What It Is Is There's A Cover Now For WT #2

With summer about a week old, we've started in full with gathering together the in-hand stories and such for the second issue of Wrong Tree Review.

I realize I've not mentioned WT very much of late, but what can I say? I've grown fat over the past several months and content with the shine and lasting fulfillment of our first issue, so happy was I with the results.

But I have news, people. Gather 'round. Listen:

Aside from the fact that this next issue has some of the finest writing from the finest writers in these parts (including a posthumous offering from our dear, lake-bottom scraping Finnegan Flawnt and so many others) there is also, as is normal for journals, some cover art.

But listen...listen closely.

The cover for Wrong Tree Issue #2 will feature artwork by a man called Sam Pink. Yes, you heard me. A man called Sam Pink.

More updates to come as the good work continues for the summer issue.

Goddamn, I'm pumped!

Interior: Floyd County Times newsroom. Midday.

Sheldon: Huh, I lost someone who was following my blog. Had 30, now it says 29.

Co-worker: (Laughing) Loser.

Laughter dies away, replaced by general office sounds.

Sheldon: (Quietly, to himself) I know.

Heartfright

The last chord splinters. All eyes to me, scalded red hands folded in my lap and finished. She's not listening and if she's not listening there is no music.

Patricia, a Problem, and a Pencil

Zoology class. Patricia pays attention. Pays attention like she’s got credit cards full of it. All the plastic attention you can handle.

The rest of the class pays attention to Patricia, the tight American Eagle t-shirt even more tight over her melon belly. Chatter over her shoulder, food chain chatter at the front of the room where Mrs. Evans explains and explains. Chatter in Patricia’s head so that she can almost hear her thoughts in her throat, real words vibrating downward.

She raises her hand and Mrs. Evans calls on her without looking away from the caged boa propped on the edge of her desk.

“Can a baby inside of you hear what you’re thinking?”

Mrs. Evans says nothing and does not call down the kids laughing at the back of the room. Instead, she takes a white mouse from a box the class prepared the day before. Tiffany stabbed holes in the sides and top so the mice could live long enough to die.

Patricia raises her hand again but Mrs. Evans and the rest of the class watch the mouse and the snake. She writes a note instead and resharpens her pencil.

Grocery Shopping

Clay took the first chicken, white-knuckled its neck until there was no chicken voice left, just the whir of feathers.

Three, four, five propeller rotations and the body splashed across the yard. He tossed its head on the front porch and went for another.

I poked at the flap of neck, the moving beak, and did not flinch when it gave its last scream, a brain stem reflex.

David E., Flawnt and a Confession.

David Erlewine left. Now Finnegan Flawnt will be stepping offstage. Both writers and individuals I hold in high regard.

David said his job lawyering had picked up and was demanding more of his time. Finn said he worried the instant gratification of flash and a fast-track publishing world where a story can be written, submitted and published in some cases within a week was keeping him from the art of the longer story, longer prose.

I appreciate both reasons, but can't fully understand either. But I can hope that David will, as all true writers do, continue to produce work. He mentioned before of a long break he took from the writing world only to reemerge and give us dozens upon dozens of wonderful stories. As for Finn, let's hope we see some of those longer stories somewhere in the future.

Now, for a confession...

For reasons I can't rightly understand myself, I decided to start an online journal called A-Minor Magazine but not connect my name to this publication. Maybe I wanted the work to stand alone, apart from any writer or editor connected to the journal. Maybe I felt playful. Maybe this. Maybe that. But, at this point, it has started to feel a bit more deceptive than I imagined it would, though I know most would understand.

So there it is. I started and am publishing and editing work at A-Minor Magazine. I've confessed this not because I feel anyone necessarily cares, but for myself. Deception, even at the most diluted level, has never been a coat that fits me well. I feel a little better already.

Now, all that being said, take a look at A-Minor at www.aminormagazine.wordpress.com. Read, submit, comment. I hope you enjoy. It's certainly been pleasant for me so far.

GUEST POST: Amy Geeleher

I recently asked writer Amy Geeleher to contribute a guest post here concerning reading. An avid and dedicated reader, I thought Amy would offer some interesting insights on reading as a writer, reading for enjoyment, reading for this and that and whatnot.

Instead, and even better, Amy gave me a pleasant surprise by writing about reading with a fine bit of fiction. A chef, this lady, a cooking guru of unique ways of taking on an assignment.

So, I offer you Amy Geeleher's views on reading through the eyes of her fictive world. What better way?

