Happy birthday, Paula!!

Today is my bestest best friend's birthday. My BFF, as my teenaged daughters might say. But she really is. Paula is one of those friends you can go three months without talking to, and when you do reconnect, you just pick up where you left off as if not a day had passed.

Paula and I met in sixth grade. We went to different schools, but our two elementary bands came together for concerts twice a year and Paula and I were the tall, skinny blonde flutes (with a crush on the drummer) who wore big plastic glasses and had long straight hair. Somehow we sensed an affinity even then.

When we got to be eighth graders, we started playing in the Junior Band in the high school and sat beside each other every day. Together we thought up Fantasia-like images to go with the music we played and occasionally I would draw them to make them real. She gave me a nickname--I'd always wanted a nickname--Mur. I was her first friend ever to have a step-parent. I was probably also her first friend ever to live in such modest, modest means.

When I turned 15, my stepfather took a job as groundskeeper at the local country club and we moved into an empty hundred-year-old farmhouse on the ninth fairway (after moving out all the bales of hay and bags of fertilizer) that was only about 100 yards from the green. Golfers frequently "played through" my flower beds and occasionally my parents' bedroom. Paula's mom worked at the clubhouse (was it Wednesdays?) and she came with her most days. Summers found us crashed poolside. Summer evenings we would prowl the empty course and clubhouse and see what telling abandoned objects we could discover, what vending machines we could get to dispense, and then tell our secrets sitting on the diving board, swinging our legs and staring into the deep end. Two large trees on the practice range became our respective "houses" and we would call each other on our twig phones and talk about our fabulous husbands and children (twins, of course, a girl and a boy). Did we have jobs in our imaginary futures? I can't remember.

As we got older, we went on double dates, performed in school plays, agonized over boys, shared hotel beds on school trips...and shared secrets. Always. We had slumber parties--oh, how I loved her happy, raucous family--and "shopped" our way through every Sears catalogue that came in the mail, drooling over what we wanted, decrying the "geeky" stuff (gag a maggot!). We both watched helplessly as someone we loved gave in to the lure of alcoholism.

Today, we share parenting joys and trials, a love of good, wholesome food, strong and meaningful (but hard-won) relationships with our respective spouses, and absolute devotion to family and friends. Paula is my bosom buddy, my bestest, best, and if I could say one thing to Paula today (actually, I've already called her and talked for an hour and a half, but you know) I would say this: "Honey, you...are my shining star--don't you go away." ;)

I love you, PaJane!

THE SPECIES CROWN by Curtis Smith

In June of this year, Press 53 released Curtis Smith's most recent short story collection titled The Species Crown. Smith is also the author of the novel An Unadorned Life and two previous short story collections, Placing Ourselves Among the Living and In the Jukebox Light. This was my first chance to read a book of his, but it will not be the last one I read. I so enjoyed this collection.

Some of the stories in The Species Crown are lighthearted, always a nice touch in short story collections, which can tend to be a bit on the dark side. One of my favorite stories was "My Totally Awesome Funeral" first published in Hobart. Although written in the first person, there's a wonderful twist of an implied directive, the storyteller directing the reader to celebrate his passing--when the time comes. Here's a sample: "Drink another just because you can. After my wife and son have gone to bed, let the hardcore partiers hijack me for one last ride--shotgun!--and no matter the season, roll down the window and let the wind lash my hair." It manages to be a raucous celebration of death that makes the reader smile. How often can you say that about a short story?

Another story I especially liked was "The Real, True-Life Story of Godzilla!." It's a third-person tale of Billy Glenn, a washed up semi-pro basketball player who gets conscripted to join a Team America style group that will play throughout Japan. When that ship runs aground, Billy--because of his height--finds work playing Godzilla in grade B films. He finds love, then loses it unexpectedly and ends up spending his days searching through the eyeholes of his Godzilla costume, looking for lost love.

My very favorite story--I'm certain of it--was "Vacation in Ten Parts." The descriptions put me right smack in the middle of a floundering marriage desperately attempting to find its footing in the shifting sands of the Caribbean. The supporting cast of characters all ring true as fellow desperados on a flight to or from somewhere--no one is quite certain. The second-person lyricism throws it all in high relief: "Study your wife through the fine scrim of mosquito netting. Peaceful, her slumber, her legs tangled in crisp, white sheets, the cotton ripe with the ocean's briny scent."

