I have a brand new web site. There you’ll find pictures of my family, pets, and book signings. You’ll also learn more about my secod book.
Check it out: www.nevabryan.com.
Excerpt from St. Peter’s Monsters December 2, 2009
Wren remembered the way the water had felt the night she fell in the flooding creek. It had carried her away and covered her until the world grew dim and distant. That seemed a good thing to her now, to be far away from the world. She climbed up on the bridge and pivoted so that her legs hung over the side.
She let her purse dangle between her legs a moment, then dropped it and watched it disappear beneath the current. That was easy, she thought. She looked up at the sky, at the stars. They’re not really angels.
Reprint: Reject Me, Please by Chris Rodell November 24, 2009
November 18, 2009
Reject me, please
By Chris Rodell, a freelance writer and author who blogs at www.EightDaysToAmish.com
I’m nostalgic for the days when I used to gauge my how hard I was working by the frequency of my rejection letters. I knew I wasn’t working hard enough unless I was getting at least one rejection a day. This made sense because if the rejections were coming with regularity it meant that my stuff was being considered elsewhere and would by the law of averages produce a positive result. These days I rarely count on getting either the rejection or the positive result. It’s a Twilight Zone existence where I spend my days yelling down a long canyon and hearing no echoes. After a fun and fruitful decade as a freelance magazine writer, I’m using the godforsaken downturn in that field to sharpen and pitch four book proposals (an upmarket satirical novel, a downmarket non-fiction humor book, a memoir and a fantasy tale about how the world would be better a place if Dick Cheney was a kindly undercover superhero). The general reaction has me thinking maybe it’s time to come up with a fifth book proposal. I spend about half my time sending out fastidious query letters to agents and publishers and the other half wondering why no one bothers to respond. The obvious answer is, of course, I’m a unqualified hack and that my ideas suck.
But there is evidence to the contrary. I’ve worked with some of the snazziest magazines in the country — and I’m talking about ones that still exist and actually lived up to their commitment to pay me. My ideas have earned flattering interest from top ranked industry people who tell me my offbeat stuff’s great, but just not quite right for them. “Just keep pitching,” they say, “You’re bound to find the right person. Good luck!” So pitch I do. I pitch the way the sweaty guys in the locomotive coal pits did when they wanted the train to make it up a really steep grade. I just keep on shoveling. But despite all the evident energy, the wheels on my locomotive just keep spinning. There is no progress. No advancement. I get a real surge of satisfaction after I’ve spent a couple of hours pouring through the top dealmakers at Publishers Marketplace until I’ve found 10 worthy targets and tailored my lively query letters to their specific interests. How can it miss? I never do it like this, but I wake up those mornings feeling like I ought to shave and put on a really nice shirt.
I’m sure two or three of the recipients will respond with hosannas about my proposals, ask to see more or — hallelujah — offer me a contract on the spot. But no one responds. Never. They don’t say yes. They don’t say no. I don’t know whether they got them and are considering them, if they rejected them outright or if they didn’t get them and are sitting there banging their heads on their desks and beseeching, “Why on earth won’t somebody send me a proposal about Dick Cheney in cape!” It’s worse than even prom time in high school when at least I knew by the hysterical laughter that I’d earned yet another rejection. Then there are one’s like this that came last month from a top editor: “Thanks for sending this! I’m going to read it tonight and get back to you tomorrow.” I still haven’t heard back. Has she been abducted? Should I call? Send flowers? Form a search party? If she has been abducted and I succeed in saving her from lost time space ship experimentation you’d think she might look favorably on my proposal — or at least respond to my query with a crisp, “No thanks.” I guess maybe I was raised differently. If someone asks me a question, I answer. I respond to all my e-mails, even ones from students or fellow freelancers who are struggling and seeking veteran advice. I tell them what I can but always include the Bob Dylan line from the 1997 song “High Water” to add necessary perspective: “Don’t reach out for me, can’t ya see I’m drowning, too?” Pity my poor wife. She sees no result and certainly no income. In weaker moments, she counsels that maybe it’s time for me to find what she calls “crap jobs,” as if my professional existence could possibly become any crappier. Bless her heart, she just doesn’t have a clue.
There are no crap jobs and it’s too late for me to pack a lunch pail and head to plumber school. I’m in it up to my neck. The only thing left for me to do is to continue to fail at a more spectacular level. I can’t quit. I have to believe I have good ideas and one of them is soon bound to bear fruit. And on that happy day there will be a grand party. There will be extravagant booze, cigars, succulent seafood and dances of mutual joy until the sun comes up and the band slams the trunks on their battered instruments and heads for home. It’ll be one of the world’s greatest parties. And, by God, you’re all invited. Just be sure to R.S.V.P. It’s only proper.
St. Peter’s Monsters recognized for creativity and originality October 21, 2009
Independent Publisher Online has made St. Peter’s Monsters a highlighted title.
This means IPO recognizes it as one of the best of the books received and reviewed by its editorial staff.
These books are honored each month for exhibiting superior levels of creativity, originality, and high standards of design and production quality.
Writing Exercise for All You Creative Types August 4, 2009
OK, writers. Here’s a stimulating exercise for you.
The next time you go on a trip, write down interesting street names and community names that you discover. Take those names and create a story or poem using them.
Below are street names I found on a recent trip. Feel free to plunder them. I think they would be good used in a child’s poem or story.
