Category: Literary Matters

IWSG, April 2022

John Winkelman

It’s not that March was objectively longer than either of the previous two Marches, but it was around this time two years ago that the lockdowns began, and now that restrictions have eased considerably from even a year ago, the stress levels are much reduced, and that leaves more energy for creative endeavors.

This month’s Insecure Writers Support Group question is:

Have any of your books been made into audio books? If so, what is the main challenge in producing an audiobook?

I have not yet published any books, so the simple answer is…No.

But I have friends who have published books in both print and audio book version. Dyrk Ashton, in particular, who is a friend I met at ConFusion several years ago. He is the author of the most excellent Paternus Trilogy, of which all three are available in audiobook format. Dyrk is part of the Wizards, Warriors and Words fantasy-writing advice podcast, which recently released an episode about creating audio books for self-published authors.

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and supporting insecure writers
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April is National Poetry Month

John Winkelman

New arrivals for the week of April 27, 2022

This past Tuesday I went to my first Open Mic night in over two years. The event, Poetry & Pie, took place at The Sparrows on Wealthy Street in Grand Rapids. It was the return of an event which had been ongoing at the cafe for some time before the pandemic closed everything down. Of course, with Tuesdays being Tai Chi night for the past thirty years, I had never attended, but now that practice has moved to Wednesday I took advantage of the opportunity and listened to some poetry.

Two new volumes arrived at the house in the past week.

First up is the latest issue of Poetry Magazine, a publication of which I have a shelf full of unread issues. But this being National Poetry Month, I am working my way through them at a rate of roughly one issue a day. So I might catch up to present by the middle of May.

Next is The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry, which arrived unexpectedly as a gift from my good friend Miyah. An unexpected and appropriate addition at the start of National Poetry Month.

In reading news, in addition to the back issues of Poetry, I recently finished I Am the Brother of XX by Fleur Jaeggy, and also This Is Us Losing Count, a superb collection of Russian poetry in translation from Two Lines Press, as part of their Calico series. It’s books like these that prompt me to shell out the money for annual subscriptions to their catalogs.

In writing news, it’s all poetry, all the time, for the entire month. So far I am on track for one poem a day for 30 days and, as last year, I do so love having my mind in this space.

Poetry Resurgent and Resplendent

John Winkelman

Newly arrived in the week of March 20, 2022, and Poe

Early Satuday afternoon I drove to Garfield Park just south of downtown Grand Rapids, where I was interviewed as part of An Oral History of Poetry in Grand Rapids. I haven’t really been involved with the poetry community for a few years, thanks in no small part to the COVID pandemic, so this was a wonderful reintroduction to The Scene.

As part of the interview my interviewer Toni Bal asked me to read a poem. I brought “Back-Road Labyrinth,” which I wrote in 2018 or 2019. This was the first time I had read a poem in about three years, the previous being “36 Views of New Orleans” at The Drunken Retort in (I think) 2018. Now that I have read it, maybe it is time for me to send it out to be published.

I donated most of the print run of The 3288 Review to the project, from the Caffeinated Press archives which occupy three banker’s boxes in my office closet.

The new issue of The Paris Review was the only arrival this week. Poe is earning her keep as a book rest, atop her panda blanket as she watches the porch for squirrels and birds.

In reading news, I finished Patrick S. Tomlinson‘s Gate Crashers. It was a lot of fun, with engaging characters and an interesting plot. Gate Crashers was Tomlinson’s first book, and it is a little rough around the edges. He mentions in the author’s note that he wrote it in response to the ending of the movie version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and it shows in the sense of humor and turns of phrase. Then again, there are worse influences to wear on your sleeve than Douglas Adams.

I am currently reading I am the Brother of XX, written by Swiss author Fleur Jaeggy and translated from the Italian by Gini Alhadeff.

In writing news, I didn’t do much this week other than edit the poem I read for my interview. But I feel better than I have the past few weeks, so perhaps the changing of the month will bring renewed energy and I will be able to get back in the saddle.