Sebastian, Chester and Harry Make Three

By Amy Geeleher

The forest is an open forum for the earth to unveil its overflowing glory and spread in green bucolic fervor. Reading is an intrepid feat of movement through the journey that is unfurling understanding via imagination and cognition, honing in on language and the subsequent pearling strings of syntax and grammar: art is love is god.

Sebastian was reading the back of a cereal box the other day, gleaning meaning from its ingredient list. High fructose corn syrup holds no saving graces from which misery is inevitably derived, but somehow there is language communicated by the commas connected to words with spaces and nouns depicting complex chemical components, what is zinc oxide exactly? Chester on the other hand subscribes to various magazines and political periodicals, filling up his head with so much input that he is bursting at the seamless seams of his skin, pore openings swelling at the mere thought of such super-saturation. And then there is Harry, who reads to write, he writes to expand the greenness of his earthly being, for his intrepid travels across multiple fronts of consciousness via the process of sublimating rage…expand and contract, repeat then fall to the wayside in writer’s block.

Amy Geeleher is a social worker who hails from western Massachusetts and finds that it is heartening to connect with others through writing and other creative venues.

INTERVIEW: A Conversation with Appalachian Writer Mindy Beth Miller

Before anything else, have a look at Mindy Beth Miller's writing chops. Here's a couple paragraphs to give you a taste:

"Back on Low Gap, the sun spit out its last blast of rays over the top of Saddleback Mountain. A puddle of yellow light gleamed on the hood of the parked car. Laurie trudged up the road, listening to her suitcase knock on the side of her leg. She stared straight up at the thick, green kudzu that towered over her, the bulky forms of draped figures rising high in the air. The creek burst out of the holler and a little waterfall spewed out like a rain shower somewhere down over the hill. She could feel the cool breeze from it licking her skin.

Up at the top of the hill, she looked over in the bottom, following the echoing taps of hammer strikes. She saw the sweat gleaming on Garner's naked back under the pole light's orange glow. He was building her the view she'd always wanted. She felt that familiar gnawing at her heart and laid a warm hand on her chest. A short breath shuddered inside of her like a bird trying to unfold its wings between her ribs. She focused on all that lay ahead of her, fixing her eyes hard like two round pieces of slick coal in the dimness and willed her body onward, stepping toward his waving hand." – excerpt from "The Cost of Living" Miller's first published story(published in the summer 2009 issue of Appalachian Heritage), and the winner of the 2008 Jean Ritchie Fellowship in Appalachian Writing.

The Mexican restaurant where I sit with Mindy Beth Miller in her hometown of Hazard, Kentucky is buzzing with activity. Miller, who has already gathered publications, awards and the eye of a New York literary agent for her first novel all while still in her twenties is reserved, arms crossed in front of her on the table. Her eyes search the room, gathering details, taking in her surroundings. She is ready for our interview and, knowing her as a deliberate person as well as a deliberate writer, I start only when she seems ready.

The main character of her novel-in-progress is Cat, a Kentucky coal miner working to make a life for her family in the best way she can. But her novel-in-progress and her process as a writer is where I decide to start. I now refer to this technique as method writing. I probably did not coin that phrase, but it applies in spades when looking at Miller's approach.


SHELDON LEE COMPTON: Let's start with the big question...the book you're working on. Tell me about it. I understand you're taking on some pretty involved research to gather material and that it's an extension of your short story, "Mountain Born," which is featured in the fall 2009 issue of The Louisville Review.

MINDY BETH MILLER: Yes, the novel is an expansion of "Mountain Born." The story itself is still coming together, but it focuses upon the life of a woman coal miner. I'm very excited about this novel, because the story is contemporary --- somewhat rare for Appalachian fiction --- and features a strong, very compelling female character at its center.

The research has been a real joy, but also quite challenging. The easy part was talking to family members about coal mining, what their experiences were like being underground. And I specifically wanted to know how women were treated in the deep mines. One thing I don't want to do is turn my novel into any kind of sociology study (e.g., one long essay on sexual harassment), but I do want to tell the truth. I've learned that for a woman to willingly work in the deep mines she has to really love that kind of back-breaking work or she simply has no other choice. My protagonist, Cat Sandlin, is put through the wringer by these men, but she's there for important reasons --- to provide a better life for herself and to make her daughter proud of her.

I've watched various films in my research process, films like Coal Mining Women, North Country, Silkwood, and Norma Rae. I've also recently seen Bonecrusher, a new documentary film that appealed to me due to its inside look at coal mining and its effect on our Appalachian heritage. But I suppose the most interesting aspects of my research have been interviewing a woman miner and touring an active deep mine.

