Category: Literary Matters

It’s Warm, It’s Cold, It’s Warm, It’s Cold

John Winkelman

We are now well into April, and the normally turbulent weather of this time of year is being exacerbated by a healthy dose of global warming which makes the highs and lows more frequent and more extreme. At present we have no expectation that this trend will reverse itself in the lifetime of any human currently living. Come to that, we have no expectation for things to change in the lifetime of any animal at all currently living, with the possible exception of extremophile critters somewhere around a deep-sea thermal vent in the Pacific Ocean.

No new reading material arrived at the Library of Winkelman Abbey this week. I expect the rest of April will be slow for the acquisitions department.

In reading news, I just finished Ibram X. Kendi‘s How to Be an Antiracist, and it blew my mind open in ways I did not expect. It wasn’t the subject, which was was very much in line with The New Jim Crow, Caste and Carceral Capitalism. Rather, it was the way Kendi drew the distinction between “not-” and “anti-“. For me (straight, white, middle-aged dude), this made me extremely uncomfortable in a positive way, as it pointed out a large blind spot in my interactions with the world. It’s not enough to simply not contribute to the problem. One must actively work to fix the problem, or by virtue of the inertia of the zeitgeist of the world, the problem persists. Any way of living that is not explicitly anti- is implicitly pro-. In matters of oppression and equity, there is no middle ground.

As April is National Poetry Month, I have been working my way through my back issues of Poetry Magazine, instead of the (surprisingly small) number of my poetry books which I have not read. The variety of poetry in Poetry is keeping my mind in the writing space, and I have managed to write a poem a day so far for every day of the month. I won’t copy them out of my journal or type them up until May, most likely, and then we will see if I have managed to put any of the many words I know together in some kind of meaningful order.

Here in the third week of Spring the world is turning green and some of the nights are warm enough to keep the windows open. The fresh air and smell of earth and grass and rain, and the soft sounds of the city at night make for a more restful sleep than I have know in months, and though I am not getting any more sleep than at any point in the past year, it is of better quality and therefore when I wake up I don’t resent being out of bed.

IWSG, April 2021

John Winkelman

Welcome to the monthly Insecure Writer’s Support Group post. This month’s question is the following:

Are you a risk-taker when writing? Do you try something radically different in style/POV/etc. or add controversial topics to your work?

I don’t know if I am a risk taker, as such. I like to play around with forms and styles. I have written stories in first and third person, past and present tense. Some styles work for certain stories; others do not. In the past I have written fantasy, science fiction, horror, westerns, and literary fiction. Again, some worked better than others. In particular, I went through a phase of writing literary short stories where around 2,000 words in Cthulhu would show up, despite my best efforts to keep the story from heading in that direction.

For me, memoir involves more risk because in order to be effective it must dig into places which I am not always willing to uncover. For example, a few years ago, for NaNoWriMo I set out to write a series of short stories, and as a warm-up exercise I wrote a short piece about the toxic people in my life. That short piece turned into 18,000 words, all written on November 1. I was an angry, bitter emotional wreck for days after. On a positive note, I was far enough ahead in my word count that I could take a couple of days off of writing in order to recover from the experience.

I don’t touch much on controversial topics, other than possibly equity, empathy and compassion, which are controversial topics in a society where sadism seems to be the national pastime.

So I suppose the risk-taking lies in trying something new which may or may not work. Either way, I have broadened my horizons and (hopefully) improved my craft.

Thank you for reading this answer, and thank you (and hello!) to the members of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group who find their way to my humble blog.

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Tech Upgrade, Of a Sort

John Winkelman

Reading material for the week of 2021.03.28

If the above image seems subtly different from the images in the previous posts, it is because I just bought a new smart phone to replace my ageing Galaxy Note 4. I now have a Google Pixel 4a/5G, which in most ways is not appreciably different from any other mid-range smart phone, but it does have an amazing camera, which is apparently the hallmark of the Google Pixel series. So expect to see an increase in the number of photo posts on this blog.

The weather in this past week was all over the place, from highs near 70 to lows in the teens. All in the space of a few days. Right now the air is a balmy 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Perfect for walking in the woods. Which I just did.

On the left pf the above photo is the latest issue of Poetry magazine, from the Poetry Foundation. On the right is Unwelcome Bodies, Jennifer Pelland’s collection of short fiction which was published by Apex Book Company. I received this as a reward for backing Apex Book Company at a certain tier on their Patreon.

