My First Time: Tawnysha Greene

My First Time is a regular feature in which writers talk about virgin experiences in their writing and publishing careers, ranging from their first rejection to the moment of holding their first published book in their hands.  Today’s guest is Tawnysha Greene, author of the Young Adult novel A House Made of Stars. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee where she currently teaches fiction and poetry writing. She also serves as an assistant fiction editor for Cutthroat: A Journal of the Arts and is a regular reader for the Wigleaf Top 50 series. Her work has appeared in PANK Magazine, Bellingham Review, and Necessary Fiction among others.

My First Mentor

Her class was one of the last I took as a graduate student. An upper-level course in poetry writing, it was a course that began in her home. We all huddled in a small group around a table in the den, each clasping a new poem she had told us to bring. Happy, her wolf-dog, a huge white creature, lay passively at our feet as she scratched his large, pointy ears. She nodded as we read each of our poems, then looked to the next person to read aloud. When everyone finished, she welcomed us with open arms. Her name was Pamela Uschuk, and she was my first writing mentor in graduate school.

My other writing professors were all inspirational and wonderful, but Pam conducted her class in a way I had never seen someone do—she went beyond the role of a teacher, earning our trust individually, then guiding us all with a gentle hand. She often brought our classes outside, and we sat in a circle as we had before, except now, we rested beneath the trees and breathed in the fresh air. Speaking loudly to be heard over the sounds of campus construction and the noise of cars passing by, we shared our poems again, new ones, bolder ones, and these classes were invigorating, because of the way we had to raise our voices, to bring every word out so that each was alive.

Pam sustained this energy in our poems in the prompts she gave us. We went to a wildlife and nature reserve south of the city where we walked the trails and pointed to the birds and snakes we saw, then following her example, we all sat down on the earth where we wrote these things down. Some of us rested near the trees, others on the path, and she sat with us, wrote as we did, made poems, too. Soon, night began to approach, and we began hiking the last trail that would lead us home, and we saw a barred owl perched in the trees. It was feeding on a snake, and we watched open-mouthed as it casually held the snake’s body with one claw and then swallowed it down whole, undisturbed by the group below. By then, we knew when to speak loudly and when to be quiet, when to listen to the world and ourselves. Pam didn’t even have to tell us to write a poem about that moment.

When she read my poetry, she guided me with quiet corrections, her marks brief but always ending with an encouraging note, pointing me in the direction I should go. During conferences, I watched as she wordlessly crossed out lines from my poems, her pen gliding over the page before she turned the poem back toward me and showed me what was left. “Here,” she said. “This is where your poem is.” She had a way of revealing things to us—in our own poetry, the poetry we studied, and in the world around us.

By the end of the semester, we all wrote a little bit differently. Our poems had become more honest, and we shared that openness in the last class we had together at her home. She made dinner for us, and we ate in the backyard. It started to rain, then as the storm worsened, we all crowded back inside. As thunder cracked and rolled outside, we all sat where the semester began. We spoke of our time together, of what we would write that summer, and how much we would miss her when she went back to Colorado. It grew late, and we all turned in our end-of-the year portfolios. We said our goodbyes. We lingered. No one wanted to leave.

When I wrote the acknowledgements page of my first book, A House Made of Stars, I included all of my writing teachers, but her name was more than that—her name was that of a mentor, a good friend. My poems from her class eventually became the novel, but her tender hand was always there in the pages, her voice telling me, “Here, this is where your story is.”

Sunday Sentence: “Centrifugal Force” by Jodi Angel

Simply put, the best sentence(s) I’ve read this past week, presented out of context and without commentary.

Nobody said anything, and then the sound of the hammer stopped and Harold stood upright and stretched his back and looked at the group of us, gathered around, and Harold said hey, you guys wanna go walking? and we all nodded and Harold rubbed his hammer clean on the patchy lawn and shoved the head into his back pocket so that the handle stuck out like a comb, and we all followed him to the front of the house, and then we were on the street and Harold was in the lead, and we fanned out behind him and when he broke an antenna off a parked car, we all laughed, and then he did it again—snapped one off a green Chevy so that he had an antenna in each hand, and we wondered how many more he might take because there were a lot of parked cars on the street—and we kept laughing until he started whipping at our arms with them—hard—so that the thin metal left behind welts and it was impossible to fend him off—he had one in each hand—but nobody said anything because we were pretty relieved that Harold had forgotten about the hammer, and Harold was heading toward the 7-Eleven and somehow he was always the only one with some money, so we kept walking because we figured it was just a couple of car antennas and Harold was just a guy off his meds, and it was a Saturday in March, and it was getting too late in the afternoon to do something different.

“Centrifugal Force” by Jodi Angel, from Tin House: Summer Reading

Friday Freebie: As Good As Dead by Elizabeth Evans

Congratulations to Myra Faye Turner, Bart Zimmer and Nina Lehman, winners of last week's Friday Freebie: Waveland by Simone Zelitch.

This week's book giveaway is a copy of As Good as Dead by Elizabeth Evans. Read on for more information about the book Library Journal called an "intelligent and literary psychological novel."

