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CITY OF WEIRD, Stories to Evoke & Entertain

“I’ve been having this dream lately.
In this dream, I’m traipsing through the aisles of that big bookstore in Portland, Oregon.”
~ from “Aromageddon” by Jason Squamata in City of Weird

cover image for City of WeirdI have never been to Portland. But City of Weird, with its “30 Otherwordly Portland Tales,” offers a view of the Oregon metropolis (and its famous bookstore)–in slant. A collection of imaginative, surreal, and (at times) sardonic stories, Forest Avenue Press’ newest release makes for a perfect Halloween read, especially for the faint of heart like me.

When I was seven years old, I went against all reason–and my parents’ stern command–and watched Salem’s Lot when I was supposed to be in bed. I watched it only in bits and pieces, first because I was afraid I would get caught then later because I was afraid.

cartoon tv

I would tiptoe up to the small TV in the playroom, turn the knob just past the hard click to power up the screen, stare wide-eyed and wild-eyed at the current scene for two minutes, then promptly turn the knob to OFF (!), run back to my bedroom and hide under cover. A few intermittent peeks like this as the movie played out were enough to sear my mind with vivid, terrifying images of vampires. All of them bald, with gray faces, and teeth in need of immediate dental care.

So I appreciate a book like City of Weird, with stories packed inside that let me dip my toe into “fanciful, sometimes preposterous archetypes of weird fiction” (as editor Gigi Little says in her introduction), stories that touch on such things as my permanent bias toward vampires and flip them on end. I mean–sure, bloodsuckers are scary, but Justin Hocking turns them into sympathetic characters in his story, simply titled, “Vampire:”

The vampire has figured out that he can take a photo of himself with his cell phone, stare at his image for a long time, in a way he never could with mirrors. He looks for hours at his widow’s peak, premature baldness scratching its talons further and further up his scalp. He wonders, since he’s 382, if ‘premature’ is the right word.

This fragile fiend could easily be that frump, middle-aged man you pass on the street who, like you, worries about the effect so many years can have on a body, even if he is immortal. Poor guy. It must be tough. Bless his heart (at a distance).

Image of two orcas, mother & baby, swimming in ocean

Then, there’s Leigh Anne Kranz’s “Orca Culture,” the story about killer whales, which aren’t really killers when it comes to you and me. Except Kranz again leans on common knowledge just enough to push the question, “what if.” In her story, the “Seattle pod” has developed a keen taste for a certain species–misbehaving men–and swallows them whole:

She felt it was the natural order of things. The world was changing. If humans were to survive, men like him must go extinct.

You’ll have to read the story to find out why such men might need to be snatched from the shoreline. In any case, it’s an interesting perspective, predator eating predator (oops, did I just give something away?).

One of my favorite stories is Mark Russell’s “Letters to the Oregonian from the Year 30,0000 BC,” which sets up Portland in ancient times as a mirror to Portland today, a teasing reminder that humans haven’t really changed all that much.

We read of one letter to the editor written by a caveman millennial of sorts, who downplays the newest invention (and current trend) of fire, until using it for cooking proves advantageous:

In fact, we found cooking with fire so rewarding that we opened a mommoth-fusion food cart just west of the burned forest. We’ve taken to calling this area West Burnside.

We read the opinion of the Paleolithic conspiracist:

Personally, when someone says “fire,” I hear “gentrification.”

And last, but not least, a plea from the Peacemaker:

I like charred lizard as much as anybody. And carrying torches around at night, well, it just makes me feel important. But I’m afraid of what fire will mean for life here in Yak Village.

In the Village, as in Portland (& probably the metropolis closest to where you live), strange characters abound. And as Grub the peacemaker from Yak Village says, the “strange” are “treasures,” lost when we try too hard to conform to normal.

There’s more. A hefty book of sci-fi and speculative fun, City of Weird is chock-full and available for purchase in all markets, independent and other. If you live near Portland, stop in at one of the upcoming book events, like Pop-Up: City of Weird (with Stevan Allred, Jonathan Hill, and Karen Munro), November 5th.

