#pushcart honest

[toomuchracket]

boy dad matty on like international women’s day or mother’s day or wifeys bday or something taking baby boy out to buy gifts and to “teach you how to treat the women in your life right” and i think it’s even cuter if baby boy is literally an infant and therefore not understanding anything and mattys stood in the store picking out flowers lecturing this clueless baby sat in a pushcart on loving and appreciating and respecting women and how he would be nowhere and nothing without mommy and nana and now i’m rambling but you get it

international women's day!! a few days before, while you're at work and your eldest is at nursery, matty takes his boy (toddling, i'd say) out on a little shopping spree to buy you both (and denise/your mum) a gift. and he's like "it's so important that we treat our girls - and all girls, actually - right, because we have privileges in life that aren't always afforded to them and we need to recognise that and do our best to rectify it, yeah, mate? like think of where you and i would be without mummy or nana. absolutely nowhere!", and baba is too little to really grasp it but he nods seriously anyway to mimic his dad lol. he placidly helps matty pick flowers for the two of them - matty (still in the midst of an "all women are queens" monologue) lifts him so he can see, and then carries baba while baba carries the bouquets lol - but the place he gets most excited is picking out a present for his big sister. and not just because they're in the toy section, although that's definitely a factor; the two of them are so so close, and she's his favourite person in the world (and him hers). like, your son's first word was a slightly garbled version of your daughter's name - she just spent so much time with him that it was inevitable lol, and she still does, reading him stories and playing games with him and protecting him from anything that might hurt or upset him (she yells back at you or matty if you ever give her baby brother a telling-off). true, they have their Moments of dispute, but generally wherever your daughter runs your son will be toddling along after her eagerly. matty of course addresses this, like "yeah, mate, i think she'll love this! not quite as much as she loves you, but i think that's impossible. think you'll learn the most from your sister over the years, to be honest, but you can't be too reliant on her - you need to be self-sufficient sometimes, my boy, and you need to support her the way she supports you. sound alright?"; your son is like "mhmm", and matty kisses his little head like "good lad. now, we'd better go and get our girls". all v v cute <3

[fantasticenthusiasttale]

Donald being an innocent baby, Scrooge being his parent and Chaos (part 1)

Hi! I made a "scanlation" from this comic I have, I don't found its in INDUCKS, but is called "A Abóbora Mágica" ("The Magic Pumpkin", I tried) and made by Bruno Sarda and drawn by Marco Meloni. I know it's a halloween comic and I should scan a comic about carnival in february, and I'll do this still in that month :,)

("" for thoughts)

Enjoy :)

Donald: So I have to transform this land's slice beside the Money Bin in a vegetable garden?

Scrooge: That's it! Then I'll have fresh vegetables every day... And I'll save money in the Duckworth's salad!

Scrooge: Who knows that you don't find a space until to cultivate a big and beautiful pumpkin to Halloween?

Donald: Hmpf! Will have a party here?

Scrooge: It's 50.000 dollars! And the free advertising to my food products!

Donald: Yeah... And why I should effort myself to get all of these things to you?

Scrooge: Your overdue debts are enough to answer? Or we have to talk about the debts that are expiring?

Scrooge: Excellent! I see you came to your senses!

Weeks later...

Scrooge: Congratulations, Donald! The leaves are mellowy and verdurous!

Donald: Hmpf! I'm making miracles with the miserable budget you gave me to the seeds and the fertilizers! Even the water is rationed!

Scrooge: Complainer nephew! I already told you I can open more the wallet... uh... a little...

Scrooge: ... But only to the pumpkin!

Donald: Stop! I want to make you a surprise!

Scrooge: Bah! The contest judges are who have to be surprised tomorrow! Now, if I don't win, who will have a shocking surprise...

Scrooge: ... Will be your melon head!

Donald: The true is...

Donald: "... All I got is this little pumpkin!

Donald: "I took care of its with so many care and attention, but it worked nothing!"

Donald: "All I can do now is appeal to the fair! Isn't that honest, but..."

Lady: A duck so young and handsome... And so sulky!

Lady: Why are you like that?

Donald: If I don't transform my little pumpkin in a big fruit until tomorrow, I'm dead!

Lady: So I'll help you! See these fruits?

Donald: Wow! I never saw apples and pears that beautiful!

Lady: All merit of my potent fertilizer! Take it, take it as a gift! Sprinkle this over your pumpkin and tomorrow you won't even recognize it!

Donald: Thank you! If it works, tomorrow I'll come back here to buy all your fruits!

Lady: "Ih, ih! Tomorrow you won't find me here, Donald..."

Magica: "If my plan works, I'll be on Vesuvius with the precious Number One!"

At that night...

Donald: "Until now, nothing! But I still have hope that it will work!"

People in the streets: Boo! (Laughs)

Donald: "I better sleep here! Will someone envious covet my pumpkin..."

Magica: "Damn it! For this I did not expect! In a little while the pumpkin will come into action and I didn't want anyone to see!"

Magica: "Ah! I should imagine that this lazy soon falls asleep! And just in time, apparently!"

Indeed, a branch of the plant begins to extend towards the Money Bin... It enters through the window... and arrives at Number One!

Magica: Hurra! It worked out! I'll get it!

Magica: Yeah... spying on Scrooge through the crystal ball yielded me a fruit! Ih, ih!

Magica: If I hadn't seen him talk about this stupid contest... I wouldn't have thought of this plan!

Donald: Huh? What was that? Hm... My tools! Open your eyes, Donald!

Donald: Oh! The pumpkin turned out beautiful! Now it has a chance!

Donald: It's better not to risk it... I'll hold on to its!

Magica: "Damn Donald did me a favor by planting garlic in that garden! I can't even get close!"

Magica: "Patience! I'll make him hand me the pumpkin himself!"

Magica: In the morning, when the contest manager arrives to pick the pumpkin... I'll just have to take her place... with a short-lived spell!

Donald: Ah, finally!

Magica: What a beauty! There's a lot of chance to win! Put it in the pushcart! I will gladly take it! Ih, ih!

Donald: It's for now!

Scrooge: AAAH!

(That story have 17 pages, the part 2 will be here later)

[bread--quest]

more details about them are under the cut in case one of them sounds familiar and you want to doublecheck. if you know what the 8th one is please tell me

mr. revere and i: book narrated from the pov of paul revere's horse. she was formerly a british horse but through some amount of shenanigans was given to paul revere instead. she had an entire arc about unlearning her loyalty to england and choosing to side with the americans that was extremely compelling to young me

all-of-a-kind family: jewish sisters on the lower east side in turn of the century new york. i read so many books with that premise but these were my favorites. uhh there were 5 of them, oldest was ella and then i think hattie and then sarah, charlotte, and gertie. it was a series and later there was a little brother who had to get his name changed because he fell down a manhole (long story). they went to the library and coney island and ate soup and did jewish holidays. probably at least 15% responsible for my fixation on nyc. they were everything to me.

the year of the dog: book about an asian-american girl growing up. her name is pacy and she likes to draw. has a lot of conflicted feelings about being american vs. being part of her family's culture which i related a lot to for reasons that i'm sure you can guess

cobble street cousins: 3 cousins growing up on a street?? actually it was two sisters (lily and rosie) and their cousin tess. they had a cool aunt who was dating a botanist. tess was a broadway nerd. they had a cool attic hideaway. the books were excruciatingly cozy i love them

project mulberry: ANOTHER one about asian-american girls feeling conflicted about culture are you noticing a theme here. uhh a girl and her friend who collects state quarters do a science fair project raising silkworms and then trying to embroider something with them. they get help from a guy who has a mulberry tree and is black and her mom has to confront her inner racism. at one point the author talks to the main character in like the footnotes for some reason

the pushcart war: LOVE THIS ONE SO SO MUCH BTW EVERYONE SHOULD READ IT. uhh its new york in Very Slightly The Future. (it was like 1940s when this was written but the date gets changed with every reprint.) everything is the same but traffic is slightly worse. its supposed to read like an account of an actual historical event. pushcart peddlers get fed up with being literally pushed around by truck drivers and get organized. using pea shooters they make the trucks get flat tires so that everyone can see that they're the main problem of traffic. does a surprisingly good job going into all the ways seemingly small political action can have effects (newspaper articles, local government elections, other unions being affected, even trade with other nations). not exactly a union novel but basically a union novel (to this day i still think of a certain part of it whenever someone brings up union dues). basically radicalized kid me if we're being honest.

the fairy rebel: well it was either that or the rebel fairy can't remember. really weird one honestly. okay so a woman named jan hurts her leg and can't dance and also can't have kids and is like clinically depressed about it. weird beginning to a kids book but it gets weirder. a fairy shows up and makes friends with her and in exchange for jan teaching the fairy what jeans are the fairy makes a magic baby for jan. the baby has a streak of magic blue hair. there are also magic rose presents. the fairy queen is evil and has evil wasps and gives the kid an evil necklace and does some really fucked up stuff like nearly crush the kid under toys. it's okay eventually though i think

haunted doll one: okay so i read this at a campground once and it's probably the most genuinely obscure one on here but. a girl finds a doll and like. touches it? or picks it up or something? and somehow the doll transports her back in time to like a wagon chain exploring the west or whatever. and i think the doll is there in prairie times too. can't remember if the modern girl like possesses the original owner of the doll on the wagon chain or if she just gets prairie isekai'd but i think it's like a recurring event. also at some point someone gets bit by a snake and maybe dies. i don't remember how it ends but the general vibes of the thing terrified kid me So Much that it's haunted me ever since. if you remember this book please tell me

[jimhair]

From Wikipedia: “Julia Shalett Vinograd (December 11, 1943 – December 5, 2018) was a poet. She is well known as "The Bubble Lady" to the Telegraph Avenue community of Berkeley, California, a moniker she gained from blowing bubbles at the People's Park demonstrations in 1969. Vinograd was awarded a Pushcart Prize for her poem, "For The Young Men Who Died of AIDS," and in 1985 won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. The City of Berkeley, California, awarded her a Poetry Lifetime Achievement Award. On June 5, 2004, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates declared that day to be "Julia Vinograd Day," for representing the spirit of Berkeley: "She gives us a voice when ours vanishes. She gives voice to the homeless, the street performers, the merchant, the coffee drinker, friends and foes alike, and her words, like a sharp knife, cut deep into the truth. She describes us as full of life, and love, and heartache. She makes us honest. We, the eccentric, the lonely, the broken are given a voice."She has been called Berkeley unofficial "poet laureate".” Julia Vinograd at the “Battle of People’s Park” Mural, Berkeley, July 2002 🇺🇦💔🌎💔🌏💔🌍💔🇺🇦 #earth #human #family #america #berkeley #park #peoplesparkberkeley #dream #writer #social #documentary #poet #portrait #photography @hasselblad #hasselblad #camera #mediumformat #fuji @fujifilm_northamerica #film #photography #filmisnotdead #istillshootfilm #pdx #portland #nw #northwest #leftcoast #oregon #streetphotography #ishootfujifilm @hasselbladculture @hasselbladfilmgallery @peoplesparkberkeley 02073107 Fuji NPS160 Hasselblad 500c 120mm Makro-Planar https://www.instagram.com/p/CpLTwNovwIM/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[finishinglinepress]

FLP SHORT STORIES BOOK OF THE DAY: So as Not to Die Alone by Lisa Johnson Mitchell

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So as Not to Die Alone is a song about the ache of living. In this glistening collection, themes include sexual fluidity, loss of a parent, shattered dreams, addiction, and teen pregnancy, to name a few, all of which expose the fragility, desperation, and gravitas of #life and #relationships. Narratives feature a wide swath of humanity: a male belly dancer who’s versed in Chinese astrology. A grumpy, retired elevator repair man with bad feet. And a mother and son who crash a Bat Mitzvah. All the stories pulse with pain—cry out for mercy—yet contain dashes of hope.

