The Boy, The Tree, The Sky, The Toy, The Sun, The Song

I was four when I started writing stories. Mom said I would take a piece of college ruled paper, fold it in half, turn it sideways, draw a picture on the front (usually of a boy's face), write a title beneath that (something like The Boy), and then open it to write the story on the two inner "pages" (something like The boy cried love Mom), and then present it to her as the book I'd written for her. She kept each one. I counted them a couple weeks ago. There are four dozen such books, give or take.

I was thirty-two when I first started sending my stories out to journals and magazines. Now I'm forty-nine and I've had a lot of books published - novels, story collections, poetry, memoir - but it's still the same. I'm still writing books and handed them to people hoping they'll like them.

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Mom has my twelve published books on a shelf in her living room. But the shelf doesn't start with my first published book, the 2012 short story collection The Same Terrible Storm. No, sir. It starts with those handcrafted, often crayon-based titles from 1980. 

The Boy, The Tree, The Sky, The Toy, The Sun, The Song.

And that grounds me.

It does. It grounds me every time I see them. 

More lately than ever before, I've needed something to do that, to pull me to the side, ease me into a chair, put an arm around my shoulder, and say, "Here's why you do this. Here's why you do this thing you do by yourself in a quiet room unsure if anyone will ever read what you've written." 

I have to be told, "Don't forget how it felt when you finished The Sun or The Tree and handed it to her and how happy she was to see it, to read it, to hug you when she was done."

I need to know that the reasons I do what I do remain as pure and honest as when I first started. Because if I lose that uncontaminated clarity, the last word I'll ever write will be this one.

My short story "Flipped" appears at BULL today

My short story "Flipped" appeared today at BULL. This has been one of my very favorite journals for more than a decade. Thank you Ben Drevlow; there is no other like you.

"Flipped"

Stumbling Stones: The Story of My Friend

I went to see a play tonight, my first. 

Stumbling Stones: The John Rosenberg Story is about my good friend, and many, many peoples' good friend, John.

I can't relay to you here all that John's done in his life, but it's probably enough to say that he and his family were survivors of the Holocaust. That is, his immediate family, though he, his brother, and his parents were sent to an interment camp before finally boarding passage to New York City.

JOHN ROSENBERG

He's a champion here in Eastern Kentucky. When he got here in 1970 he started foundation for free legal representation for poor people who couldn't afford attorneys. He was also instrumental in getting rid of the broad form contract that enabled coal companies to steal land from hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of Appalachians. Companies in the late 1800s bought mineral rights (for the extraction of coal) from land owners here and later came to collect.

The law gave these fuckers a shield for a long time, but thanks to Rosenberg, the broad form contract is no more. 

John was also one of the civil rights lawyers who was in Mississippi during what would be called Mississippi burning (later made into a film of the same name) that began after three voting registration workers were murdered there.

I could keep going with how important John is to me and to everyone here in my hometown through his achievements as a lawyer and civil rights activist, but the main thing to know about John is that he is a good person, truly good, during a time when the very idea of a good person has been so distorted it's no longer recognizable under the same definition.

How much impact does John have on how I live my life? After the play, I went to McDonald's (only because Hardee's was closed for some reason at 9 PM on Saturday night). Just before pulling up to give them my order, I thought I should throw out my cigarette. I shouldn't smoke, but I also shouldn't throw my butts out the window. I never think about it when I do - never. I won't lie. But I did tonight: I thought about how I shouldn't litter. There is only one reason why I worried about that tonight.

John Rosenberg.

That's what John, now 94, does better than anybody I know. He makes you want to be a better person in every respect. 

Some news and some thanks...

I've had the good fortune to see some stories published or accepted this past week. I'd like to share that news with you.

A new story of mine called "Ghosts" was published today at Cowboy Jamboree Press. 

Also, another of mine, "At the Speed of Sound," will soon share space with others at The Argyle Literary Magazine. The story will appear in the magazine's Issue #6, due out in mid-December.

Hawkeye, a fine literary journal that's going to leave its mark, has taken a story of mine called "A Lying Wonder" for its inaugural issue; it will appear later this week.

I've mentioned this here once before, but my story, "Flipped," is due out in November at BULL

These have lifted my spirits lately. I've worked in a vacuum for a few years now, so it's been nice to get on Twitter and also write here to reach out and reconnect with many of my friends, while also finding new ones. 

