Short Story Reads: September 1-7, 2012

"The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury"

Author: Neil Gaiman
Publication: Shadow Show: All-new Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury
Publication type: Anthology, Multiple Authors
Favorite lines: "I learned your books. Burned them into my mind. In case the firemen come to town" (Gaiman 15).
Thoughts: An immense treat for anyone who has read Bradbury, and still a lovely, moving story for anyone who hasn't. The sadness at losing Bradbury, and the joy of having read him, all condensed into a shortish short story. I want to keep this one on my shelves forever. 

"Renovation"

Author: Amanda Curtin

Publication: Inherited
Publication type: Short story collection, single author
Favorite lines: "In making this house mine, I will probably destroy more than I know" (Curtin 77).
Thoughts:So many characters, time periods, lives in the space of a short story, but somehow I feel like I know them all. 

"Magic Palm (for Mei)"

Author: Kevin Brown
Publication: Fast Forward: The Mix Tape, 2010
Publication type: Flash fiction collection, multiple authors, eds. Forman, Morris & Stohlman
Thoughts:Time used so well here. And a cycle that is expected, but doesn't feel trite. 

"Candlelight"

Author: Christy Strick
Publication: Fast Forward: The Mix Tape, 2010
Publication type: Flash fiction collection, multiple authors, eds. Forman, Morris & Stohlman
Thoughts: A one-sentence short story with a beautiful voice, smells and bright echoes of people. 

Anime for Girl Geeks

In November 2010, I attended my local anime mini-convention, Hamacon. The mini-convention is held in the fall and is a one day event, and the main convention is held in the spring and takes place over three days. The mini-cons are great because there's still a wonderful amount of good programming and amazingly cute and cool stuff for sale in the vendor room, but there's less people, which is excellent for those of us who have a hard time dealing with huge crowds.

At the mini-con, I went to a panel called "Getting Your Anime Groove Back."

Fallen out of the anime habit? Or know of a friend that has? Here's some shows that just may rekindle that lost interest!

The program booklet doesn't list the person who led this panel, but I believe he was from OSM Cast.

Whoever he was, this guy was great. He introduced around 15 different anime series, played the introduction sequences and sometimes short clips, all while explaining who the main characters were and giving the audience a good sense of whether or not they would enjoy the anime.

His main goal was to give everyone in the room at least one anime they would like to watch. There were anime about chefs who hunt down alien creatures, mysteries, and of course gundams. Most of the animes had at least one aspect that I really loved - amazing animation, a great character, funny dialogue. But there was one anime that ticked all of my boxes.

The panel host showed the opening sequence for Princess Jellyfish, an anime about a girl otaku. The opening sequence places the main characters of the anime in familiar scenes from movies like Star Wars and James Bond. It's funny and the lyrics are about wanting to reach out to other people, wanting to embrace life, but feeling like there are some secrets that can't be shared.

Best of all, the host mentioned that it was available to watch for free via Hulu.

Lady geeks! And easily accessible, free anime - how could I pass it up?

I think it was a few weeks later that I started watching Princess Jellyfish. Once I started, I was hooked.

Here's the gist of the story:

Tsukimi lives in an all-girl apartment building in Tokyo. Each girl has her obsession, and Tsukimi's is jellyfish. So when she spies a jellyfish in a tank at a pet store that's been taken care of incorrectly, she tries to talk to the shop clerk to save the jellyfish from dying. But she's shy, so the shop owner brushes her off. A stylish girl overhears Tsukimi and, armed with confidence, convinces the shop clerk to give the ailing jellyfish to Tsukimi. The stylish girl walks home with Tsukimi and falls asleep in her bedroom. The next morning, Tsukimi freaks out when the stylish girl reveals that he's a boy - Kuranosuke.

The anime is about their friendship, and about how their childhood memories of their mothers have influenced who they are as teenagers.

There's only one season of 11 episodes. So if you'd like to try watching an anime series but don't want to get into an epic that will take months to watch, Princess Jellyfish is a great place to start. The story doesn't come to a complete close at the end of this season, but I think the series is enjoyable even if you don't know how everything ends.