I had to really work to have a chance to speak to the woman miner, because her husband wasn't having it! He made that quite clear to me. He hated the fact that his wife had ever worked in the mines and couldn't figure out why she'd want to talk about it. Big-time magazines hadn't even been able to secure an interview with this woman, but I used my hillbilly girl charms on her husband. (And it doesn't hurt to act a bit pitiful, either.) I had a wonderful, extremely enlightening conversation with his wife. The conversation was inspiring, somewhat upsetting at times, and truly moving. I felt as though I were being given a rare gift --- to speak directly to my main character, Cat.

For awhile now, I've been eating at restaurants that Cat would like, wearing shoes and clothes that are more her style, and listening to music that would appeal to her or that simply places me in the world of the book. But even though I live in the same world she does, I'd never been to that other place that she had to go to almost every day. I knew that I had to go into the deep mines if I was ever going to get Cat's story right. But it was hard finding a mine that would allow me to take a trip back in there. I had to do some convincing, but eventually I was given the go-ahead. I toured a slope mine, so I went 205 feet down and two miles back. I was inside the mine for about three hours. I was never scared, but I did feel some apprehension on the slope car, because it made a repetitive bumping sound that reminded me of heartbeats. That experience brought everything home for me. I had to feel that world, had to let it get inside my skin. That's something I would have never gotten from watching a video. And it was only then that Cat began to live for me.

SLC: You’ve mentioned if you hadn’t done that you couldn’t have gotten to the place you needed to be to write the book.

MBM: That’s right. The thing was I didn’t know how to go into the mines. I didn’t know who I needed to talk to or if they’d even entertain the thought of letting me in there. I had asked around about it, but most people said I’d probably have to go into a simulated mine. But I didn’t want that. I wanted to go into an active deep mine. I talked to some people in charge, but when I told them I was a writer, some of them automatically thought that I was some kind of activist. So, it really seemed like no one was going to let me go. A few people suggested watching videos about coal mining, but I knew that I needed to be there. I had to see it for myself, to find out what it was really like. I eventually convinced a place to let me tour a deep mine, and it was truly one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I thought, “Now I know what it feels like." I know how scared she probably was her first day at work. How the dust tastes, how it gets in your nose and mouth. And when I was coming back out of the mine --- that light. It’s just all of a sudden and you don’t expect it. It just happens. And I thought, “Well, I’m going to live another day.” And I got emotional after that. This is what I learned about her life. I had walked in her shoes.

Now I should probably talk about my actual writing process, which is something you were curious about. Sometimes, I'll write little scenes. I never write out every little thing that happens in a scene, but I'll get the gist of it down. I'll write down bits of dialogue. I use notebooks like this one (reaches me a pocket-sized, moleskin notebook filled with careful and neat handwriting, sketches of dialogue and scenes spanning several pages). I write down anything that comes to mind. In a way, I see the whole story like it's a movie, and I hear the character's voice as if it's a voice-over in the movie. So, if Cat says something --- and not just Cat, any character --- I write it down, or if someone in my family says something that I think fits the story or one of my characters, I'll write that down, too. Every once in awhile, I'll see a whole scene in my mind and write that down. So, later, when I'm ready to write the book, I'll sit down and look through all the information that I've accumulated in these journals and notebooks. And there's the whole story for me.

SLC: Will this be the first novel you've written?

MBM: I wrote a novel when I was fourteen and it sucked. It was 250 pages of absolute nonsense --- a mystery set in Scotland. I'm sure I was ripping off something by Agatha Christie. I was reading a lot of stuff like that back then. There aren't a lot of people who would do something like that, especially at that age, but I did. I don't know what that says about me.

SLC: Even then did you use the methods you’ve talked about here?

MBM: Believe it or not, back then, I was an elaborate outliner. At that time, I didn't understand that being a writer was such an involved process. I just thought that I was telling a story, that it didn't have to have any rhyme or reason because I was just having fun. I didn't understand a thing about allowing a story to develop organically and all that. I plotted out the entire thing, start to finish. It was only when I, at seventeen, met Silas House that I began to understand what it really meant to be a writer.

SLC: On the subject of Silas House and some other Appalachian writers. You’re a Jean Ritchie winner and have had success in the area of regional, Appalachian writing. Talk a little about that. When you’re writing, do you keep in the forefront of your mind that you are an Appalachian writer?