Lisa Johnson Mitchell‘s work has appeared in X-R-A-Y, Fictive Dream, and Cleaver, among others. One of her pieces was a Finalist in the 2022 London Independent Story Prize Competition. Another placed in the Top 10 of the 2020 Columbia Journal Short Fiction Contest. She holds an MFA from Bennington College. #shortstory #shortstories #fiction #book

PRAISE FOR So as Not to Die Alone by Lisa Johnson Mitchell

“Lisa Johnson Mitchell has the remarkable ability to craft entire characters –all their beauty and all their flaws –in a single, perfect sentence. These sentences then come together to make stories that are heartbreaking, tragic, sometimes absurd, and often hopeful. In the end, this sharp collection presents a brutally honest snapshot of both the anxieties and optimism of modern American life.”

–Samantha Mabry, National Book Award nominated author of All the Wind in the World and Tigers, Not Daughters

“The heroes and heroines in Lisa Johnson Mitchell’s debut story collection, So as Not to Die Alone, reach for connection even through their own jadedness and the static around them. Mitchell is a comic acrobat, her details startling yet perfect, her language playful and inventive, whether ships are sinking or somehow making their way back to the surface. A thoroughly rewarding debut.”

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“Lisa Johnson Mitchell‘s collection is a thought-provoking and emotionally charged journey that delves deep into the complexities of human experience. Through a diverse cast of characters, Mitchell expertly explores themes of sexual fluidity, loss, shattered dreams, addiction, and teen pregnancy with raw honesty and vulnerability. Each story is a masterful blend of pain and hope, leaving a lasting impact on the reader—a must-read for anyone looking for a powerful and moving literary experience. Lucia Berlin and Flannery O’Connor fans will relish this collection, stamped with a profound understanding of human nature. Mitchell’s writing is reminiscent of these literary greats and is sure to leave readers feeling deeply moved.”

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“The eight stories in So As Not to Die Alone, Lisa Johnson Mitchell’s debut collection, introduce us to intricately chiseled worlds where women feel unseen, children are tasked with caring for ailing and aged parents, and romances bud and take center stage. But in Mitchell’s inventive hands, these stories go places you’d never expect, pivoting into a territory of the heart on whose emotional bedrock we can all find sure footing. Often humorous, always heart-wrenching, these flash and short stories introduce a singular, bold voice that will have you laughing out loud even as you wipe away tears. Mitchell knows how to write sizzlingly hot dialogue and exquisite sentences (consider this one-two punch: “After therapy, he claimed to forgive Sheila, but she could see his lingering resentment like an aura.”). And while her characters aren’t afraid to wear their hearts on their sleeves, let it be known they suffer no fools. You’ll admire them, just as you’ll admire this new, gorgeous collection.”

–DS Levy, Award-winning author of A Binary Heart.

Please share/please repost #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #prose #Shortstories #read

[bisexual-yuri]

I do most of my thinking on my bike these days

which makes thinking hard, if I’m honest

dodging delivery trucks, double parked

a guy almost doored me on Fort Hamilton

and riding alongside buses 

sometimes missing watching the city go by

passive

sometimes just trying not to die as I get cut off

a bit too active

I see more of the city this way

but less of her people

the passing glance of a mother with her stroller

an abuela and her pushcart

men playing cards on park benches

so quick I can barely see their faces

not that I can see them anyways

half covered as they are

I get a longer look at the guy jogging in the bike lane

but not because I want to

the train never felt this free

the wind in my face, the rush of blood

as my own legs move me forward

they were never much good at that, these past few years

at least, not until now

I think the train never gets this hot though

as the sweat drips down my back

and it would be a lie

to say that the train never made me bitter

After all what’s worse

man spreading or double parking?

and I can clearly remember

cursing Byford on the 1 train

wanting a personal explanation 

for the lack of AC

as the sweat dripped down my back

it’s a taste of adolescence, to ride again

the joy of biking the boardwalk

even as an old man yells after me 

if kids are too lazy to walk these days

(I wonder who’s joints hurt more after a long walk)

(his, or mine?)

but it’s a solitary ride

and I think as I weave the streets

about how much more I’m seeing

and just how much I’m missing If these brief moments in passing

spotting new people and new places

are really that different

than the glimpses of lives you spot

on the A train at six 

and if maybe I miss the safety

of creaky metal and faulty AC

my path predetermined 

by labors ages old

instead of dodging amazon vans

my mind free to wander

and ponder 

about the people I see

who are this city

personified

each a precious piece

something my mum always taught us was to look for the resources we're entitled to, and use them. public land? know your access rights and responsibilities, go there and exercise them. libraries? go there and talk to librarians and read community notice boards, find out what other people are doing around you, ask questions, use the printers. public records offices? go in there, learn what they hold and what you can access, look at old maps, get your full birth certificate copied, check out the census from your neighbourhood a hundred years ago. are you entitled to social support? find out, take it, use it. does the local art college have facilities open to the public? go in, look around, check out their exhibit on ancient looms or whatever, shop in their campus art supply store. it applies online too, there is so much shit in the world that belongs to the public commons that you can access and use if you just take a minute to wonder what might exist!!!

[thepulta]

Part 1

For @lettuce-shoes. This just brained me when she mentioned Adult Finds a Child because I wanted their friendship to happen in the storyline but it never really did and there is a WHOLE AU that could definitely happen around it if Skyfarer-Proper never happened. Skyfarer could happen maybe and the dynamic would have been completely different. But mostly I don’t see Skyfarer happening, it just would have been this catastrophe of three sisters and that’s this Listlie AU. 

-=-

Arthur’s instructions had been very simple. Go to Port Prosper, organize the Fairweather offices, meet Morgan, and escort her home to London.

Morgan had bitched about it because she “was seventeen and wasn’t a fucking baby thank you very much” but there’d been some light platitudes about separate cabins and travelling together finally and she’d fucked off to Leadbeater several months previously, mollified.

That was all fine. The offices were fine too at this point. It’d only taken a day to get the paperwork in order; some missing ledgers were behind the bookshelf. What the instructions did NOT include, however, were how to deal with getting framed as a parent.

The first red flag was the child that burst through the crowd. She must have seen the red hair, Westlie’s casual This is my Day Off because I’m not in London and Arthur can shove it look and beelined towards her. The second red flag was the constable that shoved over a man in pursuit. He looked angry.

The third red flag was the child screaming, “Mother!” with tears in her eyes, which was less of a red flag and more of a mobile red brick wall smacking Westlie in the face, which, coincidentally stopped her walking in stunned silence and the child slammed into her legs.

She was about six or seven with curly black hair pulled into a ponytail and big brown eyes. She had a very rough cotton dress on. It was questionably clean, but extremely untidy. Her sniffles threatened to overwhelm her as she looked up and a tear ran down her cheek. “H-he’s trying to arrest me!”

Trying to-

“EXCUSE ME.” The constable shoved past another person in the throng to reach them. He was huge, at least six foot with beefy hands and a well-oiled mustache. “SHE-” He reached them and Westlie instinctively felt something tighten in her as he loomed, pulling herself to her full height. “Excuse me, ma’am. You can turn that child over.”

“This is my mother!”

Westlie looked down at the child, brain reeling. She stared back up at Westlie with enormous frightened eyes.

She looked back up at the constable and somehow managed to clear her throat. “Why are you chasing her?”

He looked aghast. “She’s an orphan! Look at her! She stole a purse and needs to be returned to the orphanage immediately to be punished!”

The constable scowled and reached out his hands. “I’m not an orphan!” The child pushed back against Westlie’s legs, almost hiding behind them. “She’s my mother! Tell him to go away!”

“I- I-” The constable smelled like garlic and Westlie instinctively smacked his hand edging away from him as well when he edged closer. “Back off.” She stared down at the child. “Did you- did you take something?”

The child’s lip quivered. “I- I didn’t mean to.” The child paused. “-Mum.”

I hate this. Was Westlie’s instinctive thought. I am never going to be called mum. God, have I ever called Relia ‘mum’? I should apologize.

“Give it back.”

The child was already shaking a little bit when she huddled against Westlie’s skirts, but she started shaking in earnest at that point, but she obeyed. After a few seconds, tears started streaming down her cheeks and she produced a little coin purse that couldn’t have held more than 3 sovereigns at most. She held it up to Westlie who gently took it and offered it to the constable.

The constable snatched it, scowling. “I appreciate the cooperation, ma’am, but that’s proof she’s a fucking thief.” He sneered down at the child who shook harder. “You need to be in jail you little picker.”

He was getting pleasure out of scaring her, Westlie could see it on his face. He slid the purse into his jacket in a way that wasn’t entirely honest either and she had to wonder if those three sovereigns were going to get back to their owner. The whole exchange- him leering over the child who was terrified and scared witless and very clearly didn’t want to go back from wherever she had come from- so much that she would cling to an utter stranger for help- struck a chord with Westlie. Being out of London was like a breath of fresh air from Arthur’s looming and who was she to send this child back to whatever fucking hellhole she’d run from. Maybe the money had been to eat. It certainly didn’t look like she’d been fed well.

“Oh, fuck off.”

Westlie almost blinked in surprise at the venom in the tone. The constable certainly did.

“She is my-” Westlie barely managed to get the word out without choking. “-daughter and I appreciate your willingness to bring justice with the purse. Now kindly fuck off.”

He scowled harder and the leer pivoted to Westlie. She felt the usual ball of anger inside herself begin to flame and she instinctively puffed herself up to meet him, scowling back and tucking the child behind her. “Ma’am,” he spat the word. “The place she needs is a cell to know what she’s done.”

Westlie’s tone dripped sarcasm. “With every possible respect, Sir, she is under my supervision and I will discipline her myself for the trouble she’s caused Port Prosper. Come on-” she realized as she snatched the child’s hand she didn’t even know her name. “-girl.”

She stomped away from the constable, the girl stumbling after her a bit. She didn’t stop until they were away from the docks and a few streets closer to the offices. When it seemed safe enough, she ducked into a quiet alleyway and glanced back down at the girl. She was crying again. Westlie realized abruptly she’d been clutching her hand too tight. “I’m- I’m- I’m so sorry. Um-”

Westlie leaned down, cleared her throat, and offered the girl and handkerchief. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pull you like that. I’m so sorry. I-” she cleared her throat again, completely at a loss. “I’m sorry.”

The girl sniffed and scrubbed a bit fruitlessly at her tears. Westlie could get a better look at her face. “Where…. Where is your home?”

“Please don’t take me back!” There was another wail and burst of tears. The girl cringed away from her and Westlie felt something in her heart twist. “Please, please, please! I’ll do anything. Don’t take me back to the orphanage!”

“Hey- hey-” Westlie cleared her throat and shoved her hand in her pocket, wondering if there was going to be anything useful. A pencil and a five-pence. Not useful. “I- I’m not taking you back. Don’t worry. Are you ok? You look… are you hungry?”

