to compile. More than that I consider myself lucky to be able to call him a friend. To say that My Father’s House effected me emotionally would be an injustice. My Father’s House wounded me as if I were the main character who is losing his father. It spoke to me as if it were my own inner dialogue of dealing with my issues regarding my inherent, perhaps bred, need to be tough. Not for other people but for myself. That to let down those guards I have built up could create a spiraling to an unquantifiable extent."

Mark Brand and Davis Schneiderman get all Life After Sleep at the Big Other.

Most definitely have the CCLaP, the other, literary one, on the brain this week, much more on all that soon, and so really excited to see good, old friend, TBWCYL, Inc. favorite and This Podcast Will Change Your Life podcastee Mark Brand talking Life After Sleep with new friend and more recent TBWCYL, Inc. favorite Davis Schneiderman at the Big Other. Please do take a look and please do enjoy some excerpt. Please. Thanks.

Davis Schneiderman: Describe where the idea for Sleep emerged from, if you can…

Mark Brand: I first started piecing together Life After Sleep in 2007, shortly after the birth of my son. I was working 50+ hours a week in a medical office and was sleeping only 3-4 hours per night. As all new fathers do, I eventually came to accept that this is typical life with a new baby at home, but at the time it felt to me like I was the lone astronaut on a rocket to Planet Insanity. I had also always wanted to write something that pulled in some of my knowledge of medicine and the hospital/clinical environment, but I hadn’t really come across an idea I liked enough to make that happen.

By chance, I stumbled across an article in Discover magazine called “How to sleep 4 hours per night.” The article made mention vaguely of TMS technology and the potential side effect it has of putting people straight into REM sleep. My first thought was THAT’s what I want for Father’s Day, and my second thought was this would make an awesome short story. So I sat down over the course of a few weeks and wrote a short story that eventually became the “Dr. Frost” section of Life After Sleep. His section initially was a standalone short that I really liked and got some good reactions to from readers, but I just felt like I hadn’t done enough with the premise, and that there was so much more to say there about sleep and work, and it seemed to grow more and more relevant and alive in my head with each passing year. So I floated the idea to Jason Pettus, my editor at CCLaP Publishing and he liked the idea and told me to run with it. I went back and added Max and Lila and eventually Jeremy to make it more one large work.

Aside from just pure plot cleverness and a giant pile of subtext and not-quite-pointed statements about what I think people would do with a technology that allows someone to have 6 or 8 more hours in a day, (and not a few medical inside-jokes), I wanted to capture some of that experience of just being absolutely flat-out exhausted for an extended period of time. Things start to get wonky, you start waking up not knowing what day of the week it is and you realize you’re at work and you have no memory of having breakfast or driving there, that sort of thing. And in the middle of it, especially if you’ve got a new baby at home and you’re so mentally tied to two different and equally demanding facets of your life, you start to feel really bitter and fatalistic about it sometimes. I tried to grab onto that emotion and show the characters just full-on in the path of that oncoming wrecking ball.

99 Problems is down with Ryan W. Bradley and the Big Other. We are also much appreciative for some Bradley love at the Third Face.

Big thanks to the Ryan W. Bradley for talking 99 Problems with TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer at the Big Other. Enjoy some excerpt below.
 
RWB: My favorite piece in the collection is, perhaps, “After Dark.” About which I have two questions. Looking back on this essay how do you feel about the larger questions you raised about your writing career? I feel it’s rare for writers, especially of the “indie” variety to talk candidly about the struggle and desire for success as a writer, the thoughts of writing for success versus writing for the art or the catharsis.

