A while back, I shared a YouTube video of Bradford Loomis performing his song "Come Dance with Me," which was inspired by my short story "More Like Home Than Home". This August, he released a new album with Beth Whitney, Banner Days, which features a gorgeous recording of the song. Check out the song and the whole album--they are so, so talented. You can read "More Like Home Than Home" in the Emerald issue of Fairy Tale Review.
[gallery columns="4" type="circle" ids="1449,1446,1442,1450"]Yesterday and all of last night and into 9 am this morning, the Center on Contemporary Art hosted a 24-hour art-making marathon at their Ballard location, the Shilshole Bay Beach Club. One of the 21 artists participating, John Osgood, wanted to collaborate with other artists during this frenzied event, and last month, I was invited to submit some of my writing. I sent John a couple short stories, and didn't know what would happen until I arrived at the marathon yesterday (of course, pretty much simultaneously with his other collaborators Amir Farhad, Robert Hardgrave, Stephen Rock, and a last minute fifth collaborator which added to the frenzy). John told me he'd chosen to work with my story "Skitter" and would paint a parade scene from it. He proposed that I paint text on the canvas and he would layer colors on top of that. I loved the idea, though I was nervous about painting, even if it was in my realm of text. After I decided what text should go on the canvas, he showed me how to use a paint pen, and I practiced as much as I could so that it didn't look like a 3 year old or drunk person had written it, though I suppose that's not necessarily a bad thing. John spray painted over my first layer of text, then wrote over the same excerpt with a red paint pen, using his infinitely cooler handwriting. Then he spray painted it again and handed me a calligraphy brush and more liquid black paint and asked me to write the text again in smaller letters, trying not to cover over the other two layers but getting between them. John is probably taking a well-deserved nap right now, seeing as he painted 5 new pieces, collaborating with 5 different people, all between 9 am yesterday and 9 am today. The works (and there was a ton of other fantastic stuff being made by 20 other artists) will be auctioned off tonight during CoCA's fun-n-fancy gala dinner, which is, I understand sold out. Of course I am eagerly awaiting the final product from John's take on "Skitter" -- above are a few photos from documenting the process. Special thanks to John Osgood and to Nichole DeMent. It was a fantastic night!***Update:Here it is, the final product, "Harush," by John Osgood & Anca Szilagyi:
For the APRIL festival, The Furnace teamed up with the Bushwick Book Club Seattle, asking three musicians to create original music inspired by the three pieces presented by the series so far. Bradford Loomis wrote "Come Dance With Me," an enchanting lullaby inspired by my story "More Like Home Than Home" and full of so much tender longing and hope.
In honor of Friday the 13th, I've uploaded to SoundCloud a recording of a short story of mine, "Skitter," about a man losing all of this teeth. It's the first time I've recorded myself (except for an experiment or two for teaching English as a second language), so please forgive the faint whine of a lawn mower coming from outside! I think it adds a certain je ne sais quoi. More aural fun to come![soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/52771480" iframe="true" /]
I came upon Mihail Sebastian's novel The Accident while browsing a shelf of Eastern European literature at Powell's. His fiction is something I've wanted to read for some time, and one of his novels is finally available in English, from Biblioasis's International Translation Series. I love how a well-curated bookstore, whether a tiny jewel box of a store or a heaping megalopolis, can bring books and readers together. And, I love the editors' credo on the front flap of the book: "The editors believe that translation is the lifeblood of literature, that language that is not in touch with other linguistic traditions loses its creative vitality, and that the worldwide spread of English makes literary translation more urgent now than ever before." My short review of The Accident is online at Shenandoah.
It wasn't exactly the best way to ring in the New Year, but last night I dragged M to Northwest Film Forum to see the three-hour documentary The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu. Absent of narration, the film is a collage of propaganda from 1965-1989, book-ended with clips from the show trial that preceded his and his wife Elena's execution on Christmas Day, 1989. Throughout the film, pompous news reel music, chants, and clapping alternate with eerie moments of crackly silence. One of the most memorable clips, for me, showed Ceausecu beside Mao Zedong, not quite knowing what do with himself. There is also a technicolor dazzler of a tribute in Pyongyang, at which Ceausecu and Kim Il-sung gaped gleefully. It was certainly an interesting experience gleaning what I could from the juxtapositions of images, such as the gradual but palpable shift in the filmed crowds from fanatical support to grim and nervous half-smiles.
The Fall 2009 issue of Yellow Medicine Review is now available: a hefty 350+ page book of stories, essays, and poems, including an opening essay by Andrei Codrescu exploring the four visits he made back to Romania since the fall of communism. Also, my story "Ebb and Flow" is tucked away in there. This themed issue has got me thinking about a number of stories that are now in various larval states.
My short story "Ebb and Flow" has been accepted for the Fall 2009 issue of Yellow Medicine Review. This issue, guest edited by Andrei Guruianu, will focus on Eastern Europe twenty years after the fall of communism. Very much looking forward to seeing the issue!
I just got my contributor copies of Western Humanities Review, which includes my short story "The Boarder". It's a lovely magazine with some beautiful etchings from the Saltgrass Printmakers. Ever since I made my first print at the Vermont Studio Center, I've been especially keen on the art form.
It's in my hands and it's lovely. The Fall 2007 issue of The Massachusetts Review arrived in the mail yesterday, with my story "Skitter" on pages 364-369. Sweet!
The Center for Immigrant Families is hosting "Our Stories: Our Lives As Immigrant Women," a photography and storytelling exhibition at Carlito's Cafe, running November 19, 2006-January 19, 2007. The opening reception is this Saturday, December 2, 6-9 pm, promising music and food and it is free! I hope to get a peek at the exhibit once the stress of final papers ebbs.In other news, the Dr. Chapbook launch was intimate and engaging. Dr. Rita Charon spoke of the power of narrative and how a literary approach to medicine can help doctors see from their patients' perspectives, and thus make them more empathetic and better doctors. After her talk, contributors to the zine read poetry and non-fiction, and then the odd duck read her short story "Very Big Furniture".