In writing news, I am writing (at least) a poem a day for the month of April, and so far, four days in, am keeping up. Seems I can only write at the moment if I am under some sort of external pressure. That is all.

It’s Like, Warm Out

John Winkelman

It’s been a beautiful week here in Grand Rapids, in the last full week of March 2021. The tai chi and kung fu classes are back at Wilcox Park, weather permitting. After almost four months of indoor classes conducted through Zoom, the outdoors seems huge. I went for a long walk at Blandford Nature Center after class, and I was one of maybe five people in this huge park. For most of the two hours I was there I didn’t see another soul, and though the park is surrounded by neighborhoods, for the most part I didn’t hear anyone either. It was a disorienting experience. I felt something which I wouldn’t call agoraphobia, but it was something on that spectrum. A sense of vast horizons, after a year of being inside my house, and much of that time in my office, staring at a computer screen. It was disorienting having the nearest object farther than ten feet away from my eyes.

A decent pile of books arrived here at the Library of Winkelman Abbey in the past week. Two are from subscriptions, and the last three are from a recent order I placed at the best bookstore in Grand Rapids, Books & Mortar.

On the left is the latest issue of the ever-excellent Rain Taxi Review of Books.

Second from left is Nancy by Bruno Lloret, the latest release from Two Lines Press.

In the center is Alix E. Harrow’s The Ten Thousand Doors of January, which I have been meaning to read for, oh, at least a year.

Second from the right is The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robin, which I learned about from Cory Doctorow‘s blog Pluralistic, in which he discussed this book in the same paragraph in which he invoked Frank Wilhoit’s description of conservatism (“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”).

On the right is Automating Inequality by Virginia Eubanks, which I suspect will have a lot to say which heavily echoes the Wilhoit quote. This is, after all, America.

In reading news, I am about three quarters of the way through Gideon the Ninth and loving every page of it. I will probably finish Monday or Tuesday.

In writing news, lots of journaling but not much else. So it goes.

Next Friday I get my first COVID shot. Then I will enter the liminal space between it and the second shot three weeks later. There is no telling what the world will look like on the other side of that experience.

Suddenly Spring

John Winkelman

And what a Spring it is so far, with temperatures in the 60s and sunny and beautiful. The tai chi and kung fu classes have moved back outdoors, and there we will remain, weather permitting, until the snow flies again in November or December. Almost eight months of outdoor classes is pretty good for Michigan.

The new issue of Pulphouse Magazine was the only reading material to arrive in the past week at the Library of Winkelman Abbey. This has made my life a little easier, as I am in the midst of organizing all of my bookshelves, recycling many years of old literary journals, and making one of my bookcases the exclusive home of the many books I own which have been inscribed to me by their authors. The goal, of course, is to outgrow that shelf once the world is in a state where readings and book signings and conventions can happen again. So maybe 2022 or 2023.

In reading news, I am still working my way through the backlog of books in translation. Currently in front of me is Juan José Saer’s The One Before, translated by Roanne L. Kantor, and published by Open Letter Books. After this month I am going to broaden my reading habits a little, and rather than five or six works in translation a month, only attempt two or three, which will leave room for more of the nonfiction, poetry and genre fiction which is also slowly but steadily piling up.

In writing news, as always, there is no writing news. Perhaps next week.

Happy Spring, eveyone!

The Last Full Week of Winter

John Winkelman

And what a week this past week was. Due to family emergencies, trips to the vet, favors for friends, and the necessities of a new project, I have had almost no time at all to read, write, relax, sleep, or clear my head. My only quiet time was the drive to Jackson from Grand Rapids, in which a visit was cancelled at the last minute, and so I drove a total of over four hours in order to deliver a sandwich.

At this point, after the last twelve months – and tomorrow it will be exactly twelve months since the quarantine really took hold for me – I can’t even get angry about this kind of thing any more. But it is frustrating to see the days grow longer and the weather grow warmer and not be able to enjoy it as I have in years past.

Two bound collections of words arrived at the Library of Winkelman Abbey this week. On the left is Elemental, a collection of stories in translation from Two Lines Press. This is the third anthology published under their wonderful Calico series, which is one of the reasons I am continuing my subscription to their catalog.

