Jennifer Perrine's Blog - Posts Tagged "fiction"
People I Know, Places I Go, Make Me Feel Tongue-Tied
As I wave adieu to a year that was both terrible and colorful, the books that I read are, as always, the little souvenirs that I'm happy to be carrying with me into 2017. (Well, books and a mental soundtrack that includes The Sundays, apparently.) I read a little less than usual this year, but most of the books that I did read wowed me. My favorite discoveries of 2016 include:
...And those were just the highlights of my year in books.
I've got to thank Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge for pushing me to read outside of my usual boundaries. I only heard about it in September, so didn't quite complete all the challenges, but it's a new year, and they've announced the 2017 challenge. I am, of course, digging all the encouragement to read more books by and about LGBTQ+ people and people of color, but for me, the biggest challenge on the list is the first one: Read a book about sports. (I just picked up Forward: A Memoir, though, so maybe not so tough after all...)
As for the writing in 2016, most of my attention was focused on fiction, and I just started sending out short stories. One of them, "Grief Sequence," was an honorable mention for Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers, which is encouraging, although it feels strange to be a "new writer" all over again. But in truth, when it comes to fiction, that's what I am.
I'm happy to say that as the year came to a close, the poetry bug bit me again--or, more accurately, poetry started kicking me in the ass and reminding me to get back to where my real work is. I've embarked on a long sonnet sequence that I'm hoping to finish in February, thanks to a residency at the Vermont Studio Center.
But before that wraps up, I'll be starting another writing project. Like so many other writers, I've been trying to find ever more ways to respond to and resist white supremacy and sexism, especially as they've manifested themselves in Trump's campaign and election. As we head into these next four years, I want to make sure not to lose hope, to remember the power that rests in the reclamation of language that's been used to oppress. So, each day for the first 100 days of Trump's presidency, I'll be writing an "Inaugury," a poem or essay that attempts to scry the signs of the times, to reinterpret language that's been misused, and to remember that this period is a new beginning for all of us. I'll be posting the poems on my website starting on January 20th.
Until then: Here's to the end of the story that was 2016 and to cracking the spine on 2017.
Poetry
For Love of Common Words: Poems, Steve Scafidi
Late Wife, Claudia Emerson
Seam, Tarfia Faizullah
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, Ross Gay
Dear Leader, Damian Rogers
Lost Alphabet, Lisa Olstein
lore, Davis McCombs
Look, Solmaz Sharif
Nonfiction
M Train, Patti Smith
Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, Carrie Brownstein
H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald
On the Move: A Life, Oliver Sacks
The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction, Neil Gaiman
Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War, Mary Roach
This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, Ann Patchett
When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality, Julie Sondra Decker
In the Darkroom, Susan Faludi
The Joy of Swimming: A Celebration of Our Love for Getting in the Water, Lisa Congdon
Journal of a Solitude, May Sarton
Comics
Step Aside, Pops: A Hark! A Vagrant Collection, Kate Beaton
Hark! A Vagrant, Kate Beaton
The Absolute Sandman, Volume Four, Neil Gaiman
Fiction
The Gap of Time, Jeanette Winterson
The Brides of Rollrock Island, Margo Lanagan
I Sailed with Magellan, Stuart Dybek
LaRose, Louise Erdrich
A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara
Native Son, Richard Wright
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
When Are You Coming Home?, Bryn Chancellor
Hag-Seed, Margaret Atwood
The Intuitionist, Colson Whitehead
The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead
Genre-Busters
Her 37th Year, An Index, Suzanne Scanlon
Artful, Ali Smith
...And those were just the highlights of my year in books.
I've got to thank Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge for pushing me to read outside of my usual boundaries. I only heard about it in September, so didn't quite complete all the challenges, but it's a new year, and they've announced the 2017 challenge. I am, of course, digging all the encouragement to read more books by and about LGBTQ+ people and people of color, but for me, the biggest challenge on the list is the first one: Read a book about sports. (I just picked up Forward: A Memoir, though, so maybe not so tough after all...)
As for the writing in 2016, most of my attention was focused on fiction, and I just started sending out short stories. One of them, "Grief Sequence," was an honorable mention for Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers, which is encouraging, although it feels strange to be a "new writer" all over again. But in truth, when it comes to fiction, that's what I am.
