Susan Tepper:  Dennis, your beautiful poem “Rods and Cones“ worked for me as a sort of guided imagery.  I felt it even before reading what you posted in the author’s comment on the sidebar.

Dennis Mahagin:  Susan, thanks so much, and for taking the time to talk with me!  I just love your term, “guided imagery.”  Because that’s what poetry basically is. Right?

Interestingly, “Rods and Cones” was born from the ashes of a previously failed narrative poem. Originally I’d been trying to write about a blind guy I saw sitting on a stone bench outside my library. Some mean kids were sort of messing with him, i.e., jumping in and out of what would be his field of vision, had God not deprived him, etc. Well, as is sometimes the case for me, this “mining of direct experience” did not translate to the page. The eye — or I — “looking in” got clouded by self consciousness, and pretension. So I tried flipping the poem on its head, essentially writing it from the “inside out” going lyric, instead of story, and just letting the language take the lead.

Once a couple of decent lines formed, in this way — plus the title — I could sense something happening, and I went with it. The poem finished itself fairly quickly after that.

Susan: I notice that you favor the short line and it’s always just so perfect, and feels like a jazz riff to me. Is there music in your background, such as: do you play an instrument or write music?

Dennis:  You bet, Susan, I do have a background in music! I studied theory and composition in college, and became a competent bassist through many years of playing in bands. A couple of these bands actually afforded me a marginal living, playing Top 40 and classic rock covers, in the 80’s and 90’s; but my dream of being the next Jeff Ament, or Flea, never quite materialized. I worked pretty hard at my musicianship, however; and I’m proud of the level of expertise I did attain. I still play my bass; occasionally I’ll write a song on acoustic guitar. Not the same as poetry, but kinda fun, as a sidelight.

Susan:  You write:

A God with no / sentience; heaven / by increments / in the here / now repeating / dawn’s pink / halo in a blink / gone…

I have heard this referred to as “making leaps”– as described by the beat poet Paul Blackburn. You have made a few big leaps here using the barest minimum of words. It ain’t easy, but you make it appear effortless. I believe it’s a poetic gift you’ve been handed by the Gods of poetry.

Dennis:  Often, for me, it comes down to rhythm, and a certain assonance, to get the ball rolling. For instance, in the first stanza, the words “sentience” and “increments.”

Intuitively, I know these words belong together, in a part of the mind that works  almost faster than thought. This is what makes poetry maddening sometimes — in that one receives the information (or inspiration) so fast, the faculties sometimes can’t catch up. So, you must “get down” what you can, while holding on to the image or feeling that is the poem’s very essence, before it fades. I think that’s where the “leaps” you mentioned really come in: it’s the writer working just as hard as he or she can, to keep up with the inspiration. Like a bullet train. Whoooosh ! Then, of course, there comes a shift to memory. Because of time, for the writer, imagination comes down to remembering in almost every instance. Which isn’t to say “revision.” Although one must revise, also. That’s a whole different can of beans.

Susan:  How much revision do you normally do? I guess that’s a dumb question because it will vary from poem to poem, but do you always revise? Does it ever come out without need of revision?

Dennis:  I’m a firm believer in the adage: Writing is re-writing. The poem we’ve been discussing, for instance, went through fifteen or sixteen drafts; and that was after I got the piece on the right track! I try to keep an open mind, of course, from poem to poem (and as you said, it really does vary) but usually it’s the poems one thinks have arrived with no need for revising that could most benefit by revision. One ought to be encouraged, by the amount of time spent polishing a piece. It means, from an unconscious point of view, that the poem is no doubt worth the effort. The old Aha moment, revisited, over and over.

The notion that, as I mentioned earlier, a writer might be “on to something,” but maybe it’s not quite there yet. I think in terms of a tinsmith, when I conceive of revision. A somewhat crazy tinsmith.

Susan:  You write:

Search the church / bells that never / “pealed” per se, / only saved your / will to live, to see / light another / day; they spoke / in a way that / woke you /

This poem is a heartbreaker. I am feeling slaughtered here as I read it again, and talk with you about it. This poem, to me, is painful in the way enlightened thinking can be painful, or a sudden realization that one’s life has been a waking death.

Dennis:  Indeed. I read an interview with one of my favorite poets, Dorianne Laux, not too long ago. Toward the end of this interview she said, of her poetry: “I want blood.” Not in the gratuitous sense, obviously. Nor even necessarily graphic, although her poems are often cinematic, certainly. I believe Dorianne is driving at desire. Always. Blood of the heart, so to speak. A desire to write about the stuff that really matters. Tropes that can hit a reader three times as hard when you re-visit the work, which of course one is compelled to do, with a poet as powerful as Laux. It goes beyond craft, she’s saying. And if it makes the reader uncomfortable, she might add, so much the better. This is why people will be reading her poems in what Corso called “the after” or the Divine. Readers want blood too.

Susan:  Do you have strong religous or spiritual beliefs? It would be hard to imagine an atheist or agnostic writing such a poem as “Rods and Cones.”

Dennis:  While I’m not a huge fan of organized religion, I do believe in God. And angels, like the ones Thylias Moss writes about. I have absolutely no doubt I met an angel once, though my conviction is both clouded by and coalesced upon hindsight. That old problem with remembering, again! There are simply realms to which we as human beings are not necessarily privy, most times. But just because you can’t see a thing, doesn’t mean it’s not there. Au contraire! And I like prayer a lot. Poetry is a particularly human brand of prayer.

Susan:  Dennis, as you have so succinctly put it: “Poetry is a particularly human form of prayer.”

I believe in all spirit life, angels, demons, God and the like. Because I often write so-called ‘nature poems’ I sense the spirit life in all growing things, in the change of seasons, in animal life. Do you write ‘nature poems’ and also how would you classify “Rods and Cones”?

Dennis:  Sure, I’ve attempted nature poems. Birds absolutely fascinate me! Especially crows, and gulls. I’m also enamored of anything maritime: Coastal climes, the moon and tides. Foghorns, and whale song, all that stuff. More and more, as well, I find myself drawn to the pastoral motif in general, as it attempts to plumb the mystery of simplicity, in a world of numbing complexity.

I’m a huge fan of the poet, August Kleinzahler, for this very reason. His work has a miraculous sort of calming effect on me. Check out his poem called “The Swimmer” for one great example.