This collection is so rich and varied, so skilled in the many different voices, locales, and points-of-view, that I was sad when I reached the end--always the sign of a great read.

Ron Currie Jr.

If you read one review for my friend Ron Currie's just released book God is Dead, read this one. It's an excellent, insightful review and the reviewer clearly "got" the book. Go Ron!

No Reason Not To

I have a newly published story up at the lovely e-zine Southern Hum!

The Help McSweeney's Sale

Visit and buy.

St. Thomas, UVI

I am in St. Thomas for a coral reef conference that begins tomorrow. I love the Caribbean, but I've never been to any of the US Virgin Islands before. It's like being in the Caribbean with none of the non-US hassles. US currency, US outlets...it's such a lovely place and the people have been very welcoming and kind.

I'm struck by the fact that the Caribbean has become more of a melting pot than the US. I've met Austrians, Dominicans, Antiguans, Egyptians, all making their homes in St. Thomas. This morning I went out to gather supplies for the next few busy conference days, snacks, drinks and fruit to keep us going for the week. (The director of ITME is also here--together we are representing the school--he's presenting later in the week.) I'm actually really thrilled to be here and looking forward to the many informative talks scheduled. I'm going to take notes for my fiction, which is frequently about marine-related subjects, or set in a marine environment.

I've decided that this will be the niche that I pursue in writing--marine ecology fiction. The Rick Bass of the oceans, that's what I'd like to be.

Radical Gratitude and Other Life-changing Lessons from Siberia

My first book (and my co-author's first book, too) has been sold! And it goes to Allen and Unwin in Australia. I am so thrilled. The editor is a dream to work with and the writing is going really well. You can read a bit about the book at my agency's website: Blake Friedmann.

Here is a link for viewing my charming and lovely agent Isobel Dixon.

And my good friend and co-author, Andrew Bienkowski, has his page here.

Topsy the Elephant

Stephan Clark has an excellent new short-short up at LA Weekly. You can read it here. And you should.

Ray's Road Review

A new ezine has launched, Ray's Road Review and I am thrilled to have a story in the inaugural issue alongside Cliff Garstang, Sandra Novak and Carl Moore! (And poetry by Beebe Barksdale-Bruner.)

LOTTERY by Patricia Wood

Perry L. Crandall would like you to know that he is not retarded. Retarded would be 75 on an IQ test, and he is 76. Besides, Perry takes care not only of himself, but also of his Gran, a crusty, no-nonsense woman who loves him for who he is and lets him shine his light through his own accomplishments. (She tells him the L in his name stands for Lucky.)

Perry describes his life in simple and succinct sentences that manage to be full of wonder and surprise. As he speaks, we see all too clearly the many ways in which his nuclear family has failed him, but Perry never sees it that way. His glass is always half full. Shoot, his glass is three-quarters full--it only looks half-full to those of us too blind to see things the Perry Crandall way. And it's this innocence and optimism that makes his family betrayals all the more heartbreaking to the reader. We want to crawl into the book and protect Perry from the vultures, especially when he faces the biggest tragedy of his life.

But Perry insists he doesn't need protecting, and he proceeds to prove it us and to the three remaining people who care the most about him: Gary, the owner of Holsted's Marine Supply who has employed Perry since he was sixteen years old; Keith, Perry's heavy, flatulent, potty-mouthed co-worker; and Cherry a young, tattooed and pierced cashier at the local Marina Handy Mart.

When Perry wins the Washington state lottery we learn just who his real friends (and real family) are. His mostly estranged cousin-brothers come knocking, strangers arrive on his doorstep...and we hope--oh how we hope--that Perry can learn to distinguish the friends from the leeches.

There is so much to love about this big-hearted first novel. The characters are rich and real and alive. Perry's voice is fresh, authentic, consistent, and homespun-philosopher-wise...and then, there's the ending. Oh, the ending! The ending is so unexpectedly perfect and poignant and satisfying. I keep trying not to write, "Keep a box of tissues handy," but, well, keep a box of tissues handy. You'll need them. But--to use another cliche--you'll be smiling through your tears.