I'm happy to say that as the year came to a close, the poetry bug bit me again--or, more accurately, poetry started kicking me in the ass and reminding me to get back to where my real work is. I've embarked on a long sonnet sequence that I'm hoping to finish in February, thanks to a residency at the Vermont Studio Center.
But before that wraps up, I'll be starting another writing project. Like so many other writers, I've been trying to find ever more ways to respond to and resist white supremacy and sexism, especially as they've manifested themselves in Trump's campaign and election. As we head into these next four years, I want to make sure not to lose hope, to remember the power that rests in the reclamation of language that's been used to oppress. So, each day for the first 100 days of Trump's presidency, I'll be writing an "Inaugury," a poem or essay that attempts to scry the signs of the times, to reinterpret language that's been misused, and to remember that this period is a new beginning for all of us. I'll be posting the poems on my website starting on January 20th.
Until then: Here's to the end of the story that was 2016 and to cracking the spine on 2017.
Tomorrow's Chances Feel Like a Singing God
Last Sunday, I went for a hike, as I do most weekends, and when I came back from my trek in the mountains, a message was waiting on my phone. Jenine Gordon Bockman, editor of
Literal Latte
, had called to let me know that my short story, "Out of Order," had won the magazine's fiction prize! I did a little dance right there at the trailhead, although the dance didn't last too long, as I was pretty wobbly-legged by then.
This was (is!) big news for me. I've been writing fiction for a while, but I've only been sending it out to magazines for the last year or so. In that year, a few editors have written back some kind notes, but all of them passed on publishing my stories. I was beginning to think I ought to throw in the towel, especially with stories like "Out of Order." It's science fiction and nearly 8,000 words long, both of which put it outside the scope of most literary journals. So, it was a surprise, a delight, and a confidence-boost to hear not only that Literal Latte was interested in publishing "Out of Order" but also that they'd chosen it for their fiction award. The story is due to come out in their Fall issue, when I'm sure I will babble about it on the blog all over again.
In other news... Rattle posted my poem, "I Tell Death, Eventually", as their poem of the day back on June 23. Although I've been reading Rattle for years, it wasn't until this last month that I realized what a supportive and extensive poetry community editor Tim Green has built, especially through the digital components of the journal. In the days following my poem's posting, I received more kind emails from readers than I had in the previous ten years. People were generous with their own stories about loss and grief and mortality, and I appreciated their candor and vulnerability. Beyond that, it was also heartening just to know that so many people were out there reading poetry on any given day. At a time when literary and arts programs are so often disparaged and subject to budget cuts, knowing there are so many other poetry-lovers out there gives me hope.
And speaking of budget cuts, I wanted to give a shout out to the editors at Crab Orchard Review , which is in the process of converting from a print to an online-only journal in the wake of spending restrictions and staffing reductions. Allison Joseph, Jon Tribble, and Carolyn Alessio have been putting together one of the best journals out there for years, and I'm honored to have my poem, "The Gauntlet," included in one of the final print issues. "The Gauntlet" is one of the few poems I've written where I directly address race--in particular, the unease I felt at being one of the few people of color in my old neighborhood in Iowa--and I'm grateful to the folks at Crab Orchard Review for publishing it. (I'm also grateful that now, for the first time in my life, I live in a racially and culturally diverse neighborhood. I still think a lot about race, and it would be foolish in the current political environment to say I feel unworried and entirely safe, but I don't feel the same kind of fear I did in places where I was the only person of color around. There's power--and peace--in numbers.)
This was (is!) big news for me. I've been writing fiction for a while, but I've only been sending it out to magazines for the last year or so. In that year, a few editors have written back some kind notes, but all of them passed on publishing my stories. I was beginning to think I ought to throw in the towel, especially with stories like "Out of Order." It's science fiction and nearly 8,000 words long, both of which put it outside the scope of most literary journals. So, it was a surprise, a delight, and a confidence-boost to hear not only that Literal Latte was interested in publishing "Out of Order" but also that they'd chosen it for their fiction award. The story is due to come out in their Fall issue, when I'm sure I will babble about it on the blog all over again.
In other news... Rattle posted my poem, "I Tell Death, Eventually", as their poem of the day back on June 23. Although I've been reading Rattle for years, it wasn't until this last month that I realized what a supportive and extensive poetry community editor Tim Green has built, especially through the digital components of the journal. In the days following my poem's posting, I received more kind emails from readers than I had in the previous ten years. People were generous with their own stories about loss and grief and mortality, and I appreciated their candor and vulnerability. Beyond that, it was also heartening just to know that so many people were out there reading poetry on any given day. At a time when literary and arts programs are so often disparaged and subject to budget cuts, knowing there are so many other poetry-lovers out there gives me hope.
