Friday, January 31, 2014

Entry # 198 - J. C. Elkin Interview - World Class: Poems Inspired by the ESL Classroom.

J.C. (Jane Cynewski) Elkin 
World Class: Poems Inspired by the ESL Classroom
February 1, 2014 - Book Launch
J. C. Elkin

About J.C. (Jane) Elkin

A graduate of Bates College and Southern Connecticut State University, Jane Elkin is the founder and facilitator of The Broadneck Writers’ Workshop, as well as a theater critic and essayist for the Bay Weekly. Her poetry, fiction and non-fiction have appeared in such journals as Kansas City Voices, Empirical, Kestrel, Off the Coast, Ducts, and anthologies by the Harvard Bookstore and River Run Books. She is a Pushcart nominee and has won awards with the Maryland Writers’ Association, Poetry Matters, and the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. A self-proclaimed Renaissance Woman, she works as a language teacher, singer, and handwriting analyst.



Jan:    Tell me about this collection of poetry. What inspired you to write these?

J. C. Elkin:     World Class: Poems Inspired by the ESL Classroom is a collection of fifteen poems, mostly narratives in accentual verse, illustrating the struggles and triumphs of adult English language learners. It addresses not only their linguistic challenges and culture shock, but broader social issues, as well, such as poverty, spousal abuse, religious traditions, illegal immigration, lost opportunities, the role of women in other cultures, and the mental scars of war. Their stories are heart-breaking, uplifting, and tinged with unexpected humor. Through their eyes, I have come to see our world and their place in it in a new light, and I wanted to share my understanding with the rest of America.


Launch Date - Feb. 1, 2014
Jan:    What has amazed you about the process of writing and publishing?  

J. C. Elkin:    It all happened so fast! Once I wrote the first poem, which I had been stumbling over as a failed prose piece for over a year, the rest of the poems tumbled from me like ripe pears from a tree. The collection was complete in two months. Then I submitted it to one well-researched publisher and received my acceptance letter within six weeks.


Jan:    You teach ESL classes which for those who might not know, ESL stands for English as a Second Language, and you sing with The Renaissance Singers of Annapolis. How does singing and teaching influence your poetry?  

J. C. Elkin:    Great question! As a singer and language teacher, I am very attuned to the intonation and stress patterns of spoken language, and I incorporate these observations not only into my language lessons but also into my poetry, in both formal and unstructured works. I could no more turn off the innate rhythm inside me than I could stop breathing.


Jan:    Do you have any tips to share about how you've prepared for your book launch, signings and interviews?

J. C. Elkin:    Shameless self-promotion, as an acting friend of mine calls it, requires organization and chutzpah. I’m not especially nervy, but I believe in my book and enjoy talking about it. As a former librarian, I have the organization part down pat – 80 requests for literary journal reviews have so far yielded six positive responses. WRNR in West Virginia interviewed me last week, and I’m meeting with Lisa Morgan of WYPR’s The Signal this week. In addition to my book launch at The Annapolis Bookstore on February 7 at 7pm, I have readings scheduled at Zu Coffee in Annapolis on Feb. 28 at 6:30pm and at the Broadneck Public Library on April 29 at 7pm, and three private stores so far have agreed to carry my book. Alumni associations, civic organizations, schools and churches are all potential markets for this book, so I set aside a little time each day for promotional emailing. I see this as a long-term venture, not just a book release blitz.



Jan:    What do you think about entering work in poetry contests? Does it help or hinder the process for you? 

J. C. Elkin:    I enter a lot of inexpensive poetry contests and have been richly rewarded by the experience: 1st place from the Poetry Society of New Hampshire’s quarterly contest and consecutive 2nd places from the Poetry Matters Celebration contest, an organization that subsequently invited me to be a judge and the keynote speaker for this year’s awards ceremony in Evans, Georgia. Last year, I also had two honorable mention poems in Third Wednesday Literary Journal, which was especially gratifying because in that same issue there were several non-winning poems by a critically acclaimed and best-selling novelist/poet. It made me realize that everyone has their shining accomplishments and that not even the masters consistently turn out masterpieces.