At the high-octane Iowa Writers' Workshop, small-town Charlotte is thrilled and confounded by her relationship with charismatic and sophisticated Esmé. One moment, Esmé appears to be Charlotte's most intimate friend; the next, her rival. After a tumultuous weekend, Charlotte's insecurities and her resentment toward Esmé reach a fever pitch. Blindly, Charlotte strikes out--in an act of betrayal that ultimately unleashes a cascade of calamities on her own head. Twenty years later, Charlotte is a successful novelist. A much-changed Esmé appears, bringing the past that Charlotte grieved over, and believed buried, to the doorstep of Charlotte and her beloved husband. Charlotte finds herself both frightened and charmed. Though she yearns to redeem the old friendship and her transgression, she is wary--and rightly so. As Good As Dead performs an exquisitely tuned psychological high-wire act as it explores the dangers that lie in wait when trust is poisoned by secrets and fears.

If you’d like a chance at winning As Good As Dead, simply email your name and mailing address to

thequiveringpen@gmail.com

Put FRIDAY FREEBIE in the e-mail subject line.  One entry per person, please.  Despite its name, the Friday Freebie runs all week long and remains open to entries until midnight on June 25, at which time I’ll draw the winning name.  I’ll announce the lucky reader on June 26.  If you’d like to join the mailing list for the once-a-week newsletter, simply add the words “Sign me up for the newsletter” in the body of your email.  Your email address and other personal information will never be sold or given to a third party (except in those instances where the publisher requires a mailing address for sending Friday Freebie winners copies of the book).

Want to double your odds of winning?  Get an extra entry in the contest by posting a link to this webpage on your blog, your Facebook wall or by tweeting it on Twitter.  Once you’ve done any of those things, send me an additional e-mail saying “I’ve shared” and I’ll put your name in the hat twice.

Sunday Sentence: “The Little Boat” by Jane Kenyon

Simply put, the best sentence(s) I’ve read this past week, presented out of context and without commentary.

The gloom was lavish and agreeable.

“The Little Boat,” from Otherwise: New & Selected Poems by Jane Kenyon

Friday Freebie: Waveland by Simone Zelitch

Congratulations to Carl Scott, winner of last week's Friday Freebie: The Book of Laney by Myfanwy Collins.

In this week's book giveaway, three lucky readers will win a copy of Waveland by Simone Zelitch. Thanks to the publisher, The Head & and the Hand Press, for providing the copies of the book. Read on for more information about Waveland.

As Beth Fine would tell her daughter years after Freedom Summer, back in 1964, she was the girl who did everything wrong. She takes part in a wade-in to desegregate a public pool, and almost drowns. When she joins Northern volunteers to staff Freedom Schools and register voters in Mississippi, she speeds down a highway, hits a cow, and ends up in jail for prostitution. Beth believes in questioning authority, and her courage and commitment to social justice both define her and lead to her undoing. Alienated from her family, she still finds herself as an outsider in a movement that exposes the limitations of her good intentions. As she strives to transcend these limitations, her commitment deepens, her questions change, and the nature of authority and justice become harder to determine.

Blurbworthiness: "There has been surprisingly little fiction about the endlessly fascinating, necessary history of the civil rights movement, but Waveland is a compelling addition to that short bookshelf. In a variety of voices, Simone Zelitch has caught the complexity, the satisfactions, and the contradictions of those urgent times, and she's quite remarkably given us more than a little of the generations before and after. Brave actions have consequences and this moving novel does honor to those who bore them." (Rosellen Brown, author of Half a Heart and Civil Wars)

If you’d like a chance at winning Waveland, simply email your name and mailing address to

thequiveringpen@gmail.com

Put FRIDAY FREEBIE in the e-mail subject line.  One entry per person, please.  Despite its name, the Friday Freebie runs all week long and remains open to entries until midnight on June 18, at which time I’ll draw the winning name.  I’ll announce the lucky reader on June 19.  If you’d like to join the mailing list for the once-a-week newsletter, simply add the words “Sign me up for the newsletter” in the body of your email.  Your email address and other personal information will never be sold or given to a third party (except in those instances where the publisher requires a mailing address for sending Friday Freebie winners copies of the book).

Want to double your odds of winning?  Get an extra entry in the contest by posting a link to this webpage on your blog, your Facebook wall or by tweeting it on Twitter.  Once you’ve done any of those things, send me an additional e-mail saying “I’ve shared” and I’ll put your name in the hat twice.

Front Porch Books: June 2015 edition

Front Porch Books is a monthly tally of books--mainly advance review copies (aka "uncorrected proofs" and "galleys")--I've received from publishers, but also sprinkled with packages from Book Mooch, independent bookstores, Amazon and other sources.  Because my dear friends, Mr. FedEx and Mrs. UPS, leave them with a doorbell-and-dash method of delivery, I call them my Front Porch Books.  In this digital age, ARCs are also beamed to the doorstep of my Kindle via NetGalley and Edelweiss.  Note: most of these books won't be released for another 2-6 months; I'm here to pique your interest and stock your wish lists.  Cover art and opening lines may change before the book is finally released.  I should also note that, in nearly every case, I haven't had a chance to read these books.  I'm just as excited as you are to dive into these pages.