Some Different Points of View

John Winkelman

New books for the week of March 13, 2022

Oh, what a week this was. For reasons not germane to this post, this past week was unproductive and exhausting in the extreme. Suffice to say that, even in the declining days of the pandemic, as the world slowly reawakens after a subjectively excessively long winter, the mundane world continues to exist.

Three new books arrived this past week, and it is indeed a stellar stack.

First up is Coyote and Crow, the core rule book for a new tabletop role-playing game which was funded through an immensely successful Kickstarter campaign. Like so many other Kickstarters over the past couple of years, there were delays and setbacks, but the final product is stunning!

Next up is This Is Us Losing Count, a collection of poems in translation from eight contemporary Russian poets. This anthology is part of the Calico series from the Center for the Art of Translation/Two Lines Press, one of the two publishers with whom I still have a subscription.

And finally we have Mister N, written by Lebanese author Najwá Barakāt and translated by Luke Leafgren. This book arrived from And Other Stories, the other publisher to whom I am still subscribed.

In reading news, I just finished They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, Hanif Abdurraqib‘s collection of articles and essays about music and its intersection with race and culture. I picked this one up when Zyra and I visited City Lights Books in June 2018. I pulled it down from the shelf when I saw that Abrurraqib will be the guest lecturer for the March 2022 GVSU Arts Celebration hosted by Grand Valley State University.

And in writing news, there was no writing this past week. Too many distractions, disruptions, and sorrows.

An Illusion of Normalcy

John Winkelman

Reading material from the week of March 6, 2022

Two years after the office closed, I am back to working downtown two or three days a week. Being able to spend extended hours out of the house has improved my state of mind substantially, though the office, and indeed much of downtown right now, feels comparatively deserted.

This week’s new reading material comes courtesy of two Kickstarter campaigns.

First up is the latest issue of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, which always delivers excellent short fiction.

Next is War of Gods by Dyrk Ashton, in the limited edition hardcover, next to the box which fits the complete hardcover trilogy. I have been a fan of Dyrk’s work since I first met him at ConFusion back in…2016? He had just published the first volume of his Paternus trilogy. The completion of the hard-cover boxed set feels like the end of an era, and I have heard rumors that Ashton is working on something new. Based simply on that rumor, I am already looking forward to reading it.

In reading news, I am still working my way through Seth Dickinson’s The Tyrant Baru Cormorant. I am enjoying it, but wow, is this a long book. I also got an early start in working my way through all of my back issues of Poetry Magazine, starting with issue 207.1, publishing in October 2015. I have 40 more issues after this one, not counting whatever shows up as I work my way through the stack.

In writing news, not a lot to report for this past week. I have been too distracted by the goings-on in Ukraine to be able to focus on creating new work. Like living in a global pandemic, adjusting to the reality of living in World War III will take time, but eventually I will be able to tell stories around a trash fire which will be the only source of light and warmth in the plague-ridden nuclear winter which will surely be our new normal in the coming decade.

A Moderately Hopeful March

John Winkelman

New books from the week of February 27, 2022

In the past week I have returned to working a few days a week out of the downtown office which, while mundane on the face of it, is a Big Deal ™ for me for a few reasons. First, after two years I finally get to be outside of my house for more than errands and martial arts practice. Second, in select narrow, carefully managed settings, it is possible to return to something resembling a normal, not overly pandemic-ey routine. And third, Spring is just around the corner, and the city is waking up from a winter and a long hibernation, and that is a fine time of year to be outside, wandering around.

First up is Marlon James‘s new book Moon Witch, Spider King, which I picked up from local wunderkind bookstore Books and Mortar.

Next is the March 2022 issue of Poetry Magazine. I still plan to read through all of my back issues of this excellent journal in the month of April.

In reading news, I am well into Seth Dickinson’s The Tyrant Baru Cormorant, and so far it is every bit the equal to the previous two books in the series, and I am in awe of the way Dickinson portrays this motley cast of deeply damaged characters.