* On images above, cartoon TV photo credit: Candyland Comics via VisualHunt / CC BY-NC; orca photo credit: Mike Charest via VisualHunt.com / CC BY

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Q&A with Jamie Duclos-Yourdon, author of Froelich’s Ladder

“Imagine my voice brother: I am here with you, Harald. We are not alone.” ~ from Froelich’s Ladder by Jamie Duclos-Yourdon (@JamieYourdon)

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Take two brothers, one very tall ladder, and a quest for fortune. Or fame. Or maybe just love. Mix in a bit of betrayal and a few carnivorous clouds and you have Froelich’s Ladder (Forest Avenue Press, August 9, 2016), a well-told tale by debut novelist, Jamie Duclos-Yourdon.

Froelich's coverSet in the 19th century, Duclos-Yourdon’s novel introduces readers to brothers Froelich and Harald, who set off from Germany to Oregon Country in search of land and prosperity. While Froelich is the mastermind for the journey, it’s the older brother, Harald, who finds fortune–in love and in living–and Froelich, who settles into resentment (with the land and later with Harald). But even in bitter need for retreat Froelich doesn’t slip off to a cave or disappear into the woods, he instead rises up to the sky on his very tall ladder for escape, holding on to the rungs in tight retribution while Harald bears the weight of it, ladder and all, for the next seventeen years.

Froelich’s Ladder catches the eye with its cover and holds attention with its curious tale about the ladder as a touchstone, marking determination loyalty and acting as reminder that we are never alone. I’m thrilled to host Jamie Duclos-Yourdon today for an interview and am offering a book giveaway as well. Leave your name in the comments for a chance to win a copy of Froelich’s Ladder (deadline to enter is Tuesday, August 9th). Now, welcome, Jamie!

CC: From the first pages of your novel, readers embark on a journey where clouds run like cattle and may very well devour man, where a beautiful girl escapes her isolated prison only to discover the world twice as dangerous and lonely, and where a crazed, old man appears long enough to blur the lines of reality and make everything clear all at once. What sparked such a fantastic story?

Jamie DYJDY: What a generous and succinct summary! It certainly sounds fantastic by your description.

The (unpublished) novel I completed before Froelich’s Ladder involved a lot of totems: scarecrows, bicycles, etc. I had a few leftovers when I was finished—among them, a ladder.

To me, a ladder begs the questions Who’s on top? Who’s on bottom? What’s the nature of their relationship? That’s how I conceived of the brothers Harald and Froelich. One thing led to another, and suddenly I had man-eating clouds.

CC: Mid-way through the book, Lord John insists that ‘Without Froelich, there can be no ladder [and] without a ladder, there can be no meaning!’ In his mad cry, he cinches the idea of Froelich’s ladder as more than an object of escape; it is a crucial connection between one person and another, past and present. Who do you think faces the bigger challenge: the man who climbs the rungs, records “odd scripts and patterns over the years,” and clings to the history, or the man at the base of the ladder who balances the weight of wrongdoing while desperately trying to live in today? 

JDY: Hmm … that’s a metaphor, right? My guess is that each reader will approach this question from his or her own unique perspective. Me, I’ve got more sympathy for the person at the bottom of the ladder than the person on top. I think we all carry the burden of responsibility; everyone can feel that weight against his or her back. And certainly there’s a lot to recommend personal responsibility! But when I think of anyone who’s trapped under-rung, I feel a tremendous sadness. First Harald and then Binx sacrifice their happiness for Froelich’s sake. That’s no way to live.

CC: On your website, you link to Tall Tales, essays and stories you write based on experiences from your book tour. When searching for a story, where do you turn first: to the people or the place?

JDY: People—always people. I’m primarily interested in the relationships we share, not in the sense of boyfriend/girlfriend but how two or more people relate to each other in a specific context (like on a ladder, say). In fact, my editorial conversations tend to go, “There are these two guys driving in a car, and—” “Where are they?” “I don’t know—Long Island? Anyway, the first guy is blind! And the second guy—” “Long Island, when? Like, contemporary Long Island?” “Holy crap, I don’t know! Who cares? Long Island a thousand years ago!” “Then how are they in a car?” “Forget the car. There are these two guys, in a cave, in Long Island, a thousand years ago, and one of them is blind …”

CC: What are you reading these days?