This Is Your Life, Harriet Chance!
by Jonathan Evison
(Algonquin Books)

Hey! I like book titles that end with an exclamation point! And I really like books by authors whose names end with Evison! Given how much I loved West of Here, I guess this one is shooting straight to the top of the To-Be-Read pile!!

Jacket Copy: With her husband Bernard two years in the grave, seventy-nine-year-old Harriet Chance sets sail on an ill-conceived Alaskan cruise only to discover that she’s been living the past sixty years of her life under entirely false pretenses. There, amid the buffets and lounge singers, between the imagined appearance of her late husband and the very real arrival of her estranged daughter, Harriet is forced to take a long look back, confronting the truth about pivotal events that changed the course of her life. Jonathan Evison has crafted a bighearted novel with an endearing heroine at its center. Through Harriet, he paints a bittersweet portrait of a postmodern everywoman with great warmth, humanity, and humor. Part dysfunctional love story, part poignant exploration of the mother/daughter relationship, nothing is what it seems in this tale of acceptance, reexamination, forgiveness, and, ultimately, healing. It is sure to appeal to admirers of Evison’s previous work, as well as fans of such writers as Meg Wolitzer, Junot Díaz, and Karen Joy Fowler.

Opening Lines:  (November 4, 1936: Harriet at Zero)  Here you come, Harriet Nathan, tiny face pinched, eyes squinting fiercely against the glare of surgical lamps, at a newly renovated Swedish hospital, high on Seattle’s First Hill.

Blurbworthiness: “Has all the wonderful snap and sizzle we’ve come to expect from Jonathan Evison’s work, and as much heart as any novel I’ve read in recent years. [He] packs an entire life--many lives--into this fine book, and does so with the empathy and insight of a writer at the top of his game.” (Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk)

Armada
by Ernest Cline
(Crown)

I still haven’t managed to squeeze Ernest Cline’s previous book, Ready Player One, into my reading queue (I guess this player isn’t quite ready), but there’s something about the first line of Armada (see below) which immediately fires up my cylinders. Maybe it’s the flying saucer.

Jacket Copy:  Zack Lightman has spent his life dreaming. Dreaming that the real world could be a little more like the countless science-fiction books, movies, and videogames he’s spent his life consuming. Dreaming that one day, some fantastic, world-altering event will shatter the monotony of his humdrum existence and whisk him off on some grand space-faring adventure. But hey, there’s nothing wrong with a little escapism, right? After all, Zack tells himself, he knows the difference between fantasy and reality. He knows that here in the real world, aimless teenage gamers with anger issues don’t get chosen to save the universe. And then he sees the flying saucer. Even stranger, the alien ship he’s staring at is straight out of the videogame he plays every night, a hugely popular online flight simulator called Armada—in which gamers just happen to be protecting the earth from alien invaders. No, Zack hasn’t lost his mind. As impossible as it seems, what he’s seeing is all too real. And his skills—as well as those of millions of gamers across the world—are going to be needed to save the earth from what’s about to befall it. It’s Zack’s chance, at last, to play the hero. But even through the terror and exhilaration, he can’t help thinking back to all those science-fiction stories he grew up with, and wondering: Doesn’t something about this scenario seem a little…familiar? At once gleefully embracing and brilliantly subverting science-fiction conventions as only Ernest Cline could, Armada is a rollicking, surprising thriller, a classic coming of age adventure, and an alien invasion tale like nothing you’ve ever read before—one whose every page is infused with the pop-culture savvy that has helped make Ready Player One a phenomenon.

Opening Lines:  I was staring out the classroom window and daydreaming of adventure when I spotted the flying saucer.

Gateway to Paradise
by Matthew Vollmer
(Persea Books)

As if the title of Matthew Vollmer’s previous short story collection (Future Missionaries of America) wasn’t enough to engage me, there’s the opening paragraph of the first story (“Downtime”) in this new book to fully capture my attention. And let’s not overlook the excellent cover design of a pizza box opening onto a forested landscape. The promise of weirdness abounds.

Jacket Copy:  Men and women looking for escape from the excess and sham culture in which they live―junk food, souvenirs, and hype (whether for religion or sex)―are led by the power of their own imaginations to places of danger and self-reckoning. In these gritty, imaginative stories set in the mountains and small towns of the South―often in motels, theme parks, or resorts―men and women find themselves at the mercy of an inspiration gone wrong: a man on a tryst is seduced by a ghost; a woman conducts a test to discover who is her true best friend―her husband or her dog; a beleaguered young writing professor goes one step too far while chaperoning the famous writer he finds darkly alluring. In the title story, an ex-high-school basketball player living an uneventful life in her small hometown as a cashier helps her boyfriend rob a lottery winner, and finds herself on an epic journey of fear, deceit, and betrayal.