Jan:    What is the best advice about writing and publishing poetry that you've received and what advice have you chosen to ignore? 

J. C. Elkin:    The worst advice I ever received about publishing poetry, (advice I paid for), was to completely change the format of the poems in my chapbook. That editor has a bias against accentual verse and rhythm in general. Obviously, I ignored her in that regard, but I did heed her advice to incorporate more poetic techniques into the narratives.

The best advice I ever received was to just trust in my work and submit, submit, submit.


Jan:    Thanks for taking time for this interview and finally - how can readers get a copy of this collection or contact you at your website?

J. C. Elkin:    World Class is now available at www.apprenticehouse.com
Once it is released February 1st it will also be at The Annapolis Bookstore, the bookstores of Anne Arundel Community College, St. John’s College and Bates College, and through Amazon.com. Other vendors are yet to be determined.

Below are links for Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The publisher, www.ApprenticeHouse.com hasn't yet posted it, I suppose because it isn't technically available until Friday, January 31st. 
 and
Visit Jane's webpage at
=========================================

About Jan Bowman
Winner of the 2011 Roanoke Review Fiction Award, Jan's stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Best American Short Stories, and a Pen/O’Henry award.  Glimmer Train named a recent story as Honorable Mention in the November 2012 Short Story Awards for New Writers.
Coming Soon - Mermaids & Other Stories
A recent story was a finalist for the 2013 Broad River Review RASH Award for Fiction, another story was a 2013 finalist in the Phoebe Fiction Contest; another was a 2012 finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest.  Jan’s fiction has appeared in numerous publications including, Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, The Broadkill Review, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes and others.   She is working on two collections of short stories while shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection, Mermaids & Other Stories.  She has nonfiction publications in Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at: www.janbowmanwriter.com or  visit blog:  http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Entry # 197 - "How Does It Feel? Showing Emotion"


Delaware - 2013 - Photo Credit Jan Bowman
Showing an emotional response is one of the more difficult things for a writer to capture on the page. Every day we go through a range of emotions and show them to others in subtle or not so subtle ways and yet when we sit down to put a character's emotional life on the page we can find ourselves wandering into the land of clichés or reduced to naming the emotion.  

For example, how does a writer successfully show grief, guilt, sympathy, or hope? How can a particular emotion be identified without the author actually naming the response?  What does gratitude or fondness or sympathy look like when we observe it in the real world? How does a writer know what an experience feels like if they haven't lived it? I am struggling with these questions and others as I revise a couple of new stories.

I returned to Ann Hood's wonderful craft book, Creating Character Emotions hoping to find techniques so that I can approach characters emotions in fresh compelling ways that allow readers to get what's happening without the writer or the narrator intruding on their process.  I find in my own recent work I do a better job with some emotions than others. For example I can get at responses like fear, worry, anxiety and surprise on the page, but I have a difficult time getting at hate, hope, sympathy and despair. I am not sure why that is the case and I don't have time to sit down for a therapy session so I consult with Ann Hood's book, hoping for insights. Hood gives attention to 36 specific emotions that are common to characters in fiction.  She names them, provides examples of unsuccessful attempts and follows with samples of interesting writing that does a masterful job of describing an observable or internalized response.

So how do you render emotional responses with words and gestures? Hood says that . . . "Perhaps it sounds simple to imagine and match up an emotional state of my own with one I want my character to have, to change a few details to capture the emotion exactly, but it is not so simple." She suggests that it helps to notice that even within a given emotion, like anger, there lies a spectrum of possibilities or degrees of intensity. Knowing what a particular character feels comes from truly knowing who the person is and what drives them. It comes from using concrete details, point of view, as well as action and gesture to show a specific character's emotional response.  
"I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions."  --- James Mitchener

=========================
About Jan Bowman
Winner of the 2011 Roanoke Review Fiction Award, Jan's stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Best American Short Stories, and a Pen/O’Henry award.  Glimmer Train named a recent story as Honorable Mention in the November 2012 Short Story Awards for New Writers.