JDY: I impatiently await the arrival of Tracy Manaster’s new novel, The Done Thing. While I do, I’m reading The Golem and The Jinni, by Helene Wecker. I wish I’d picked it up a year ago—I would’ve pleaded for a blurb!

CC: As editor, author, and parent, I imagine your plate is full. What’s your favorite technique or bit of advice for managing multiple projects?

JDY: In all honesty—and I don’t recommend it for everyone else—it’s waking up insanely early. When my kids were little, I could only depend on the hours before 6:30 AM to write, so I set an alarm for 5:00. Now that my kids are older, it’s still a time when no one’s going to interrupt me. No one’s going to text me or expect a response to their email—and I stick to this schedule seven days a week, Christmas and my birthday included. By 7:00 I can face the day knowing that I’ve written 300 words; whatever else I accomplish is gravy.

Jamie Duclos-Yourdon, a freelance editor and technical expert, received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Arizona. His short fiction has appeared in the Alaska Quarterly Review, Underneath the Juniper Tree, and Chicago Literati, and he has contributed essays and interviews to Booktrib. Froelich’s Ladder (Forest Avenue, August 2016) is his debut novel. He lives in Portland, Oregon. Contact him at info@jamieduclosyourdon.com.

Don’t forget to enter the book giveaway by Tuesday, August 9th! Just drop your name in the comments below.

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Q&A (& giveaway!) with Kate Gray, author of Carry the Sky

There is turbulence in loss, a wild spinning of particles. There is a vacuum that is not an absence. It is full.” ~ from Carry the Sky

Carry the Sky CoverIn Kate Gray’s debut novel, Carry the Sky, Taylor and Song are boarding school teachers pulled into the lives and in close proximity of two students, Kyle and Carla. What follows is a story of loss and grief, mourned relations, and the effects that actions–deliberate or not–have on those around us.

One of Bustle magazine’s 11 must-read books about high school, Carry the Sky also hit the charts on Amazon’s hot new releases for literary gay and lesbian fiction.

Kate GrayI’m honored to interview Kate Gray and thrilled to host a giveaway (thank you to Forest Avenue Press).

At the end of the post, leave a comment for a chance to win your own copy of Gray’s novel. The winner will be chosen on Tuesday, September 16th. Now, welcome Kate Gray!

CC: In CARRY THE SKY, we see both sides of grief: in Song, the desperate need for a logical explanation and in Taylor, the tactile experience where the “the wax smell of the boathouse” and the sharp feel of cornstalks, hitting and scraping, push or pull at heartbreak. Which of these characters–Taylor or Song–came to you first? Which one has stayed with you the most?

KG: Grief is like the crystal from a chandler. It takes your pain and projects it in many directions at once. Taylor and Song are both reactions I had inside me to the loss I experienced when I taught in a boarding school.

12Song is the more logical and intellectual, and Taylor is the more visceral and associative. Carla is another, and she is all impulse. I’d say that Taylor came to me first because there is no logic to the accidental death of a friend, and her way of dealing with emotion through metaphor, sensory experience, and exercise is the way of coping that comes most naturally to me.

As Song says, “There is no science for this” when facing the horrible loss at the center of the book. I am more poet than physicist.

CC: Throughout your novel, Taylor and Song both take risks that change the course of their lives, sometimes for good and sometimes not. Writing itself is about taking risks. What was the greatest challenge you faced as you wrote this book?

KG: The greatest challenge come in re-entering the pain I lived and inventing the pain that motivated the characters to act in the ways they did. This type of literary fiction is dangerous because you try to reveal what you would like to hide, and you try to face what scares you in order to help others move their trauma. To give a specific example, Carla tells childhood stories of a sick, sexually-charged environment created by her father. In one scene her father invites her brother and her into a shower with the pretense of cooling off during a horribly humid day. That never happened to me, but I had to put myself there to imagine what she felt and did and how that experience affected her. I needed to wash myself after writing the details of scenes like that for fear that the terror would stay on my skin.