Whale DNA proves illegal "bycatch"

New Scientist has published an article about how DNA technology is being used to establish the number of Minke whales being taken illegally in North Korean waters.

PEN World Voices

Mark Sarvas over at The Elegant Variation has a wonderful wrap-up of PEN's World Voices conference, including panel summaries, videos of readings, photos and lectures.

The Writer Profile Project

This week Kelly Spitzer profiles Jason Shaffner on her literary blog.

Help Support Free Speech

Writers' Showcase

Kelly Spitzer's newest Showcase is now live. The Showcase

THE LINE PAINTER by Claire Cameron

Carrie, the protagonist of Claire Cameron's debut novel The Line Painter, is consumed by grief after the sudden death of her boyfriend Bill. She takes off in Bill's car, headed, she decides, for the western reaches of Canada. Friends and family, worried--both about her state-of-mind and for her safety--call repeatedly on her cell phone, leaving messages that give us, as readers, insight into Carrie's plight and hint at a darker reason for Carrie's sudden departure.

In a remote area, north of Lake Superior, Carrie's car breaks down in the middle of the night. She hasn't passed another car for hours, her friends and family have no idea where she is, her cell phone can't find service, and most immediately pressing of all, she has an overfull bladder. Universal law dictates that as soon as she squats, headlights appear. But--no ordinary headlights--these belong to the truck of a line painter. In the remotest regions of Canada, Frank works the night shift, alone, tranforming dingy grey road lines into bright white reflective ones, with the help of millions of tiny glass beads suspended in the paint. He offers Carrie a (very slow) ride into the nearest town.

Carrie, we soon realize, is an enigmatic character: she takes up smoking again, because it seems like the thing to do; she tells us she tried, earnestly, to make herself "grow up" by moving in with her boyfriend, wearing suits, and playing house; and she alternates between extreme naivete and a heavy world-weariness. At times, Carrie's inability to distinguish real danger from imagined, her impulsive attempts to establish control over the situation, and her refusal to face her problems are a source of readerly frustration. But as the story unfolds, her doubts and anxieties begin to make perfect sense. By the end of the book, I was captivated by Carrie's experiences and by her heart, which was larger than I ever expected. The layers of guilt, regret, grief and loss that emerge in the last third of the book expose the beating heart of this unusual story.

At it's core, I believe that The Line Painter is a high concept novel. Like Life of Pi, or The Alchemist, Cameron's novel covers a physical journey--a journey with strange, fantastical elements--that leads the protagonist to a life-changing epiphany. If Life of Pi's high-concept hook is, "Boy crosses the ocean in a lifeboat with a tiger," The Line Painter's hook could be, "Stranded woman gets picked up by a line painter, embarking on a road trip of terror--and ultimately of forgiveness."

COMES THE PEACE: My Journey to Forgiveness by Daja Wangchuk Meston

Daja Wangchuk Meston begins his memoir dramatically with a desperate leap from a third story hotel window in a remote area of Tibet. It's a quick glimpse at a man pushed beyond his limits, unsure of his place in the world, and desperate beyond sense. When he jumped, he fully expected to die.

That was in 1999, and the author had been in the custody of Chinese authorities, suffering long days of interrogation with no sleep, accused of crimes against the People's Republic of China for his work on behalf of Tibetan rights.

The memoir then leaves behind that awful, desperate step--a step that shattered his heels and his life (both of which would take years to mend)--and takes us back in time to his first steps as a toddler on the Greek island of Corfu. Daja was born to hippie parents (Feather and Larry Greeneye) who hoped to leave behind the commercialism of their own American upbringing. When he was one, his parents travelled to India on a whim, and then on to Nepal to attend a Buddhist retreat. It was there, in the mountains of Nepal, that the author's father suffered a debilitating attack of paranoid schizophrenia and disappeared, only to emerge from the woods a week later, disheveled and incoherent. He was sent back to the states (alone) and did not see his son again until decades later.

When Daja was three years old, his mother inexplicably delivered him to a local family (Tibetan nobles, living in Nepal) to raise. For three years he believed they were his real family--until they sent him, alone, at the ripe old age of six, to a Buddhist monastery to take the vows of a monk.