A recent story was a finalist for the 2013 Broad River Review RASH Award for Fiction, another story was a 2013 finalist in the Phoebe Fiction Contest; another was a 2012 finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest.  Jan’s fiction has appeared in numerous publications including, Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, The Broadkill Review, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes and others.  
She is working on two collections of short stories while shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection, Mermaids & Other Stories.  She has nonfiction publications in Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at: www.janbowmanwriter.com or  visit blog:  http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com


Friday, January 17, 2014

Entry # 196 - "Plan to be Published"

It helps me to remember that Muriel Rukeyser is reported to have said something like, “A writer should never submit to anyone! So I don’t submit. I offer.”


I have posted these thoughts previously but it helps to be reminded about the difficult business that writers must face when they put their work out into the world.

As a writer I have collected more than a few rejection slips for work submitted to a wide range of literary journals. And not necessarily because the work wasn’t good. Happily, I’ve also gotten some lovely “We loved it” letters, but for every acceptance, I’ve gotten at least 30 non-acceptances.  If you’re a writer new to this business, it might be useful to know that while you will wish to be published and hope some editor likes your work, the hard, cold reality is that your artistic offerings will receive and survive rejection. Even famous writers get “No Thanks” but probably not as often as the rest of us. As a writer you must develop a tough skin to help you deal with the “Not for us” or “No Thanks” that cuts your ego a bit.  These  often arrive in your own self-addressed envelope on a thin, ragged, coffee-stained 1/4 page of cheap paper, a mass-produced rejection letter. AND don't count on a speedy reply from journals. In fact my recent posting - Entry # 193 describes receiving a packet (January 2014) that returned two stories that were sent out to a (now non-existent) journal way back in 1995. Take heart. You must plan to be published - eventually - because someone out there will get what you’re trying to do. And they’ll finally have budget and space for your work. In this economy even that can have an impact on your publication dreams.

So when you’re sending out work that you think is ready for publication, it helps to remember that you need a plan, just as you do with most things. Read a range of literary journals. Think about whether any of your work would fit with genre, style, setting, narrative style, length, or theme.
Send your work to publications you enjoy reading. Many good publication samples can be found at your local library, book store or online. Subscribe to 2-4 of your favorites and develop a target list of 5-10 markets that you’ll send your work. Send your work out to those markets first to see if you are a good fit. Your goal is to have your work published in one or more of them within a set time period of - say -  2-to-5 years. (Yes. I did say years!)
In addition, various Writers’ Market Books provide lists of magazines,  you’ve never even imagined existed, with lists of deadlines, requirements, and guidelines. Editors will tell you that they’re looking for a reason to say no, because they get hundreds and even thousands of manuscripts each month. So be sure to follow their posted guidelines. If they set a 5-page limit and you send them 10 pages - they won’t even read it. If you use font sizes of less than 12 - they won’t ever read it.  So really pay close attention to posted guidelines, as well as the “needs” and “advice” sections in these listings.  Most editors are looking for interesting, new and different work. Send your work to the appropriate editor and make sure they’re still employed there.  Colleges and universities have regular staff turnover.  
Keep your submission simple. Send a short two-paragraph (max) cover letter.  Don’t tell them anything other than the title, word count, type of work (fiction or non-fiction or poetry), and your name and how to contact you. Avoid telling them about your story. They’ll figure it out. It’s what they do! They  read and consider if your work is ready and suitable for their particular journal - and whether they have any more space for it. This post was published as Blog Entry # 31 on December 23, 2011.

About Jan Bowman
Winner of the 2011 Roanoke Review Fiction Award, Jan's stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Best American Short Stories, and a Pen/O’Henry award.  Glimmer Train named a recent story as Honorable Mention in the November 2012 Short Story Awards for New Writers.

A recent story was a finalist for the 2013 Broad River Review RASH Award for Fiction, another story was a 2013 finalist in the Phoebe Fiction Contest; another was a 2012 finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest.  Jan’s fiction has appeared in numerous publications including, Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, The Broadkill Review, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes and others.   