MBM: I do, yeah. Because, to me, I feel like I have a great responsibility as a writer from Appalachia. It is my responsibility to preserve this place and these people. When I won the Jean Ritchie Fellowship, I was reminded of that. I felt that even more. I can remember, years ago, sitting out on my front porch close to dark and some of my aunts were down on their front porch, talking. I just sat quietly and listened to the conversation. I thought, "That's what I'm going to miss the most." Those voices, those people. One day that's going to be gone, and all the stories they told will be gone with them. And so, for me, I've felt this heavy burden to not let that happen. As Appalachians, we're aware every single day that our world is changing, that we're changing with it. There's a sense of urgency about this being a place and a way of life that is passing away all too quickly. That's why we have had such an explosion of writing from our region. We're trying to hang on to this place and ourselves. It is just one place, but it's also the only place. I hope I can play a part in helping us retain who we are, our heritage. I think that's what I'm supposed to do.

SLC: What’s next after you finish the book? Will you go back into a novel or work on shorter stories for a sort of buffer?

MBM: I’ve got ideas for about three novels after this. Whether I’ll get to them I don’t know. And I have a cycle of stories I’d like to do.

SLC: Will these have some of the same characters you’re working with in the current book? I ask that because it seems writers do this, particularly with Appalachian works and works in that sort of canon, where stories are greatly character driven. Could you maybe elaborate on that?

MBM: I don't anticipate that happening, but you never can tell. I think the reason this happens is because it's so easy to get attached to the characters. You don't want to leave them behind. I guess when you spend so much time with those people and you get to know their stories that it‘s just easier to make that the next thing that you do. I mean, that’s my theory and I could be wrong. There are two characters in the book I’m writing now that I would love to read about in a book that's just about them because I think they have a great story, but, then again, I might cover everything I need to about them in this novel.

SLC: I know there are some pressures with this book for you. You have an agent who has said they’ll read it whenever you finish it, but do you have a timeline for yourself for when you’d like to see it finished?

MBM: I have thought about it, because I'm a planner. I'm a chronic planner. I'll sit down and plan my life out and maybe that's not good. But I said at first that I’d like to complete this book in two years, but I don’t know if two years is going to happen. So, ideally, two to five years.

SLC: How long have been working on the book to this point?

MBM: I’ve been working on it for two years.

SLC: So you have an agent in New York who is awaiting this book. And how that came about was this agent saw your story “Mountain Born” published in The Louisville Review and this caught his eye. So were you already working on the book then or were you prompted to start after that contact?

MBM: Oh no, no. I was right in the thick of doing research for the novel. I think they were hoping I already had a book completed. I told the agent that I didn't have a novel to show him, but that he might be pleased to know that the novel I'm working on is an expansion of the short story that he'd read and liked so much. He said that I could send it to him at any time, that it was an open invitation. So, that made me feel good about things. It's good to know that he's interested in the book, even if he ends up not taking it in the long run. I have no surety about that. But the important thing here is that struggling writers out there need to get their work into these literary journals. Agents do still read them.

SLC: And this agent has an impressive list of clients he’s already worked with. Isn’t that right? I believe he represented the author who wrote the short the film Million Dollar Baby was based on.

MBM: I believe that this man is a highly respected literary agent. That's my understanding, anyway. He represents F.X. Toole whose collection Rope Burns included the short story "Million Dollar Baby." He also represents Richard Russo and some other interesting, successful writers. So, I'm lucky there. It feels like a real compliment that he even noticed my work. It's exciting.

SLC: So, what else?

MBM: Well, I have to mention the importance of Silas House's novel Clay's Quilt. When you look back on past generations of Appalachian writers, you often think about what books inspired them. Many of them were influenced by James Still's River of Earth or Arnow's The Dollmaker. But when you get up to my generation, I have to look to Clay's Quilt as the book that made that difference for me. Up until I read that book, I, myself, had never read a book of Appalachian fiction that applied to me and my life. I recognized the place and the people in that book. For Silas House, he felt that way after reading Lee Smith's Black Mountain Breakdown. That's when he knew what he needed to write about. Before I read his novel, the last place I wanted to write about was here. To me it seemed like every good story was about "off," places away from here. I was writing about Scotland. I was even writing about stuff taking place in the Middle East, things I didn't know anything about, so you see how far away that was from the hills of Eastern Kentucky. But after I read Clay's Quilt, I knew that this place was what I needed to be writing about.

I have to say that Silas House has been so good to me, the very best mentor. He really took it upon himself to work with me, to teach me what it meant to be a writer. And, you know, it's funny because there was a time when I had no desire whatsoever to know him. I was a teenager back when I first met him, and I reckon I thought he was old. Very old. I mean, my papaw's name was Silas. But then, I met him and saw that he was about 30. That just blew my mind.

SLC: Silas is without doubt one of our premier writers today and a fine person. One of his mentors, Larry Brown, wrote what is now often referred to as grit lit in some circles. How much do you think about some of the more gritty aspects of this area of Eastern Kentucky in terms of your fiction?