There's a bit of the usual makeover story here - without glasses, with a little make-up and some stylish clothes, Tsukimi transforms into a beauty. But Tsukimi can't see without her glasses, and she keeps reverting to her true, geek girl self.

All of her companions in the "nun house" have social anxiety issues, and I liked seeing characters struggle with their desire to take action and their need to have a safe space. If you're a geek girl, like me, there's a good chance this anime will speak to you.





P.S.
And look at this easy, amazing cosplay! She made the little stuffed Clara (the jellyfish) herself! It looks perfect!

Short Story Reads: August 25-31, 2012

Cool bug on the front porch

A rough week in the real world, and I can't believe I only read one flash story the whole time. I started reading a novel, but not so much that there wasn't any time for short stories. I need to push myself harder to read. After all, the bad times are when I need stories the most.

"Balancing Racks"

Author: Jason Sinclair Long
Publication: Fast Forward: The Mix Tape, 2010
Publication type: Flash fiction collection, multiple authors, eds. Forman, Morris & Stohlman
Recommended by: Ashley Cowger

Too short to quote - the story is only half of a page. And there aren't any witty lines or lyrical indulgences. But the effect is impressive. Time handled deftly, interactions pitch perfect, a scene that is a story of one moment that ripples out both forward and back. Excellent.

MFA Flashback: Why Alaska?

The dry cabin I lived in my last year in Alaska

I get asked about Alaska pretty often, usually at least once a week. I still have my Alaska driver's license, so the tellers at the bank are always curious why I would move from Alaska to Alabama. And at interviews, Alaska features prominently on my resume. It makes for a fun introduction.

In high school I knew several people who had never left Alabama, never gone to the Gulf of Mexico to see the ocean, never even taken a trip up to Tennessee. And since I've been back I've met a few people who have their limits - they won't cross the Mississippi River or go up higher than the Carolinas. Not everyone in Alabama feels this way about travel, but it is pervasive enough that I get asked weekly, "Alaska! What made you leave Alabama to go all the way to Alaska?"

The simple answer is that I applied to a school in Alaska, and they accepted me and gave me a Teaching Assistantship.

The more complicated answer is that Alaska was as far away as I could get from Alabama and still be in the United States. It's not that I hate Alabama, it's just that there's so much world out there - and a great way to learn about a new place is to go to school there. This gives you a built-in community, something to do, and a source of income.

It might have been easier if I had gone to graduate school within the contiguous states, or as they say in Alaska, the Lower 48. I would have had a car to take with me, I could have visited my family more often, and I might have been able to attend the AWP conference while still in grad school, which would have been a great source of motivation.

But I would have missed out on birch trees, snow, outhouses, giant ravens, the enormous mechanical beasts that scrape the roads late at night, moose in my backyard, blueberries beside the cabin, driving through the Yukon on a spare tire while being chased by bears -

and meeting the kindest, most inclusive bunch of people I've ever known. Fairbanks was the first place that ever felt like home. Alaska has a way of trapping people's hearts, of pulling them back long after they've left. It's kind of a joke among people in Fairbanks. "We'll see you again," instead of good-bye.

Once you've been to Alaska, it's easy to understand how people can move there from far away and never leave. And how the people who do leave always carry Alaska with them, a string pulling them home.

Here's a short video I made of my first winter in Alaska for my family, way back in 2007. It isn't fancy, the video quality isn't HD, but I think it captures some of the feeling of being in Alaska for the first time, so I wanted to share.




First Winter in Alaska movie from Jenni Moody on Vimeo.

Short Story Reads:August 18-24, 2012

Furball with this week's short stories

"Tiny, Smiling Daddy"

Author: Mary Gaitskill
Publication: Because They Wanted To
Publication type: Short story collection, single author

Writing this good feels like magic.

Favorite lines:
"He felt helplessness move through his body the way a swimmer feels a large sea creature pass beneath him" (Gaitskill 13). 

"The Sound of a Room"

Author: Amanda Curtin
Publication: Inherited
Publication type: Short story collection, single author

I've been immensely enjoying this collection, but this is the story that cemented my love for Curtin's writing.

Favorite lines:
"He had succeeded in capturing the sound of the ordinary" (Curtin 59). 

