It's true. We are pulling a Bosworth. Here. Now. And no, that doesn't mean we are brushing our lush beard one hundred times a night until it reaches a golden hue. Or running through the dew-covered Western Massachusetts mountains before dawn with our deer and antelope brothers and sisters. Nor are we remembering, forgetting, destroying or finding things. No, what it means, is that just as the Bosworth once generously gave away his bonus copy of My Father's House, so are we giving away the now bonus copy of Freight, yes that Freight, the one we just riffed on yesterday here, and there, that arrived in the mail today. So, if you want it, and you know you do, hit us with an email at thiszinewillchangeyourlife@yahoo.com and in the subject line write "I WANT BOSWORTH," because you know you do, and we will pick a winner tomorrow. Cool? Quite. We know.
Vacation. Read. More read. Word. Many. We were off. Off of work. Off of the grid. Just off. There were a number of books we were reading as we left and now they are read. It's always tough to know if authors are up to what you feel like they're up to in their work, especially as you read a number of books at one time, and try to tease through your own biases, filters, and projections, tangling and unpacking your own stuff. This is probably even more the case as you wander from beach to porch to beach again, thinking and reading and thinking and unencumbered by office stuff and web distractions. Which leads to and leaves us with Freight by Mel Bosworth, Nothing or Next to Nothing by Barry Graham and Harry Potter, yes that Harry Potter, and The Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling.
We suppose that on the face of it these books may or may not seem to have much in common, and yet despite the various differences a foot, that's what it felt like at week's end. Start with Freight, a novel that reflects Bosworth's ongoing search for answers, completeness and love, and yes as always the Bosworth is love. The Bosworth is also about movement though, and Freight is about movement, and about trying to move forward by unpacking, and understanding, the past, the good, bad, the violent, and naked, all of it. There is always an undercurrent of pain and trauma in his process, coping, usually poorly, and the desire to resolve any and all of it, so the protagonist can somehow be something and somewhere he is not yet, whole, happy, healthy and intertwined with some girl if not the larger world itself. Nothing or Next to Nothing also continues Graham's efforts to capture characters who are searching for something as well, usually a way out of things that are ugly and contorted, though unlike Bosworth's characters, nothing good ever awaits them, their pasts too traumatic, too violent and messed-up, the poverty too grinding, and in Nothing or Next to Nothing as the character pukes, smokes and sexes his way forward, he is always moving as well, though we know the motion will end badly with the same certainty that we know Bosworth's will not, still incomplete as Bosworth's characters' lives may be. We would add, that it didn't escape our attention that as we chilled on the beach in South Haven, Michigan, the people Graham channels and writes about were somewhere close by, getting high, working in Taco Bell and mostly ignored, by most everyone, ourselves included. Finally, for the moment, The Sorcerer's Stone, such a pleasant surprise in all the ways it captures a character at the start of his life, trauma lurking in the past and present, secrets still to be uncovered, and violence long established, but hopeful, the protagonist more courageous than anticipated, and also moving forward, always, a whole life ahead of him, and the center of a book we would have absolutely absorbed via literary osmosis when were the age of our older son, nine, if you are interested, and who is the only reason, though a most appreciated one, that we are even reading it in the first place.
And in conclusion, if you will then, a coda of sorts. Books. Read. Words. And stories, stories about movement and possibility, or lack there of. But also stories that in many ways coalesce around relationships, those lost in Bosworth's work, though maybe, just maybe with some understanding, showing a path forward; relationships twisted and dirtied in Graham's work, hopeless, though endlessly present; and with Rowling, relationships still forming and firming, but real and true and present as something great begins. Movement. Violence. Trauma. Relationships. Word.