On the right is the March 2021 issue of Poetry Magazine. One day I will sit down and read all of the back issues which I have collected over the years, which are regrettably collecting dust on my shelf.

In reading news, things have been going slow though I did finish Deepak Unnikrishnan‘s weird and wonderful Temporary People (Restless Books), and am now about two-thirds through Arno Geiger‘s beautiful The Old King In His Exile (And Other Stories, translated by Stefan Tobler). Geiger’s book is his memoir of taking care of his father, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s, which is a thing which has struck down a few in my immediate and extended family, so it is a…well, I wouldn’t call it a comfort read, exactly, but it is supportive.

In writing news, there is no writing new, other than some journaling. Maybe next week.

So it goes.

 

March, Already and Still

John Winkelman

It was almost exactly a year ago that the COVID lockdown hit West Michigan and I began working from home. As the joke goes, this is not March 7, 2021, it is March 372, 2020.

A small pile of books and periodicals arrived here in the past week. On the left is volume 3 of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago. This was difficult to find, as it is a very specific volume 3 which is part of a set which was published in 1992. I picked up volumes 1 and 2 from the remainder shelf of Schuler Books and Music sometime around 1995. I kept hoping volume 3 would show up for cheap, and I left the bookstore in 1999 with that dream unfulfilled.

Next is The Best of Apex Magazine, which is volume 1 of a series, the other volumes of which have not yet been published. Apex Magazine went on hiatus in 2019 and has just recently come back, so future volumes of the anthology will hopefully be printed in upcoming years.

Next is Notes from Childhood by Norah Lange, translated from the Spanish by Charlotte Whittle and published by And Other Stories.

And last but not least is the latest issue of The Paris Review, which has managed to stay in print and excellent and relevant for over fifty years, which is admirable.

In reading news, I am well into Deepak Unnikrishnan’s weird and wonderful novel Temporary People (Restless Books), which started out as a collection of short stories in the literary fiction genre, but soon blew straight through magic realism into the realms of satire and surrealism. And it is really, really good.

In writing news, events of the mundane world sapped away much of my free time and emotional energy and I accomplished very little. I still feel the drive and desire to be creatively productive so perhaps next week will be more fulfilling.

Tune in next week for such thrilling tales as “Welp. Here I am again,” and “Here are some books,” and if time and energy allow, “Here is some stuff I have been thinking about.” See you next time, loyal reader(s)!

IWSG, March 2021

John Winkelman

I have recently joined the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, which I discovered through the excellent blog of author Jean Davis.

And as a newly active member of the group, this is my first IWSG monthly first-Wednesday question:

Everyone has a favorite genre or genres to write. But what about your reading preferences? Do you read widely or only within the genre(s) you create stories for? What motivates your reading choice?

That is a very good question. Two things motivate my reading choices: a diversity of reading, and that one book I just gotta read right now. And there are secondary concerns, such as books which have been sitting around forever, and when my mind is in a particular space in which it will only be satisfied by e.g. poetry or Russian literature. Or Russian poetry.

I take as my guiding star Karen Lord‘s advice to “read well”. Find the books which are good examples of the kind of book I would like to write and, well, read them!

That doesn’t mean everything I read is practice for something I hope to write. I am motivated more than anything by curiosity. In my library I have scores of anthologies covering a great many subjects and styles of writing. My day job is mentally demanding and I am happy to indulge in purely escapist reading as time and opportunity allow. For example, last summer I did a deep dive into the Forgotten Realms novels and read the first twenty or so Drizzt Do’Urden novels by R.A. Salvatore.

Then again this past October I participated in the Sealey Challenge and read 31 books of poetry in 31 days. And a couple of weeks ago, after almost three decades of attempting it and failing, I finally read the entirety of The Brothers Karamazov.

So what motivates my reading? Ultimately I think I read whatever it feels important that I read next. And that could be anything.

And on a tangent, this wide and varied reading habit helps me through bouts of writing block and imposter syndrome. Usually if I am reading something which is too close to what I am writing I start to compare the one with the other, and therefore reading something outside of that channel is a good way to reset myself, mentally and emotionally, so I can get return to the writing practice with a clear mind.

What motivates your reading? Let me know in the comments!

 

Insecure Writer's Support Group BadgeThe Insecure Writer’s Support Group
is a community dedicated to encouraging
and supporting insecure writers
in all phases of their careers.