In writing, I didn’t accomplish much this past week, due to being distracted by the goings-on in Ukraine.

IWSG, March 2022

John Winkelman

Riverside Park in Grand Rapids Michigan

Hi everyone. I missed last month’s IWSG post due to a combination of *multiple vague gestures at the state of the world*. I’m sure you can relate.

This month’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group question is:

Have you ever been conflicted about writing a story or adding a scene to a story? How did you decide to write it or not?

Much of what I write is in response to calls for submission to anthologies and themed issues of various literary and genre fiction magazines. I seldom complete those stories in time to meet the deadline, but even when it is obvious that the work will take months longer than originally estimated, I try to keep to the original theme. Constraints, I have heard, breed innovation.

But when writing to a theme, particularly if it is a type of story I have not written before, I sometimes find myself asking the question, “Did I put that thing I wrote into the story because the story demands it, or because the constraints of the theme demand it?” This can be a difficult knot to untangle.

Here is an example:

A few years ago, World Weaver Press put out a call for new interpretations of the Baba Yaga myth, for their anthology Skull and Pestle. My degree is in Russian Studies, and I have been to Russia, and continue to read Russian literature (in translation only; my language skills are quite rusty), so this seemed like a perfect fit.

I set the story in a village of Russian Orthodox Old Believers in northern Minnesota, near the Canadian border. The writing went well, with (I thought) good characters, good dialog, and good pacing, but when it came time to include Baba Yaga, I found that I couldn’t quite fit her into the story in a way that felt convincing. I went back and re-wrote the first third of the story (which kept getting longer), and by the time I found a way to transplant Baba Yaga from the forests of western Russia to the plains of the American Midwest, the deadline had long passed, and the short story had become a novella.

The troublesome scene, which would have brought Baba Yaga into prominence, was an act of bigoted violence against the Old Believers which, while all too plausible, felt gratuitous. Yet I couldn’t find a way through to the final act without that scene or something like it. So I left the scene in and re-wrote almost everything before it. Having done that, I found I needed to go a completely different direction with the last part of the story, and that is why it is still not finished.

Skull and Pestle is available here, and is quite good. I think all of the stories in it are better than whatever final form my own story would have taken, had I completed it in time to meet the deadline.

On a side note, I want to thank all of the members of the IWSG for your support and encouragement as  I round out my first year in this group. It has been difficult to stay motivated during the pandemic, and being part of this writing group has been a big help. In particular I want to thank Jean Davis for bringing the IWSG to my attention. You rock!

 

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.

February, Tired and Hairy

John Winkelman

The view east from the Skywalk in Grand Rapids

For the first time in two years, I walked to the office work twice in the same week. I discovered (1) that I really missed this small boundary between my work and home life, (2) Downtown Grand Rapids is much more quiet than I remember from past years, though the fact that it it still winter may have something to do with that, and (3) I am really out of shape when it comes to walking. The above photo is from a brief lunchtime walk along the Skywalk at the western edge of downtown Grand Rapids.

Still – it was really good to get out of the house, and on days when the weather permits the walk, I will once again be working from the office.

No new books arrived at the house this past week. Or rather, one did, but it was a duplicate of an earlier acquisition, sent in error as part of a Kickstarter fulfillment glitch. So it doesn’t count.

This past Sunday I finished Hristo Karastoyanov’s The Same Night Comes for Us All. It was great!

Yesterday I finished Glory and its Litany of Horrors written by Brazilian author Fernanda Torres and translated by Eric M.B. Becker. Also great, and somewhat bonkers.

After finishing the Torres I pulled down my copy of The Tyrant Baru Cormorant, the final book of the Masquerade trilogy by Seth Dickinson. Given how good the previous two books were, I have very high hopes for this one.

In writing news, I finally finished the short story I have been pecking away at since October. It left me feeling happy, satisfied and, somehow, restless. Like, now what do I do? I think what I do now is rustle up some other half-finished short stories and, well, finish them!