BT: I love this piece as well, which doesn’t sound right does it? Anyway, I definitely think differently at night, bigger, more grandiose, and while I’m not sure how anyone achieves success, some of it is lightning in a bottle for sure, I know I want it, even if I’m not sure how I would define. I know it’s not about money necessarily, though I do want more of that, or selling lots of books, which would be great, nor even about fame, which would have mattered more to me in the past. Success for me is about something else, it’s about opportunity, doing more, more cool stuff, and having more people who want me to do things for them or with them. It’s so fucking cliché, but I really would write no matter what, there’s no choice for me anymore, but digging that feeling of catharsis doesn’t have to have anything to do with wanting have more opportunities to do really cool things with cool people when and how I want to do them. What I would add here, is that this is something that scares me because it would potentially involve living a life I have no experience with that maybe I really want even more than I think, and that’s hard to fathom, and that’s unknown and to embrace it is to potentially not only embrace change, but disappointment.

We also want to thank Ryan for his very kind shout-out in the interview he recently did with TBWCYL, Inc. favorite Barry Graham at Third Face.

BG: when the world ends in 2012, as the mayans predicted, and the next species takes over the earth and digs up America 1,000 years from now, what literary journals/indie press publications will they be restoring, reviving, and immortalizing, and why?

 
RB: Most certainly McSweeney's, which even at its most pretentious are always an artifact to behold. Fence, Caketrain and Annalemma will be there. I think the breadth of Ken Sparling's work will have an exhibit in a museum of Earth literature. I think more than a single press it could be about individual canons of small press writers, like Sparling. Ben Tanzer is quickly building an empire of words as well. There are so many, really I could add more to this on a daily basis depending on what I'm reading at the moment.

A David Masciotra Working on a Dream Ryan Bradley Big Other Springsteen bucket of love.

Always fun to see various TBWCYL, Inc. favorites come together, and in this case the David Masciotra guest blogging on Big Other via the Ryan Bradley. It is very nice indeed and includes a play list of Masciotra's favorite Springsteen songs from the current decade. Please do take a look and please enjoy the below excerpt as well, it not only tackles one of our favorite Springsteen songs from the current decade, but it is quite Masciotra at that and sure to change your life.

“My City of Ruins”—This gospel song was originally written as a prayer for Asbury Park, but became a post-9/11 anthem when used as an album closer for The Rising. Its music is straight out of a sanctified church, but its prayer acknowledges the marriage between the secular and sacred. Springsteen humbly asks divine assistance in building hope, faith, and love, and accepts communal responsibility for communal future, rather than merely looking upward for the perfect solution.

Today we bring you a Bosworthian homage of video and literary madness. Or if you prefer, the Sally Weigel virtual book tour: Day Four.

Today we are most honored to host Day Four of Sally Weigel's virtual book tour, also known as the Asleep book tour 2010. She is celebrating the release of her terrific novella Too Young to Fall Asleep and we decided that our contribution would be an homage to the equally terrific Mel Bosworth hosted Big Other Reading Series. Please enjoy.

"Catherine looks down at the space below her knees where her lower legs are supposed to be. Throwing the covers over the off-putting sight, Catherine suddenly becomes overwhelmed again with everything it represents. She forgets the annoying yet comforting banter between her sisters, loses the memories of drinking whiskey with her fellow soldiers, unable to think of anything but how her old feminine features are now unrecognizable. As she looks around at the white, sterile walls surrounding her, she grabs the journal beside her bed. She peers outside at a blue, cloudless sky, and summer leaves that rustle against the glass.

I wish I could be a sound of a chirping bird flying south. I wish I could be the sound of subway tracks shaking a building. I wish I could be the soft clamor of snow hitting the ground. I wish I could be the echo of a car speeding down the open road at two in the morning. I wish I could be a morning conversation over a coffee and a scone. I wish I could be the reverberation of high heels hitting a wood dancefloor, letting rhythm control the body. I wish I could be the sound of a bouncing ball, falling into the street, as a child looks both ways before darting after the tragic loss. I wish I could be a yawn. I wish I didn’t have to question my existence but could just acknowledge that it’s beautiful."

Big Other.

We are digging the BIG OTHER. You know what we are digging? The Fire Sale.