To answer the second part of your question, I honestly don’t know how to classify the poem,  Rods and Cones. I guess you could call it a lament, with hope. At least I hope there’s some hope! It was my intention, anyway.

Susan:  This beautiful poem fills me with a  sense of wonder and optimism.  Those qualities come forth in all your poems, even when you write of dark matter.  “Rods and Cones” does ring, shout, and radiate the hope you speak of.  Hope that is desperately needed for our wildly spinning planet, in these wildly spinning times.

Read “Rods and Cones“ by Dennis Mahagin

Monday Chat is a bi-weekly series in which Susan Tepper has a conversation with a Fictionaut writer about one of his or her stories. Susan’s new book From the Umberplatzen is a collection of linked-flash published by Wilderness House Press. 

Caroline Leavitt is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Pictures of You, which was also a Costco Pennie’s Pick and translated into six languages. Her 10th novel, Is It Tomorrow, will be published by Algonquin Books in the spring of 2013. A book critic for People and The Boston Globe, she is also a book columnist at Dame Magazine and Shoptopia, and a senior writing instructor at UCLA Writers Program online. A New York Foundation of the Arts Fellow, she is also a Nickelodeon Screenwriting Fellow finalist and a Goldenberg Fiction Prize honorable mention winner. Visit her at www.carolineleavitt.com.

Caroline, what is your feeling about having mentors as a writer?

I think having a mentor, or at least a reader who will tell you the absolute truth, is crucial. You can’t depend on your friends or loved ones, because tender feelings often get in the way of the kind brutality writers need in order to get better or to solve problems. I have about 4 mentors I send my work to all the time, and in all stages, and it’s just invaluable to me. I often feel like screaming or jumping out of the window when I get their critiques, but it gives me direction–or a lifeline–and I know they just want my writing to get better. Good writing is rewriting. I also do this work for other writers, evaluating and editing manuscripts, and I do it not just because I want to help writers, but because it really helps my own writing. Knowing what works in a piece of writing and why it works, and what doesn’t work and how to fix it, is just the best kind of knowledge any writer can have. Plus, writing is such a lonely business that you need someone spurring you on!

What do you do when you feel stuck or uninspired and does it work to trick the brain into working?

Coffee is my newest wonder drug. I never drank it until two years ago when I was really tired and my immediate thought was “why didn’t anyone ever tell me it would boost my mood like this?” I also just get my butt in my chair and sit there and if I have to, I will rewrite something I did before. I also do a whole lot of story structure work, which seems to prime the pump. Sometimes I will put something in a different font, because then it reads differently. Sometimes I read it aloud. And sometimes I send the pages off to my writing mentors!

Are there favorite writing exercises or prompts which you use regularly & will share?

Yup. Story Structure stuff. I write out, what is it the character wants? What is the character flaw at the beginning that is hurting him and others, but he doesn’t even realize it and won’t realize it until the end, when he has a self revelation about himself? What is the deeper moral question the novel is asking–and answering in some way at the end?

And what will the character realize he needs? (It’s very Rolling Stone-ish–i.e. you can’t always get what you want, but if you try, you can get what you need.)

I paper my walls with photos of the characters. I go through Google images and find pictures of them, so I am living with them. I make detailed bios of everything from what kind of candy they like to what movies and books they adore. And I do a lot of story structure work (ah, there it is again!) Needs vs. wants. Moral and psychological weaknesses. How they interact with their story world. Of course, I discover more about them as I write, but I do, do so much preliminary work!

What’s the best writer’s advice you were ever given?

Do not give up. Never. Do not take no for an answer. I grew up hearing no, no, no, you can’t be a writer, be a teacher or a wife. In college, my writing prof. told me I would never make it (when I published my first novel, I sent him a copy, along with the NYT review!) My last two publishers refused to take my calls or answer my emails and rejected Pictures of You, telling me it just wasn’t special enough. But Algonquin rescued me–and my career. You never know what is going to happen, but you have to refuse to listen to the nos.

Please talk a bit about the other parts of your creative life… what you love to do and wish to do more of…

I love to write scripts, but so far Hollywood has broken my heart. I’ve had movie options, and they all somehow fell apart. I have a terrific LA film manager and I’ve had meetings with producers but so far nothing has happened, which is why I recently applied to Sundance Screenwriting Lab…

Oh, and I also love to knit, to paint, sometimes I like to cook, but not really.

So… can you tell us about the process of writing Pictures of You and for those who have not read it, let us know a bit about the book?

Pictures of You asks (there it is, the moral question), how do we forgive the unforgivable? Can we ever know the ones we love? It started out because I’m phobic about driving and live in fear of killing someone. Of course I never drive, but I still hate to be a passenger. The book is about the intersecting lives of a few people: Isabelle, a photographer who survives an accident which kills April, a wife and mother with a horrible secret; Sam, a 9 year old boy with terrible asthma and a secret of his own, and Charlie, April’s husband, who comes to realize he didn’t know his wife–with tragic consequences. Isabelle becomes obsessed with Sam and Charlie, and well..things happen.

Writing is was really difficult. I must have had 15 drafts before it got to my agent, who said, “I love it! Now rewrite it three times!” Then it got to Algonquin, who said, “I love it! Now rewrite it two more times!” And I was happy do so, because I kept seeing it get better, deeper, richer.

I cried a lot. I struggled. I carried on like a diva, and like a house renovation, it looked so much worse before it looked better. Now, I have what I call writer’s amnesia. I don’t remember how much struggle was involved, now that I am struggling with a new novel.

Anything about your new works, stuff you are currently working on, and the process of writing them you would like to share here?

Is It Tomorrow, coming out in Spring 2013 from Algonquin, is set in the 1950s and early 60s, and it was the first time I had to do real research. I spent three days just trying to figure out what they used instead of crime tape in the 50s (psst, it’s saw horses and rope), that I hired two high school researchers for help, and then a professional researcher. I found I LOVED research so much, I’m setting my new novel in the 1970s! But it’s still really hard. The same fears always pop up. Am I repeating myself? is it boring? Can I do this? And why is this so plonking HARD?

What haunts or obsesses you? Do you incorporate this in your work?

Yes. I think any writer should write TO that, should write for themselves and not for an audience or for the market. Readers want writers to go to the deep, dark places. They want to feel, “Oh thank God, I’m not the only one!”