Opening Lines:  In the atrium of the Park Vista hotel, a glass elevator rose from a fern-shrouded vestibule. Its windows rattled, and its lights—softball-sized bulbs bordering its tinted glass—flickered. Ted Barber, who had been standing on the tenth floor watching a boy on the seventh toss paper airplanes into the lobby, didn’t notice the elevator until it stopped on his level. Then, like a man returning to the material world after having disappeared inside a prayer, he raised his head, blinked rapidly, and zeroed in on the the elevator’s sole passenger, who, he was surprised to realize, he recognized. It was his wife, Tavey. She didn’t look good. Then again, she was dead.

Did You Ever Have A Family
by Bill Clegg
(Simon & Schuster)

Recovering crack addict, powerhouse literary agent, bestselling memoirist, and now debut novelist: Bill Clegg touches his book with lightning-tipped fingers and leaves the reader singed from Chapter One when a pot-smoking dude named Silas wakes to the sound of sirens and looks out his bedroom window to see an oily cloud of smoke rising in his neighborhood. I may just rip a few hastily-turned pages as I plow right through this one.

Jacket Copy:  On the eve of her daughter’s wedding, June Reid’s life is completely devastated when a shocking disaster takes the lives of her daughter, her daughter’s fiancé, her ex-husband, and her boyfriend, Luke—her entire family, all gone in a moment. And June is the only survivor. Alone and directionless, June drives across the country, away from her small Connecticut town. In her wake, a community emerges, weaving a beautiful and surprising web of connections through shared heartbreak. From the couple running a motel on the Pacific Ocean where June eventually settles into a quiet half-life, to the wedding’s caterer whose bill has been forgotten, to Luke’s mother, the shattered outcast of the town—everyone touched by the tragedy is changed as truths about their near and far histories finally come to light. Elegant and heartrending, and one of the most accomplished fiction debuts of the year, Did You Ever Have a Family is an absorbing, unforgettable tale that reveals humanity at its best through forgiveness and hope. At its core is a celebration of family—the ones we are born with and the ones we create.

Opening Lines:  He wakes to the sound of sirens. Many, loud, and very near.

Blurbworthiness:  “The force, range, and scope of Bill Clegg’s Did You Ever Have a Family will grab you with its opening lines, and won’t let go until its final one. I can’t recall another novel that so effortlessly weds a nuanced, lyrical voice to an unflinching vision of just how badly things can go for people. I read it deep into the night, all the way through, telling myself it was getting late, I could finish the book in the morning. I finished it that night, however, slept a few hours, and then, in the morning, started reading it again.” (Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours)

The Heart of the Order
by Theo Schell-Lambert
(Little A)

I’m not much of a “sports guy”—don’t watch it, don’t play it, heck, I don’t even know how to spell ESPN—but I’ll read about players and their games every now and then. Especially baseball. I do enjoy a good run around the bases and a satisfying dirt-slide into home. Theo Schell-Lambert’s debut novel looks like it could be on par with some of my favorites: The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, The Natural by Bernard Malamud, and the criminally under-read High and Inside by Russell Rowland. Play ball!

Jacket Copy:  Blake Alexander—“Xandy” to his teammates and fans—is the starting left-fielder for the Carolina Birds of the National League South, until a knee injury in Cincinnati leaves him facing a summer of rehab and a career in doubt. Eager to occupy himself around game time, Xandy trades his glove for an Acer laptop, and each night before first pitch, he settles into a lounger behind his borrowed house to write. What emerges from Xandy’s patio sessions is a series of reflections on the game he loves and beyond—from losing streaks to bullpen phones to his beguiling physical therapist, Jenn, who (like a third base coach) keeps giving him signs he can’t quite read. A winning narrator, with an observational style honed over years spent judging the spin on fly balls, Xandy shines as a fresh and memorable voice in American fiction.

Opening Lines:  I remember it clearly. Is that too obvious to mention—a useless way to begin? Were you in doubt that a man who makes his living with his arms and legs, his ankles and hands and rotator cuffs, would recall the moment that one of those—a cruciate ligament, they told me later, the doctor said point guards have problems with them—made a loud noise and quit working, in front of 22,471 men, women and children? See, I even remember the crowd size. They’d just announced it, answer B on the JumboTron quiz.

Blurbworthiness:  “It’s an entertaining display of our once and future national pastime’s allure—with all its minutiae and arcana—for the contemplative mind.” (The Daily Beast)

Half an Inch of Water
by Percival Everett
(Graywolf Press)

Percival Everett.  Short Stories.  Coming Soon.  ’Nuff said.

Jacket Copy:  Percival Everett’s long-awaited new collection of stories, his first since 2004’s Damned If I Do, finds him traversing the West with characteristic restlessness. A deaf Native American girl wanders off into the desert and is found untouched in a den of rattlesnakes. A young boy copes with the death of his sister by angling for an unnaturally large trout in the creek where she drowned. An old woman rides her horse into a mountain snowstorm and sees a long-dead beloved dog. For the plainspoken men and women of these stories--fathers and daughters, sheriffs and veterinarians--small events trigger sudden shifts in which the ordinary becomes unfamiliar. A harmless comment about how to ride a horse changes the course of a relationship, a snakebite gives rise to hallucinations, and the hunt for a missing man reveals his uncanny resemblance to an actor. Half an Inch of Water tears through the fabric of the everyday to examine what lies beneath the surface of these lives. In the hands of master storyteller Everett, the act of questioning leads to vistas more strange and unsettling than could ever have been expected.