The girl didn’t respond, she was looking at the dirty handkerchief in shock. “… I dirtied it. I’m sorry. I dirtied it.”

Westlie gently took it from her and the girl’s eyes snapped up to meet hers. “Hey, it’s ok. I’m not mad.”

She just stared at her with scared wide eyes.

“Do you want something to eat?”

“… food?”

“Right.” It came out a bit more impatient than Westlie expected and she reminded herself why she was never, ever going to have children. “Are you hungry?”

“Yes.” The girl sniffed and looked back down at the ground, her voice dropping low. “They don’t feed us dinner there… and I missed breakfast, and I thought-”

Westlie found herself straightening up, and somewhat returning to her normal self, trying to deal with things in a no-nonsense manner because that was what was expected and productive and reasonable. “Let’s get street buns.”

She strolled back out of the alleyway, not holding the child’s hand. She stumbled when the child ran and smacked into the back of her legs. She grabbed her skirt and clung to the side of it. “Hey- what are you-” Oh, she was scared. Westlie felt her heart soften a little again and she slowed down so the child could keep pace, literally holding onto her by one edge of the skirt.

It worked out well. The made their way to the office section where pushcarts lined the sides of the streets. There were more extravagant ones for sitting down; some with chicken being grilled with steam-spits that grilled and turned the chicken at the same time. The steamed buns cart was close to Fairweather though. Easy, simple, and cheap. Westlie tossed him the five-pence and ordered two pork buns.

They sat on the edge of the street outside of the office with the multitude of other office workers hurrying past. The child tore into her bun while Westlie munched appreciatively at it. When she looked over a few minutes later, the child’s whole bun was gone and she was staring awkwardly at the street. Her own was only half-finished. Fuck. Well. She had more money in her room above the office. There would be more pork buns. Westlie gently nudged the child who jumped. “Do you want the rest?”

The child looked scared. “N-no, I’m fine.”

“You can have mine. I don’t want it.”

Still the scared look. It reminded Westlie of Morgan tempting little dogs out or tossing feral cats bits of cheese until she could cuddle them and sneak them into the house. She held out the bun a little farther. “It’s ok.”

The child gave her one more worried look, then snatched the bun and hurriedly tore into it like it wouldn’t last a second longer. That was gone in under a minute.

Westlie cleared her throat after another minute. The girl looked like she was scared, but staying put because it seemed safe and she didn’t have anywhere else to go. “Do you have a name…?”

“’course I have a name.” The girl sniffed. “’m Lizzie.”

“Elizabeth?”

“My friends call me Lizzie.”

I’m not your friend, Westlie thought sullenly.

“Did you… live in the orphanage? -Lizzie?”

The girl recoiled into herself at the question like she was scared Westlie might send her back, or maybe if she thought she was judging her.

“I- I just want to know where you’re from. Do you have a family…?”

“… no family. Ran away from the orphanage.”

“Where… did you want to go, Lizzie?” And that question was genuine, because… Westlie couldn’t really summon the words. It was obvious she was terrified of the orphanage, but she was still brave enough to run away. Maybe not even running to something – and Westlie felt like if she ever ran away from Arthur, if it ever got really bad she would want to be running to something. And was it bad enough with Arthur to run away? When was bad enough? Not getting fed? Being punished? Was she frightened enough now?

Westlie jerked herself back to the present when Lizzie shifted to hug her knees. “… nowhere. I thought- I thought maybe I could ride on a train to New Winchester. But I don’t have money for a ticket.”

“Do you… have a place to spend the night…?”

“No.”

Part of her wanted to yell at the girl for being so unreasonable as to just run out on the streets without food, without money. What if she’d been kidnapped or anything worse that could happen to small girls. Westlie’s heart twisted a bit again. What could she do about it? What could she do about it? She didn’t know orphanages and obviously the one here wouldn’t do. She couldn’t send her back. That would be cruel. Were there people who could take her…? Maybe the workers….?

Westlie glanced over her shoulder at Fairweather. There were two workers on staff. One was just a boy younger than her and the other was the incompetent woman who’d dropped the ledge behind the shelf. She glanced back at Lizzie. She looked so small, clutching her knees to her chest, so unsure.

There was-

Westlie hated herself for thinking it.

There was her room.

It wasn’t large. It was just basic necessities. Arthur- and by extension, herself weren’t frivolous. But even if she slept on the floor, Lizzie would have a roof over her head. It’d be alright for the night. It’d buy her time to figure out what to do. Maybe the solution was just giving her money to head to New Winchester. That was a safe solution, wasn’t it?

Right.

Westlie stared at Lizzie and she suddenly found herself unable to talk. ‘Come home with me…?’ Fuck, that was so creepy. What was she trying to do? Lure her to a grave? Westlie cleared her throat. ‘Stay with me for the night?’ No-no, too pensive.

She opened her mouth, closed it, and struggled with it for a full minute before Lizzie looked up at her and the words finally came out. “I- If you want to stay. I mean. Stay with me. For the night that is. If you want. And we can figure out something in the morning. That seems like a good idea. You can’t go out there. You shouldn’t anyway. And we can- I don’t know. There’s dinner. More dinner- I mean, anyway. If you want dinner.”

Lizzie just watched her with wide eyes, but she didn’t say no.

Westlie stared back.

This was such a bad idea. Holy shit it was such a bad idea. Fuck. Goddamn. Why.

She shoved all the thoughts aside and stood up, staring down at the very small, very wide-eyed child. I’m a very small, very wide-eyed child, her mind grumbled. She held out her hand.

Lizzie hesitated for a very long minute, then her hand slowly crept up, ever so slowly. One second, two seconds. It almost touched Westlie’s fingertips. They both stared at each other, equally scared and uncertain, and then Lizzie grabbed it and held on, letting Westlie gently pull her to her feet.

[gotham-ruaidh]

Truth to Triumph

Previously…

Chapter 7: The Invitation

August 25, 1904

Article published in the New-York Daily Tribune on Sunday, August 28, 1904. Captain Van Schaick was at the helm when the Slocum burned. Bellevue is world-renowned for its mental illness ward. This small story, of a man literally gone mad with grief, humanizes this tragedy. And is emblematic of just how deeply this disaster scarred the city. 

--

In early August, Mr. Pulitzer gave Jamie a hearty raise.

 Jamie thanked him by donating it to the World’s Slocum widows and orphans fund.

In turn, the German community thanked him – for the fair, honest depiction of their community he had shared with the world, and for his own personal generosity – by declaring they would host a dinner in his honor, at one of the beer gardens on the Bowery.

 This invitation was the prime topic of conversation the next time he dined with Claire, the Beauchamps, and Henry – who brimmed with joy at being invited to sit with the grown-ups. True to his word, Jamie had breathed not a word of Henry’s existence to anyone. He had continued to call on Claire – and she had surprised him with a few unannounced appearances at his office – all the while remaining respectful of her boundaries.

 He’d invited her to dinner at his cramped rooms on Stanton Street; she insisted on buying groceries from several Italian pushcart vendors along the way, and together they cooked a simple yet delicious meal. Swapping stories about growing up in the city – the crowded public school he had attended in Chelsea, punctuated by occasional ferry trips across the Hudson to visit his mother’s brothers in Newark; playing hide-and-seek with her funny Uncle Lamb in the basement of her grandfather’s department store, and sneaking into dusty libraries to find a respite from yet another boring social occasion.

 Learning each other.

 Jamie had continued to impress all three adult Beauchamps with the way he partnered with Claire to shine a light on stories that the public may otherwise ignore or overlook – lending her work the credence it deserved.

 “I’ve been to a few dinners at these beer gardens,” the elder Henry shared, tucking in to the cool asparagus salad that Claire had helped the cook, Mrs. Crook, prepare. “They’re outside – or if they’re inside, the ceiling is made of glass panes that can be opened to let in the air. Entire families will come, squashed side-by-side onto picnic tables.”

 “Is it safe to presume that plenty of beer is served?” Julia smiled from behind her napkin.

 “It is, dear wife,” Henry replied. “Along with a good deal of other food – sausages, sauerkraut, potatoes. All very good, if a bit monochromatic in appearance.”

 “What’s mono-chromatic?” Young Henry speared an asparagus on his fork and wobbled it a bit over his plate.

 “‘Mono’ means ‘one,’ lovie, and ‘chromatic’ means ‘color.’ Anyway, Papa, It’s remarkable how the Germans do everything together – how they bring entire families to an event.” Claire gently pushed her son’s elbows off the table. “That’s why so many families were on the Slocum to begin with – they don’t like separating the men from the women, the women from the children.”

 “In that respect, they’re not so different from many of the other immigrant groups in New York,” Jamie reflected. “The Jews, the Italians, the Syrians, even the Chinese – everything becomes a family affair. They live together, work together – and have fun together. It only seems that the Americans – or to be specific, the Knickerbockers – don’t have this same custom.”

 “That’s because they can choose to pack away the children with the staff – and because the men are too idiotic to want to spend time with their wives,” Henry huffed. “Not for me to share now – with the little pitchers at the table. But Julia knows full well, the number of times I’ve had to turn down certain…invitations.”

 Claire raised an eyebrow at her father, then turned to look at her son – blissfully unaware as he munched on a cold chicken leg.

 “Still.” Jamie sipped his whisky. “I’m honored to be invited. Truly.”

 “You’ve done so much good, Jamie. Honorable good.” Henry raised his own glass of whisky in a toast. “And I’m pleased it’s being recognized.”

 “By the people whose opinion matter most,” Claire added, clinking her own glass of whisky against Jamie’s.

 He looked into her eyes. Knew that she wasn’t just referring to the Kleindeutschlanders.

 --

 Later, after the dessert plates were cleared, Jamie refused the elder Henry’s offer of a nightcap and welcomed the younger Henry’s enthusiastic good-night hug, before retreating alone to the parlor that overlooked East Twenty-Second Street. As was their custom after dinner, Jamie waited as Claire put her son to bed – sometimes reading from one of the storybooks Jamie had so thoughtfully given Henry for his fifth birthday – before they shared a quiet hour or two in the parlor. Alone. Getting to know one another.

 Always on Claire’s terms.

 Sometimes they talked about her work – a challenging patient she had treated; a new doctor who had doubted her abilities; a recent scientific breakthrough she had learned about in one of the journals she subscribed to.

 Sometimes they talked about his work – how he had had to fight his editors to use true and honest language and avoid sensationalism in his Unsung series; salacious stories that the newspaper had trumpeted – or ignored – based on Mr. Pulitzer’s whims and relationships; the faces and stories of everyday New Yorkers he had met in the course of his travels around the city.

 Sometimes they talked about their families – her, of happy childhood memories growing up in this house, or traveling with her beloved Uncle Lamb as he lectured about anthropology in various colleges across the Northeast; him, of the foods his mother had cooked in their tenement on West Thirteenth Street, and the happy life his sister and brother-in-law led on the farm in Nova Scotia he had heard so much about but never visited himself.

 Usually they sat side-by-side on the settee, facing each other, both nursing a glass of brandy. He never drank very much in her presence – knowing how gravely she had suffered at the hands of a drunk man. And he never touched her – never even took her hand – without her touching him first.

 Silently signaling how much he respected her.

 Aching for more with her – this woman whose strength inspired him, whose grace astounded him, whose beauty haunted his days and his dreams.