February Barely Scary

John Winkelman

Books from the week of February 13, 2021

First up is issue 7 of Tales from the Magician’s Skull, from a Kickstarter I backed this past October. It looks great, and I am eager to dive into it.

Next is Classic Monsters Unleashed, from a Kickstarter run by editor James Aquilone. This was another of the Kickstarters for which the reward was delayed by *gestures at everything*.

I like the coincidence of a magazine of classic sword-and-sorcery style stories arrived the same week as a collection of new stories about classic monsters. I appreciate the connection of the classic with the current, the exploration of how the old influences the new.

In reading news, I finished Jesus and John Wayne and it left me in a foul mood. The book itself is excellent, well researched and well written, but the subject matter – the white evangelists who are deliberately working to turn the United States into a militant christian patriarchal ethnostate – well, let’s just say I don’t agree with their works, message, or goals. I have a small review written up in my monthly reading list which will post on the first day of March.

To cleanse my palate, reading-wise, I picked up Per Aage Brandt‘s beautiful poetry collection If I Were a Suicide Bomber, translated from the Danish by Thom Satterlee and published by Open Letter Books. I originally acquired this book through my subscription to Open Letter Books, which I let lapse a couple of years ago because I had not read any of the books they had shipped me in well over a year. Now I am slowly working through my backlog of almost three dozen.

I finished If I Were a Suicide Bomber the same day I started it, as I had taken a sick day from work and a few hours is plenty of time for a leisurely read through a poetry collection. I loved it! The poems are sharp, insightful, and full of humor. Taken individually, there are some echoes of Charles Reznikoff‘s Testimony (though lighter), and taken as a whole I noted an occasional similarity to Notes From A Bottle Found on the Beach at Carmel by Evan S. Connell. Highly recommended.

Now I am reading The Same Night Awaits Us All by Hristo Karastoyanov, translated from the Bulgarian by Izidora Angel and also published by Open Letter Books. So far it is quite good, and would fit well on a shelf next to Andrei Bely‘s Petersburg,and perhaps a short distance from Umberto Eco‘s Foucault’s Pendulum, if only because they both involve small, quirky publishing houses.

In writing news, I didn’t accomplish much this past week due to the aforementioned sick day and the associated disruption to my schedule and routine. Perhaps next week will be a little more stable.

That’s it for now. Unless something extravagant happens in the next ten days, this may be the first month in a very long time where I read more books than I acquired. A few more decades of that and I might get to the point where have read every book I own.

February Ordinary

John Winkelman

Poe and Pepper Napping

Nothing new arrived at the house this past week, so here is a photo of Poe and Pepper, napping the afternoon away.

Maybe it’s the two new years happening only five weeks apart, but it does seem that there is more energy in the air than usual for late winter. It could be the recent (very slightly) sunnier and warmer weather, but I feel something akin to how I felt in the beginning of the new semester at college, with a renewed sense of optimism and vigor.

But the powers that be at work also seem to be affected this way, because I have been exceptionally busy since the beginning of the year, and the amount of energy I am putting into my work projects is beginning to pull from my leisure-time reserves.

In reading news, I am over halfway through Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez, which is all about how the conflation of unapologetic racism, conservative Christianity and toxic masculinity has created, and still sustains, white evangelicals. Indeed, my copy is now sprinkled with side notes like “gleeful sadism,” “white supremacy,” “rape culture,” and “death cultists.” Though I still have over a hundred pages to go, it is obvious that the main driver behind the white evangelical virus over the past century, and the very reason they support catastrophic failure of a human being Donald Trump, is “daddy issues.”

Oh: and a fair bit of “predatory self-victimization.”

But I may be simplifying thing. A bit. A very tiny bit.

In writing news, this was an editing week so I spent my time reviewing tens of manuscripts in various stages of completion, performing triage where necessary, and making good use of my red pen. Though I experienced a slight lull in energy at the end of January, I am back at full strength and making excellent progress.