Opening Lines:  A spring-fed creek ran through the ranch and so even in the harshest summer weeks there was a narrow lane of willows and green grass. Moose and elk browsed and left deep tracks in the muddy banks. Sam Innis had grown up there with his mother, his father having died in the war in Vietnam.

Blurbworthiness:  “Everett is one of the most gifted and versatile of contemporary writers....His work takes hold of us of won’t let go.”  (Alan Cheuse, NPR)

Charlie Martz and Other Stories
By Elmore Leonard
(William Morrow)

Elmore Leonard.  New Stories.  Coming Soon.  ’Nuff said.

Jacket Copy: A collection of fifteen stories, eleven of which have never been previously published, from the early career of bestselling American master Elmore Leonard. Over his long and illustrious career, Leonard was recognized as one of the greatest crime writers of all time, the author of dozens of bestselling books—many adapted for the big screen—as well as a master of short fiction. A superb stylist whose crisp, tight prose crackled with trademark wit and sharp dialogue, Leonard remains the standard for crime fiction and a literary model for writers of every genre. Marked by his unmistakable grit and humor, the stories in Charlie Martz and Other Stories—produced early in his career, when he was making his name particularly with westerns—reveal a writer in transition, exploring new voices and locations, from the bars of small-town New Mexico and Michigan to a film set in Hollywood, a hotel in Southern Spain, even a military base in Kuala Lumpur. They also introduce us to classic Leonard characters, some who recur throughout the collection, such as aging lawman Charlie Martz and weary former matador Eladio Montoya. Devoted Leonard aficionados and fans new to his fiction will marvel at these early works that reveal an artist on the cusp of greatness.

Opening Lines:  The joint on Beaubien was a semi-Black and Tan, more black than tan. Any lighter element in the place, disregarding a few beboppers, was sure to be overdressed, on the greasy side and usually carrying a gun.

Blurbworthiness:  “Quirky, tough, humorous, and always surprising characters....There’s a reason Leonard has been labeled one of the best crime writers in America and why his clipped and witty dialog and economical writing style have found their way to television and film. He’s just a great storyteller.” (Library Journal)

The Centurions
by Jean Larteguy
(Penguin Classics)

On the top floor of my house in Butte, Montana, there are two bookcases devoted exclusively to my collection of black-spined Penguin Classics paperbacks. The books, by authors ranging from Andy Adams (The Log of a Cowboy) to Zola (Germinal), overspill the shelves. I always feel a tingling zip of electricity up my spine when I look at that dark, beautiful collection. The newest member is a classic piece of war literature which, I’ll admit, I'd never heard of until the good people at Penguin brought it my attention. It’s now at the top of my must-read list.

Jacket Copy:  When The Centurions was first published in 1960, readers were riveted by the thrilling account of soldiers fighting for survival in hostile environments. They were equally transfixed by the chilling moral question the novel posed: how to fight when the “age of heroics is over.” As relevant today as it was half a century ago, The Centurions is a gripping military adventure, an extended symposium on waging war in a new global order, and an essential investigation of the ethics of counterinsurgency. Featuring a foreword by renowned military expert Robert D. Kaplan, this important wartime novel will again spark debate about controversial tactics in hot spots around the world.

Opening Lines:  Tied up to one another, the prisoners looked like a column of caterpillars on the march.

Blurbworthiness:  “It might be defined as a French The Naked and the Dead written with finesse and sensitivity and taste that the Mailer book lacked, but revealing in many ways a similar pattern as the soldier attempts to fit back into civilian life.”  (Kirkus)

My First Time: Catherine Kyle

My First Time is a regular feature in which writers talk about virgin experiences in their writing and publishing careers, ranging from their first rejection to the moment of holding their first published book in their hands.  Today’s guest is Catherine Kyle, a Ph.D. candidate in English at Western Michigan University, where she has taught writing and contemporary U.S. literature, including banned books, graphic novels, and young adult literature. She is the author and illustrator of the hybrid-genre collection Feral Domesticity (Robocup Press, 2014) and the author of the poetry chapbooks Flotsam (Etched Press, 2015) and Gamer: A Role-Playing Poem (forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press, 2015). Her fiction, poetry, and comics have appeared in The Rumpus, WomenArts Quarterly, Superstition Review, and elsewhere. She currently lives with her husband and two cats in Boise, Idaho, where she teaches writing at the College of Western Idaho, helps run the Ghosts & Projectors poetry reading series, and edits the online literary journal The Ruby Spellbook. You can read more about Catherine and her work at www.catherinebaileykyle.com.

My First Collection

The story goes that, when asked at four years old whether I’d prefer chocolate or strawberry ice cream for dessert, I looked at my mother perplexedly and replied with total earnestness, “Why make a choice if we can have it all?” I don’t know whether that story has been exaggerated over the years, but if it’s true, it sounds like not much has changed since I was a kid. In creating my first manuscript, I wanted to have it all. A longtime fan of comics and manga in addition to prose and poetry, I wanted to blend text and image, fusing several genres into one. I wanted to include illustrations in work geared toward adults, something that’s still often considered unusual. I wanted to embrace hybridity.