Writing is a lonely profession, something none of us need to be reminded, but a few years is too much time typing and putting together sentences to make books with no movement in the literary community. I appreciate these editors, and all of those who know who you are, who have been engaging with me in the last while. I love you all.

Too Proud to Say Anything, also Read and Watch

During the day, Monday through Friday, now and then Saturday, and sometimes ?why? I'm assistant news director at Mountain Top News.

Lately this has meant filling in for our former sports director no longer around. My part has been to write the sports report for our Daily Show. Two minutes. I have to come up with enough sports news to fill a two-minute read spot.

Deadline was a few minutes ago for Monday's show. I got it in, but I almost forgot. Problem was, I's about to write some on The Box when I remembered I had to do it. So I do it. Now I don't feel like writing fiction. But I still want to write. This is my mind on a Sunday night. Any night. Every night. I just usually want to write fiction.

Anyway, here we are. 

I have a secret about the folk horror novel I'm writing, Green Mother; it's a secret I will never tell. But I enjoy teasing people. However few come here to read this blog. Don't care if it's just one. I will tease.

Couple things quickly, without doing my usual rambling:

Watch Monster: The Ed Gein Story.

Read Clarice Lispector.

If you live with a cat, pet her or him now. They probably want you to but are too proud to say anything.

Read Michael Wehunt.

Read Adam Johnson.

Watch Life is Beautiful

Whenever I don't know a good way to end a post, I just do this...

Green Mother joins The Box and the two are doing fine

It's so weird...I'm writing this book The Box now. It's going good. Half finished with the first draft. All nonlinear and disconnected in a connected and linear way, about the love and hate and indifference between Eddie and his evil princess, his holy darkness, Anita. I've been enjoying interlaced chapters on mind-blindness, superheroes, a deep cold colder than cold, trees and streams that act as translators for what poor Eddie can't say, a trio of hair-brained but brilliant thinkers who have been studying Eddie and Anita to discover the source of all love...Just all kinds of fun. But then a strange thing happened...

...I started writing another novel.

Still writing The Box, but now there's this fun little traditional horror novel going on over here at a second work station that just popped up out of nowhere.

This horror novel's called Green Mother. Started it yesterday and have most of the first chapter lined out. And I'll just tell you, it's straight up folk horror set in the deep, dark hills of Eastern Kentucky. Also, the thing is, it's pretty traditional. Nothing incredibly fancy, no modernist or postmodernist brushstrokes, no Monsonic experimentation. I guess what I'm saying is, it's nothing more than flat out fun as hell.

I'd been hoping a book like this would come to the surface. I've written gritty realism, what a lot of people call country-noir, crime fiction, regional literature, and then, of course, glittering and enjoyable surrealism, magic realism, certain levels of short-form horror (such as this story published in Lost Balloon in 2018 and this one published in Occulum in 2017). 

But man oh man Green Mother is like a carnival, like one big horrific festival, a folk festival!, where all the carnies and performers want to gobble you up. It's patently beautiful in that it's absurdly fun to write.

Whenever I can't think of a good way to close a post, I just write this and then stop...

Dear Mortality

If you've had the bad luck of being told by reputable doctors you may not live to a certain age, then you'll know what I'm mean when I say the actual, physical design of your brain is changed from dealing with the news.

I'm 49 years old, will be 50 in April. Doctors told me in 2013 if I didn't quit smoking there was a alarmingly high-percentage chance I wouldn't live to see my 60s. I'd had a massive heart attack that later required triple-bypass heart surgery in 2017. 

For a month and a half, I was able to stay away from the Marlboros. Then, small step by small step, I started to sneak to smoke. At the time, our budget was tight, so I couldn't spend money on cigarettes or it would be noticeable to our bottom line. I'd eventually have to confess to explain where the money had gone. 

So I found cigarette butts in public places.

Yep, nicotine creates a powerful addiction. The last time I did it was about three days before I finally admitted I had started smoking again. I was on my way to work at about 4:30 AM and passed Walmart.

The parking lot was abandoned, a strange state to find the superpower retailer. I took the next turn and drove to the parking lot and walked to the front doors to find in the ash tray receptacle (don't now what they're actually called) a nearly full cigarette someone must have lit as they were going in and tossed out soon afterwards. I picked that thing up and smoked it, cherishing every fine second, giving no thought at all to what kind of sickness I could be exposing myself to whatsoever.

I'm still that addicted, and my last cigarette has to be before midnight on April 22.