 How deeply he wanted everything with her – to have her at his side, as his wife and partner and confidante. To provide for Henry – to be a father to him, to give him his name, to guide him as he grew. To give Henry sisters and brothers to play with.

 The settee shifted beside him – and she was there. Smiling. So beautiful and radiant.

 She held out her hands – and immediately he took them within his own. Caressing. Eyes intent on hers.

 “Is he asleep?”

 She nodded. “He so loves the book of Mother Goose rhymes you bought him. He can read them on his own now. So he insisted on reading to me tonight.”

 He returned her smile. “He’s a smart boy.”

 “He is.” She glanced down at their hands. How his fingers so perfectly twined with hers, thumbs gently stroking the pulses and tendons on the inside of her wrists.

 “Will you come with me to the dinner, Claire?”

 Her eyes snapped up to meet his. “The one at the beer garden?”

 He nodded. “I would like nothing more than for you to be at my side. I wouldn’t be there – wouldn’t have been able to meet such wonderful people, or to have had such an impact – had it not been for you.” He swallowed. “But for you to do that, would mean that we – we would be seen together in public. As a couple.”

 She didn’t speak, silently squeezing his hands.

 “I don’t want you to think that I’m – I’m ashamed of you in any way, or that I don’t want to be seen with you. It would make me so proud, to have you there – to introduce you as the most important woman in my life. But Claire – Claire, I don’t know if you want that.”

 “Of course I want that,” she replied, incredulous.

 “But are you ready for that? To be in the papers again, potentially? I know you didn’t care for it very much the last time it happened – and now that my name is becoming more well-known…it may be a topic of interest to some people.”

 She pursed her lips. The fine lines at the corners of her eyes creased in the lamplight. “I understand that – and I accept it. I can’t hide from it forever, Jamie. I’m ready for it.”

 “Are you sure?”

 “I am. Do you know why?”

 “Why?”

 She shifted closer to him. ���Because you came to me through what I can do. Not because of my family. Or my looks. Or our money, our house. The influence we have. You came to me because of something terrible, which allowed me to express how skilled I am. Because of what I can do. Because of what I have worked so hard to demonstrate.”

 She paused, considering her words very carefully.

 “Jamie – other people see those things first. You don’t. You see me for who I want to be – for how I want to be seen. Purely because of me. Do you know you’re the only person – except for my son, perhaps – who has ever done that for me?”

 Now the words flooded in a torrent. “You make me stronger – more confident. You don’t owe me anything, and yet you support me anyway. So I know that your support – your faith in me – is genuine. And you demonstrate that faith by allowing me to help you find people whose stories need to be told – and then by telling them honestly. Earning their trust and respect. My trust and respect.”

 She dropped his left hand. Reached to cradle his cheek for the first time. Overcome, he brought her left hand to his thrumming heart – and closed his eyes, nuzzling her palm.

 “You one said that you wanted to know me. Do you remember?”

 He nodded.

 She swallowed. “I think I’ve come to know you well, Jamie Fraser. Would you say the same about me?”

 “Yes,” he breathed.

 “So of course I’ll accompany you. To the beer garden, and anywhere else you go.”

 His eyes opened, and joyfully he kissed her palm.

 “Always?” he whispered, so hopeful.

 “Always,” she promised, bringing their joined hands to her own heart so that he could feel it racing.

 “I – I…” he stammered. “I would very much like to kiss you, Claire. May I?”

 Forever she remembered that moment, when the world seemed to stand still, and she lost all sense of her surroundings – save for Jamie’s eager face, and his burning eyes, and his soft, soft touch on her wrist.

 “Yes,” she breathed. And the world exploded with color.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S3 Ep 11 pt 2: Seto Discovers Vulture Capitalism

Where were we on this arc that ended up being hella longer than I thought it would be? Oh yeah, Last we left the crew, Tristan’s body, now possessed by Nezbitt, was just racing away with Mokuba. This kid gets abducted so often, it’s never occurred to me that anyone in this show would think this is weird. So, when Noah showed up to intervene with actual common sense it was a good bit of whiplash for me.

It’s like the same whiplash I got back when Noah attempted to forfeit a rigged game (for the first time in this entire series). Like I get that Noah is the villain, but how is the evil kid way better at this common sense thing than...a lot of people who’ve been on this show? Not that Noah’s always smart, of course, he still doesn’t seem totally with it on a lot of things (like interior design, which we will get to in a sec) but wow. Noah actually called out this entire show with “Really? Mokuba? Again?”

And so you know what that means? We get to see Noah’s sweet pad in this VR world where Noah could have created anything. Literally anything. To start, he made himself a fireplace with a tiny tiny stack of wood (pretty sure Noah might not know how fires work) and...some sort of...curse on the mantle.

Maybe the mantle couldn’t read the typeface that Noah wanted to use on the mantle?

The rest of the room is just this. Just this.

You know what this no-walls aesthetic SUPER reminds me of?

Pocket Camp. Like this just looks like a Pocket Camp set up to me. In fact...I’m pretty sure I can make almost this exact room in Pocket Camp.

Noah’s just inviting Mokuba over with the bare minimum of ugly ass furniture he needs to have a person over at his campsite he pretends is a house while he waits patiently for the real version of Animal Crossing to come to Switch.

Leichter has an accent that is very old-fashioned Americana and doesn’t wholly make sense in the context of him living in urban Japan, like there’s a whole story there I’d be curious about. But most likely, they were probably trying to cover up the fact that they were using the same 5 voice actors by having him pull out the Clark Gable impression.

And then Seto did not use a Blue Eyes as his deck Master. Instead he used....this guy.

This is a lot of guy to take in. I...I don’t like it.

During this duel we get a Seto Kaiba flashback--and it’s an honest flashback this time, no clones are going to show up and reenact this performance, this is just a straight up flashback.

We’re transported back to Gozoboro’s long buffet table. He really, really loves this thing. It’s like the only place he and his kids ever seem to hang out. Surprised Mokuba and Seto don’t need glasses after squinting so hard to see their own Father for so many years. Also surprised Mokuba and Seto even know what their Dad looks like up close.

Anyways, he sits down at the table and shouts really loudly so it can reach the other side of the room.

Also, just gonna bring this up, we’ve only seen one other guy obsessed with long tables--let me do some digging to a S1 cap, one sec:

Maybe this is just what evil Dads who wear Salmon do?  They get hella long tables to seat their 0 friends and just sit at one of the ends and monologue until something important happens. I mean y’all know how much I love this storyboarder but boy they have a thing for villains and long tables.

Anyways, back to Season 3.

(bro’s telling me he does not know about Thoroughly Modern Millie and like can you believe neither Hulu or Netflix has that musical? I mean that musical is problematic as hell, as is all Broadway but maybe I want to watch some 1920′s dancing.)

Anyways, cue Gozaboro shuffling in a comedically large pile of money on a very small pushcart. About 1,099,520,000.00 Yen’s worth. But the show will simplify it for the Americans.

This episode of Yugioh was made around 2002, and this just followed the .com bubble bursting in California. (and before that happened, it was preceded by a recession in Japan that affected the .com bubble quite a bit) For those here who were not born yet and do not remember this happening, this was like, pretty horrifying. I grew up in the Bay where 90% of everyone still works in tech, so I remember that after the bubble burst there were kids in our school who’s parents used to have great salaries and a steady income, who suddenly had to pick up shifts at Starbucks to get back on their feet.

So, it’s interesting that we have this kid’s show basically showing us point blank what Vulture Capitalism is and how it works. You’d think this business stuff would normally go over kid’s heads, but at the time, I think a lot of kids wanted to know what happened to their families but maybe didn’t understand it?

So Kaiba is gonna get into investing all of a sudden, which is kind of weird, mostly because it involved no playing cards. Also because this happened:

Yeah, what? He’s apparently not even adopted yet, which means Seto could still turn around and tell the News that he beat Gozaboro in a match but, I guess that old threat has aged out.

It’s inferred that Seto’s been living here like for several years now. You’d think this guy would list some dependents just for the tax cuts, but nah, Gozaboro just shoved these two into the gigantic 5000 sq ft closet under the stairs of his huge mansion and forgot about them for a couple years.

So, armed with money that is printed on single Yen bills and being pushed around Kaiba in a little tiny cart, Seto has to formulate a plan. Problem is, his business skills include a.) beating up other orphans b.) doing math pretty good and c.) playing cards.

When Seto is like “I don’t care what the company sells, just get me a company to buy” that’s like a straight reference to the .com bubble, but minus the complicated stock market stuff.

For the kid’s in the room that don’t know a thing about this era, tech companies were being created en masse, and because the internet was new and exciting, all of their worth was in their stock rather than in their products--if they even had a product. Mostly they just had big overreaching ideas they were pretty sure would make them all millionaires. But the product didn’t really matter since no one ever reads any numbers when all they plan to do is turn around and immediately sell anyway. They just assumed that if they put on the pressure, they would drive up the value, and would sell before anyone figured out it was all worthless.

This actually worked for so many years, up until people at the top all started demanding real money from the people at the bottom, much like how Seto needed 100 million dollars ASAP from an unsuspecting...whatever company this was. Vulture Capitalism at it’s finest, expecting exponential and unrealistic growth from any company, and if, the growth isn’t met, just selling the whole damn thing after driving every employee to the hospital for overwork.

Now, normally Vulture Capitalism is only if an investor buys a struggling company intending to sell directly afterwards, but since Seto made them struggle like immediately after purchasing, I think we can still call this that.

(And we still do this to this day, PS, we’ve learned nothing from the .com crash.)

This really bad child’s outfit is my favorite Mokuba outfit. I mean...it’s so bad. No wonder Mokuba was picked on so often as a child, wow. He’s like a late-80′s news anchor.

Also, I have NO idea how Seto got any money back so quickly. That doesn’t...totally make sense. But, this is a kid’s show and we have to simplify this whole thing into a sensible package. I mean there’s way more to the whole  .com problem but...this show wasn’t literally doing a .com...just a really heavy reference to it.

And much like how people valued stock more than what companies actually were, Seto’s value was a lot of the same. His worth to his Father wasn’t that of a son, it was entirely held up in potential dollar signs. To Gozaboro, Seto's nothing more than a small company he’ll extort straight into...a more emotional type of bankruptcy. Framed alongside the .com crash, this is sort of like, ah, I see what you’re doing, Yugioh. The way Seto was screwing this company was the same way he was already screwed. It’s basically all he knows, and it is a lot of heavy handed foreshadowing.

Anyway, Seto destroyed a company with 10 mill, which is nothing compared to the amount of money vulture capitalists toss around nowadays.

The Big 5 may have honestly done a better job raising Kaiba than Gozoburo since this guy acted as an advisor rather than a boss, but it’s a very, very low bar these boys have set and so far, very few adults have met it. All you have to do is just try and not kill them and you’re already better than all of Kaiba’s father figures.

With the exception of Roland, of course. Youknow, other than Grandpa, Roland is like the only good Dad on this show. Never thought Roland would look like such a shining star. Man, Roland better not screw everyone over or I will be so disappointed in him.

Anyways, the Yugi crew found a fully fueled truck from Soviet Era Russia buried in one of those warehouses.

They censor so much stuff that gives away that Yugioh is from another country, and they kept in the 3-wheeler pickup? As if any North American child would have any idea what they’re looking at right now? Maybe they just assumed we’d think it was sci-fi?