 She is working on two collections of short stories while shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection, Mermaids & Other Stories.  She has nonfiction publications in Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at: www.janbowmanwriter.com or  visit blog:  http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com
Facebook:  janbowman.77@facebook.com


 


Friday, January 10, 2014

Entry # 195 - "As Long As It Takes"


Joan Silber has a wonderful little book, The Art of Time in Fiction: As Long As It Takes published by Graywolf Press (2009) and I would recommend it to anyone who writes fiction. Silber writes with authority and insight about the ways writers must attend to time as they develop plot. She writes about complex issues with concise prose in brief chapters that are accessible to the expert, as well as novice writers.  

Silber begins by examining the classic use of time in fiction. She follows with intriguing chapter titles such as:  Long Time, Switchback Time, Slowed Time, Fabulous Time, and ends with an essay on Time as Subject. 

Joan Silber is the author of six books of fiction, most recently The Size of the World (Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Prize in Fiction) and Ideas of Heaven (Finalist for the National Book Award and the Story Prize). Her stories have appeared in the New Yorker, two O. Henry Prize collections, and The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction. She's known for stories that leap over long blocks of time, and this led her to write The Art of Time in Fiction. She lives in New York and teaches at Sarah Lawrence College. Her website is joansilber.net.
This tiny pocket size book was one of Graywolf's The Art of . . . Series Edited by Charles Baxter. Most of these were previously published as essays and then expanded for the series. These gems belong in the writer's library of useful reference books whether one is a fiction or nonfiction writer or a poet. 
Among others in The Art of Series are:
Subtext: Beyond Plot by Charles Baxter
Time in Memoir: Then, Again by Sven Birkerts
The Ending by Amy Bloom
Description by Mark Doty
The Poetic Line by James Longenbach
Attention: A Poet's Eye by Donald Revell
Syntax: Rhythm of Thought, Rhythm of Song by Ellen Bryant Voigt
The Art of Recklessness by Dean Young
============================ 
Jan Bowman’s work has appeared in Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, Broadkill Review, Trajectory, Pen-in-Hand, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes, and others.

Winner of the 2011 Roanoke Review Prize for Fiction, Jan's fiction has received an Honorable Mention in Glimmer Train's November 2012 Short Story Award for New Writers and a recent story was finalist for the 2013 Broad River Review RASH Award for fiction, another story was a 2013 finalist in the Phoebe Fictions Contest. Her stories have been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, Best American Short Stories, O’Henry Awards, and a story was a finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest.

Coming Soon - Mermaids & Other Stories by Jan Bowman
She is working on two collections of short stories and shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection, Mermaids & Other Stories.  She has nonfiction work published in recent issues of Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at:    Blog:  http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com
Email: janbowmanwriter@gmail.com

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Entry # 194 - "Sheldon Lee Compton Interview"


