I learned something very exciting this week, as it looks like my story about an Iraq War veteran returning home from the desert–“Welcome Home”— was in fact used as part of the City College of San Francisco’s Veterans Educational Transition Services! If you look down at the “Homework” section at the link below, my story is listed, right next Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. How awesome is that?! And humbling. It makes me a little nervous and queasy.
Throughout time and history all nations face the challenge of how to reintegrate their military service members into the civilain world. Most societies have processes to accomplish this. The Samurai were not allowed back into villages until they spent a month or so in mountain retreat spas. Ancient Greeks had plays where they enacted the challenges faced by returning warriors for the whole society to witness. Native Americans had sweat lodges and story telling rituals to pass on hard won wisdom.
I’m very excited and proud to have my fiction be a part of this class and program. Hopefully it works well for them, as the program looks to have great potential for improving the lives of our servicemen and their families. Awesome.
“Welcome Home” originally appeared in Boulevardand was anthologized in Best New American Voices 2009. So another round of thanks is in order for Richard Burgin (Boulevard editor), John Kulka and Natalie Danford (BNAV editors), and Mary Gaitskill (BNAV guest editor) for getting this story out into the world. Thanks!
[Please note, btw, that Best New American Voices 2009 is down to $4.09 at Amazon.com right now. So if you’re interested in the story, that’s over seventy percent off the cover price, it might be a good time to buy.]
Also, if you know of any vets who might be interested in participating in one of these classes, please pass along this link. It looks like a lot of the classes are free, they get college credit, and they can participate online if they don’t happen to live in the Bay Area. This is a pilot program, and I’m sure UCSF would appreciate all the help they can get in developing quality courses.
I’ve been working on a few new short stories lately, but the majority of May was devoted to beginning the initial drafting process for Part 5 of my novel The Hyphenates of Jackson County—the final section of the book. It’s all kind of a big mess right now, but it’s good to get into it. This always happens after I spend a couple months in revision, and this time was no different. The writing comes tough, in small amounts, 500-1000 words a day. It’s mostly blocking scenes, organizing notes, working out important descriptions and finding where symbolism might emerge. It takes a while to build some momentum and get a feel for how this part of the story should be told.
"The Hyphenated American"
The narrative style I use is pretty steady throughout the book—third-person, through the point-of-view of my main character Jacob Bressler, although I’m experimenting with some brief first-person sections, too—but the main issue comes from the time scope of the book. The present-time thread of the novel takes place over three years, from 1917-1919, or starting when the United States declares war on Germany in 1917 and ending with the Red Summer and Omaha Race Riot of 1919. It’s not a huge amount of time for a novel, gratefully, although there is a lot going on, and it’s a challenge to account for the lost, un-narrated time between parts. Particularly in first drafts, I think I pay too much attention to what’s happened in the time gaps, instead of just getting into the action at hand. A lot of that will be eliminated soon enough, most of it in the initial edits. But it makes things a little clunky and difficult in the first draft.
Anyway, I’m really excited to be this close to finishing a draft of my first novel. I hope to be done with a rough version of Part 5 by the end of the summer. And since I’ve been editing the other parts as I’ve gone along, there isn’t a tremendous amount of work yet to be done, relatively. (I’ve been working on the book for about two years now.) If all goes well, I should have a decent draft of The Hyphenates of Jackson County finished by Spring 2012. Here’s hoping anyway. It’s not like I’m on deadline or anything.
In other news this past month:
-“The Current State of the Universe” is featured in the new issue of The Cincinnati Review. The story won their Schiff Prize for Prose last year, and I’m very excited to make it into this journal.
–Prairie Schooner accepted my review of David Philip Mullins’ Greetings from Belowfor publication. This will be my third review for PS, where I’m also currently a senior fiction reader.
-On cue, my second review for Prairie Schooner—of Nadifa Mohamed’s Black Mamba Boy—appears in our current summer issue. Check it out. It’s a pretty good one. (The issue, I mean. (The review is okay too.))