Not Quite Normal, But Close

John Winkelman

February was unexpectedly chaotic, though the ups and downs seem to be tending upward, in part due to a steadily increasing outdoor temperature and amount of sunlight. The lack of a card-carrying white supremacist in the white house also helps.

Three books arrived this past week. On the left is Neeli Cherkovski‘s biography of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, released in 1979, when Ferlinghetti was 60 (!). I picked this up from Third Mind Books in Ann Arbor, which is an excellent resource for anyone interested in the Beats, as well as the Modernist, New York School and Black Mountain poets.

Ferlinghetti died this past Monday, at the age of 101. When I get get my head sorted out about this I will post an article or two.

Next is Anders Dunkers’ Rediscovering Earth: Ten Dialogues on the Future of Nature, (OR Books) a collections of conversations with writers and thinkers discussing what may be and what will be the state of nature and our place in it, going forward from here.

On the right is Cuba in Splinters, a collection of short fiction in translation from Cuba. This was an impulse buy from OR Books, which I picked up when I ordered Rediscovering Earth. My attention was probably primed because I was in the middle of reading Super Extra Grande by Cuban science fiction writer Yoss.

I spent the last week reading books in translation, and completed three more of my backlog of such books – Permafrost by Eva Baltasar (And Other Stories), Super Extra Grande by Yoss (Restless Books), and A Greater Music by Bae Suah (Open Letter Books). Now for a change of pace I am reading Starship’s Mage by Glynn Stewart, which I picked up last year at ConFusion. I’m less than 100 pages in, and really liking it so far.

In writing news, I am working on edits to a short story I wrote for a call for submissions for the Grimm, Grit and Gasoline anthology published by World Weaver Press. The story was not accepted, obviously, but I think it has promise.

This past Friday I had the great good fortune to spend some time talking the story over with Jason Sizemore of Apex Book Company. The opportunity was made available to supporters of the Apex Patreon, which I am and have been for a couple of years now. I met Jason at ConFusion back in (I think) 2016, where we spent a few minutes discussing the ins and outs and ups and downs of the publishing business. Obviously Apex is doing much better than Caffeinated Press ever did, but there were many similarities in the experiences of running our respective independent publishers.

The increased reading and the access to a professional editor have me feeling reinvigorated, and warmth and sunlight are always energizing. It’s time to get writing.

A Break in the Flow

John Winkelman

This past week was one of those rare stretches of time where no new reading material arrived at the Library of Winkelman Abbey. That’s fine. I have more than enough unread books and magazines laying around to last me a decade.

Now that I have finally made it to the end of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov and Giorno’s Great Demon Kings, I have turned my attention to shorter books, which is easy, because I can count on my fingers the books I own which are longer than The Brothers Karamazov.

For the past five years or more I have had subscriptions to the catalogs of various publishers of books in translation, which means for the past five years or more I have accumulated these books much faster than I have read them, and at this point I have well over a hundred works from Open Letter Books, Deep Vellum, Restless Books, And Other Stories, Two Lines Press, and Ugly Duckling Presse awaiting my attention.

In the past couple of years, as my lifestyle and available spending money have fluctuated, I have allowed my subscriptions to all but And Other Stories and Two Lines Press (and possibly Restless Books – it’s difficult to tell sometimes here in the Covid Years) to lapse. So now I have these shelves full of books sitting around unread as I slowly accumulate books from other places, and now I find that I need to archive some of the books on the shelves. As I only archive books I have completed, now is a good time to work through the backlog of these translated books.

In the past week I have finished three books – The Imagined Land by Eduardo Berti (Deep Vellum), Party Headquarters by Georgi Tenev (Open Letter Books), and Lion Cross Point by Masatsugu Ono (Two Lines Press). I am currently reading Permafrost by Eva Baltasar (And Other Stories), and hope to get in one more book before the end of the month. This is easy when the books are only 100 to 130 pages long, and at most 50,000 words, making most of them novellas or very short novels. For contrast, The Brothers Karamazov is approximately 364,000 words.

In writing news, I haven’t written anything new in the past week beyond some journaling, but I am beginning a round of edits for a couple of short stories which I hope to have in shape for submission by the beginning of May.

On the whole, the world is not necessarily a better place than it was a month ago, but some of the worst parts of it are gone, and sometimes a lack of bad things can be as energizing as the presence of good things. Selah.