What is next for you?

I’m waiting for the publication of Is It tomorrow, and trying to write my new novel, which has no title and is a huge mess. And working with some new clients on their manuscripts!

Thank you for this great, great interview. I loved the questions!

It was a delight, Caroline! Thank you! My goodness.

The Fictionaut Five is our ongoing series of interviews with Fictionaut authors. Every Wednesday, Meg Pokrass asks a writer five (or more) questions. Meg is the editor-at-large for BLIP Magazine, and her stories and poems have been published widely. Her first full collection of flash fiction, “Damn Sure Right” is now out from Press 53. She blogs at http://megpokrass.com.

What is your feeling about having mentors as a writer? Talk about the mentor relationship if you will, its importance to a writer…

At first glance I read this as Mentos®,  a candy with whom, if we’re being completely honest, I have a very complicated relationship – that crunchy exterior, that minty soft interior: savor or chew, savor or chew??  And don’t even get me started about their ad campaigns (exhibit A).  I often work in libraries and these sort of Wild Study Breaks of Minty Excess are not really what your average library patron wants to stumble across in the stacks.  But it could be that I’m patronizing my library all wrong – it wouldn’t be the first time.

However, after I put my glasses on, I had what is commonly referred to as an  “Ah-Ha! Moment” as I realized you’d asked me about Mentors®.   In my humble opinion, Mentors®  are as important to writers as minty fresh breath is to slatternly library patrons and I’ve been extremely lucky to have both in my life.  Though in my case (as well as the cases of millions of others, writers and non-writers alike), even more important than Mentors® have been Employers®, as I quite like being able to afford to feed myself on a semi-regular basis.

Sometimes you’re lucky enough to meet a Mentor® and an Employer® all rolled up into one.  For me, that person was Joyce Barlow Dodd, the director of Ohio University’s Spring Literary Festival who hired me on as an assistant during my time as a BA and MA student in OU’s English department.  To say that she saved my life would not be hyperbolic as without that job and her many kindnesses to me, I would not have been able to afford tuition, books, food, or rent.  And <bonus!> I had the pleasure of meeting an incredible assortment of writers, too numerous to name individually here, but whose works and words shaped a great deal of my thinking as a reader and fledging writer.  (Though upon graduation, I promptly quit writing in favor of teaching middle and high school English for the next fifteen years, but that, as they say, is Another Story…)

What do you do when you feel stuck or uninspired and does it work to trick the brain into working?

When I’m stuck or uninspired, what doesn’t help is anything involving a computer screen, though good luck trying to tell my monkey brain that.  What does help is a change of scenery, which could be as simple as staring out my window and into the windows of the people who live across from me.  Oh my wacky neighbors and their crazy hijinks! But on the days, (many days,  now that they’ve caught onto me) when they have their blinds drawn, the best imagination kickstarter I’ve found is to take a long and destination-adverse walk, a.k.a  “wandering without aim.”  I am a whiz at aimlessness.  Zero navigational skills but great endurance.

Are there favorite writing exercises or prompts which you use regularly & will share?

I am a failure at prompts because of a) my inability to follow simple directions (Imagine you are on a sinking ship.  Now describe it!) and b) a pernicious stubborn streak (Sinking?? Fuck that!!), genetic traits that hindered my repeated attempts to get into the Gifted and Talented program at my elementary school, despite my very large IQ (well, to be honest, more like my very large head.  My hat size by age 9 was the stuff of myth and legend; my IQ, not so much).  But I do scribble a lot of “What If” lists, a.k.a. “Disaster Scenarios and Preparedness Plans. ” If one were to study my stories (as I hope one, say Harold Bloom perhaps?, might), one could trace each plot line back to a very Clear and Present Danger-scenario facing us all.  Serial Killers! – check.  Mitt Romney! – check.  Talking rodents running amok!  – check, check, and check.  I’ve thought through ’em all and then some.  Lots and lots of thinking, usually in conjunction with aimless wandering.

Suggestions for making characters live?  Do you know who they are before you write or do you find out who they are in the writing?

I know what my characters sound like before I know who they are.  A line of dialogue, often a  malapropism based on something I’ve just misheard or misread, pops into my head, spoken by a particular voice that then works his or her way into fuller being  by taking whatever actions in whatever settings where this particular voice might utter this particular thing.  If I had a therapist, I suspect she/he might order up a full psych-panel  on me re. these voices, but as I can barely afford Mentos® much less mental health services, the only thing I can afford are the fat burner supplements and I’m not leaving those, so I instead just write it all down and see where the voices take me and for the most part, it works out.

What’s the best writer’s advice you were ever given?

“Amuse yourself.”  At least, I think this was meant to be taken as writer’s advice…it was dark and the details are hazy.

Please talk a bit about the other parts of your creative life… what you love to do and wish to do more of…

I’m currently taking a beginner’s Spanish class, though honestly I would probably be a much better student if I didn’t consider it as part of my “creative life.”  I like to approach each Spanish class as if it’s a two-hour casting call for the World’s Greatest Telenovela , but because of my limited (muy limited) proficiency, I am often forced to ad-lib, making up words on the spot to go along with my (él jazz) hand gestures, much to my Spanish teacher’s chagrino.  See?  Right there.  “Chagrino” is not actually Spanish for ‘chagrin.’  Stuff like this drives my teacher loco.  Muy muy loco.  But I love it, I really do.  I think it’s been helpful for me to take a break from English, even if it means sounding like él nutjob.  Or especially if it means sounding like él nutjob.

Please talk about the process of writing your collection Julie! anything here you want to say…

I didn’t actually realize that I had a “collection” until Stephen Marlowe at Foxhead Books asked if I would consider submitting a manuscript for their consideration.  Up to that point, I just had a box full of “stuff” that some kind editors had seen fit to publish mixed in with “stuff” that other kind editors had seen fit to not-publish.  As I did not want to have to explain my box-system to  a potential book publisher, I did what any self-respecting writer would do — I bluffed big time and then spent several panicked days trying to compile a “collection” out of “stuff” that rapidly became known to me, and my closest neighbors, as something far less “savory.”  What have I gotten myself into? I wailed to the largely indifferent writing gods as I struggled to find a common thread, a thematic link, a plausible order to the chaos contained within The Box.  In the end, I selected nineteen stories of various lengths, points of view, and subjects that together told a story of a life.  To be clear, it’s not a linked collection (though those are super-popular and if you happen to be working on one, well-played, oh savvy writer!) and the life it tells may only be visible to me.  But so it goes.  All jokes aside, I’m very happy with the result and overjoyed that Foxhead Books decided to take me on, warts and all.