"Omitted Excerpt"

Author: Alexander Weinstein
Publication: Fast Forward: The Mix Tape, 2010
Publication type: Flash fiction collection, multiple authors, eds. Forman, Morris & Stohlman

At first glance the conceit seemed too heavy to support any emotional weight, but midway through it started to sing to me.

Favorite lines:
"Regardless of my narrative status, I still believe I have potential to exist outside parenthesis" (Weinstein 9-11). 

"The Broken House of Nan-Jing"

Author: Matt Siegel
Publication: Fast Forward: The Mix Tape, 2010
Publication type: Flash fiction collection, multiple authors, eds. Forman, Morris & Stohlman

A whole novel in a flash story - excellent.

Favorite lines:
"When he was finished with his fourth draft and sitting on a growing pile of rejection letters, he asked the administration if he could read a chapter in the central quad, and they set up a podium twenty yards from a group of sorority girls selling raffle tickets for an all-expense paid trip to Cabo" (Siegel 12-13). 

"Standard Loneliness Package"

Author: Charles Yu
Publication: The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2011
Publication type: Anthology, multiple authors, ed. Rich Horton

Beautifully written. Brilliant. Heartbreaking.

Favorite lines:
"In the end, we're all brains for hire" (Yu 146). 

*

I'm challenging myself to read five short stories each week. The stories can be from collections or magazines, online or print, novella or flash.

I'll post my short story reads for each week here on Friday, with a few notes about each story.

Have you read any short stories this week you'd like to recommend?

MFA Flashback: Comprehensive Exam

In addition to coursework, students in the MFA program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks must complete two tasks: compose a thesis and pass a comprehensive exam. 

What is this exam?

• The exam is in February, and MFA students are expected to take it in their second year. It is a pass/ fail exam. If you fail, you can take the test again the following February. It is only held once a year and you must pass it in order to graduate. 

• The test is composed of five questions that must each be answered with an essay. Students answer two questions in the morning session (9am - Noon) and three questions in the afternoon session (2pm - 5pm), all on a Saturday near the beginning of the Spring semester.

• The exam itself is exhausting. The only book you are allowed to use is a dictionary. But you must reference (and quote if possible) several books in each essay response. 

At the end of the exam, upperclassmen were there with champagne and beer. There's no better feeling than finishing an exam you've been studying for for a year and having people who have been through the process before (and know how difficult it is) there to cheer your success.

But here's my story - I messed up with my comprehensive exam. I didn't plan for it. 

There are fifty books on the comprehensive exam reading list, and in order to pass, you need to read most (if not all) of them. Usually professors try to use at least one comp book as a text for their class, but this will only get you so far. Students must read a substantial number of books in addition to their class readings, and with most graduate literature courses requiring you to read one book per week, this can become an overwhelming task. 

The first year for a graduate student is tough. Graduate level workshops are like that scene in Centerstage; everybody was the best writer in their undergraduate workshops. But here, in the graduate workshop, you're a first-year. The first time your story gets workshopped at the graduate level is a serious wake up call. 

So after my first year of grad school, I was wiped out. (Did I mention we were living in the middle of Alaska with no car?) I was mentally and physically exhausted. That summer, I should have been reading for my comprehensive exam. But I couldn't bring myself to read or write. My brain felt fried, so I went into regeneration mode. I rode my bike to Creamer's Field to watch the sandhill cranes, developed an obsession with episodes of Mystery! and Globe Trekker that aired on public television.

I reasoned I'd study for comps during the winter break. I'd have nothing to do but read for a few weeks, and  the books would be fresh on my mind when it came time for the exam. 

Then we visited my family for the winter break, and time evaporated. As time drew near for the exam, I made a difficult decision - I decided not to take it in my 2nd year. If I took it while I was unprepared and failed, as I knew I would, then it would be much harder for me to take the exam when I was ready. 

I took the exam in my 3rd year and passed. The results of the test were given through individual letters from the chair of the department, placed in our grad mail boxes in the English office. I was on shift as a tutor in the Writing Center when word started going around that the letters had been delivered. There weren't any students waiting to be tutored, no appointments scheduled - I can't remember if I ran to the mailbox to get the letter or if my boyfriend picked it up for me. The letter was short, and without looking at it I can still remember one part: "in the end, I believe the most useful part of this process was the time you spent studying for the test."