Sheldon Lee Compton's Interview with Jan Bowman was originally published in Trajectory, Fall 2012, Issue 5. 
Sheldon Lee Compton
Jan:  Recently I read your powerful story collection, The Same Terrible Storm, so I thought we could start by talking about those stories.
Sheldon:  Thanks for reading the book, and many thanks for saying you consider it powerful. I’d be happy to talk some about the stories.
Jan:  How did you go about selecting and organizing the twenty-two stories included in The Same Terrible Storm?
Sheldon:  I had more or less been writing regional stories, stories of Eastern Kentucky and the South, for a long period of time, say from 2006 up through the spring of 2008. And by this, I mean exclusively. Then at some point in 2008 I started noticing some solid work online, particularly flash fiction. I had written stories of this length before, but now I wanted to write outside the boundaries of the South or Eastern Kentucky. The shorter form seemed to allow me this in some way. When it was all said and done, I had an assortment of stories that needed separating. When I did this, I had the longer form, regional stories with a mix of flash that was also regional. I combined them and tried to give the reader an up and down of long then short, as best as I could.
Jan:  I noticed you have ten first person and ten third person point of view stories. And some stories have characters with the same names. Were these stories intended to be part of a longer work? Is there some significance in this narrative structure?
Sheldon:  If I said I had a structure in mind in that sense, I’d be lying. I can say I noticed many of my stories were in first person, and so pushed myself to write in third and other points of view. Some stories were at one time bits and pieces of a novel I had written and shelved some years before, but these were few and greatly altered by the time they were finished.
I may have thrown the same name on some characters here and there with a connective thread in mind, but it’s not a notion I followed up on. Once the idea of a linked collection of stories was set aside, I just left the names. Where I’m from a lot of people do have the same names, common names, and so it seemed natural enough.  
Jan:  Second person point of view stories require a delicate balancing act, because it’s easy to slip into a tone that accuses and may cause readers to abandon a story. Although two of the stories in The Same Terrible Storm, a flash fiction, “Lesson” and the longer work, “Place of Birth” are written using a second person point of view, I admired your ability to maintain a balance in both stories. Can you talk a bit about your decision to use second person to tell these two stories.
Sheldon:  When I was in a workshop with author and editor Kirby Gann in Louisville, he made a comment about a second draft of a couple pages of mine by saying I could well have split personalities. I knew it to be a compliment. And, even if I had been confused, he went on to say I had an ability to move in and out of voices well. Around this same time I came across a collection of stories called Rest Area that were all written in second person. I liked it, liked the idea of that voice and challenge, and wrote “Place of Birth” while working at a hospital.
Jan:  Let’s talk about your story, “Intruder” which is a fascinating imagining of the final day of writer Breece D’J Pancake’s life before his suicide. The style is different from other work in this collection. In fact it is much more in Pancake’s style of writing. Given that your work explores the same desolate landscapes, scraped raw by the coal mining industry, it seems a sort of homage to Pancake. What’s the story behind the story of this piece?
Sheldon:  A grand writer and grand friend of mine, Jarrid Deaton, turned me on to Pancake at some point and I became increasingly interested in this man’s life. At first it was just Pancake, the writer. But, before long, it was Pancake, the man. The person.
I can’t deny that Ray Carver’s fine story "Errand" wasn’t a large part of my beginning the story. It was a story Carver had written about his favorite writer and Pancake was, and still is, my favorite writer. Ego-mania? Possibly. Not that it was implied, but I wrote the story as tribute to Pancake. The story came to me over the course of two days during a hard time in my life, most of which I was drunk and didn’t care if the world just melted away while I slept. If Chekhov is worthy of a story of tribute, then certainly Pancake is the same, in my mind. I only hope this story reveals enough, seeks enough, to at least bring more interest to this man’s work.
Jan:  The young in these stories yearn to escape the ruins of place, and yet their loyalty to the landscape and to family holds them firmly, somewhat like butterflies fixed on a pin. In spite of terrible odds there remains a dignity in your characters, even in the face of extreme violence and poverty. Let’s talk about your experiences, your Kentucky roots. How does that help you make those connections between your characters and your readers?
Sheldon:  I’ve lived most of these stories at one time or another. That’s the connection. There’s no obscure tightening of the story itself, only the basic questions of character, narrative, style. Everything else has been laid bare for me. And that’s fine with me, and for whatever stories there are to come.
We all make sacrifices of life, faith, and love, hate. Mine are found in my written word. I’ve never been a fan of confessional writing. Everything is confessional writing, even popular fiction. It all tells a story about the storyteller. I have eaten dinner after waiting for the nerve ticks to die in a chicken’s brain. I have spent an evening in the dark of a living room dying, wondering if my child was safe. I have seen the face of a coal miner, his eyes rolled back, and seen him when sober at the next day’s work. And I found that what I once thought was blind, [was] without insight. I have been down and from that view comes these kinds of stories. There are millions of them, these stories. Listen to anyone who is willing to share one.
