John Olson


Location Seattle
Occupation writer
Website http://www.tillalala.blogspot.com

Books by John Olson
  • by John Olson
    Black Widow Press, 2008.

  • by John Olson
    Quale Press, 2008.

  • by John Olson
    Calamari Press, 2006.

  • by John Olson
    Black Square Editions, 2003.

  • by John Olson
    First Intensity Press, 2005.
  • About Me

    I began writing poetry seriously, with passion and commitment, and not a trifling amount of delirium, circa 1966. Le bateau ivre, by Arthur Rimbaud, was my Rubicon. No turning back. Ironic. Considering that Rimbaud stopped writing at age 21. But that's another story. You can read about it in my novel Souls Of Wind. Which is a false story, but a true story, and a riproaring adventure.

    I am married to a poet, Roberta Olson, and we live with a cat named Toby who loves high-protein treats, sleeping, watching squirrels, lying on my lap, and chewing my hand.

    At this current time, I worry greatly for the welfare of our planet. Human consciousness baffles me.

    Why do you write?

    I have no idea why I write. Fewer and fewer people seem to read. I write from compulsion. I am driven to write. It is a joy in the moment. A frustration when I try to get it to the public.

    Any favorite authors? Books?

    Proust, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Poe, Breton, Bachelard, Royet-Journod, Tzara, Shakespeare, Whitman, Dickinson, McClure, Dylan, Michaux, Lamantia, Barthes, Derrida, Thoreau, Emerson, Reverdy, Apollinaire, Cendrar, Roussel, Ponge, Ashbery, Padgett, Koch, O'Hara. And Gertrude Stein.

    À la recherche du temps perdu, Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, Tender Buttons, Le Pére Goriot, Le parti pris des choses, Poisson soluble, Anthologie de l'humour noir, Maldoror, Montaigne Essais, Manifestes du surréalisme, Impressions d'Afrique, Les champs magnétiques, The Selected Letters of John Keats, Shakespeare's plays, The Cantos of Ezra Pound, The Maximus Poems, The Dada Painters and Poets.

    John Olson's Wall

    Ann Bogle – Oct 18, 2014

    Your language inspires me not to work but to read your language.

    Willie Smith – Jun 09, 2014

    Hi John, Your email address seems to have failed! I tried twice to your old speakeasy address and it bounced as "failed delivery." Sorry to junk up your F-NAUT site, but don't know how else to get this to you (not that I have now or ever anything important to say):
    Mon tres cher Jacques,

    Desole de n'avoir point ecrit depuis longtemps! Quand meme, je pense a toi souvent.

    Well, ULYSSES was arguably an autobriographical novel and I suppose Joyce was more or less candid about such fictionalized morphs as Oliver St. John Gogarty into Malachi Mulligan, and himself into Stephen Daedalus. There is an oft-present rather ugly tension between Stephen and Buck throughout the novel, but Joyce never stoops to calumnizing either. I like what you said, in your last epistle, about the second-person narrative. It's an infrequently explored tactic. Were you in Jet City during the reign of Invisible Seattle (early 80s)? Their experimental novel was all second-person narrative; somehow

    Robert Vaughan – Nov 20, 2011

    Congratulations on your recent well-deserved win in the FlameThrower Short Story Contest!

    Tantra Bensko – Nov 18, 2011

    Congratulations on winning the FlameFlower Short Story Contest John. http://flameflower.weebly.com/

    Marcus Speh – Apr 15, 2011

    you also love the color purple! and i love your blog! added it to <a href="http://marcusspeh.com">Nothing To Flawnt</a>. cheers!

    Jerry Ratch – Aug 13, 2010

    Hello again, John!

    Jerry Ratch – Jul 22, 2010

    Welcome, John!

    Jane Hammons – Jul 17, 2010

    A belated welcome to Fictionaut. I love "Speeding down the Freeway. . ." When I was a teenager I used to dance to ZZ Top, who played regularly at a club on the old grounds of an Air Force base outside Roswell, NM.

    Robert Vaughan – Jun 11, 2010

    Hi John, welcome to the wonderful techno-color world of Fictionaut! Plunge on in.

    Myra King – Jun 08, 2010

    Welcome, John - come WRITE in, the fiction pool is fine!

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