Also, then this happened?

...OK then.

Not sure how Satellite Laser works outside the context of VR. But, at least here in the VR Zone, we can send a Satellite Laser into space because...Space exists here? In VR?

This world is weirdly very small but also very big at the same time. It’s like Katamari.

Anyway, that’s all for this episode, next episode we find out if Kaiba will hack a laser for the second time in this series. Also we find out if Joey can jump a sonic-the-hedgehog broken highway with a 3-wheeled European-as-hell Pickup Truck.

Also...close enough?

Pocket camp really needs more yellow sleeveless puff jackets.

And here’s a link to read the recaps in Chrono order from Ep1 S1

[thempoetry]

“There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé” by Morgan Parker

This book had been years coming in my collection. Its name rang out inside me when I felt its titular sentiment — that the popular worship of Beyoncé is overblown — and whenever I thought of it, I felt a spark of solidarity.

Of course, this is not a book about Beyoncé — and in fact, this is not even a book that is very critical of Beyoncé. Instead, Beyoncé acts as a literary device throughout — a mouthpiece, an amulet, a proto-idea that shapeshifts to meet Parker’s endless need to talk, sing and moan about race, class, democracy, depression, music and drugs. It’s a brilliant move.

I’d like to start more broadly by commenting on Morgan Parker, because she strikes me as an outsider among insiders. In my head, Parker is of the generation of contemporary poets that includes Danez Smith, Franny Choi, Ocean Vuong etc. … she’s decorated with a Pushcart, she co-curates a reading series, she performs with Angel Nafis as part of The Other Black Girl Collective. Her poetic career is bedazzlingly active — so why don’t we talk about her more?

By which I mean: there seems to be a kind of halo around young poets like Ocean Vuong, who — and I say this with admittedly limited experience of his work — turn the harrowing vine-tangle of identity into a kind of rhapsodic experience: a thing worth looking at because it is beautiful. (Here is an example, from Vuong’s “Tell Me Something Good”:

Snow on your lips like a salted

cut, you leap between your deaths, black as a god’s periods. Your arms cleaving little wounds

in the wind. You are something made… )

There’s no arguing that Vuong’s poem is beautiful; my issue is with how the beauty is used. Vuong’s poem here seems an extension of the (frankly depressing and oppressive) idea that “foreigners” can make their stories worthy through pathos, pity and craft — i.e., hard work and relatability. If the sentiment sounds familiar, just tune into the way mainstream conservatives these days talk about immigrants: I don’t have a problem with immigrants writ large, I just prefer immigrants who work hard, keep their heads down, are pleasant to my children, are generally agreeable…

Anyway, it’s not fair for me to pass such a blanket judgement over Ocean Vuong’s work, and that’s for another review. But insofar as Morgan Parker is concerned, she parses the work and space of otherness in an entirely different manner. Similar to Claudia Rankine of Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, her argument is this: I won’t “fix” myself for you. I won’t try to make myself beautiful. I will tell the (magical, insatiable) truth as it is, and you will have to try to keep up. Because I am too tired to bow down, to construct something for you, to micro-manage. Parker’s poems are for haters of micro-management; they offer big gestures in small bottles.

Consider the opening lines of the opening poem, “All They Want Is My Money My Pussy My Blood”:

I am free with the following conditions.

Give it up gimme gimme.

Okay so I’m Black in America right and I walk into a bar.

With this bold opening, Parker’s commitments are clear: she will demand things of the reader (“give it up gimme gimme”) and she will clearly demarcate what commands her attention and respect (“I’m Black in America right”). And with this begins what I can only describe as a chimeric collection, more warm-blooded fantasy animal than diorama; more occult message written in glitter than typeset monolith. She scrounges from jazz, RnB and pop to fill her pauses. She is unrelentingly new instead of subtle. I like it:

I am a dreamer with empty hands and I like the chill. I will not be attending the party tonight, because I am microwaving multiple Lean Cuisines and watching Wife Swap… (“Another Another Autumn in New York”)

—and the sincerity of her materials shine through. (To continue this silly dogfight I’ve set up, compare the above with Vuong: “Air of whiskey and crushed / Oreos.” Parker’s allusion to pop culture delights; Vuong’s seems like an add-on, a sprinkling of something inappropriate on top).

But wherefore is the source of all this magic? I would say in what Sun Ra called “liquidity.” For example: Parker was best when R and I read her aloud on a grassy slope on Belle Isle in Detroit. There we were, in a historically Black city, in what I can only describe as a “public paradise.” Ducks waddled by and folks of all stripes strolled in front of us beside a small man-made lake. As we read Parker aloud, we laughed with her and from within her work — as though her words gave us the ability to access our inner performers, delivering punchlines (“I don’t know / when I got so punk rock”) and casting personal spells (“I breathe / dried honeysuckle / and hope”). We felt for her. And we wanted to continue feeling for her. All things told I had a moment of genuine orality with her work — a glimpse of what poetry must have felt like when it was shared, sung and social by default. This is a book that radiates the energy of the collective, that asks you to recognize it — and does not over-demonstrate.

So, in this false dichotomy, one might pose:

LIQUIDITY: ORALITY, SOCIALITY, LONG STANZAS SHORT LINES

against

SOLIDITY: WRITTEN, INWARDNESS, SMALL FORMAL STANZAS LONG LINES

In the former, you have the world of most popular songs, particularly jazz; in the latter, you have sculpture and “high art.” Perhaps this is why Ocean Vuong’s work has garnered him endless praise and attention, and most of us look askance at Morgan Parker’s messiness, silliness and genuine emotional bravery. She rambles, yes, but her rambling challenges the very idea of boundaries — of “discipline” as a set of limits, of borders we set for ourselves, however beautiful.

Finally, I will say this, as it’s becoming a theme in my reviews. Parker’s poetry feels affectively liberated. She is funny as well as ashamed. Take, for instance, this amazing section of “RoboBeyoncé”:

The reason I was built is to outlast some terribly feminine sickness that is delivered to the blood through kale salad and pity and men with straight-haired girlfriends […] Nothing aches in here It’s a quiet, calculated shame

Part of the power in these lines is the fact that despite the sprawling, messy energy of Parker’s poems, formally they are incredibly demanding due to their short lines. Parker does not give herself the liberty of overusing the form that has, frankly, become a meme among young poets — the poem composed of long couplets, like Vuong’s poem above — and instead prefers her poems one long connective muscle. The result is propulsive and exciting, like watching a figure skater do tight turns on the ice. She is insightful but also — I dare say it — entertaining. But in the wry, dark way that comedians have that communicates, “Look, I don’t care if you don’t like me. Most of the time, I don’t like me either.”

Which is not to say that Parker’s work is perfect — like the aforementioned figure skater, she does often fall short of her ambitions and can write poems that don’t hold together — often using the couplet form above. I think her work is best when it acknowledges its liquid merits, and doesn’t try to stand with too much air around it.

Overall: 9/10 for sheer spillage of fantasy radioactive plasma

Read If You: -Think it’s lame that Beyoncé talks so much about her “rock” -Miss the energy of cities like Detroit -Have friends you want to read with and you are all getting tired of the bone-dry landscape of contemporary poetry which is really just about “passing” politics and making pain beautiful and omg what if pain is NOT beautiful what if it is just pain motherfuckers what if leaving the party is political too goddamn

Further Reading

Don’t Let Me Be Lonely by Claudia Rankine -- deep classic, prepared the soil for Parker

BONUS: Things To Do In Life That Are Not Poetry

Inspired by Morgan Parker, try:

1. Starting a flashy project then abandoning it on purpose 2. Making a cocktail after a song by a Black American musician 3. Getting in a tub of ice cold water and listening to Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. while doing one’s nails without shivering

Feverish and anything but lonely, Michu

P.S. A last thought while in the shower. Morgan Parker’s poetry is relentlessly self-aware. But I think what we mean when we say “self-aware” is actually not “being aware of the self” but “being aware of everything but the self” -- i.e. seeing one’s pronouncements as part of a larger (in Parker’s case historical) context. When Parker sits down to multiple Lean Cuisines and Wife Swap, the irony she projects comes from a deep rootedness in the idea that this is a thing that people do: skip parties to self-indulge in everyday, consumerist ways that our higher selves disapprove of. It’s not that her sentiment or self-report is inauthentic, but rather that it is aromantic -- it doesn’t presume that her experience hits on some prized singularness about being human. And I like that; I find it smart and honest at the same time, which is a rare combination -- not just in poets, but in people. 

[finishinglinepress]

FLP POETRY BOOK OF THE DAY: Blood Lies: Race Trait(or) by Karla Brundage

On SALE now! Pre-order Price Guarantee: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/blood-lies-race-traitor-by-karla-brundage/

In “Blood Lies: Race Trait(or),” Karla Brundage offers a thought-provoking journey through the intricate nuances of #race, particularly the various facets of #Blackness. This collection asks at what point does this mathematical inquiry become traitorous? She takes readers on an exploration of #ancestry, unraveling the complex #history behind terms like “mulatto,” “octoroon,” and “quadroon,” while also delving into Brundage’s personal experiences as a 21st-century woman. With rich, at times brutally honest, lyricism and clever wordplay, Brundage examines the multifaceted nature of race, viewing it through the lenses of history, culture, sexuality, and politics. By the book’s conclusion, “Blood Lies” challenges the conventional notion of race, illustrating that it’s not simply a matter of bloodlines but a global phenomenon that encompasses the diverse dimensions of blackness, whiteness, and womanness.

Karla Brundage is a Bay Area based poet, activist, and educator with a passion for social justice. Born in Berkeley, California in the summer of love to a Black mother and white father, Karla spent most of her childhood in Hawaii where she developed a deep love of nature. A Pushcart Prize nominee, Fulbright teacher she has performed her work onstage and online, both nationally and internationally. Her poetry, short stories and essays can be found in Tribes, Konch, Hip Mama, sPARKLE & bLINK, Bamboo Ridge Press, and WriteNow. She is the founder of West Oakland to West Africa Poetry Exchange (WO2WA), which has facilitated cross-cultural exchange between Oakland and West African poets and the publication of three books Our Spirits Carry Our Voices, Sisters Across Oceans and Black Rootedness: 54 Poets from Africa to America.Her musical loves include Hawaiian, West African, and Hip Hop sounds. Her work can be found at http://westoaklandtowestafrica.com/ as well as on https://www.karlabrundage.com/ .

PRAISE FOR Blood Lies: Race Trait(or) by Karla Brundage

Karla Brundage’s Blood Lies: Race Trait(or) is about race. It is about the history of race, about imposed racial definitions like mulatto and quadroon. And then next to these historical poems are heart rending poems about how race is lived now, about the way these racial impositions continue to resonant. But it is not all about being caught. What makes this book so strong is that it is also about moments of escape from these terms too. It is a book that is biting and yet affirmative.

–Juliana Spahr

Karla Brundage unbends rivers in this poetic investigation of a settler colonial project that has gone on for too long. De-animated and alienated too many souls. In this collection, double consciousness is revisited and interrogated fiercely by an inspired, confident hand and unbroken psyche. Proving that messianic tasks are found, accepted and achieved in craft; Brundage continues to be a wonder we hope to be worthy of.