-In April we learned that Kwame Dawes was coming in as the new Editor of Prairie Schooner; in May we learned that Managing Editor James Engelhardt was leaving. James secured a position as the acquisitions editor for University of Alaska Press, and leaves for Fairbanks early in June. (Actually, today I think.) I owe a great debt to James for all he’s done for my editing and reviewing career, if I can call it that. James took me on as a reader after I received my MA from Creighton. I was looking to maintain some involvement in the literary world, and volunteering for Prairie Schooner has been a great anchor for me. After a year-and-a-half, I made my way up to a senior reader position; PS accepted my first book review, after some editorial help from James; my first two trips to AWP came with funding assistance from PS as well. I feel very grateful for what Prairie Schooner has done for me, in giving me the opportunity to work, particularly as someone who isn’t otherwise involved in the English Department at the University of Nebraska—and I owe much of that gratitude do James, I believe. Best of luck to him and his family on their Alaskan adventure! (And additional thanks for the fact that now, when I think of Alaska, I won’t think of Sarah Palin.)
-This blog featured a longish post about researching the lynching of Will Brown, and coming across a great NPR feature about the execution of Willie McGee and his granddaughter’s quest to find out the truth about him many decades later.
Dispatch from The Hyphenates of Jackson County
“Jacob returned to Omaha the same morning President Wilson arrived from St. Paul. It was only partly coincidental it happened that way. Jacob was planning on coming back to Omaha that week anyway, to visit his friend Reinhold Bock, and then he read in the papers that Wilson was to arrive by train to the Union Station early Monday morning, before giving a speech on the League of Nations that afternoon. A parade route was planned out where Wilson’s car would meander the city. When Jacob read this, he went down to the station in Lincoln and got a ticket to Omaha for the next morning. He bought himself a suitcase too, at the store there that sold them. It was something simple, with cardboard sides, that didn’t lock. It wouldn’t have to last forever. Jacob didn’t know what he was going to do—he had no plan for the next year, or month, or for the next three days for that matter—but he wanted to see the president. He’d find a spot on Scandal Flats and wait for Wilson’s car to pass by. It felt like it would be significant to do that. Jacob didn’t know why. He just felt he needed to see the man. He needed to see the man as a man, that was it.”
Personal Rejection Notes, Requests for More, and Other Nice Versions of No Thanks
West Branch for “On a Train from the Place Called Valentine”; Southeast Review and Conjunctions for “Attend the Way”; Missouri Review for “Shame Cycle.”
Just Finished
The Cailiff’s of Baghdad, GAby Mary Helen Stefaniak. An excellent historical novel about racism and confronting the Other in depression-era Georgia, with a detour to the more famous Baghdad in ancient times. Very well done.
Quarantineby Rahul Mehta. I really enjoyed this collection—which revolves around the lives and loves of second-generation, homosexual, Indian-Americans—and will be reviewing it.
We went to a book party for Timothy Schaffert’s new novel this weekend, and had a great time, even though our stay was brief. We were there for the hors d’oeuvres, but missed out on the near-tornado. (You can win ’em all.)
It’s really been fun to watch the outpouring of enthusiasm for Tim’s work. In addition to writing, Schaffert directs the Nebraska Summer Writers Conference, founded and runs the (downtown) Omaha Lit Fest, teaches at UNL, is the interim Fiction Editor for Prairie Schooner, and, I can only assume, rescues confused kittens that have become trapped in trees. He’s probably the preeminent novelist in Chalco too. In short, he’s a great advocate for writers and writing, and I couldn’t be happier for his success.
Some news to report today, as Prairie Schooner accepted for publication my review of David Philip Mullins’ debut short story collection, Greetings from Below. The collection comes from Sarabande Books, and was selected by the fabulous David Means as winner of the 2009 Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction. It’s really a pretty good book, by an Omaha writer–he’s ours now, anyway–and I urge you to check it out.
Unless things move quicker than normal, the review should appear in an issue early next year. This is my eighth review selected for publication, the third that will appear in Prairie Schooner.