Anything about your new works, stuff you are currently working on… in your life and/or writing life.

I am working on something longer that I’m probably going to need a bigger box for soon.

What is next for you?

A lot more aimless wandering, I suspect.  And as many Mentos® as my budget will allow.

The Fictionaut Five is our ongoing series of interviews with Fictionaut authors. Every Wednesday, Meg Pokrass asks a writer five (or more) questions. Meg is the editor-at-large for BLIP Magazine, and her stories and poems have been published widely. Her first full collection of flash fiction, “Damn Sure Right” is now out from Press 53. She blogs at http://megpokrass.com.

Susan Tepper:  Ramon, in your tender coming-of-age story “Posey’s Pond“ you begin with place described in this lush and beautiful paragraph.  You write:

Droopy cedars, skirted with huckleberry underbrush, lined both sides of the canyon. Somewhere, high in the trees, two cranky crows cawed and below them Salmon Creek glistened in the late afternoon sun.”

Does this exist as a real place, or is it made out of your writer imagination?

Ramon Collins: It’s a real place where I whiled away many boyhood hours. I came-of-age in the Pacific NW and Salmon Creek gurgled in a gentle canyon near our house. It was an innocent time when kids didn’t have to be urged or ordered to go outside. And, unlike today, sexual predators were practically unheard of (of course, there wasn’t 24-hour news).

Susan:  It sounds utterly idyllic, the perfect boyhood place to grow up.  And it makes me wonder how much personal truth is in the story.

Ramon:  I try to sit back, light a pipe and stroke my beard while I dream up plots. It doesn’t work; mostly because I don’t smoke or have a beard. I have to rely on actual events, then turn them into fiction plots (I think the result is called “faction”).

When I was in an early fiction-writing class, with approximately 14 female students, the week’s assignment was “My First Time.”  The theme produced a predictable flood of “I hate my first boyfriend or husband” stories. Hey, males have first times, too! The more-experienced young lady in the scene actually deflowered me; a slightly wonderful moment (no noticeable hatred), that never happened again.

Susan:  Why Mr. Ray Collins, how very candid of you to let us peek in on one of your deep dark secrets!  In the actual story, your two teenaged characters Josh and Amy (obviously school friends) take a walk to Posey’s Pond where they go skinny-dipping on a hot day.  That scene is quite poignant.  You write:

“What if someone sees us?”

She shook her short-cropped hair. “Who cares?”  Amy dipped a toe in the water, then straightened up. She was slender with a slightly arched back and small breasts. She faced Josh, jammed her hands on hips, pointed her elbows out and moved them back and forth. “Come on, buk-buk.”

It’s such a bucolic setting.  Your dialogue is spot on.  We are lulled.  Did you want us lulled, was that intentional in this writing?

Ramon: Ms. Tepper, you hold them, I’ll lull ’em. The characters are; Amy 12, Josh 13.

At about 600 words,  “Posey’s Pond” is relatively short Flash and the plot must unfold fast. My intention is always to let the readers participate in the story; to draw them in as if they were at the pond. In that particular scene, I tried to use brief physical description of Amy to project an image into the imagination. Y’know, not to overdo it – just enough implication to make readers feel they’re not just reading a story, they’re co-authors. At the closer let them think, Josh was right – there WAS someone up there!

I sincerely believe reader-participation is the key ingredient in short-short fiction. My favorite writers in this relatively new craft have an art background or a true appreciation of art principles and elements; they are “visual” writers.

Susan:  Excellent points.  Yep, draw in the reader as a participant in the story.  You make it sound easier than it actually is.  My favorite stories are those written in first-person POV or close-third-person.   I found your descriptive parts very beautiful.  Of Amy you write:

“Amy dipped a toe in the water, then straightened up. She was slender with a slightly arched back and small breasts. She faced Josh, jammed her hands on hips, pointed her elbows out and moved them back and forth.”

This is so classically teenage in its stance, with her elbows moving that certain way.  It’s the sort of thing that cements ‘character’ too, and is personal in the sense of letting the reader get up close and personal to the characters and events.   There is a deep sweetness and innocent quality to a lot of your work.  How do you account for that?

Ramon: Perhaps it’s because I’m  – blush – sweet and innocent.

In short-short fiction writing it’s a good idea to show action at every opportunity. I remembered that action from watching people do the “chicken dance” in a local park (“Come on, buk-buk.”). My characters are based on a composite of real people – they’re not snatched out of thin air.

Thinking of the weekly prompt, it was an innocent moment and the other students’ angrier reactions were slightly disturbing. I still went to church in those days and I think the memory is indelible; as if the creek area was a secret,childhoodGarden ofEden. As I recall, Adam and Eve felt some confusion, too. It was a brief moment followed by a cascade of guilt for me. I dunno about her; we only met once in the hall in senior high school. The meeting was cordial, but certainly lacked the electricity of our first encounter, when she was much more sophisticated than I.

Read  “Posey’s Pond“ by Ramon Collins

Monday Chat is a bi-weekly series in which Susan Tepper has a conversation with a Fictionaut writer about one of his or her stories. Susan’s new book From the Umberplatzen is a collection of linked-flash published by Wilderness House Press. 