And speaking of budget cuts, I wanted to give a shout out to the editors at Crab Orchard Review , which is in the process of converting from a print to an online-only journal in the wake of spending restrictions and staffing reductions. Allison Joseph, Jon Tribble, and Carolyn Alessio have been putting together one of the best journals out there for years, and I'm honored to have my poem, "The Gauntlet," included in one of the final print issues. "The Gauntlet" is one of the few poems I've written where I directly address race--in particular, the unease I felt at being one of the few people of color in my old neighborhood in Iowa--and I'm grateful to the folks at Crab Orchard Review for publishing it. (I'm also grateful that now, for the first time in my life, I live in a racially and culturally diverse neighborhood. I still think a lot about race, and it would be foolish in the current political environment to say I feel unworried and entirely safe, but I don't feel the same kind of fear I did in places where I was the only person of color around. There's power--and peace--in numbers.)
She's Not a Girl Who Misses Much
Happy New Year, folks! I've now been living on the West Coast for a full calendar year, and I can see the effect of my new residence all over my work. The new issue of Cream City Review includes four poems I wrote shortly after moving to Oregon, and reading them now, a year later, I can see how much I was trying to make sense of starting over in a new place. Two of the poems take the shape of origin stories, and one is called "Spell to Leave Behind a Life." The fourth emerged from an experiment, in which I culled all the words spoken by Pearl in The Scarlet Letter and used only those words to write a poem. This might not seem all that significant, except that when I talk about my origin story as a writer, I often recall my junior year of high school, when a teacher assigned me the task of writing a poem from the perspective of a character in a book we read. I chose Pearl and discovered the power of persona. Revisiting Pearl now, twenty-plus years later, was a sort of homecoming.
This last year also saw the publication of my first short story, "Out of Order", in Literal Latte. The story's protagonist wakes from an elective process he undertook in his forties to find himself now ninety, lonely and disoriented by his new world. Again, I wasn't conscious of the questions I was grappling with at the time I was writing--one month after I moved to Oregon--but rereading the story now, it's clear I was, well, lonely and disoriented, even while I loved (and continue to love) this place.
Those initial feelings have dissipated, I'm happy to say. I'm finally starting to get a feel for the writing communities in the area, and I've got two readings coming up in the next two months, with a few more in the works. It feels good to get my work back in front of people, and even better to be with kindred spirits: one reading is for Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse, and the other is part of the Unchaste Readers series. Nasty and unchaste--that's exactly the kind of company I want to keep.
I've also got a new poem, "Now Is Not the Time to Talk About Gun Control," that will be released on the Broadsided website next week as part of their feature, "Bearing Arms: Responding to Guns in American Culture." The poem is paired with Kristen Woodward's startling, provocative "Female Target," and includes the word Oregunian. (Yes, living here has added to my vocabulary, for better or worse.) I'm excited to see our broadside and those of the other writers and artists vectorized, and I hope that the broadsides spark some conversations, since--if the irony wasn't clear--now is absolutely the time to talk about gun control. Let's hope that's one of the many changes 2018 brings.
As for 2017, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention all the amazing books I read. Without further ado, my favorite reads from 2017 were:
Poetry
Spirit Boxing, Afaa Michael Weaver
When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, Chen Chen
Into Each Room We Enter without Knowing, Charif Shanahan
Lena: Poems, Cassie Pruyn
Magdalene, Marie Howe
3arabi Song, Zeina Hashem Beck
Hands that Break and Scar, Sarah A. Chavez
Transformations, Anne Sexton
The Whetting Stone, Taylor Mali
Nonfiction
Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World, Suzy Hansen
Catastrophic Happiness: Finding Joy in Childhood's Messy Years, Catherine Newman
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, Ta-Nehisi Coates
Fiction
Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood
Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi
Spoonbenders, Daryl Gregory
A Monster Calls, Patrick Ness
The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula K. Le Guin
Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado
Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng
Mixed Genre
Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days, Jeanette Winterson
Here's to 2018--may the new year bring you clarity, community, and abundant good reads!