"The prose of Ben Tanzer's My Father's House is a waterfall, crashing cool onto our fevered heads and then carving pathways straight through to our hearts, never slowing, never shying, laced with the glitter of honesty, fear, and a son's love for his dying father. Despite the torrent, Tanzer shows exemplary control as he brings us into his narrator's swirling mind to explore the black, bottomless pools of all things yet to be experienced, and he does so with humor and wit, often employing buoyant insights that crack the water's surface like summertime toes pointing to the mist as it rises through the trees, skyward." Mel Bosworth
One of our favorite things, so Oprah we know, is the Ten Everywhere interview series, and yes we know its not Sunday, which means we continue to undermine our new, albeit still being focus-grouped, feature Interview Sundays, but that said, we love the Ten Everywhere, which is overseen by TBWCYL, Inc. favorite and future, but so soon, This Podcast Will Change Your Life podcastee BL Pawelek; and wouldn't you know it, but the new edition stars none other than TBWCYL, Inc. favorite and one time This Poscast Will Change Your Life podcastee Mel Bosworth talking Grease Stains, Kismet, and Maternal Wisdom. Also, well you know, a favorite. So wow. Much synergy. Enjoy. And some excerpt. 
Matty Byloos: Talk to me about your writing process. I always find that it takes something absurd, monumental, curious, or otherwise completely off-putting for me to feel like using the writing process as a kind of pseudo-journalism, a way of unpacking the human experience and speaking to things that we all share. Is this something that sounds familiar? Or is writing a totally different experience for you, in practice?
Mel Bosworth: Yeah, no, that totally sounds familiar to me. Sometimes I’m inspired to write when I have one of those — and I hate to say it — “a-ha” moments, and I’m curious if I can translate that moment well in written form. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be some earth-shattering revelation, although it can be that, too. It could be something as simple as an overheard conversation, or a simple line, even, like a mother saying to her kid in the grocery store, “Put that back on the shelf.” Maybe the kid can’t have “that” because he’s obese, or maybe because there’s some ingredient in “that” that his body can’t tolerate, or maybe they can’t afford “that,” or maybe “that” reminds the mother of her dead child’s favorite cereal.
But yes, it definitely takes something, something external, something I’ve experienced, personally, to lure me to the desk. It’s when I actually have an idea that the writing comes easily. When I don’t have an idea, and I come to the desk, let the pointless, loathsome, time-wasting Internet laps begin. And it’s at these empty times that I have to remind myself to walk away, to read a book, to go outside, to go to a grocery store, to… live.
I have to remind myself to get out and live. Sure, much can be learned (and experienced) from a life of solitude and deep contemplation, but it’s damn fun sometimes to bounce myself off of other people, like, people I can poke and annoy, maybe even love. That’s where the good writing juice is, I think.
While we so cannot totally decide if we are being mocked in the incomparable Mickey Hess's recent blog post "Three writers who get exactly the attention they deserve," though yes, clearly we are, this confusion should not be confused with our great love for the post and Mickey himself, or our thrill at being coupled, or is it tripled, with the also incomparable Mel Bosworth and Kim Gek Lin Short.
As previously noted here, the Karen Lillis asked us for three holiday small press recommendations and asked that we limit these books to releases from the last two years.
We stuck to releases from the last two years, but we did not stick to just three, we should have, and could have, but we did not and are happy to report that we were not admonished for doing so, which is always nice.
For a more detailed commentary on our part please do hit the Karen the Small Press Librarian post containing our recommendations, but for those of you who just cannot wait, here's our list, with apologies to many, many others.
After The Cats Razzed The Chickens I expected more absurd. Or was that notion absurd? I like the part where David pops his eye out.--Or did you purposefully play down the absurd?
Absurd comes and goes. It has a mind of it's own, at least in my mind. And your notion isn't absurd. But there's a good amount of absurd in Grease Stains, no? Did I play down the absurdity? Was Razzed really more absurd than Grease? Hm. To be totally honest, Josh, and I hope I don't sound like a turd saying this, Grease Stains pretty much wrote itself. I was just the tool. I am a ginormous tool. I really got out of my own way on this one. Words flew out of my hands and they stayed where they landed. Is there absurdness? Absurdity? Is it played down? It's there, doing its thing in its own way. In the end, I suppose the words and the absurdness, played down or otherwise, were simply trying to get as close to the characters as they could. Because it's all about them. And their sometimes absurdness and the absurdity around them. Absurd.
