The event will be at RECESS: 1127 SE 10th Avenue Portland, OR 97214

time tba

My story carries on from Silverfish (avail from Kindle and Smashwords) with a heaping helping of gnarly sex and violence.

In fact, I’ve completed the Silverfish book and am in the process of revising part of it. I hope to have it prepared for agents by, say, Thanksgiving.

Until then, Enjoy a FREE anthology of excellent writing.

What is the title of your WIP?

The tentative title is Silverfish, though that is subject to change. I think it’s a good working title, enough to catch the eye.

Where did the idea for the WIP come from?

It evolved from a seed of memory, an experience I had years ago of living in a dank basement which was overtaken with rats and insects. I was living there as the manager of a halfway house for men recovering from addiction. I discovered the rest as I meandered the narrative wilderness.

What genre would your WIP fall under?

It’s got a bit of science fiction, erotica, horror, and I feel that it’s literary, too. I’ll say it’s cross-genre and/or slipstream.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I’m not concerned with this question. I’m a writer of literary fiction, not a casting agent. I hate to be snippy, but I am only concerned with what I write on the page. Too often, people think that a book is only validated by Hollywood – that is utter crap. I will, however, be glad to take a paycheck if a producer is interested in adapting my work. For today, the book is only a book. That’s the best thing a thing can be.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your WIP?

Humanity is in peril, threatened by a force which has figured out that the best way to gain dominance is to use our demons against us.

Is your WIP published or represented?

Not yet, though parts have been published already.

How long did it take you to write?

I’m still working on it, but so far it has taken two years of my life.

What other WIPs within your genre would you compare it to?

This book is vastly different from my previous book. The first book was very realistic, purely literary, and used a more lyrical voice.

Which authors inspired you to write this WIP?

I’d have to say that Paul Auster was a major influence in this book. He showed me that a literary artist can work in genre, too.

Tell us anything else that might pique our interest in this project.

The novel is told in a series of interconnected stories, each of which stand alone. Some parts are quite long, standing at 70 printed pages.

by Dominique Traverse Locke

Absence is with us. We are here as a result of not being absent. The absent child leaves negative space, its absence is our reminder that it was ever with us. Thus, Dominique Traverse Locke’s titular Goodbye Child inhabits her first book of poetry, released by Aldrich Publishing Company.

A child lost before birth, miscarried, and a child losing a parent, imbalanced and teetering. Also miscarried. Yet, the disembodied narrator, her words and spirit, carry on much as the lost child and lost father survive bodily trauma in their spiritual continuance. The narrator, bled to the page, survives through the alchemy of language and memory, and speaks an echoed hello.

Upon the first reading, the reader is struck by the thematic consistencies between these narrative poems. Traverse-Locke’s verses build on one another, creating increasing tension in their treatment of sorrow and loss, as the narrator has lost both a child to a miscarriage and a father to cancer. Yet, she releases the tension of absence with the introduction of presence: the presence of a lover and the presence of a mother. There is humor, sex, and a haiku. This intra-textual dynamic moves the book past a collection and, in fact, builds a narrative which rises above the mere twenty-five pages of poetry and encompasses the scope of a novel.

The language in the book is plain. A spoken song of loss. The author’s choices seem deliberately vernacular and the objects of the language are so often mundane: laundry, peach preserves, hay. Yet, after the loss of child and father, we find comfort in the pedestrian and are slowed to find simple words where a lesser poet would shoot for linguistic pyrotechnics.

In sum, The Goodbye Child, brings together a series of poems whose sadness, joy, and mundanity add together to show a Southern America which is more than what it appears on the surface, more than the sum of parts. After all, this is the aim of all literary art: to rise above the ink on the page.

The Goodbye Child is available from Amazon.com – or by ordering from your local, independent bookseller.

At times, the world inundates me with butchered language, tangled grammar, lopsided logic, and I forget how reading can be a pleasure. I forget, a little, why I became a writer and think of myself more as a teacher, struggling to amend the ills of a public school system woefully overworked and underpaid. I’ve become hypersensitive to reading, expecting the next sentence to maul me with misspellings, mangle me with moribund metaphor.

But, tonight, I found a 330 word story from Hannah Pass which took me deep into language. “Wolves as Pets,” navigated me into the myths of childhood, the campside horrors and storybook fables. It rose gently to the middle and seared me with climactic flame, then back to earth again, singed by the fiery heat of sexual image and the thrilling fear that the wolves might attack an innocent, a pink small thing.

It’s so short and small, fierce and deep, that it must be read for oneself. Navigate over to SmallDoggies.com to check it out. Or, click here: Wolves as Pets by Hannah Pass.

(edited for the safety and security of my job)

You can find great collections from Darlin’ Neal, Clifford Garstang, Mary Akers, and Meg Pokrass, among others. Press 53 strives to publish and promote literary arts, particularly short stories and poetry. I couldn’t be happier about their continuing support of real literature.

So, do yourself and soldier a favor and get something great to read this summer!

The second project is one which has been a while in the making. I’m starting a publishing imprint called Tentacles Press. I have one novel in the works and I hope to have it in physical form within a month. Here’s my logo:

Next up for the summer will be to start creating a new beverage for the craft bevvie/beer market. I intend to make a non-alcoholic drink worth drinking inside a bar or for a special occasion. Watch this space.

After these projects have found their footing, I may continue with publishing. I’m considering some sort of anthology…??

Hurry up, the deadline is Midnight May 20.