–Tongo Eisen-Martin

In the full-length poetry collection Blood Lies: Race Trait(or) by Karla Brundage, we find a wholly original clarion voice. This remarkable volume is proof of poetry’s power to illuminate, investigate, invoke. Read this book slowly, in sequence as a story of living at the delta of liminalities and navigating them through the rivers of history, language, lies, and fears born out. In the poem “Octoroon: (noun),” the author examines how language is used to colonize the Black female body: “Great Grandma Maude is quadroon, her mom mulatto, her grandma French / octoroon?/ Why then, do they call out Mulatto?” A case can be made that poetry is akin to the DNA tests, revealing essential truths and ineradicable history, in blood, shame, and beauty. Brundage uses eloquent concision to amplify big mysteries and truths. These poems link together to build a story–the poet&#39;s story. In “Underneath,” she writes of early childhood: “The first man to visit me after I was born was/ Eldridge Cleaver and his wife Kathleen/ I remember drawing castles with Angela Davis/ Laying in her lap while my mom gave a speech.” This bold and urgent collection reveals an important voice for social justice, earned insights turned into an intellectual koan. Karla Brundage translates her own journey into poetic testimony.

–Maw Shein Win, Storage Unit for the Spirit House (Omnidawn)

In Blood Lies: Race Trait(or), Karla Brundage relates, contextualizes, complicates, and deconstructs her experiences as a mixed race woman living in the US. Brundage’s poems pulsate with an innate understanding that the social construction of limiting identities–mulatto, octoroon, quadroon, woman, wife–is troubled by a history that is scarred, scarring, and nebulous. This history includes the rape and ownership of Black women by men, creating a lineage in which ancestors cannot easily be traced and cycles of systemic oppression cannot easily be broken. The burdens of having one’s personhood measured and tiered according to constructs like race and gender wrestle with the inner, human truths that defy societal stereotypes: “One drop of African blood/Makes you legally a Negro in 1707/What makes you legally a Negro now?”

–Shilpa Kamat

Blood Lies: Race Trait(or) is imbued with a sense of searching for answers where there may never be any. None that are tangible or pleasant but determined by the evolution of language and the human propensity for categorizing others. Where do we fit, or “what makes you legally a Negro now?” Karla Brundage has the ability to write in a way that both draws you into its elegance while forcing you to deal with the weight and violent implications of mixed blood over generations. Brundage constructs the self through what constitutes the terms Black and woman, each encapsulated in conceptions of the past, in “unspoken rememories” we must sift through to enlighten our present and envision our future.

–Raihana Haynes-Venerable

With Blood Lies: Race Trait(or), Karla Brundage steps into the tangled knot of colonial histories and their resulting math–illogical, tortured, tortuous–of racial categories. Her poems go to the dictionary and find all the violence language holds, how it gets written and re-written onto the body. But Brundage does not stop there. At turns critical, mythic, full of wonder, grief, and rage, she uses the language of racist definitions to both uncover the past and “re member” what’s been violated. Blood lies transverses past and present, paying particular attention to what it means to be marked as mixed race and female, to be (or not be) a wife. This work asks its reader to confront all the relations where human life is reduced to property, the unbearable weight of that, and what it means to live through it. ­

–Stephanie Young

Do we live in two Americas? If so, what is life like within these different Americas, and how do they all interact? Karla Brundage’s Blood Liesexplores these questions, while raising others you didn’t know you needed answering. Blood Lies tackles the topics of race, love, sexuality, rape, and discrimination. This collection is meant to elicit discussions for those who want to understand self and others, and bridge the gaps of differences amongst us all.

–Brea Watts

Karla Brundage’s newest collection of poetry throws the reader into a labyrinth of history, family, blood, hurt and joy. “Blood” and “Mulatto” are not just provocative terms she sprays on her pages; instead, they represent a legacy of familial challenges and personal redemption that must be excavated and explored here. Karla Brundage. Karla Brundage. Say that name twice and commit it to memory since she is the poet to know now.

–Allison E. Francis, Professor, Playwright & Director of Ex-Colored Man

With Race Trait(or), Karla Brundage enters into the logic of racial math, whipping through its cunning calculus in search of the bodies, families, cultures and worlds that have been flung into psychic pieces by its absurd equations.

She journeys in words toward her fragmented family, an inheritance of mixing eons old for human kind. Yet in the US the mulatta’s arteries lay a labyrinth of haunted love and memorialization floored with black and white tiles, of hair and blood, and of genes and skins.

–Duana Fullwiley

Please share/please repost #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #poetry #read #poetrybook #poems #race #blackpoet

[the-tol-and-the-smol]

Sasata Sata - Weapon of Choice

Sasata stood at the weapon racks of Naldiq and Vymelli's forge storefront in the early afternoon sun, shifting her weight from foot to foot restlessly as she attempted to critically examine each sword, ax, and spear in turn. She tapped her chin with her index finger, biting her lower lip a bit as she reached for the hilt of a longsword only to retract her hand as soon as she touched it and frown before reaching instead for the haft of a spear. The scene played out several times before Sass eventually sighed and dropped her hand to her side, turning around to face the pair of hyur apprentice smiths, a tall and muscled highlander male and a heavy-set midlander female, who had been stuck manning the store's counter that day. "Look, I think it's pretty obvious I need an outside opinion here," she said, motioning to the racks. The pair of would-be clerks seemed to be ignoring her, as if they needed some sort of magical word to be bothered. The midlander picked something from under a nail and the highlander became very interested in the bucket of nails on the counter. "Can one of you give me a hand? Please?" She asked. The highlander and the midlander slowly looked at Sass as she said the last word, then at each other. They shifted their stances to face one another entirely, their expressions turning from disinterest to serious, brows knitting in concentration. Unable to see what was happening, Sass looked about frantically before spotting a crate. She clambored onto it and stood, finally tall enough to see over the counter. Each of the workers had put a fist rested on the palm of their opposite hand before them and they were staring each other down. Unsure exactly what was going on, Sass raised an eyebrow and watched the proceedings with a hand resting on her hip.

"One, two, THREE!" The highlander counted as the pair bumped the bottoms of their fists against their hands with each number. On three, both the apprentices' fists changed to different finger configurations, the highlander putting an index and middle finger outward and the midlander extending all her fingers. The pair looked at the hands and the highlander smiled, motioning at Sass with a sweeping gesture before returning to his apparently enchanting bucket of nails. The midlander sighed and mumbled something about not using parchment anymore, straightning her apron a bit as she strode toward Sass' place at the racks. Sass slapped her forehead with her hand and sighed as she realized what had happened. Of course they were playing stone-parchment-shears over who would have to do the actual work. She smiled up at the midlander woman as she arrived regardless, and jerked a thumb at the weapons on display behind her.

"So, since you lost the toss-up over there, I need to pick your brain on this," Sass said as the midlander listened and nodded slightly as she brushed a stray hair from her eyes. "I've never had the need for one of these things before and I don't even know where to start," she sighed. "Honestly I don't even think I want one, 'cause I normally do the finger-wagglin' thing, but a job's come up and they said I might need one anyway so here I am. What'dya recommend me?" Sass looked up at the midlander, who returned the look then glanced to the weapon rack. She crossed her arms over her chest, mulling over the options. Finally, she shrugged. Tugging a wooden pushcart to her side, she walked slowly down the weapon line, looking between Sass and the wall of steel occasionally.

"Well, the only way to know what's good for you is to just try some out, I think," the midlander said, plucking a few of the smaller swords, a pair of axes, and two spears from the wall, placing them carefully in the small cart as she spoke. "I mean, if you've never been one for the martial side before, we can't exactly just assume which would be right for your hands and your height," she continued as she pushed the cart towards the exterior of the shop. Looking back to Sass, she flung the doors open and heaved the cart into a courtyard full of sparring dummies. "Come on, then," she smiled at Sass, who returned the look and finally hopped off her crate stool, marching out the door after her.

The chubby midlander strode up beside the cart of weapons, which had rolled to a halt in the middle of the cobblestone courtyard and put her hands on her hips, squinting as she first surveyed the cart and then looked at the dummies in the sunlight. Sass came to a stop next to her and looked at the wooden men for a bit, evenutally looking up at the midlander, who had thus far not said anything. "So what do I do? Just, you know, pick a sword and start hacking or something?" She asked, waving a fist in a sword-hacking gesture before smiling. The midlander blinked and looked down at her, nodding as if only half listening. She was frowning slightly, as if she was in thought she didn't enjoy. She sighed.

"If I'm honest with you, miss, I don't think none of this stuff of ours will suit you. I mean, you're welcome to try them out of course, but maybe you'd be more comfortable with somethin' what's got a little range to it?" she queried, nervously tugging at her leather apron a bit more. Sass shook her head.

"No, see, I thought about that too, and I do have a pistol, but I don't think it'll work. I think that's my problem in the eyes of the new boss," Sass mused, cocking a hip out and mulling over the cart's contents that she could remember, considering which might be easiest to heft. "The lady did say pretty specifically that I'd need some kind of weapon in case of close fighting, given I can always Fatespin for the long distance things," she smiled again as she finished, shrugging. "So it is what it is, and I need to pick a one!" With that, Sass climbed the side of the cart, almost tipping it over in the process, and grabbed for the first hilt she could reach. The midlander reached out to steady her as she heaved a zwiehander clearly sized for a roegadyn from the pile and nearly toppled backwards with the weight as she swung it back over her head to remove it from the cart.

"Careful there! Last thing we need is to try and explain to the Yellowjackets who gotta clean up the mess how a wee lalafell like yourself hacked herself in twain on our front porch!" She laughed, ensuring Sass made it back to the cobblestone safely. Sass set down somewhat unbalanced and the weight of the weapon caused her to lurch forward, the sword's tip bouncing off the cobbles with a loud clang as she did. When it hit, the vibration of it caused her to lose her grip on the hilt entirely. She jumped back as the weapon fell, desperate not to let it hit her feet. The midlander, for her part, crossed her arms and leaned on the weapon cart, watching the ensuing shenanigans. Sass finally caught her balance and tried to heft the sword a second time, her knuckles white as she strained to lift it. She teetered on her heels a bit as she picked the blade and tried to bring it back for a strike, but the sword's weight caused her to overbalance and stumble backwards several steps. The sword embedded in the wooden door behind her. As she braced a foot on the door and tried to pull the sword free again, the midlander chuckled and closed the gap between them. "Here, let me," she offered. Sass stepped aside, and with a one hand on the hilt and a single sharp yank, the midlander freed the blade and offered the hilt to Sass again. Sass shook her head, holding up a hand to stop her.

"I don't think that one's for me," she laughed, catching her breath. "I'd be more a danger to my friends than whoever we were fightin', if that performance has anything to say for it," she finished. The midlander woman smiled, nodding in agreement as she set it back in the cart with the other weapons. She considered the pile again, pulling an ax from it this time. In the hands of the midlander, it was a small weapon. One handed at best, the grip not large enough to allow a two-handed swing. She bent down and offered the grip to Sass, who wrapped both hands around it and hefted it easily. "Oh, this is more like it!" She spouted enthusiastically, slinging it over one shoulder and making a beeline for the training dummies. "I've seen a lot of the Sire..." she caught herself and attempted a cover-up as the midlander raised an eyebrow. "..A lot of the ladies I'll be working with use these," she managed, looking at the ax haft rather than meet the midlander's eyes. Regardless of their position as unofficial official privateers, many of Limsa Lominsa's citizens weren't always happy to deal with the pirate crews of the city. The midlander laughed.