CC: I know you spent some time at Hedgebrook, and I’ve read a bit about the writers’ residency. But, I would love a first-hand account. How long did you stay? What insights did you gain? And, the fellowship? I imagine it was amazing.

KG: It was heaven. In 1999 I was awarded a 3-week residency at Hedgebrook, which is a women’s retreat center on Whidbey Island, WA. It can accommodate 6 writers at a time, each of whom is given her own cottage, which was hand-built by master craftsmen, each designed to give the writer a variety of spaces in which to write, like a window seat, a desk, a loft, a couch, an alcove. The only work you are allowed to do is to write, and to carry your own wood and build your own fire in the wood stoves. You are on your own during the day, but in the evening, you migrate to the farmhouse where there is a gorgeous meal prepared for you, much of the makings harvested from the ample gardens. The cook joins you at the table, and you are not allowed to clear or clean your dishes. You are to do no work besides writing.

During that residency, I met some of the most powerful and diverse writers I’ve ever known. Hannah Tinti, the author of The Good Thief, and co-founder of One Story, has become one of my closest friends.

Hedgebrook allowed me to take myself seriously, gave me the time and space and permission to write. Its commitment to the diversity and richness of women’s voices from around the world is an inspiration to all organizations that promote social justice.

CC: What are you reading these days?

KG: Carter Sickels, in his award-winning novel, An Evening Hour, tells his story through the eyes of a young man who is trapped by poverty and his loyalty to his grandmother and the land they live on. The story reveals the rape of West Virginia by coal companies. In the novel the companies level mountain ranges, poison land and water, and swindle communities. While the narrator is deeply flawed, it is his decency and generosity toward the most isolated and destitute in his community that redeem him. The writing captures the complexity of characters and economics, the choices made and the ones imposed.

CC: In your acknowledgments, you also mention your writing group, saying “If I could show you what community means….” What’s one lesson you’ve learned in critique that has stayed with you through publication of this book?

KG: I was referring to a loose community of writers, called the Dangerous Writers. This group was started by Tom Spanbauer, author of The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon, and its purpose was to provide a loving and supportive environment for writers to tell the hard stories. Tom and his fellow teachers, Stevan Allred and Joanna Rose, developed a lexicon and a number of guiding principles. Most of the writing was first person. I ended up working on the novel with Stevan and Joanna at something they now call The Pinewood Table, which is a weekly writing group to which each participant brings at most 6 pages to read and discuss. One of the principles was to “hide the I.” When writing in first person, the reader will get bored if every sentence begins the same way, especially if the subject is always “I.” One of the ways to avoid that repetition and monotony is to try to start the sentence with the direct object or predicate. Essentially, flipping the usual syntax makes for much more interesting sentences and can lead to a distinct voice.

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Rowing for years, Kate Gray coached crew and taught in an East Coast boarding school at the start of her teaching career. Her debut novel, Carry the Sky (2014) takes an unblinking look at bullying. Now after more than 20 years teaching at a community college in Oregon, Kate tends her students’ stories. Her first full-length book of poems, Another Sunset We Survive (2007) was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award and followed chapbooks, Bone-Knowing (2006), winner of the Gertrude Press Poetry Prize and Where She Goes (2000), winner of the Blue Light Chapbook Prize. Over the years she’s been awarded residencies at Hedgebrook, Norcroft, and Soapstone, and a fellowship from the Oregon Literary Arts. Her poetry and essays have been nominated for Pushcart prizes. She and her partner live in a purple house in Portland, Oregon with their sidekick, Rafi, a very patient dog.

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Drop your name in the comments for a chance to win a copy of Carry the Sky. (winner to be chosen on Tuesday, September 16th).Then, click on over to Kate Gray’s website and read more about her work.