A number of privileged Americans have gone (by choice) to monastic retreats, seeking solitude, respite, and peace. This might lead the innocent reader to assume that Daja's upbringing took place in a peaceful, idyllic setting. The truth is, his childhood was far from idyllic. Thanks in part to his pale skin and blond hair, Daja was treated as an outcast both by his peers and adult monks alike. And the indignities he suffered over the next ten years were Dickensian in scope: sleep deprivation, forced labor, lice infestations, constant hunger, humiliation, beatings, dysentery, alienation and isolation.

He was further emotionally orphaned by a mother who chose, herself, to join the (different) monastic life of a Buddhist nun, shaving her head, wearing robes, and leaving the secular world behind (to include the responsibilities of parenthood).

At its core, this is the heartbreaking story of a lost childhood. It is the tale of one man's lifelong search for identity, belonging, and the welcoming arms of family. And it is difficult to read this book and fathom what the young author endured without feeling angry on his behalf. But the adult Meston refuses to stay in a place of anger and self-pity, searching instead for a path toward understanding and forgiveness. Fortunately for all of us, the redemptive ending brings us full-circle, and--as the title implies--comes back around to peace.

Petroglyphs

While in Arizona, we visited the site of an ancient pueblo that was a thriving community about 1,000 years ago. One of the most amazing sights at the pueblo was the ancient petroglyphs. They moved me--inexplicably--the way the sight of a breaching whale moves me. They expanded my consciousness and the sense of my place in the world.

I can relate to the human desire to leave a mark. Isn't that why I write, after all? To leave something behind that another human might see and relate to? 1,000 years ago I'd have been right there scratching my heart out in the dark rock. Today I scratch my heart out onto my keyboard, but the basic urge is the same.

Of course, as we were leaving, Len and I had to conjure up an alternate scenario, as we often do. We recreated an adoloscent indian coming home with rock dust on his arms and his mother asking suspiciously, "Where have you been, young man? Defacing public property again?? What have I told you about that? What will the neighbors think...you and those crazy scratching of yours. We have to live here, you know..."

Hiking Kendricks Mountain

The day after hiking Bill Williams Mountain, the weatherman promised it would be sunny and clear, 50 degrees and warm with no wind. It was the perfect day to tackle the second highest peak in the area: Kendricks Mountain.

In 2000, lightning ignited a devastating fire on the mountain that burned over the course of several months. The blackened, armless poles all over the ground and reaching into the sky were a tragic reminder of the violence of nature, but in an ironic twist, the lack of trees made for spectacular views. At the base of the mountain, there was almost no snow, but the higher we hiked, the more snow we encountered. At the open area just below the summit, the snow reached its deepest point--about five feet--as could be confirmed by the sign for the trailhead barely peeking out above the snow.

Hiking Kendricks Mountain, Part II

The cabin at the lower summit was used for years by a Ranger who lived there in the summer and kept a horse in a nearby cleared pasture. Every day he rode to the upper summit to spot for forest fires. How's that for an unusual job? The cabin was very small inside--not much bigger than my bathroom at home--and I opted to leave my pack there for the final assault to the upper summit which meant a half-a-mile climb up a 60 degree grade, through five+ feet of snow.

We were so tired by this time, having already hiked for five hours through treacherous, ever changing conditions, but we could see the summit and wanted it in the worst way, so we made the decision to go for it. (The last person to make the hike hadn't. We could tell because his tracks ended at the cabin. But clearly, he hadn't had snow shoes, and what had we lugged them all this way for, if not to make that ultimate peak? So we set out. And we made it.

The day was so clear and warm and beautiful! Such a change from the previous day at Bill Williams Mountain (which we could see in the distance)!Shoot, we could see all the way to the Grand Canyon from up there. It was amazing and gorgeous and breathtaking (and at 10,000 feet, breathtaking has a literal meaning, too). But since it was already 2PM, and we had a long trek down still ahead of us--and the promise of even more slippery slopes as the giant, diagonal drifts across the trail began to melt and give way--we took our pictures, savored our accomplish- ment, and began the long trek down. Just to give you a bit of perspective, that long snowy open area you see in the picture is just the trail to the cabin...there were still five hours down the mountainside to go before we reached the trailhead and our vehicle.