Morgan Harlow’s debut poetry collection Midwest Ritual Burning is available at Eyewear Publishing and Amazon UK. Andy Roe’s “Job History“ has been selected in Wigleaf’s Top 50. David Ackley’s three-act play, “Tiger’s Milk,” which appeared here under “In the Jaws of Kronos,” is forthcoming in Prick of the Spindle. Michael Dickes’ “Goodnight,” “Like Dancing Alone,” “Naoki Kyoto,” “Upon Talking to Oneself (#3) Zazen,” and “What I Mean When I Say I Don’t Know” are forthcoming in Thumbnail Magazine. Marcus Speh’s “Speaking of Women” appears in Zouch; “A Young Writer’s Prayer for His Daddy” in Sadcore Dadwave; “Ginger,” “Listen,” and “The Passage,” in Mad Hatters Review Issue 13; “The Serious Writer in Texas” in Tuck Magazine; and an interview on Flash, German, and English writing at Flash Frontier. Gill Hoffs’ “Hand to Mouth” appears in Literary Orphans, along with many other Fictionauters; she has been appointed co-editor of Spilling Ink Review; “ Tansy Rogers is her name!”  appears in Notausgang, Pure Slush’s Emergency Exit anthology; and her book “Wild: a collection” is forthcoming from Pure Slush. Chris Galvin’s flash memoir piece, “Fire,” appears in The Winnipeg Review. My story, “Christina Heppel,” which appeared in PANK (with audio by Marcus Speh), has been included in Wigleaf’s Top 50 Longlist. JP Reese’s “Touch, 1968” appears in Big River Poetry Review; “On The Third Day” is forthcoming in Gutter Eloquence; “The Human Condition” and “The Rest” are republished at The Glass Coin; and “Ophelia” is republished at The Reprint. James Claffey’s “Upturned Sky Audio” is at Carte Blance; “Old Man’s Trouble and Waiting” is at Literary Orphans; “Treachery” is forthcoming at Extract(s); “Hunting for Lizards” is at Apocrypha & Abstractions; “Sheep’s Skull” is at Wordlegs; “Under the Table” is at RedFez; and “Confession Box” is at L’Allure des Mots. Susan Tepper’s “Through the Tunnel” is published in The Same. Matthew A. Hamilton is interviewed by Christopher Allen at I Must Be Off! Julie Innis’s short story collection, Three Squares A Day With Occasional Torture, has been published by Foxhead Books, and is available at Amazon, B&N, and Foxhead. I’m also very excited to announce Fictionaut’s Summer-Bash Party, which will be held at KGB Bar, NYC on Saturday, June 23^rd at 7pm.

Marcelle Heath is a contributing editor for Fictionaut and assistant editor for Luna Park Review. She blogs here. Send your news for the next installment of Front Page to marcelleheath@ymail.com.

Steve Himmer is the author of a novel, The Bee-Loud Glade, and an ebook novella, The Second Most Dangerous Job In America, both published by Atticus Books. He also edits the webjournal Necessary Fiction. His website is http://www.stevehimmer.com.

I’ve enjoyed spending a week in the flow of Fictionaut, spotting trends and tendencies I’ve never quite noticed while popping in and out of the site more sporadically. It’s interesting to see how conversational this space is — more about collaboration than competition. There’s a distinct culture to this community, reflected in the emergence of “local” forms that have emerged over time, of which memory-driven flash fiction interlaced with photographs seems to be the most common. My sense is people are using Fictionaut for different reasons, from support to workshopping to sharing stories gone out of print elsewhere to trying things out as writers, and while reading all those stories last week I thought often of oral history projects and Storycorps and related endeavors: snapshots  of how people in a particular moment are making sense of the world through the stories they tell and the details they just can’t ignore. It almost feels antithetical to highlight specific stories when it’s the whole — the culture of Fictionaut — I found most fascinating, but these three stories captured my attention in particularly powerful ways:

“The Farmer’s Wife” by Mary Hamilton

One quality I really respond to in a story is a sense of being mythic and quotidian at the same time. I’m fascinated by the ways in which we tell ourselves stories, how we make our daily lives into myth, just to get through our days. “The Farmer’s Wife” does that so well: it’s a story aware of itself being told, initially building on the archetype of “the farmer’s wife,” that woman at the core of so many stories (not to mention national myths). Then all at once, this short passing, paragraph breaks in after two longer, denser, more abstract ones:

I feel ridiculous she says to the busdriver, the pharmacist, her co- worker. They all nod sympathetically. They don’t disagree.

The story is specific then, about one woman, one life, and the mythic is brought down to earth. The daily cutting of thumbs is left literal and lofty at once, without explanation because we don’t need any: we know already the violence and tension of suspending our lives between the humdrum of a day and the dream we want it to be, and we all have sore thumbs of our own.

“Boy/Girl” by Brian Warfield

There’s a back-and-forth playing with time in this story I really enjoyed. Whole lives are encapsulated in these sometimes abstract and sometimes specific details, and although author and reader know the whole shape of these lives up to death, the characters don’t. They’re trapped, their stories already written, and at first that fatalism might make us ask, “Why bother telling the story if that’s where it ends up?” But the telling makes it worthwhile, that tension between an avalanche in the future and a sandwich right now:

They would die later, much later, too late. They would die of natural and unnatural causes, respectively. An avalanche would dump a metric ton of rocks upon the head of one of them, and a car would drive through the side of the other one’s car and body, and they would both die, unaware of the other. They were unaware of these fates that waited for them in their futures.

A sandwich waited for Henry in his kitchen to be eaten and a glass of lemonade waited in Mary’s kitchen to be drunk.

“Boy/Girl” is a story built of those juxtapositions, between one life and another, between reader and character, between the aspiration of now and the inevitable ending to come. It makes a complex demand of the reader, and offers a rich reward in return, as we ask ourselves what matters and when and why.

“A House Made of Stars” by Tawnysha Greene

It’s rare for a story of childhood memory refracted through an adult lens to engage me as much as “A House Made of Stars.” I think it works because it isn’t mired in childhood, as such stories so often are, without any sense of why we — both the adult narrator and adult reader — should care. It doesn’t take the significance of memory for granted, but makes it matter. This story is faithful to the immediacy of memory in its vivid details, but creates a more complex perspective though gazing back from a wiser, older position:

My cousin’s bed creaks as we reach her room. The nightlight is on and I see her form lying down, blankets hastily cast over her, and then I see why—the floor vent by the foot of her bed pulled out, lying on its side where her face had been moments before. She had shown me how she did this last time we were here when Daddy’s momma died and we came for the funeral, a butter knife looped underneath the side and pulled up until the vent came free. While our parents sat, cried downstairs, we watched them eat bread, lasagna, sometimes talking, sometimes, saying nothing at all.

That passage weaves past and present perspectives together, giving us the rituals and secrets of both adulthood and childhood at once, and the moment extends in so many directions at once without pushing the reader toward any one or another, letting us instead find our own way through the story rather than pushing us forward with forced sentiment.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I have previously published a story by Tawnysha Greene at Necessary Fiction.)

