Chapter 30
I fantasize about having those once in a generation out-of-the-fuck ideas that shifts society and my generation again.
I couldn’t think my way to genius. It was a choice on a completely different matter made in a totally random moment that brought me to this.
In our morning reading: a playlist from Halle Butler, new writing by Zito Madu, and more.
In the beginning there was Dororo, a series of graphic novels by Osamu Tezuka that its publisher describes as following “adventures of a young swordsman and his rogue sidekick.” What happens when another acclaimed creator takes the same basic premise and transplants it into another genre entirely? That’s what Atsushi Kaneko has done with Search and Destroy, a book that adds a heady dose of cyberpunk into the mix.
I first met Katharine Coldiron when she conducted a brief interview with me. Since then, our paths have crossed at conferences, and is our punishment for living in a modern age, social media. Since our introduction, I’ve grown to know Coldiron as a skilled writer and critic who is capable of moving between genres and styles with savvy flair and cutting edges. Her book Cerimonials is a breathtaking lyric novella following two young lovers with style and bite. Her books on film, Junk Film and Plan 9 from Outer Space are clever and offer smart insights. With her latest book, Wire Mothers, Coldiron presents us with a handful of tightly written short stories probing bad things—bad parents, bad choices, and bad feelings. As I’ve done with all of Coldiron’s writing, I read the collection in what felt like a heartbeat. Coldiron was kind enough to take a few moments from her busy schedule to chat about craft, broken things, and the homes we can’t seem to shake.
Complete Failure
by Joel Dane
When I couldn’t find a job in California, I decided to walk across the country. From the Santa Monica Pier to Coney Island. Things were going really well for me.
I imagine one of my ankles turning on the ice-plant, and beach sand clinging to my white tube socks. I imagine cigarette butts and seagulls but no people. No swimmers, no sunbathers, no car blasting I Left My Wallet In El Segundo.
Abdel-Ghafur
by J.P. Apruzzese
Servant of the Forgiver
Not long after he arrives in the oasis he sees the haloed figures flicker across the Not long after he arrives in the oasis, he sees the haloed figures flicker across the bedroom wall in the middle of the night for the first time. Each time they appear it’s the same, he sits up in bed, shivering, sweat amassing on his back like a colony of ants, his eyes tracking the halos until they’re no longer there. Each time, though he wants to see them, though he searches the dark walls for them, there’s nothing, not a trace, though he’s hoping, hoping they’re more than passing headlights or reflections in a mirror or something he’s never noticed but should have – a presence, but of what? Until one day, the haloes vanish from the walls, and he hears something else he shouldn’t, at that hour and in that place: a car engine idling outside. He takes feline steps from the bed to the window where the pungent smell of petroleum pinches his nose and there, in the penumbra, he sees a black jeep with black windows and black headlights sitting in the dirt driveway awash in moonlight. He watches, unable to move, wondering if someone isn’t watching him in turn from behind its black windows, when the vehicle shifts into gear and follows the road into the oasis. A local, no doubt, he thinks, and goes to the bathroom to towel the sweat from his body, still wondering, who could be watching, how could they have found me.
Chapter 29
Once Joselyn was sitting in her armchair and she saw me struggling to write an email because I kept getting a redline under what was supposed to be “permanently”.
“Do you want a way to fix that?”
“Yes.”
“Alright. Face me.” And we turned in our armchairs which were side by side and she looked into my eyes. I knew not to blink. I relaxed my eye muscles so they could dilate and accept the knowledge within the incantation she’s about to give like downloading an update.
It’s hard to find the right way to describe Ananda Lima‘s new book Craft: Stories I Wrote For the Devil. On the simplest level, it’s a collection of uncanny stories, many of them involving the act of writing and a series of ominous Satanic presences. But there are also — as the title implies — subtle links between all of the works in the collection, establishing this book as more than the sum of its (impressive) parts. I talked with Lima about the genesis of Craft, its relationship to her poetry, and the art of structure.