Jan:  If you were to describe your idea of the perfect story, what elements would it have? And which story in your collections comes closest to realizing the image that you had in your mind when you began to write it?
Sheldon:  A perfect story takes you out of this world and into another. That has most very likely been said before, and should be said another time and another. The means by which each writer gets there may differ, of course. I have never set out to accomplish this, but I do write for myself first, and others after that. I take myself back to those times, or forward, depending on my mood. If there’s a story that takes me away into the past, I allow it, and if there’s a story that boldly takes [me] into the future, I follow. The story in the collection that most did that for me was “Purpose.” I allowed myself to step aside for this story, to allow the characters I had chosen to act it out, to speak freely and openly, and take whatever direction they wanted. I followed. I rarely elevate these kinds of feelings and resulting actions, but this is not the case for me in this story. I allowed Brown Bottle, the main narrator, to take this story from my hands. He did well, and I thank him, and trust him.
Jan:  How did you connect to your publisher, Foxhead Books, for your story collection, The Same Terrible Storm?
Sheldon:  I’m not sure how many writers can say it, but it I was contacted by Foxhead Books for a manuscript. I suppose many writers can say that, but count me among them. Stephen “The Rock” Marlowe sent me a note asking if I had a manuscript. Of course I did. Sometime later I had an okay to move forward with the pages, which became The Same Terrible Storm. I was blessed that Stephen had seen my work and sought me out to provide something to Foxhead, where I’m as comfortable as a writer can be.
Jan:  What are you working on now? And what do you see yourself working on a year from now?
Sheldon:  A year from now, who knows? That’s the Buddhist in me, I guess. But I have submitted a second collection of stories, titled at this time as When Alligators Sleep. Day-to-day, I work on a novel titled forever and nevermore, as Brown Bottle. I love Brown, but he keeps going places I never thought to give. There are briars and tanglevines. He wants to go the hard way, and so I follow.
Jan:  What were your favorite childhood books? Do you still have them? Ever reread them?
Sheldon:  My favorite books as a child were the Childhood of Famous Americans series at my local library. My dad, good Lord rest his soul, took me there when I was six or seven and I started checking out the whole series. I wanted to be a football player, a botanist, a naval captain, all in the same summer, depending on what book I was reading at the time. Pretty soon I settled on being a writer. I wrote a couple stories, showing them to my dad, who said I had potential. I was inspired.
I started buying books by Stephen King and writing stories in the horror genre. My dad was happy. When I was twelve, he made me throw all my collected books into a creek near the house. But he gave me my start and for that I’m grateful.
Jan:  What are you reading now and what are you planning to read next?
Sheldon:  I’m reading In the Devil’s Territory by Kyle Minor now and have Knockemstiff by Donald Pollack on my shelf up next. I hope they both knock me out.
Jan:  What book had the greatest impact on your thinking and writing life?
Sheldon:  Two books:  The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake by Breece D’J Pancake and Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje. The first showed me I could write about my region without falling into sentiment, and the second showed me the wonders of lyrical writing. I had a thought after reading these two books, the thought being that perhaps I could write about where I’m from in a lyrical style without falling short. We’re not all Mark Twain, I suppose. Some of us are part Twain and part Dickens, and that’s all right by me.
Jan:  Is there a book on writing that you’d recommend to any aspiring writer?
Sheldon:  Stephen King: On Writing. King places storytelling in the foreground with this book, the first time I’ve seen that done really well in a book about writing.
Jan:  What is the most useful advice you’ve ever received and what advice have you chosen to ignore?
Sheldon:  The best writing advice I’ve received was after I let my uncle read a short story I had written when I was twelve. An accomplished Appalachian poet, my uncle took the mini-workshop seriously and told me that a town the size of the town in my book (based on my hometown of Virgie, Kentucky) may not be a town big enough to place an airport in. He taught me, in that one comment, about the suspension of disbelief, and how you can’t get by with certain things in fiction. Maybe in truth, but not in fiction. I’ve rarely outright ignored advice, unless it was calculated. For instance, if a fellow writer ever told me my subject matter was too this or that. Fitzgerald said we all have one or two great themes, and mine has been set in stone. If anyone or anything compromises my advancement of that theme, I’ll set it aside.
Jan:  Thank you for taking the time for this interview. I look forward to reading more of your work. 
Chris Helvey, Editor/Publisher of Trajectory said this about Sheldon Lee Compton.   www.trajectoryjournal.com
Sheldon Lee Compton is one of the most honest writers working today. He rips the truths of our lives out from their hiding places and jams them in our faces. Below is a brief quote from one of his stories from his new collection The Same Terrible Storm. We believe this brief taste will leave you hunger for more from this fine young writer.