By the start of 2013, I had a manuscript with which I felt satisfied. It contained poetry and images that reflected nearly four years of work. I eagerly sent it to the first press I found that accepted hybrid-genre submissions. After receiving a kindly worded (though still form letter) rejection, I rebounded within a week and sent it to another publisher. The editors told me I’d made it past their readers’ first cut, but eventually, the book was turned down. Undeterred, I sent it to a third press, where the editor responded with interest but suggested several revisions. We wrote back and forth for over a month before she finally decided it wasn’t quite right for her needs. Of course, I was disappointed, but out of this exchange came ample good advice and perspective on the manuscript. I trimmed it, rearranged it, refocused it, and renamed it. Then I found Robocup Press.

In founder/editor Tamryn Spruill’s own words, Robocup publishes “experimental writing that doesn’t quite fit into a single category.” She adds, “For us, it’s about the and, the other, and the exception.” I was thrilled when I found Robocup. I remember thinking at the time that regardless of whether they accepted my manuscript, I was glad a press like this existed in the world—something devoted to the “ands” and “others.” I sent my revised work to Ms. Spruill in the fall of 2013. In January of the following year, I received an email from her congratulating me on the acceptance of my manuscript, Feral Domesticity. I was ecstatic. I had dreamed for years of having a collection in print, and now it had become a reality.

Structurally speaking, Feral Domesticity is an unusual work, something that would have had trouble finding a home at a press invested in traditional genre boundaries. It consists of six sections, each telling the story of a different woman through one image, one poem written in first-person, and one piece of fiction written in third-person. I took this approach not only to explore the line between subjective and “objective” narration, but because I wanted to see what would happen if I approached the same emotion from a variety of different art forms. I’ve loved visual art, poetry, and fiction for as long as I can remember, and all access different parts of me. Poems often touch me in ways distinct from fiction or visual art, yet poems, fiction, and visual art can speak to different aspects of the same general experience. Just as we use our five senses to fully appreciate the world around us, I think we can gain a better understanding of emotions, psychology, and the small moments that make us who we are by reflecting on them through a broad range of means. That was one of my goals in creating Feral Domesticity.

Since Feral’s publication, I’ve had a poetry chapbook accepted by Etched Press and a “choose-your-own-adventure” style chapbook accepted by Dancing Girl Press. While I think Flotsam, the manuscript taken by Etched Press, works best as “officially” poetry only, I see it as a loose story in verse; I originally sent it to the publisher as such. Gamer, the manuscript taken by Dancing Girl, bends the standard poetry genre by inviting the reader to interact with the text. Another manuscript I have in the works is arranged as a set of dystopian horoscopes, including “advertisements” intended to add to the collection’s overall impact. I dream of making a cabaret-themed chapbook, one that would mimic the experience of a variety show by telling stories through as many printable genres as possible.

One of the things I like best about writing is its flexibility—its ability to evolve and adapt and accommodate new imaginings. I love reading work that forces me to reconsider what I think I know about literature, and that’s the kind of work I want to create. Wherever my writing takes me and whatever else I make, I’ll always be grateful to Robocup Press, Tamryn Spruill, and the many loved ones who encouraged me to explore, experiment, and express in as many ways as felt right.

Sunday Sentence: “Rain in January” by Jane Kenyon

Simply put, the best sentence(s) I’ve read this past week, presented out of context and without commentary.

               I woke before dawn, still
               in a body.

“Rain in January,” from Otherwise: New & Selected Poems by Jane Kenyon

Friday Freebie: The Book of Laney by Myfanwy Collins

Congratulations to Jim Mastro, winner of last week's Friday Freebie: Happily Ali After: And Other Fairly True Tales by Ali Wentworth.

This week's book giveaway is a copy of the new novel by Myfanwy Collins, The Book of Laney, generously provided by her publisher, Lacewing Books. If you've been following The Quivering Pen this week, you'll know how much I want you to read this book. Roxane Gay (author of An Untamed State) agrees: "In The Book of Laney, an unsettling and redemptive novel, Myfanwy Collins fuses heartbreak and empathy to explore uncomfortable truths about teenagers, violence, and survival. An unforgettable book." Myfanwy has graciously allowed me to reprint some of her essays here at the blog these past few days. Please give them a look:

      I wrote this book because...
      Do you know who I am?
      Self-promotion, bookselling, blah blah blah

 If you don't win the contest, I highly recommend you run out to your local bookstore or library and get your hands on The Book of Laney. Here's why...

      Here and now I am in this place far away from my home. Here, with the cold wind blowing down from the north and the stars piercing through the cloudless sky. Here I am.
      But my story does not start here.
      My story starts months ago and hundreds of miles south of where I am now. My story starts in the place I used to call home. My story starts with violence and heartbreak.

