December 11th, 2011
Heather Fowler: Suspended Heart – review
Heather Fowler: Suspended Heart
Heather Fowler is Kafka in drag, an American Marquez. If you are looking for a safe little book, one that lines up neatly with other short story collections being published today, then Heather Fowler’s SUSPENDED HEART is not the collection for you. It is a book about the fervor of love, yes, but also about the devastation and danger surrounding such a seemingly pleasurable emotion. What really wins the reader over, though, is the way she tells the story.
The plots in these tales are magical, as in magical realism. Some poor girl in the title story literally loses her heart while down at the nearby mall. The local mall rats first notice it and then finally someone hangs it by a string between Bath and Body Works and Kleinfelter’s Jewelers with the hope that somebody will come and claim it. Couples make sojourns to the organ. If it throbs before them, it means their affections are true; if it stops, their love is false. “There were the rich and the poor, people on holiday, people on Quaaludes, people who drove to Coppendale on their last tank of gas and risked a failed return just to find out what they could not determine from the privacy of their own homes.” And then there are the colorful travails of the girl who lost her heart in the first place.
Fowler’s exquisite use of language means her poetic muse is ever present . . .
November 19th, 2011
North Park
Beautiful picture of our own North Park on 30th Street.
October 16th, 2011
New story in Wigleaf
I’m very pleased to have had my story “Nonnie Wore No Clothes” accepted by Wigleaf. The story is quirky and somewhat fun, though also a little sad, but I love the Dear Wigleaf entries on the site just as much as I like the stories. I had a lot of fun writing one of those.
October 8th, 2011
So Say We All’s Masked/Unmasked
I read recently for So Say We All, a great arts organization in San Diego that does all kinds of wonderful things for arts, for kids, and for the community. Justin Hudnell, So Say We All’s Executive Director, a young guy and a writer himself, has brainstormed this wonderful artists haven only in the last two years.
The performance I was in was actually a reading/photographer’s exhibition called Masked/Unmasked, and featured the wild and wonderful work of two female photographers in the area: Adrienne Hughes and Rebecca Webb.
I was pleased to read with an all-women cast: Yesi Padilla, Rebecca Moos, Laura Leisinger, Stacy Dyson, Ikoi Hiroe and Heather Fowler.
September 20th, 2011
Bread Loaf 2011
I also got to go to Bread Loaf Writers’ Conferencethis summer. What fun rooming with my pal Katrina Denza! Now there’s a sly sense of humor. We both had a great time. I worked with the amazing writer Charles Baxter, who’s also a truly excellent teacher. He helped our group get right to the heart of whichever of our stories we were talking about, discussed whether there was enough tension, whether we had really gotten to the theme and “unpacked it” as well as we could have. I appreciated it that he was a true teacher—friendly, but he stuck to the point and really taught us. He helped me a great deal with my novella, and was very generous with his time, meeting with each member of our workshop outside of class to go over the manuscript more and to answer questions. Jerry Gabriel was the fellow in our workshop and was also quite generous and helpful. His own absorbing and well-written collection LOST BOY recently won the Mary McCarthy Prize for Short fiction. He’s down-to-earth, personable, and because he got sick during the last night of the conference when we were supposed to have a meeting, went so far as to talk to me long distance from Hurricane-Irene country. We had to cancel a few times because his power was out, and finally talked to me a month later, and very insightful about my novella. Katrina’s workshop was with Luis Urrea, a past fellow San Diegan. She was very pleased with the insight he had for her story. There were so many wonderful readers at Bread Loaf I can’t go into them all. But Urrea might have stolen the show. No manuscript in front of him, he told us his story with a lot of animation and the excitement of someone with a great tale to tell. Wonderful. I’d gone to Bread Loaf once many decades ago and was what was called at the time a waitroid. I had some good experiences then, too, especially with John Irving as my workshop leader for another manuscript. Such a gifted storyteller and also kind about taking the time to offer helpful criticism. But I was much younger then and much more paranoid about hierarchies and not fitting in. This time I felt very relaxed and couldn’t have cared less about other people’s parties. There were a group of us writers who knew each other either from other conferences or from having interacting online, so it was fun to meet up.
July 3rd, 2011
Dorland Mountain Arts Colony
For years I’ve wanted to go to Dorland Mountain Arts Colony in the hills above Temecula, California. I finally got to go this summer, and I was thrilled. Unlike other colonies I’ve gone to and thoroughly enjoyed, this one is on the West Coast and only an hour from where I live. And only an hour or so from the San Diego Airport if you want to fly in from somewhere else and take a shuttle. I had (and still have!) visions of being able to run up there every time they have a cancellation since they’re so close. Some of my East Coast and Southern friends can do that with colonies near them. BTW, Dorland is accepting applications now. I’m just about to turn mine in.
The place was every bit as beautiful as I hoped it would be. It’s remote and isolated, yet close to the town of Temecula. The people who run the place are talented artists themselves and fun to talk to if you feel like talking to anyone. Jill Roberts, the colony manager, is especially warm and helpful. The painter Robert Willis has been the Artist in Residency for something like 19 years, and if you talk to anyone who’s ever been there, his name comes up quickly. Janice Cipriani, a painter and his wife, is a good artistic soul, too. I had my own lovely “cabin” sitting on a hill and looking through canyons and mountains and over the lights of the Temecula Valley. I say “cabin” in quotes because I live in a cottage in San Diego and it was almost as big. Lovely large rocker on the front porch to write on. I had a very productive time while I was there, but unfortunately came down with pneumonia and had to leave after a week. Dorland was kind enough to give me a rain check for the rest of my time, and I hope to go back at the beginning of June.
In the meantime, I’m writing an article about Dorland that I hope to finish soon. It’s about the place’s origins, people who’ve gone there in the past, and the BIG FIRE. Will post when finished.
June 20th, 2011
Social Media & Me
I use as much social media as I have time for, but I confess to having a very full-time teaching job at Mesa College, so I can’t be involved as some people are. If I were more involved, I’d have even less time to write. I just had my website overhauled with some help from me. The wonderful team at Monkey C Media in the South Park area of San Diego know everything and are SO creative. I haven’t had a blog before, but I hope to write on it at least a couple of times a month.
What kind of social media do you use?
June 15th, 2011
New Blog & Me
I’m a fiction writer living in San Diego, California. Currently I’m finishing a collection of connected short stories set in my little pocket of town—North Park. The book is called WHAT HAPPENED HERE, and spotlights a two-block area, all the quirky neighbors that reside there, and a major incident that happened here thirty years ago. The stories are from the points of view of various folk who live here, how the incident that happened affects or doesn’t affect them, and their own dreams, goals, and problems. Even though these are typical city dwellers that don’t know each other too terribly well, their lives start to overlap as the years go by and they start to get to know each other a little. Their thoughts about other folks in the neighborhood are illuminating as well as funny in that what they know is based on guesswork from the details they see about their neighbors.
I’m also about to send out a collection of flash fiction called THE WHACK-JOB GIRLS. The title comes from one of the stories included and the collection highlights, well, some pretty whacky gals.