Editor’s Eye is a blog series that aims to highlight noteworthy work that might have slipped through the cracks of Fictionaut’s automated list of recommendations. Every two weeks, a distinguished visiting editor scours the site for lost treasures and picks outstanding stories.

Susan Tepper:  Misti, I had difficulty choosing from your work because you write so many good pieces.  But I decided to go with “Bad Wiring“ for this chat because it seems to contain a universal theme vis a vis women and men. You write:

She was a defective model. He wanted to send her back but no one would take her.

I don’t think there is a woman dead or alive that hasn’t felt that way at least one time in her life.  Now I’m going way out on a limb here by saying: Despite the Womens’ Movement, it’s still a man’s world.

Misti Rainwater-Lites: Thanks, Susan. It’s absolutely a man’s world. I say this with all the weight of almost four decades of life at the poverty level in America behind me. I’ve spent time in three different mental hospitals, given birth twice, been married and divorced twice, begged men in various topless bars to give me tips so my boyfriend wouldn’t leave me and been betrayed by numerous women (including my own mother) because of men. We don’t need a new wave of feminism in America. We need a tsunami. I’m willing to sacrifice my lipstick and my eyeliner if I have to but I refuse to put down my vibrator and my pen.

Susan:  Damn straight.  And keep that pen and vibrator going.

Your stories and poems are all voice and color.  They burst on the page, they murmur, they scream.  But they do not bore.  In this particular story “Bad Wiring“, we get a whole world in a flash fiction.  You write:

It seemed she was all his until she completely broke down. Then he could scrap her and go shopping. The idea of that shiny day kept him going.

Now where I see the brilliance that is unique to your voice, is your choice of the word “shiny.”  That shiny day… One word and it turns this piece into very black humor.  But, humor.  Not simply a dark passage of writing.

Misti:  Humor is natural for me. I wrote a short ghost story a few months ago and it was published online. When I went back and read it a couple of weeks ago I laughed out loud. This happens a lot. I tend to shy away from genre but the few times that I have written erotica, pornography, science fiction or horror, my weird sense of humor infiltrates the tone. When I was a kid, whenever I was in a bad mood my mom and maternal grandmother would poke fun at me by singing a song that went “nobody loves me everybody hates me I’m going to eat a worm” or by telling me, “You’ve got the same little britches to get glad in.” You can’t come out of a childhood like that without a strong sense of humor intact. My favorite novel of all time is Slaughterhouse-Five. Kurt Vonnegut was the master of black humor. And my favorite comedian is the late Bill Hicks. His rage fueled his hilarious commentary. I love that, the marriage of rage and humor.

Susan:  the marriage of rage and humor is so perfect for describing your work, Misti.  Now in this story we have a group of poet friends (hmm… poets…always a risky venture) haha!   But it all seems to circle around the theme of the imperfect woman, or as you write “the defective wife.”  That is such a big issue for women over the age of 25!  I’m way older than 25 but I don’t feel old. Yet, statistically, today, women are tossed aside for much younger women at a greater rate than ever before in history.  Ours is a money driven culture and it all boils down to economics.  The sugar-daddy syndrome  alive and thriving.  You write:

The husband and the valuable associate entered the kitchen to find the bad wife mopping the linoleum, naked except for a pair of red high heels, screaming along to an Iron Maiden song that was blasting from the stereo. Well, he thought, at least she’s finally taking in interest in housework.

The image is kind of almost classic.  It’s funny, due to the nudity, but the red high heels give it an old-time sitcom feeling, sort of Donna Reed on acid.

Misti: I married late by Texas standards. I was 27 when I married my first husband. We had horrible fights. He had never lived with a woman before. He came from a protective, close-knit, middle class New York Italian family. I come from an extremely dysfunctional working class Texas family. We came together because of a mutual respect and admiration for each other’s writing but that wasn’t enough to keep us together for any length of time. One of our worst fights occurred in a grocery store parking lot the night before Thanksgiving. He wanted me to go inside the store and buy a turkey. I was in no frame of mind for shopping. He tried to force me out of the car and it got real ugly real quick. My second husband was much more tolerant of my idiosyncrasies and weird mood swings. He never expected me to bake a turkey.

Susan:  The way you bring your emotional life into the work feels seamless.  A dysfunctional marriage leading to a story of a dysfunctional marriage.  Quite lovely to be able to accomplish this.  It isn’t easy, many writers shirk from their “truth.”   In method acting we were taught to dig into that stuff and use it in the role.  I think you could easily be an actor, Misti, if you ever tire of the writing life.

Read “Bad Wiring“ by Misti Rainwater-Lites

Monday Chat is a bi-weekly series in which Susan Tepper has a conversation with a Fictionaut writer about one of his or her stories. Susan’s new book From the Umberplatzen is a collection of linked-flash published by Wilderness House Press. 

Darlin’ Neal is author of the story collections Elegant Punk (Press 53, 2012) and Rattlesnakes & The Moon (Press 53, 2010). She is the 2011 winner of DH Lawrence Fellowship from the Taos Summer Writers Conference, their highest honor. Her short stories, essays, poems, and reviews have appeared in numerous journals, magazines, and anthologies, including The Southern Review, Shenandoah, Eleven Eleven, The Mississippi Review, Puerto del Sol, and Best Of The Web. She serves as faculty advisor for The University of Central Florida’s award winning undergraduate literary magazine The Cypress Dome, and for The Writers In The Sun Reading Series. She is Fiction Editor of The Florida Review.

What is your feeling about having mentors as a writer? Talk about the mentor relationship if you will, its importance to a writer…

I think it’s crucial, that having someone to show you the way and to inspire and encourage you.  I’ve had many people I consider my mentors.  The first writing mentor I had as an adult was Kevin McIlvoy at New Mexico State.  His belief in my writing opened the door for me.  His dedication and hard work were models that remain with me.  Then Antonya Nelson came along and took over working with me on my book.  What an amazing eye she has, and Robert Boswell was there early on.  These people were all mentors because of the way they lived and breathed the writer’s life.  I went from New Mexico to study at the University of Arizona and Joy Williams came to mean a lot to me as did Joy Harjo.  Later when I found myself lost as a writer because of so many things that were going on I decided to get my doctorate and Mary Robison sort of saved my life as a writer at the University of Southern Mississippi.  Frederick Barthelme taught me so so much about form.