From Bent Country excerpted from The Same Terrible Storm: I steadied myself on the embankment. Below, down the hooknose incline of brush and gravel, ran the tracks, glinting like a school of silver fish running in the moonlight to chase the C&O. I stood carefully, leaned my head back so it was only me and mother-fish moon in a blanket of black, and pissed loudly.

Sheldon Lee Compton lives in Eastern Kentucky. His collection of short stories, The Same Terrible Storm, (2012) was published by Foxhead Books. His work has appeared in numerous journals and been nominated for several awards, as well as anthologized on many occasions. He is a past founder and editor of three literary journals. To learn more, visit bentcountry.blogspot.com.

=============================
About Jan Bowman
Winner of the 2011 Roanoke Review Fiction Award, Jan's stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Best American Short Stories, and a Pen/O’Henry award.  Glimmer Train named a recent story as Honorable Mention in the November 2012 Short Story Awards for New Writers. A recent story was a finalist for the 2013 Broad River Review RASH Award for Fiction, another story was a 2013 finalist in the Phoebe Fiction Contest; another was a 2012 finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest.  Jan’s fiction has appeared in numerous publications including, Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, The Broadkill Review, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes and others.   She is working on two collections of short stories while shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection, Mermaids & Other Stories.  She has nonfiction publications in Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at: www.janbowmanwriter.com or  visit blog:  http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com          Facebook:  janbowman.77@facebook.com










Friday, January 3, 2014

Entry # 193 - "Oddly Enough"

 
Photo Credit - Jan Bowman - October 2013
Last week's snail mail brought a mystery envelope from somewhere in my past. Oddly enough - two short-short pieces of fiction that I wrote many years ago were returned to me in my own SASE from some unknown, unnamed, and unidentified journal. Yes, I always included extra postage knowing that the post office whimsically raises postage, but it still required another 32 cents in postage which the sender had so kindly added. Years ago I had removed this submission from my records. I assumed the stories had fallen into a black hole.

I am left with a mystery. I did notice that both had been printed on the old dot-matrix printer that I had more than fourteen years and two printers ago. There was no note of any kind and the packet was mailed from Michigan, but the postmark was too smudged to read.

Both of those pieces were eventually expanded into longer work, polished and published years ago. Why did anyone bother to return them?

I am imagining various scenarios for this submission. Perhaps someone died and whoever cleaned up the boxes of old submissions sent to this person's beloved, but defunct journal, decided to finish unfinished business for this person as a final act of love. This is my favorite explanation.

Or perhaps someone lost it and found it while doing a clean up and decided that returning it was the honorable thing to do, but they were too embarrassed to say more. Or perhaps this journal was run by "the slowskees"(that turtle couple often seen in careful contemplation in an internet commercial on TV) and this was a timely response (for them) of "no thanks." And this theory works (for me) because turtles wouldn't write a heartfelt reply to me. They can't write.

I share this story for all of the writers out there who send out work. Anything can happen to it. Sometimes a rejection letter is a good thing. At least you know what happened to the work.
Coming Soon - Mermaids & Other Stories
=======================
About Jan Bowman 
Winner of the 2011 Roanoke Review Fiction Award, Jan's stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, Best American Short Stories, and a Pen/O’Henry award.  Glimmer Train named a recent story as Honorable Mention in the November 2012 Short Story Awards for New Writers. A recent story was a finalist for the 2013 Broad River Review RASH Award for Fiction, another story was a 2013 finalist in the Phoebe Fiction Contest; another was a 2012 finalist in the “So To Speak” Fiction Contest.  Jan’s fiction has appeared in numerous publications including, Roanoke Review, Big Muddy, The Broadkill Review, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato Eyes and others.   She is working on two collections of short stories while shopping for a publisher for a completed story collection, Mermaids & Other Stories.  She has nonfiction publications in Trajectory and Pen-in-Hand. She writes a weekly blog of “Reflections” on the writing life and posts regular interviews with writers and publishers.   Learn more at: www.janbowmanwriter.com or  visit blog:  http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com Facebook:  janbowman.77@facebook.com