After her brother is involved in a grisly murder-suicide, fifteen-year-old Laney is sent to live with her grandmother in the Adirondack Mountains. Laney gradually warms to her new home—especially her relationship with a mysterious neighbor—but before she can appreciate her new life, she must uncover the secrets that have haunted her family for decades

If you’d like a chance at winning The Book of Laney, simply email your name and mailing address to

thequiveringpen@gmail.com

Put FRIDAY FREEBIE in the e-mail subject line.  One entry per person, please.  Despite its name, the Friday Freebie runs all week long and remains open to entries until midnight on June 11, at which time I’ll draw the winning name.  I’ll announce the lucky reader on June 12.  If you’d like to join the mailing list for the once-a-week newsletter, simply add the words “Sign me up for the newsletter” in the body of your email.  Your email address and other personal information will never be sold or given to a third party (except in those instances where the publisher requires a mailing address for sending Friday Freebie winners copies of the book).

Want to double your odds of winning?  Get an extra entry in the contest by posting a link to this webpage on your blog, your Facebook wall or by tweeting it on Twitter.  Once you’ve done any of those things, send me an additional e-mail saying “I’ve shared” and I’ll put your name in the hat twice.

The Writing Life: “Self-promotion, bookselling, blah blah blah” by Myfanwy Collins

We conclude this week’s spotlight on Myfanwy Collins, author of the new novel The Book of Laney, with an essay about something that’s a struggle for nearly every writer: tooting their own horn.

As you probably know, I am in the middle of launching my new book, The Book of Laney. It is a young adult novel and so a bit of a departure for me. I am extremely proud of this book and I hope those of you who have read it will believe me and know this to be true when I say it: I have a mission for this book. My mission is that if reading this book can lift one young person (or person of any age!) out of darkness and offer them hope, then I will feel I have done my work well.

Since I am my own publicist, I have been working hard, as I always do, to get the word out about The Book of Laney. I have sent out many pitches and for all that have been responded to favorably, 10-20 or more have either been denied or ignored entirely.

For all the booksellers, libraries, people in the media, reviewers, who have responded favorably or reached out so far: THANK YOU! I am truly grateful to you (which I hope you know already but I want to say it again here). I know what it takes for you to do the work you do and I appreciate that you continue to fight for literacy and literature and the future and young people and hope.

I read a few blog posts recently that were making the circuit. Two different writers talking about what to do and what not to do when one promotes one’s book. There was some decent advice (though a bit snarky in tone) from the perspective of these writers. However, I come at promoting my work not just as the writer, but as someone who knows what it is like to promote the work of others. Someone who knows what it feels like to be pitched day in and day out.

I have been on the receiving end of the pitch and I know what worked for me and what didn’t. I try to remember my past experience with each pitch I make myself. Honestly, to call what I do a pitch is not accurate. What I do is get in touch and give some information and try to be as pleasant as possible and never, ever, ever demand anything.

So here’s my story: Twenty years ago, I was living and working in Boston. I was a writer in my heart and trying to find ways to sustain myself, but I wasn’t doing much writing. What I was doing then was making a living. What else I was doing was learning. For a time, I was the Regional Promotions Director for Tower Records New England. What this meant was that I was responsible for in-store/off-site events and off-site sales for the three New England stores (Boston, Cambridge, Burlington). All day, every day, I had people pitch me: indie record labels, big record labels, radio stations, distributors, artists themselves (musicians, writers), publishers, book distributors, etc. I, in turn, pitched events to these same people when they had work coming out we thought would be a big draw or when we thought they were hosting an event we might want in on. My team (all two or sometimes three of us) and I were responsible for promoting, publicizing, and managing these events.

During my time, we hosted Marilyn Manson, Nancy Sinatra (when she was in Playboy… THAT was an interesting in-store event), Marianne Faithfull (for her book. She was allowed to smoke in the store because she was Marianne Faithfull), etc., etc. No end of famous people.

I remember and have fondness for all of the people who were pleasant to us. I worked with those people many times because they were pleasant, polite, and nice to work with. There were assholes, too. The assholes were rude, demanding, and had the expectation that something should be done for them. The assholes… we didn’t work together much. I avoided the assholes. I lost their messages. I didn’t return the calls.

Remember, this was before social media. This was before Amazon. If you wanted your stuff to be sold, you pretty much needed it to be in a brick and mortar store. And you pretty much interacted face-to-face.

I learned so much from this job (and subsequent jobs in which I promoted and publicized other things) but the key lessons I learned are this:

1) No one likes a pushy sales pitch. NO ONE. Pushy sales pitches are not normal human interactions. They are not love. The people who spoke to me with love and honesty and who got to the point quickly about the artist they were representing were the ones who opened my heart. Even if I didn’t respond to that particular artist the fact that they so believed in that artist and their potential, moved me and brought me to action. So if you are your own publicist (as I am mine), try your best to get to the point and to do it in a way that is open and be honest about yourself. You don’t need to pitch yourself so hard that you come off sounding false.

2) Be a human being and treat others as though they are human beings. I was on a panel once and I responded to a question (don’t even remember the question) that writers should treat agents and editors like human beings. The follow up question was: “What do you mean like human beings?” Not even kidding. Basically, you know how you like to be treated. If you are like me, you like to be treated as though you have thoughts and feelings that matter and as though you are not just on this planet to serve others. Well, that’s the way we all want to be treated. We want kindness and respect and honesty and generosity of spirit. I know I responded best to those people who approached me as if I were a living, breathing creature. The people who took the time to learn my name and know some things about me.