Here’s some cool news from a couple weeks ago, as Nebraska/Iowa writer Mary Helen Stefaniak received a Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for her latest novel, The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia. MHS is a beloved professor at Creighton University and she deserves all the accolades she can get.
As described by jury chair Henry Louis Gates Jr. in the press release:
The 2011 Anisfield-Wolf winners are notable for the unique way each author addresses the complex issues of race and cultural diversity. […] The books and authors honored this year stand out, not only for their creative and wide-ranging approach to difficult subject matter, but also for their underlying faith in our shared humanity.
Pretty important stuff, huh?
MHS will be honored at a ceremony in Cleveland this September, where she will hobnob with the other winners, such as Nicole Krauss, and jury members, like Joyce Carol Oates and Rita Dove.
Great going, Mary Helen! This is really awesome. We’re so happy for you.
So, long-time friend Darren Keen (aka The Show is the Rainbow aka Bad Speler aka Touch People) is getting married in a couple weeks. A few weeks after their hippie wedding, Darren and his bride-to-be Lacey will embark on a ten-month, international honeymoon, wherein Darren will tour with his three bands. It’s pretty mind-blowing. The trip includes three U.S. tours, three New Zealand tours, and two European tours–all of them pretty much back-to-back-to-back-to-back…
You can also volunteer to help Darren and Lacey out on their epic trip via the link above. If you play in a band, or know a promoter, or a good venue, bar, or basement to play at, please put them in touch with Darren. (Darren has played bathrooms before; he’s very open to new ideas.) Or, if you have a couch or spare bed they could use, that’s cool too. Or, if you just want to spread the word about this, please do. This is a DIY tour, so I’m sure they can use all the help they can get.
Late yesterday evening “The First Night of My Down-and-Out Sex Life” was accepted for publication by noted literary journal Confrontation! Based out of Long Island, Confrontation has been running since 1968 and has published seven Nobel laureates and helped launch numerous careers over this span. And now they’ll be putting out my work too!
“The First Night of My Down-and-Out Sex Life” is part of a series of short stories that I’ve been working on the past couple years. The story is set in popular local tour spots like Sokol Underground and a dorm at UNL, and features a band called The Zapruder Films. It is not autobiographical, however, for anyone who might be wondering. The other stories in the cycle include “The Man Who Never Was,” which was in Weekday last summer, “Kleinhardt’s Women,” which was on Fogged Clarity in December, the currently available “On a Train from the Place Called Valentine,” and a story I’ve rewritten more than a handful of times but have never made work called, at present, “The Mercy Killing of Harrison Kleinhardt.” It’s been a lot of fun to work on these stories, to reference and overlap them, and I’m glad that now two of them have found good homes. Also, “First Night” will be my first published work that’s written from the point-of-view of a woman.
As for the numbers, this is my 14th story accepted for publication, and will be the 17th short story publication overall, counting stories that were anthologized. My first pub was in the spring of 2007, so that’s not a bad four-year stretch to begin with.
UPDATE: My review of Nadifa Mohamed’s novel Black Mamba Boy has been scheduled for the Summer 2011 issue of Prairie Schooner! This will be my second published review with PS.
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It sounds like Flatmancrooked will be running my story “The Housekeeper” in their web journal next Wednesday, January 19.The story will also be featured in their upcoming print fiction anthology, Flatmancrooked 4, which is currently at the printers and should be hitting mailboxes before winter ends.
The first half of 2011 is shaping up nicely. My story “How to Die Young in a Nebraska Winter” will be in the spring issue of The Kenyon Review, in the next couple months I’d wager–no matter what Unadilla Bill has to say–and “The Current State of the Universe” will be published by The Cincinnati Review in May.
“Welcome Home” originally appeared in Boulevard and was anthologized in Best New American Voices 2009. So another round of thanks is in order for Richard Burgin (Boulevard editor), John Kulka and Natalie Danford (BNAV editors), and Mary Gaitskill (BNAV guest editor) for getting this story out into the world. Thanks!
Theodore Wheeler 