"Well then, have at it, marauder!" She pointed to the training dummy. Sass planted her feet, bouncing at the knees slightly, and swung the ax in a wide arc. The blade hissed through the air and passed the dummy's torso entirely, but Sass remained committed to the follow through and nearly spun herself around in a circle with the force of her swing. Her features scrunched up in consternation and she reset her stance, taking another pass at hitting the dummy. This time the blade buried itself in the dummy's hip area with a resounding thwack, and Sass gave a little victory cheer as she looked over her handywork. She turned her head to look at the midlander over her shoulder, not letting go of the ax haft. The other woman gave her a thumbs up. "Not bad, not bad. So we've got a winner here, maybe?" She asked, joining Sass beside the target dummy. Sass nodded a bit, her tongue poking out from between her lips as she tried to pull the ax from the dummy once more. With a final heave, the blade came loose. The sudden loss of the dummy's brace against her pulling surprised Sass, and she stumbled backwards with the ax swinging behind her in a wide arc. The blade narrowly missed the surprised midlander's leg as she jumped out of the way. Sass looked up at her sheepishly as she spun to a stop, the ax head resting against the cobblestone.

"Sorry about that," she muttered. Her cheeks had reddened slightly as her gaze slowly shifted from the midlander's face to the blade of the ax, then to the notch it had left in the training dummy. She sighed. "Does that sort of thing happen often with this kind of weapon?" She asked as she looked up to the midlander again. The other woman nodded to her, much calmer now that the ax was safely out of the picture.

"Yeah, if you're not careful with one of these, there's a good chance it'll be stuck in something. Or someone," she mused. "It's kinda easy to do in a heated, close-quarters fight, too, if you haven't had too much practice," she crossed her arms over her chest again. "Maybe you should try something else. How do you feel about knives?" She asked. Sass' face split into a wide grin and she held out the ax for the midlander, who took it and smiled.

"I can work with them. I already have one I carry around just in case!" Sass said, excitedly drawing her coat to one side and showing off her tiny boottop sheath. The midlander chuckled and crossed the courtyard again, placing the ax iback in the cart with the other weapons. She shifted a few of them about as if she were looking for something specific in the pile.

"A good policy, to be sure, but I was thinking a more along the lines of a matched pair of proper fightin' daggers rather than one tiny emergency survival knife," the midlander stated, pulling  a pair of leather-sheathed mythril blades from the weapon cart and presenting them to Sass. Sass looked them over for a minute before hefting them and testing the balance in her hands. They were definitely light enough to allow for mobility, she had to give them that. Nodding, she walked back over to a dummy and took a few stabs with the pair, driving the knives into it a few times. As she pulled back from the third stab with her offhand, her face took on a look of concern. She looked toward the midlander.

"Would one hand with these be enough? Do I really need two?" Sass called out, holding up both knives. The midlander raised an eyebrow.

"Well, traditionally, most of the local knife forms are two blade styles. Not a whole lot that fight with one, 'cause two is twice the damage and if you wanna only use the one blade, you go for a sword-and-board setup. Why? Is there a problem?"

"Nah, it's just...I can't move my fingers right to cast with this second knife. I'm pretty sure I can make the proper motions if I just have the one hand, or a focus maybe? But I feel kinda like this is...more hampering than helping, you know?" Sass sighed and handed the knives back, hilt-first. The midlander placed them back on the pile and leaned against the cart, her face a knot of concentration.

"There may be an option for you, if you're willing to look outside traditional stuff," she said after some time. Sass grinned.

"I'm nothin' if not willing to adapt some!" She announced, hands on hips in a heroic pose. The midlander laughed.

"Okay. There's a rumor going 'round some of the fighting circles I deal with that a miqou'te man has popped up in Ul'dah. Flashy lad, all in reds. They say he uses some magic no one has quite placed yet, a little of everything. And here's the important part: He's fond of light, one-handed blades, so he can use some sort of crystal focus hovering over the other hand," she finished. Sass's smile spread ear to ear.

"I guess I'm going on a vacation then. I have a cat to see about some training," she laughed, plucking a small brown pouch from one of her many pockets. She tossed it to the midlander, who instinctively caught it in one hand. As it connected, there was a slight clink from the pouch. "I heard you lot are paid on commission. I used a lot of your time and didn't buy a damn thing, so hopefully that'll ease it a bit," Sass explained as the midlander opened the pouch to note a small sum of gil. Sass waved at her and skipped off into Limsa Lominsa, disappearing into a crowd. The midlander shook her head and slipped the pouch down her cleavage for safe keeping before she wheeled the cart back into the smithy proper.

[cathygeha]

REVIEW

Bloody Creek Murder by Susan Clayton Goldner

A Winston Radhauser Mystery #6

Winston Radhauser loves his family and his job. He is sharp as a tack and manages to solve murder cases one after another. It is interesting that as he finds out who the murderer is there are usually side stories that pop up that are as intriguing as the main murder mystery that the story revolves around. Unwilling to take the easy way out Radhauser follows each link in the chain that will eventually take him to the murderer. Along the way he learns more about the person murdered, the people in the murdered person’s life, what motivated the murderer and in this book he uncovers what happened to a boy who went missing years before.

Every time I pick up a book by this author I know it will be well written, draw me in, invoke feelings and that I will walk away remembering the story for a long time. I enjoy Radhauser’s empathy, determination and love for his family. In this story I loved the way two families worked together to provide the best life for a young boy. I could even empathize, a bit, with the murderer. All in all I loved this story and highly recommend it. I am eager to read whatever this author writes next.

Thank you to the author for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46589991-bloody-creek-murder

BLURB

Five days after a tragic fall kills her 10-year-old son, Blair Bradshaw, an actress with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, is found dead. Her husband, Franklin Bradshaw, an esteemed criminal defense attorney, discovers her body. It is carefully displayed under her son's tree house, among the flowers and other memorabilia left at the site of his death. Franklin insists her death is a suicide brought on by the loss of their son. But Detective Radhauser finds evidence at the scene—bloody shoe prints on one of the rocks in the nearby creek, the careful way the body is arranged, and the fact that no weapon is found near her body—leads him to believe otherwise. Was it grief that killed her? Or was it murder?

AUTHOR BIO

Susan Clayton-Goldner was born in New Castle, Delaware and grew up with four brothers along the banks of the Delaware River. She is a graduate of the University of Arizona's Creative Writing Program and has been writing most of her life. Her novels have been finalists for The Hemingway Award, the Heeken Foundation Fellowship, the Writers Foundation and the Publishing On-line Contest. Susan won the National Writers' Association Novel Award twice for unpublished novels and her poetry was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies including Animals as Teachers and Healers, published by Ballantine Books, Our Mothers/Ourselves, by the Greenwood Publishing Group, The Hawaii Pacific Review-Best of a Decade, and New Millennium Writings. A collection of her poems, A Question of Mortality was released in 2014 by Wellstone Press. Prior to writing full time, Susan worked as the Director of Corporate Relations for University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona. Susan shares a life in Grants Pass, Oregon with her husband, Andreas, her fictional characters, and more books than one person could count.

website: http://www.susanclaytongoldner.com

goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/SusanClayton-Goldner

twitter: https://twitter.com/SusanCGoldner

[markgottliebliteraryagent]

Finding the Right Literary Agent

As an author, I often receive questions from writers and students about literary agents. Specifically, how to find a literary agent. Up until recently, I would respond by launching into a discussion about query letters and book synopses, writers forums and agent wish lists, proposals and comparison books, etc., etc.

Now, I tell them what I wish I could tell my younger self: it's not about simply finding a literary agent. It's about finding the right agent for you.

I found my wonderful agent when I decided to take a risk and try something new. I saw that an online writers group I belong to, Savvy Authors, was hosting a "pitch fest" on their blog featuring a handful of agents and publishers. I had never before participated in anything like a pitch fest—whenever I queried agents it was through their website, by sending an email or, occasionally, even mailing an old-fashioned printed letter—but I figured all I had to lose was a couple hours of my time. So I clicked on the link to check it out.

“I'm so glad that I ultimately didn't let my own bias get in the way of finding my dream agent!”

Mark Gottlieb caught my eye because it seemed like my novel manuscript was exactly the kind of book he was looking for based on his agent statement. When I Googled his name and read some interviews with him published online, I was even more excited to submit to him. Funnily enough, up until Mark, I had mostly just queried women agents about my novel. As a writer of contemporary YA novels featuring female protagonists and love stories, I (wrongly) assumed that my book would have a better chance of resonating with a female agent than with a male agent. I'm so glad that I ultimately didn't let my own bias get in the way of finding my dream agent!

On the surface, approaching an agent through something like an online pitch fest might seem like a piece of cake, because instead of a long query letter, you only have to write a few sentences about your book—most pitch fests, like the one I participated in, have strict rules and word limits. However, I quickly learned that summarizing my entire novel in just three compelling sentences was a million times more challenging than writing a longer query letter! I spent a good hour rephrasing and honing my three-sentence pitch. Then, crossing my fingers for luck, I submitted it, which entailed publishing it as a comment on the blog post about Mark Gottlieb. The pitch fest rules explained that if an agent was interested in your idea, they would contact you. But I honestly did not have very high hopes. I could see there on the page how many pitches Mark was getting—it was starkly apparent that mine was just one small fish in a very large pond. Still, I felt proud of myself for putting my idea out there and giving it my best shot.

Well, imagine my surprise when I received an email from Mark within a couple days, expressing interest and asking to read my entire manuscript. As I sent it off to him, again crossing my fingers for luck, I told myself not to get too excited. I also prepared for a long wait. Agents had requested to read my manuscript before, and it was usually months before I heard back from them.

Within a week, Mark Gottlieb called me on the phone, apologizing for the delay in responding to me and explaining that he had just returned from the Frankfurt Book Fair. I was completely floored. He said that he loved my book and told me in detail why and what he loved about it. I could tell right away that Mark "got" my book—and not just that one book, but my writing style as a whole. That's when I knew he wasn't just any literary agent; he was the right agent for me.

“...I wanted an agent who felt like my partner in the publishing business.”

Before signing with Mark, I had two previous agents. When I signed with my first agent, I was so excited simply to have an agent that I didn't think to consider how the agent treated me. It was a pretty lopsided relationship; I felt so lucky to have her that I was afraid to ask her for anything. The agent would send me vague notes requesting major rewrites of my novel because it “just wasn't there yet.” I would spend weeks diligently rewriting and send her a new draft. Months later, she would send back an email saying she had read the new draft and it “still wasn't quite there yet.” This went on for years, through two separate novel manuscripts, until we eventually parted ways. She never actually sent out any of my work to publishers, and looking back I'm not quite sure why she signed me as a client in the first place. She clearly didn't resonate enough with my work to be in charge of selling it to others. From her, I learned that I wanted an agent who felt like my partner in the publishing business.

My second agent did actually send out one of my novels, but seemed angry at me when it didn't sell. It got to the point where my gut would sink when I saw her name in my inbox, as I braced myself for one of her terse emails. We parted ways after I sent her the new novel manuscript I had spent nearly a year working on, and she curtly responded via email that it “wasn't my best work” and that I should “write something else.” I realized that I wanted an agent who was interested in representing me throughout my career, not just for one book, and who would actually pick up the phone and call me to discuss things.

“...I could tell that he is respected and admired by editors across the industry because of the way my work was quickly read and considered.”