Me with my comps pass letter, 2010

And this is absolutely true. 

When I realized I wouldn't be able to take the test on time, I got serious about studying for the next opportunity. The students in my year had formed a weekly study group, but I dropped out after a few sessions because I couldn't keep up with the reading and I was embarrassed. 

Luckily, there were several fiction writers in the year below me who were up for the exams. We started meeting every Sunday at Alaska Coffee Roasting Company. We made a schedule of books to discuss and designated a discussion leader for each text.

I wish I had a photograph of the four of us studying for the exams. The coffeehouse was always crowded and noisy. There was never enough table space for our coffees, sandwiches, piles of books, the binders of notes we were compiling. Our screenwriting professor, Len Kammerling, was sometimes there with a different group, and he'd wave to us and stop and chat. Often I would spot David Marusek, the science fiction writer, with his laptop. I never worked up the courage to go over and say hi. There were impassioned conversations about Melville, talks that helped me better understand my mixed feelings for The House of Mirth, and gradually there was a comprehension of knowing the texts much better than I could have if I had studied for the test on my own. 

I'm glad I didn't try to take the test my 2nd year, when I had not studied. My comps study group was one of the best learning environments I experienced during graduate school. And this experience converted me from a student who detested group projects, to a teacher who believed in their ability to inform texts and conversations on literature in a way that other modes of learning cannot. 

*

If you're curious as to the 50 books I read for my comprehensive exam, here's the 2012-2013 list. It changes a little every two years, some books are added and others dropped, but the scope and the spirit are pretty much the same. 

Short Story Reads: August 11-17, 2012

"On the Uses of the Dead to the Living"

Author: Amanda Curtin
Publication: Inherited
Publication type: Short story collection, single author

Favorite lines:
"Imagine that it's 1860, it's a beautiful stately home in the country, it's a carriageway lined with poplars and elms and departed family members, twice varnished for maximum weatherproofing. A professor of phrenology is balancing on a ladder, probing the preserved heads of ancestors, taking measurements and notes and recording data for explication of the family line, making predictions about its future, your future. You are a Victorian. You don't know what to believe" (Curtin 41).

"Hamburger Moon"

Author: Amanda Curtin
Publication: Inherited
Publication type: Short story collection, single author

Favorite lines:
"Resisting the desire to be the star of the group, the one with the most bizarre deviancies, has been difficult, for she craves the ambrosia of specialness, but she has learned new ways for old addictions" (Curtin 47). 

"Shakedown"

2012 Tusculum Review Fiction Prize Winner

Author: Elizabeth Gonzalez
Publication: The Tusculum Review, Vol. 8. 2012
Publication type: Literary Journal, Print edition

Favorite lines:
"It's not the size of the task, that would be one thing -- it's because there's something in the assembled train that wasn't on the floor with the parts. It's like holding up a jacket and a pair of arms sliding in and a live person walking away -- he, the jacket holder, is astonished every time" (Gonzalez 45). 

"Post-Industrial Love"

Author: Alexander Weinstein
Publication: Fast Forward: The Mix Tape
Publication type: Flash fiction collection, multiple authors, eds. Forman, Morris & Stohlman

Favorite lines:
"There's something frightening, almost criminal, about appearing in public with a hanger. A wooden coat rack, on the other hand, carries an air of respectability" (Weinstein 2). 

"Crossing the Border"

Author: Ian Hunter
Publication: Fast Forward: The Mix Tape
Publication type: Flash fiction collection, multiple authors, eds. Forman, Morris & Stohlman

Favorite lines:
"Licking my lips, I pressed on the accelerator, taking us down the road towards another of those 90 degree turns, while brightly coloured hotels and houses appeared on either side of us, like the blooming of strange flowers" (Hunter 6-7). 

*

I'm challenging myself to read five short stories each week. The stories can be from collections or magazines, online or print, novella or flash.

I'll post my short story reads for each week here on Friday, with a few notes about each story.

Have you read any short stories this week you'd like to recommend?