Now I have the pleasure as a professor in an MFA and undergraduate creative writing program of acting as a mentor in my own right.  I can’t even begin to express the awe and great satisfaction seeing undergrads I work with on Honors Theses and in classes fly off to places like New York University or Emerson and to have them keep in touch with me about their accomplishments, or to work with grad students on wonderful books.  To be sending all these fine writers and editors out into the world and to know I had something to do with coaching them along, that I have had the opportunity to give back so much of what was given to me is immensely rewarding.  We are a tribe and we need each other.  We make the world a more beautiful and understandable place.  We cause important disturbances that resonate.

What do you do when you feel stuck or uninspired and does it work to trick the brain into working?

I focused on getting my book together, this latest collection, while so much was going on: my mother was dying, my dear aunt had a terrible accident, my daughter had a baby and came back home to me.  I haven’t been writing.  I feel like so much has been going outward and I needed the space of the summer that’s coming up to go back inside to my characters.  I am planning to work on revisions to my first novel and also to work on a memoir.  For me it’s all about staring and being still, getting a pen in my hand and some paper, being at the computer and proceeding.  Not over thinking it too much.  I will be teaching first summer session.  I’m buying a house near the ocean!  Second session though it’s going to be all about nesting and traveling if I need to for the book.  I got a university research grant to help me have that time and I’m going to use that time to write and maybe do some healing from loss.

Are there favorite writing exercises or prompts which you use regularly & will share?

Writing flash fiction is rather recent for me and I have a group of friends I work with when I’m writing flash.  We give each other prompt words, just a few words to put us in the space in our minds of language and what it triggers.  I let the words take me where they will.  That’s how the flash in this collection and the two pieces of flash in the last book came about, with the power of those words and the nurturance of this writing group.  I really needed and need them.  For years I was moving so much and so disconnected from the world of art and writing, or at least I would have been without these people I could keep in close contact with through the internet, some of them in Australia, in New York, in Colorado, in South Africa.  I treasure these people.

Suggestions for making characters live?  Do you know who they are before you write or do you find out who they are in the writing?

I don’t know who my characters are really before I write, for me it is a process of discovery I gain by working to inhabit the visceral moment with the pov character.

What’s the best writer’s advice you ever got?

Kevin McIlvoy: “Know that in everything, everything, there is sufficient mystery for story.  Be in readiness for wonder.”  I think I have that right.

Antonya Nelson telling me to stiffen up my gut when I was headed to Tucson.  Now I know I’ll be flooded with memories of advice from people like Robert Boswell, Frederick Barthelme, Mary Robison, Joy Williams tonight when I’m trying to sleep.  How lucky I’ve been.

Please talk a bit about your new collection Elegant Punk…  I’m curious, what percentage of the collection flash fiction? I am a big fan of your flash fiction work as well as your longer pieces.

The collection is mainly flash fiction.  There are four longer stories and many, many flash pieces.

What is next for you? 

That house with the baby and the dog by the ocean, and everyone there.  The space to have company.  We’ll see if it passes inspection tomorrow!  And then the summer of writing, writing, writing on that memoir and finding its shape.  The main thing is going to be finding the shape because I’ve got reams of notebooks filled with my scrawl.  I’ve always wanted a house, growing up as I did moving and living mostly in trailers.  It was a desire I shared with my mother. She passed into the New Mexico sunset on the second day of spring this year. In my home as I play house with my own daughter I hope to feel her presence guiding me through the nonfiction.  I believe this can happen.

The Fictionaut Five is our ongoing series of interviews with Fictionaut authors. Every Wednesday, Meg Pokrass asks a writer five (or more) questions. Meg is the editor-at-large for BLIP Magazine, and her stories and poems have been published widely. Her first full collection of flash fiction, “Damn Sure Right” is now out from Press 53. She blogs at http://megpokrass.com.

Throughout his career, Daniel Pyne has moved freely between the world of television, film and books. His writing credits include The Manchurian Candidate, Fracture, Any Given Sunday, and Miami Vice. He is also author of the noir novel, Twentynine Palms (which was also made into a feature film). Pyne holds a B.A. in Economics from Stanford University, and an MFA from UCLA’s film school, where he teaches a graduate seminar in screenwriting every winter. He lives in Los Angeles and Santa Fe, New Mexico, with his wife and children, two cats, two dogs, two lizards, and a turtle. For more info on Daniel Pyne, visit www.danielpyne.com.

What is your feeling about having mentors as a writer? Talk about the mentor relationship if you will, its importance to a writer…

I was extremely fortunate to have had a series of wonderful mentors at the beginning of my career.  I think it’s incredibly beneficial to be able to learn from artists who have broken ground before you, who can guide you on your creative journey and encourage you to take on challenges that might otherwise seem overwhelming.  Their knowledge is invaluable; their comments and criticism comes from a place of such deep understanding and experience that it never feels undeserved or cranky.  I think a mentor also helps a young writer understand, simply by example, that it’s a slow process, and there are no shortcuts.

What do you do when you feel stuck or uninspired and does it work to trick the brain into working?

Hmm.  I can’t really trick myself.  When I’m stuck, I just try to write through it.  I force myself to do the terrible awful miserable version of whatever I’m writing, and usually the horror that results from knowing that someone else eventually will be reading it makes me find a thread I can pull to make it better, and then better again, until I either rewrite into a good version, or stumble on a whole new angle that works.

Are there favorite writing exercises or prompts which you use regularly & will share?

I’ve learned, from screenwriting, to always ask myself, about every character, no matter how fleeting or seemingly inconsequential: “what’s his movie (or novel)?”  Which is to say, if I were writing the story of this waitress (or fortune teller, or contortionist) with whom my tale has suddenly intersected, what would it be?  I ask myself this because everyone in a story has his or her own novel that they’re the main character in, and we’re just seeing a moment of that novel here, in this one.  But seeing that moment, and knowing that it’s part of a larger story, and letting it collide with the action and intention of this story, enriches the narrative and sometimes even creates opportunities for more tension, conflict, and character.

This also allows me to see my story from different angles, to make sure that everything that happens has a reason and a motivation, and doesn’t happen just to serve the raw mechanics of the plot.

Suggestions for making characters live?  Do you know who they are before you write or do you find out who they are in the writing?