3) As for social media: do it if you like and it feels right to you. Don’t do it if you don’t. Back in the 90s we had to hit the streets with paper fliers and hand them out to people. NOTHING is more humiliating and humbling than having people ignore you when you stand before them with a flier in your hand. Your outstretched hand. Social media can be like that. You might just be tweeting about your book and you think that’s cool but you don’t realize how many people are averting their eyes from you and your outstretched hand. It’s okay, though. It’s cool. Do what works for you and don’t let people make you feel ashamed for doing whatever you feel like you need to to get yourself out there.

So I’m here in these trenches with you. I am trying to get this book into as many hands as I can--not just because I want to do a good job for my publisher and my editor (because I do) but also because I want it to be read. I want it to make a difference in the world. We all want that, right?

Myfanwy Collins lives on the North Shore of Massachusetts with her husband and son. Her work has been published in The Kenyon Review, AGNI, Cream City Review, Quick Fiction, and Potomac Review. Her debut novel Echolocation was published by Engine Books in 2012. I Am Holding Your Hand, a collection of her short fiction, is available now from [PANK] Books. The Book of Laney, a Young Adult novel, is now out from Lacewing Books. Click here to visit her website.

The Writing Life: “Do You Know Who I Am?” by Myfanwy Collins

Our spotlight on novelist Myfanwy Collins and the writing of The Book of Laney continues today with this essay which originally appeared at her blog.

I had a job interview once for a job I sort of wanted. It was going to be a long commute and we needed the money. I interviewed with some peers and a potential boss and then one of the founders of the company was going to meet with me. He walked into the room and the first thing he said to me was, “Do you know who I am?”

My impression at the time was that he didn’t say it in a gentle, awkward way that one would hope such a thing would be said. Instead, he said it in a cocky way.

My first thought was, why, yes, you’re the person I don’t want to work for, but instead I dutifully said, you are so and so, blah blah blah.

They offered me the job for which I was overqualified but when our negotiations broke down over vacation time, I was happy to walk away from the offer. He would not budge over a few days. And neither would I.

I knew who I was.

It’s rare that I know who I am. I consider my face blank and unrecognizable. This is how I see myself from within my skin, looking out. Tabula Rasa.

Who will know me? Who am I?

I have a published a literary thriller novel, a collection of short literary fiction, and a young adult novel. I am being gently encouraged to focus, write another thriller. Focus. Focus. Keep reaching. Become this.

Become what? Write what?

Here is something I have been reluctant to talk about. I try to be as professional as possible in this business of writing but maybe saying this here will help someone, too, because this is about something that jolted my sense of identity as a writer.

So here goes: In January, I learned that my beloved agent was leaving publishing. This was a tough blow for me. She and I had been working together for nearly ten years. I have come to count on her as a key part of my writing process. You might be thinking now, who cares? Who are you anyway? Who even wants to read any more of your stupid books?

These were all things I asked myself. Who are you? Who cares?

I care. This vacuum I am in lacks air and light and sometimes we need others to bring us that air and that light.

But all is not lost.

The good news is that her boss, the owner of the agency, kept me on as a client and for that I am most grateful. Having met and exchanged emails and phone calls with this woman I know I am in great hands. So that is good.

But who am I? Which writer? Which person? And what will become of my process?

I was at the AWP conference in Minneapolis this past April. This was my fourth (or fifth?) time at one of these conferences. They are overwhelming and exhilarating. So much to see and do and experience. So many people to meet and so many people to reconnect with.

I will admit, though, that I spent much of the conference in despair. I was missing the huge part of me that is my family. I was anxious that people would not like me or that they would not notice me or, worse, ignore me.

Of course, it was all great. My one-on-one conversations with friends were the best part of it, but also the readings and panels were exhilarating and I left there feeling completely ready to write again.

And yet, still I am wanting. I want so much. I want my new book to be read and reviewed. I want it to get into the hands of people it might help. I want. I want. I want my novel manuscript that is lingering out there in the world to not be ignored. I want someone to read it and recognize what I am trying to say. I want that connection.

I want you to hear me.

Do you know who I am?

Maybe that man wasn’t being arrogant. Maybe he was legitimately experiencing a moment of crisis or maybe he was awkward about the weird dynamic that is the job interview. I can give him this now.

When I was pregnant, I worried that my child would not recognize me when he was born. I was worried that he would not love me. Of course, I was wrong. He was born with his heart attached to mine, knowing me in the way that no one else can.

Like a newborn, I push myself out into the world constantly with my words and always I am asking you this: Do you know who I am?

Myfanwy Collins lives on the North Shore of Massachusetts with her husband and son. Her work has been published in The Kenyon Review, AGNI, Cream City Review, Quick Fiction, and Potomac Review. Her debut novel Echolocation was published by Engine Books in 2012. I Am Holding Your Hand, a collection of her short fiction, is available now from [PANK] Books. The Book of Laney, a Young Adult novel, is now out from Lacewing Books. Click here to visit her website.