This last year also saw the publication of my first short story, "Out of Order", in Literal Latte. The story's protagonist wakes from an elective process he undertook in his forties to find himself now ninety, lonely and disoriented by his new world. Again, I wasn't conscious of the questions I was grappling with at the time I was writing--one month after I moved to Oregon--but rereading the story now, it's clear I was, well, lonely and disoriented, even while I loved (and continue to love) this place.
Those initial feelings have dissipated, I'm happy to say. I'm finally starting to get a feel for the writing communities in the area, and I've got two readings coming up in the next two months, with a few more in the works. It feels good to get my work back in front of people, and even better to be with kindred spirits: one reading is for Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse, and the other is part of the Unchaste Readers series. Nasty and unchaste--that's exactly the kind of company I want to keep.
I've also got a new poem, "Now Is Not the Time to Talk About Gun Control," that will be released on the Broadsided website next week as part of their feature, "Bearing Arms: Responding to Guns in American Culture." The poem is paired with Kristen Woodward's startling, provocative "Female Target," and includes the word Oregunian. (Yes, living here has added to my vocabulary, for better or worse.) I'm excited to see our broadside and those of the other writers and artists vectorized, and I hope that the broadsides spark some conversations, since--if the irony wasn't clear--now is absolutely the time to talk about gun control. Let's hope that's one of the many changes 2018 brings.
As for 2017, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention all the amazing books I read. Without further ado, my favorite reads from 2017 were:
Poetry
Spirit Boxing, Afaa Michael Weaver
When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, Chen Chen
Into Each Room We Enter without Knowing, Charif Shanahan
Lena: Poems, Cassie Pruyn
Magdalene, Marie Howe
3arabi Song, Zeina Hashem Beck
Hands that Break and Scar, Sarah A. Chavez
Transformations, Anne Sexton
The Whetting Stone, Taylor Mali
Nonfiction
Notes on a Foreign Country: An American Abroad in a Post-American World, Suzy Hansen
Catastrophic Happiness: Finding Joy in Childhood's Messy Years, Catherine Newman
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, Ta-Nehisi Coates
Fiction
Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood
Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi
Spoonbenders, Daryl Gregory
A Monster Calls, Patrick Ness
The Lathe of Heaven, Ursula K. Le Guin
Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado
Little Fires Everywhere, Celeste Ng
Mixed Genre
Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days, Jeanette Winterson
Here's to 2018--may the new year bring you clarity, community, and abundant good reads!
In the Rot and the Rust
So, I meant to drop in at the beginning of May, to celebrate my second short story, "Grief Sequence," being published, but then spring busted out and swept me up, and I stepped away from the interwebs a bit to enjoy it.
But life carries on, and now the weather's cooled and the sun's down and I'm only astounded by the neighborhood flora intermittently, so I thought I'd hop online to say hello and do what I meant to do, before May turns to June.
About that story: In March 2016, I woke up in a hotel room in Oregon with a first line in my head. "First the baby died, then the dog died." It could have been the beginning of the worst country song ever, or it could have been my subconscious trying to make sense of a deep mourning that I had felt for months but couldn't explain to anyone else, no matter how I approached it. That sentence snuck up on me at dawn, and I curled up in a chair, looked out over the Columbia River, and wrote a draft of the story mostly in one go, with that line repeating as a refrain. It felt like the first time I was attentive to form in a story the way I am in a poem, and although the story isn't quite personal experience, it allowed me to speak to an emotion I couldn't name in any other way. Now it's out in the world. Thank you, Valparaiso Fiction Review, for giving it a home.
But life carries on, and now the weather's cooled and the sun's down and I'm only astounded by the neighborhood flora intermittently, so I thought I'd hop online to say hello and do what I meant to do, before May turns to June.
About that story: In March 2016, I woke up in a hotel room in Oregon with a first line in my head. "First the baby died, then the dog died." It could have been the beginning of the worst country song ever, or it could have been my subconscious trying to make sense of a deep mourning that I had felt for months but couldn't explain to anyone else, no matter how I approached it. That sentence snuck up on me at dawn, and I curled up in a chair, looked out over the Columbia River, and wrote a draft of the story mostly in one go, with that line repeating as a refrain. It felt like the first time I was attentive to form in a story the way I am in a poem, and although the story isn't quite personal experience, it allowed me to speak to an emotion I couldn't name in any other way. Now it's out in the world. Thank you, Valparaiso Fiction Review, for giving it a home.