A little of both.  I think that character and action are inseparable: we are defined by what we do, but what we decide to do in any situation depends upon who we are.  I tend to begin with a general idea of a character, or a matrix of character relationships, and then I like to let them play out as I write, to surprise myself, to let the characters go.  The best part is when the characters take over the story completely, and you find yourself struggling to keep up with them as they race forward, surprising you at every turn.

What’s the best writer’s advice you ever got?

Stay in the chair.  When you get up, anything can happen.  Sandwich.  Nap.  Seeing what the dogs are up to.  Finding that thing you lost the other day.  Or where the window was leaking last February during the big rain.

Getting out of the chair usually involves not writing.  Except when you’re thinking.

As long as you don’t think you’re thinking when you get up out of the chair to go and see if there are any Cheez-its left.

How did your novel, “A Hole In The Ground Owned By A Liar” find you, and you it?

A few years ago, my actual real life brother bought an actual real life collapsed gold mine (not on eBay), and opened it up with his backhoe.  It was awesome.  Meanwhile I had a couple of characters wandering around in my head who needed a place to play out their skirmish, and then I read a news story about a man who, on the way to showing some investors the gold mine he’d purportedly discovered in Indonesia, leapt out of a helicopter and plummeted into the jungle.

That was pretty much all I needed.

What question would you most like to be asked about your writing life? (ask and answer it here!)

This question stumped me.  I guess I don’t have one.

What is next for you?

I have a new book (Fifty Mice) I’ve almost finished.  I have a screenplay I’ve written for Studio Canal (a French film company).  I have a television pilot I’ve written for Lifetime (which means I may be a chick-lit writer now).  And then I have this other idea for a novel in case Fifty Mice doesn’t work out.

The Fictionaut Five is our ongoing series of interviews with Fictionaut authors. Every Wednesday, Meg Pokrass asks a writer five (or more) questions. Meg is the editor-at-large for BLIP Magazine, and her stories and poems have been published widely. Her first full collection of flash fiction, “Damn Sure Right” is now out from Press 53. She blogs at http://megpokrass.com.

Frances Lefkowitz is the author of  To Have Not, named one of five “Best Memoirs of 2010” by SheKnows.com. It’s a true story of growing up poor in San Francisco in the 1970s, getting a scholarship to an Ivy League college, and discovering what it really means to have and have not. Her essays, and articles and short fiction have appeared in Tin House, Blip, Superstition Review, GlimmerTrain Stories, Fiction, The Sun, Utne Reader, Whole Living, Health, and more. She has earned special mentions twice for the Pushcart Prize and once for Best American Essays, among other honors. The book reviewer for Good Housekeeping, Frances is the former Senior Editor of Body+Soul magazine (now Whole Living). She lives and surfs in Northern California.

Anything but the usual, please. Twists in language or plot or attitude. A thin, sharp line between forms or toes dipping into several at once. Economy and understatement, brush strokes that imply so much more. These are the qualities that get me excited about a piece of writing. Three things that rub me the wrong way: snark; gratuitous sex or swearing; wordiness. I’m no poet, though I care very much about each word. And I don’t feel right recommending friends here, so I’ve had to overlook the fine stories of James Claffey and the incredible twisty work of Meg Pokrass. Now that you know my biases, I offer you my favorite pieces from the past few weeks of Fictionaut posts:

Pinhole by Kathryn Kulpa

A story or a poem or a storypoem told in a succinct but oh, so revealing list of explanations, or are they excuses? If I told you more I’d ruin it, and I’d use more words than the piece itself. Delicate but not at all fragile.

Rinds by Ajay Vishwanathan

In exactly 500 words, we get a glimpse into the intricate and heartbreaking dynamics of a culture, a marriage, a family, a neighborhood, and a mother-daughter relationship, all from the very tactile and convincing point of view of a little girl. This story masters the trick of telling big truths through small, sensory details (a priest’s turquoise ring; a dusty ceiling fan) that catch the narrator’s eye. I can definitely smell that rind, and it makes me sad.

Swing by Seamus Bellamy

One of the baseball greats, or maybe all of them, used to say you had no choice but to “just keep swinging,” especially when you’re in a slump, and sooner or later you’ll start connecting again. As Mr. Bellamy shows in this potent storypoem, the advice applies for all sports, maybe for all of life. And it’s no metaphor even if it is one. Such a solid sense of flesh and impact here.

Falling Man by Gita Smith

OK, I’m a native San Franciscan from a pro-labor family, but those aren’t the only reasons I fell for this compact story about a steelworker who lost his life building the Golden Gate Bridge. The images of people doing the impossible; the descriptions of how they did it; the details (600,000 rivets!) of what went into it: these are the real attractions here. And the emotional heft that underlies them all. This story reads like a series of sepia photographs, lofty and weighty at the same time.

Drive By by Gessy Alvarez

“I see the little girl my son punched in the face” is one of the worst things a mother could ever have to say. But he’s your son, he must have learned it from somewhere. But he’s your son, you can’t abandon him. But he’s your son, he’s hurting and you want to make him feel better. This little story tracks all the nuances, including the older teacher who calms the furious other mother down “by just nodding her gray head.” Oomph & swerve.

Someone Points a Gun at My Brother by Kait Mauro

An act of violence has a public and a private side, though what was yours about your life suddenly becomes open for gawking. This poemstory does a fine job illustrating the lingering rawness, the feelings and the acts of exposure. But what I most admire here are the holes, what isn’t said.

He was the Worst Man of his Name by Sheldon Lee Compton

The title hooked me. The “knuckled money” reeled me in. The looming but unspoken questions—what makes a ‘fair’ fight? what won’t we do for money?—kept me there. Like most stories about fights, this one is also about families, and it feels ancient and mythological despite the hip Che Guevara tattoo “moving like a reflection across the skin” of the younger challenger. After the pow, the moment slows down and opens up enough for a whole history to emerge. Then it’s time to stand up and face the crowd.

Fickle Currency by Misti Rainwater-Lites

Almost too slumming-it romantic for me, with the kissing and blushing and cackling against a backdrop of desert heat and colors. But then there’s this: “until the Jesus salesmen knocked on the front door.” And this: “the snarling face of chaos.” Just enough fresh to make this doomed micro-love-story breathe and thump.

Editor’s Eye is a blog series that aims to highlight noteworthy work that might have slipped through the cracks of Fictionaut’s automated list of recommendations. Every two weeks, a distinguished visiting editor scours the site for lost treasures and picks outstanding stories.