MBM: I think you have to talk about that or you're not being honest. I think some people might think that this is a place where everybody sits on the front porch and talks and it's like going back in time. It's almost as if we're cut off from the world so much that we're all living in a time warp where we're oblivious to the bad side of living. Well, except for feuding, you know (sarcasm). But we all know that there is a major drug problem here in Appalachia and there are some "backward" people and bad schools and controversial mining practices. There are bad roads, bad water, and countless other things that we can't gloss over. So, in order to show the truth of a place, to get it right, you have to show the good and the bad. I certainly don't plan to sentimentalize this place. I am writing about my Appalachia, exactly the way it is.

When people meet me, they probably think that I'm a wholesome, good old country girl --- a hillbilly girl. Because of that, they might think that there are things I couldn't possibly understand or write about. I think they're going to be surprised.

SLC: There is that fine line when writing about this area. We’re protective of it just the same way we’d be protective of a family member. It’s our tendency most times to talk about their good points.

MBM: You're right, Sheldon. We are protective of it. Fiercely so. And it's a love-hate relationship because I love it here, but there are things about Hazard that I don't like one bit. I'll be driving around sometimes and think that this isn't always a very attractive place to be and that I might not always want to live here. But even when I say that, I don't know if I could ever really leave. This place is in my blood. It's part of my soul. And in some ways I'm part of its, too.

We are so connected to the hills. It's an amazing thing. That's part of the reason that we're having this big debate about the coal industry's use of mountaintop removal right now. While my book features coal mining and miners, I won't be addressing that topic very much, if at all. There's also a growing number of people who are just totally anti-coal. I hear and understand both sides of this debate. I'm right with those people who say that we need to save these mountains and protect our environment here. And I'm right with those people, including so many of my family members, who say that if coal goes away, we won't have anything. There is that very real fear that this whole place would be a ghost town, that everybody would pick up and leave. And so, for me, I can't plant my feet firmly on one side of this issue. In my novel, my protagonist is a coal miner. That's the best option she has. In some ways, it's the only option she has. If she didn't have that, what else would she do? She would probably work as a waitress, a secretary, or a substitute school teacher. Something like that. There's nothing wrong with those particular jobs, but this is a woman who has to make a life for herself and her family. So, my book will take a look at what might be a way of life that is passing and what would it be like if coal wasn't here. I think that's something that hasn't been truly and satisfactorily addressed in all of these debates: if you take it away, what else is there?

SLC: How much of this do you think will make up the novel?

MBM: Well, I think it's something that will stay more in the background. It's a big issue right now, so it has to be addressed to some degree. But it won't be the main thing. If I make it the main thing, then I'm the writer bringing my own politics into it and you just can't do that. If it affects my protagonist's life, then it'll be mentioned. If not, then it probably won't be there. You have to be careful, because people will tune out. I'm writing fiction, not a polemic. Nobody cares what the writer thinks.

SLC: Right. Story is everything. Something else I wanted to ask was whether or not you have a certain reader in mind when you’re writing. Some writers do that.

MBM: I think that every good writer writes for an audience of one. I don't have any idea who that person is, but I just think of them as someone who's in trouble. Life itself is trouble, so I think that people bring that with them when they read a book … all the troubles in their life and this is their escape for a little while. If your main character is also in trouble, they'll go with you on that journey. They'll become that character.

SLC: For you, what are the most rewarding and the most challenging aspects of the writing life?

MBM: Writing forces you to be more alive. You want to live as hard as you can with your senses on fire. I've trained myself to notice what's going on around me --- the deeper things, not just what's on the surface. Some people say that writers are uniquely able to maintain the wonder of childhood, but I don't think it's that. That might be a part of it, but I think it's more than that. Writers are people who feel too much. We are often very melancholy people. We are lonely people. To sit down and write is a solitary experience. That is challenging in and of itself. Being alone, finding whatever it is in you that needs to be expressed, requires you to take a good, long look at yourself. And what you find is not always easy to take. But the beautiful thing is that all of your shortcomings and failures and sins and questions can be given to your characters. That's what I love most about writing. I can work out the toughest, most baffling aspects of living through these people that I've created. So, in the end, those characters shape me far more and far better than I could ever do for them.

– Read the full text of Miller's story "Mountain Born" in Vol. 66 of The Louisville Review. This will take you to the home page and from there you can click on the current issue and link to a PDF version with Miller's story on page 77.

– Have a look also at this story from Miller called "The Cost of Living" at Project Muse that was published in Appalachian Heritage.

Album

A flushed cheek, round of smiling blue, missing teeth, watch me, close the door, words thrown, fingers held, cake, song. How long was she that first hour?