Right away, I could tell Mark was a different kind of agent altogether—a rare kind, I believe. He is encouraging and supportive, while also being realistic and giving honest feedback. I trust his judgment wholeheartedly, but he also asks for my opinions. He calls to discuss what is going on with my submissions, to explain things to me, to answer my questions. He never seems rushed or makes me feel like I am bothering him. And he is very good at what he does. Not only did he sell my debut novel to a publisher I am thrilled to work with—keeping me in the loop during every part of the process—but moreover, I could tell that he is respected and admired by editors across the industry because of the way my work was quickly read and considered.

So, if you are looking for an agent, by all means visit writers forums and read agent wish lists. Hone your query letter and book synopsis. Learn all about proposals and comparison books. But don't forget that you are part of the equation, too! The best agents are champions for their clients throughout the process. Set your standards high and hold out for the right agent who truly "gets" your writing—who makes you feel supported and also pushes you to grow into the best writer you can be.

Dallas Woodburn is the author of the short story collection Woman, Running Late, in a Dress (Yellow Flag Press, 2018) and the forthcoming YA novel The Best Week That Never Happened (Month9Books). A former John Steinbeck Fellow in Creative Writing, her work has been honored with the Cypress & Pine Short Fiction Award, the international Glass Woman Prize, second place in the American Fiction Prize, and four Pushcart Prize nominations. A passionate supporter of young writers, she is also the founder of the organization Write On! Books that empowers youth through reading and writing endeavors. Dallas lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her amazing husband, adorable daughter, and overflowing bookshelves.

[abitoflit]

Sherman Alexie

Many authors draw from their life’s experience in their writing, causing their work to become a reflection of how they both perceive the world and their place within it. Sherman Alexie is no exception—he delves through his personal history in order to explore complex topics such as alcoholism and his conception of what it means to be a Native American. Shaped by his troubled childhood, Alexie emerged into adulthood armed with the tools necessary to express himself in such a way that his experiences transcend both race and culture and resonate with millions.

Sherman Alexie was born on October 7, 1966. Alexie was born on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington state. His parents were “Salish Indians” who did their best to care for him despite their impoverished state, (Britannica). Alexie was born with hydrocephalus—a build-up of fluid within the brain that causes the gradual enlargement of an individual’s head. When he was only a few months old, Alexie was operated on. He survived but was forced to contend with various side-effects from the procedure. As a result, he endured numerous seizures during his childhood.

One of Alexie’s favorite childhood hobbies was reading. It could be argued that this experience is what piqued his interest in literature. Furthermore, Alexie’s exposure to numerous plots and writing styles may have had an impact on the style he adopted later in life. It may have also propelled him to pursue a career in writing.

Alexie was not presented with a lot of opportunity while living on the reservation. Alexie’s lack of opportunity stems from the fact that the Spokane Indian Reservation was impoverished and lacked a school with adequate funding. While attending class one day, he noticed that his mother’s name had been written in one of his textbooks. He quickly realized that the book must have been at least thirty years old. Alexie was outraged—he wanted to read modern texts and have the chance to excel in life. Thus, after some debate, he “decided to attend Reardan High School, [which was] located twenty miles outside the reservation,” (Poetry Foundation). Reardan High School had a largely white student body and was far wealthier than the Reservation’s school district. As a result, Alexie excelled.

After Alexie graduated from high school, he began his higher-level education at Spokane’s Jesuit Gonzaga University in 1985, (Poetry Foundation). Despite his academic success, Alexie adopted a maladaptive coping skill—he began to abuse alcohol. In 1987, Alexie transferred to Washington State University. At the University, Alexie began his literary career by writing a mixture of “poetry and short fiction. In 1990, Alexie’s work was published in Hanging Loose magazine, a success he has credited with giving him the incentive to quit drinking [permanently],” (Poetry Foundation).

From there, Alexie began his extensive writing career. In 1993, Alexie wrote The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. In the same year, Alexie published two books of poetry—The Business of Fancydancing and First Indian on the Moon. In 2000, Alexie wrote One Stick Song. In 2009, he created another book of poetry entitled Face. In these collections, “Alexie illuminates the despair, poverty, and alcoholism, that often shape the lives of Native

Americans living on reservations,” (Poetry Foundation). Alexie has never been an author to shy away from “tough” or “sensitive” topics. As a result, he has been rewarded with an extensive readership because he explores different themes using his unique, honest voice. He creates narratives, which are highly relatable—most people have dealt with issues such as poverty, despair, and alcoholism. At the very least, they know someone who has. As a result, his work transcends both race and culture because they have the power to speak to multitudes.

Alexie tends to fixate on topics ranging from the mundane, (everyday life in an Indian Reservation), to “dark” topics such as alcoholism. Arguably, the most prevalent themes in his works are poverty and alcohol abuse. Despite these fixations, many readers aren’t discomforted because “a key characteristic of Alexie’s writing is irony, and his dark humor is often buoyed by an exquisite sense of timing,” (Poetry Foundation). In other words, he lightens the blow with humor by making fun of himself or another inane aspect of daily life. Another aspect of Alexie’s work, which makes it so appealing is the fact that he speaks the truth; his truth. Instead of fabricating a narrative, Alexie draws from his own experience in order to create literary art, which has the power to resonate in a way that fiction does not because of the threads of truth it contains.

Alexie has been writing for a long time and has been recognized for his work on numerous occasions—he has won the “2009 Mason Award, the 2008 Stranger Genius Award, a Pushcart Prize, the PEN/Malamud Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship,” and more, (Poetry Foundation). On account of these achievements, it can be surmised that his work is appreciated by millions of people; I am no exception. However, after having read several of Alexie’s poems, I discovered that I am not drawn to those that encompass his most prevalent themes. Instead, I have been drawn to some of his other poems, such as “The

Facebook Sonnet,” which are social commentaries. Specifically, “The Facebook Sonnet” discusses Alexie’s dislike of Facebook. His dislike stems from a few different factors. The greatest among them appears to be that Facebook creates a disconnect—social interactions have changed because of how people interact with one another online, leading many individuals to feel lonely. He goes so far as to describe Facebook as an “altar of loneliness” in the poem’s final line, (“The Facebook Sonnet”).

I think that Alexie’s poems are beautiful not only because of the language that he employs, but because there is something that everyone can relate to. I appreciate his social commentaries and his honest expression of what life is like when you’re poor, abusing alcohol, etc. I think that his honesty lends his words strength—people know that he is opening up to them in his work, and this knowledge draws people to his poetry like a moth to a flame. Finally, I appreciate the simplicity of Alexie’s choice in words and the familiar imagery that Alexie depends on in order to make his points because their use makes his poetry more accessible to his readers. Since Alexie’s message is so straightforward, everyone can enjoy it.

In conclusion, Sherman Alexie, having been molded by the unpleasant situations he has been forced to endure, matured into adulthood armed with both the tools and the knowledge he needed to succeed in the literary world. Alexie is known for exploring his life’s experience in his work, delving into complex topics such as poverty. Since he speaks from the heart, his work resonates with millions of people who find his poems both relatable and easy to understand.

Works Cited

Alexie, Sherman. The Facebook Sonnet. Genius Media Group, 2018, genius.com/Sherman-alexie-the-facebook-sonnet-annotated.

Kuiper, Kathleen. “Sherman Alexie.” Encyclopedia Britannica Online, Encyclopedia Britannica, 3 Oct. 2018,www.britannica.com/biography/Sherman-Alexie.

“Sherman Alexie.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, 2010, www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sherman-alexie.

“Sherman Alexie.” Poets.org, Https://Www.poets.org/Poetsorg/Poet/Sherman-Alexie.

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December 7, 2018

Blog news: I might be moving to Wordpress in the new year, given some of the strange news about the Tumblr platform, which is too complicated and frustrating to get into on my weekly-reads blog. Just a heads up that some changes may be coming down the pike.

This has been a week of unusually high anxiety for me, but I’m working my health and self-care plans as best I can. I haven’t had the brain space for anything really deep or intense, but I hope you enjoy this lighter, story-based fare this week!

How a 6-Year-Old Survived Being Lost in the Woods, Outside. “Some kids will sit down and stay in one place,” says Koester. “If you are in the open woods and there is no landmark to follow, then the majority of six-year-old kids are going to circle.” So it wasn’t surprising that the search party concentrated its efforts around Deerings Meadow, where Cody was last seen. But lost people also latch on to linear features, like a road, Koester says.” Spooky!

Ask Polly: I’m Broke and Mostly Friendless and I’ve Wasted My Whole Life. This is such a generous, beautiful essay about shame and art and how to start again. I'll let her own words speak for themselves:

“Shame is the opposite of art. When you live inside of your shame, everything you see is inadequate and embarrassing. A lifetime of traveling and having adventures and not being tethered to long-term commitments looks empty and pathetic and foolish, through the lens of shame. You haven’t found a partner. Your face is aging. Your body will only grow weaker. Your mind is less elastic. Your time is running out. Shame turns every emotion into the manifestation of some personality flaw, every casual choice into a giant mistake, every small blunder into a moral failure. Shame means that you’re damned and you’ve accomplished nothing and it’s all downhill from here. You need to discard some of this shame you’re carrying around all the time. But even if you can’t cast off your shame that quickly, through the lens of art, shame becomes valuable. When you’re curious about your shame instead of afraid of it, you can see the true texture of the day and the richness of the moment, with all of its flaws. You can run your hands along your own self-defeating edges until you get a splinter, and you can pull the splinter out and stare at it and consider it. When you face your shame with an open heart, you’re on a path to art, on a path to finding joy and misery and fear and hope in the folds of your day. Even as your job is slow and dull and pointless, even as your afternoons alone feel treacherous and daunting, you can train your eyes on the low-hanging clouds until a tiny bit of sunlight filters through. You are alive and you will probably be alive for many decades to come. The numbers on your credit-card statements can feel harrowing, but you can take that feeling and keep it company instead of letting it eat you alive. You can walk to the corner store to buy a newspaper and pull out the weekend calendar section and circle something, and make a commitment to do that one thing. You can build a new kind of existence, one that feels small and flawed and honest, but each day you accumulate a kind of treasure that doesn’t disappear. Because instead of running away from the truth, you welcome it in. You don’t treat what you have as pointless. You work with what you have.”

How to Clear a Path Through 60 Feet of Snow, Japanese Style, Atlas Obscura. This is so fun to look at. I can't even fathom this amount of snow, and yet it's a yearly thing for them. I would watch a movie about Snow Canyon and the people who live (and plow) there.

Pushcart-Nominated Poet Accused of Plagiarizing Multiple Peers, Jezebel. There seems to be a lot of plagiarism happening in the exploding landscape of “social media poetry.” It makes sense in a way, even though it’s absolutely not ethical. This example is basically an object lesson to the extremely damaging consequences of plagiarism via paraphrase. Things shared on social media are often fractured from their context or source -- we see that all the time with the frustrating sourcing on Pinterest (although this seems to have improved somewhat as the years go by). That’s why I tell my students: what you say matters, but also how you say it (ethically, responsibly)! I feel for the poets involved in stories like this, especially those whose work has been stolen.

We thought the Incas couldn’t write. These knots change everything, New Scientist. This is so cool! I would love to see a fantasy story that adapts this language system for magic purposes. If I had world enough and time, this is the kind of mystery I would love to know everything about.