Ghosts and Oceans

by Jan Steckel

Debut short story collection by a widely published poet.

"In Ghosts and Oceans, Jan Steckel has created her own magic realism, exploring fluid realms between rumor and myth. A woman becomes the color of a mango. An angel makes a hurried appearance at the hour of death. The sea is alternatively seductive and dangerous. The language is so musical; you can hear the book. Or— as one character says— 'The words are one thing and the music another, but there comes a time in the imagination of the singer when the words are the music and the music the words.' Both the lush musicality and startling imagination invite the reader to travel in tilted and surprising worlds."

Thaisa Frank— Heidegger's Glasses and Enchantment

184 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2023

About the author

Jan Steckel is an Oakland, California writer, a Harvard- and Yale-trained former pediatrician (now retired due to an acquired physical disability), and an activist for bisexual and disability rights. Her debut fiction collection, Ghosts and Oceans, came out from Zeitgeist Press in 2023. Her book Like Flesh Covers Bone (Zeitgeist Press, 2018) was a finalist for poetry in the Bi Book Awards. Her first full-length poetry book, The Horizontal Poet (Zeitgeist Press, 2011), won a 2012 Lambda Literary Award. Her poetry chapbook The Underwater Hospital (Zeitgeist Press, 2006) won the Rainbow Award for lesbian and bisexual poetry. Her poetry books are available on Amazon and through the publisher at www.zeitgeist-press.com. Her fiction chapbook Mixing Tracks (Gertrude Press, 2009) won the 2008 Gertrude Press Fiction Chapbook Award. Her fiction, poetry and nonfiction have appeared in Yale Medicine, Scholastic Magazine, Bellevue Literary Review, Harrington Lesbian Literary Quarterly, Red Rock Review and elsewhere. She has won numerous awards, and her work has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize. You can find out more about her at www.jansteckel.com.

Reviews

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m very glad this book is in the world. I love its unabashedly bisexual, queer joy. Stories such as “That Balding Angel,” “Alex the Dragon,” and “The Hustler” are some of the best bi prose I’ve read. The short length of most of the stories works well. They are punchy and perfect for reading on the subway or while eating lunch at a café. It’s clear the author enjoyed writing them. The collection’s longest story, “Cymbals and Lions” (22 pages), also works well.

In addition to their sexual queerness, and some of the stories’ status as speculative fiction—perhaps the queerest form of fiction—the stories are politically queer as well. Writing openly about sex is always a political statement in our censorious times. The stories about the Peace Corps do a good job of illustrating the program’s cultural imperialism via the hopelessness they express.

Overall, this book shows why small presses such as Zeitgeist Press are so important to the literary ecosystem. This book is weird enough that larger publishers might worry about what kind of market it would have (in addition to its queer subject matter, it includes work that spans thirty years, which is rare for a collection of stories, though it’s refreshing to have the breadth of a writer’s career represented in one volume). But its stories are a necessary voice for our difficult times.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've admired Jan Steckel's honesty and deft descriptions in her previous works of nonfiction and poetry. She has been charmingly honest when writing about permutations of sexuality and gender. In this short story collection, her first, Steckel expands her world vision without sacrificing honesty. In "Cymbals and Lions," a journey into the reality of fantasy and a village where "horsemen spilled like a spreading stain from behind the rocks. . . pouring like spilled wine to the huts..." The warfare that seems to define all of history exists here; the narrator asks her captor Arryianus to let her join his guard as a warrior; gender makes that impossible. "Let me be your harper, then." "I'm not a king to have a personal musician," Arryianus respond, admitting of the universality of limiting rules and standards. Steckel points out and pushes against these. The descriptions alone, as in the micro fiction "Le De Desant," will lure you in. "Her arms rise in the shape of a lyre over her head which slides from side to side as if there were no real connection between her neck and shoulders." But there is. Illusion cannot trump reality and it is in the ultimate realities of (dare I say) truth and beauty these stories exist.

[I. Merey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some write with instinct, some with intellect; some more lyrically or more leaning on wit. Steckel marries all four in this wonderful book of stories that reads like a carefully curated album. It's been a while since a collection grabbed me this thoroughly. My favorites were the bookending opening and closing pieces (Mixing Tracks, and Cymbals and Lions), but I enjoyed many others and was impressed by the author's range while remixing various names, places, and illnesses, across stories. The themes of water, loss, our unruly bodies, multi-linguality and the extraordinariness (and banality) of dying infused these stories. Extra bonus that Steckel incorporates such a natural eroticism and longing, an appreciation for the Californian coast, and a joyous bisexuality. This was prose of the highest caliber betraying the heart of a poet and a healer.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating collection of short stories, memoirs, erotica, and more. Each piece has its own voice and vibe. A writer I want to read more of.