· Goose Market
· Fairystone
· Rock Castle
· Indigo Mountain
· Lemon Tree
· Cloud Break
· Goblintown
· Ironbelt
(Tolkien would have liked the proximity of those last two to each other. Very fitting.)
Ready. Set. Write!!!
Literary Readings: Does a small audience curb your enthusiasm? July 29, 2009
Recently a writer I know remarked on his deep disappointment that so few people had shown up for one of his readings. He said he felt “pathetic” and mentioned low book sales.
I advised him to treat three attendees the same as he would have treated 300 and it would still be rewarding.
He agreed that he always mustered genuine enthusiasm for the audience no matter the size, but admitted that he did not feel as gratified when there were fewer attendees.
I would argue that size doesn’t matter. (Get your mind out of the gutter.) I’ve spoken to standing-room only crowds and to an audience of one. Both were satisfying, but in different ways.
When I read to a room full of people, there’s an energy there that rouses the performer in me. It’s fun to read the different expressions on the faces in the crowd. They give me cues as to how to proceed. It’s large-scale interactivity.
On the other hand, when I’ve had only one person show up to a reading, I find myself connecting on a deeper level with that individual. It’s only happened to me twice, but both times I did the same thing. I came out from behind the podium, pulled up a chair to face the visitor, and gave the reading. Afterwards we sat and chatted: small-scale interactivity, but very meaningful.
On one of these occasions the attendee told me that I was very likeable. It tickled her to death that I sat down with her to read and talk.
While literary readings are great opportunities to sell books, I don’t look at them as serving just that purpose. To do so is to diminish the importance of the spoken word.
Yes, I want to sell books. However, I also want to enjoy the shared social literary experience.
The act of reading a book is one of isolation and interpretation. When I’m allowed to read to an audience – even an audience of one – I insert myself into someone else’s world temporarily. And, hopefully, I provide clarity to the story. I give it a voice.
Neva Bryan, author of St. Peter’s Monsters – a novel.
Where to buy St. Peter’s Monsters July 10, 2009
St. Peter’s Monsters is available at these fine booksellers and retail stores: Joseph Beth, Lexington, KY; Family Drug, Lebanon, VA; Coffee Buy the Book, Pulaski, VA; Wise County Historical Society, Wise, VA; Zazzy’Z, Abingdon, VA; Coffee Depot, Christiansburg, VA; Binding Time Cafe, Martinsville, VA; Kraftin’ Korner, Lebanon, VA; Appalachian Arts Center, Wardell, VA; and Tales of the Lonesome Pine Bookstore, Big Stone Gap, VA.
It is available on-line at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books-a-Million, Powell’s Books, and Target, as well as in some stores in the chains. It is available through nevabryan.com.
You may order a signed copy via snailmail. Send $14.00 (plus .70 tax if in VA) plus $3.99 for shipping and handling to: Brighid Editions, PO Box 1428, Saint Paul, VA 24283.
Books are always available during the author’s appearances. See her calendar for an event near you.
Publication Date: February 2009
Price: $14.00
Length: 294 pages
Cover Style: 6″X9″ Color Trade Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-615-26391-5
LCCN: 2008910946
St. Peter’s Monsters is the story of Peter Sullivan, a homesick college student teetering on the edge of alcoholism. He discovers bigger monsters than the bottle when a mysterious young woman enters his life. Wren has fled Peter’s beloved Appalachian hills and now he must find out why she is keeping secrets about her past.
As they turn to each other for comfort, they are linked together in a chain of love, tragedy, and murder . . . a chain that binds them when they find themselves back in the haunted shadows of the Virginia coalfields.
Blacksnake July 10, 2009
“Blacksnake.” Jimson Weed, vol. XXIV, new series vol. 8, no. 2 (Fall 2005).
Blacksnake
Coiled in my path like an ampersand.
My heart beats an ellipsis . . .
Punctuates the sentence of my original sin.
Serpent conjunction links me to my base nature.
What was beautiful about you before you came between
Adam & Eve?
The downside of technology in literary criticism July 2, 2009
When author Alice Hoffman read Roberta Silman’s review of her novel The Story Sisters, the author was not pleased. The review wasn’t stellar but certainly it wasn’t crushing. Hoffman, however, chose to respond in less than gracious fashion.
She tweeted nasty comments about Silman and the Boston Globe, and published Silman’s e-mail and phone number. Apparently that last action was meant as a call to arms: Hoffman fans of the world, unite! Tell off this critic!
Having been a Hoffman fan for many years, I do not feel a sense of unity with any other fan who might have chosen to answer that call before the author withdrew the tweets and issued a tepid apologetic statement.
I’m more inclined to be less inclined to read any future Hoffman books. Had she played the proverbial wet duck, she would be a much more sympathetic figure. Instead, she comes off as a hothouse flower.
There’s a danger in using technology as reprisal. Sometimes it backfires. Anyone who’s ever made a drunken phone call to an ex in the middle of the night knows how it works. Technology used in the heat of the moment equals regret, regret, regret.
Autumn Sacrifice: a pantoum June 26, 2009
Mara mentioned villanelles at Spoken Word last weekend. Here’s a form I like: the pantoum.
It is a series of quatrains; the second and fourth lines of each stanza are repeated as the first and third lines of the next. This pattern continues until the final stanza, which differs in the repeating pattern.
AUTUMN SACRIFICE
Holy ghost mist
Walks on water
In morning’s sacred hour.
Autumn hovers above,
Walks on water
In reflections of the sky.
Autumn hovers above,
Mild, then meek, in wind.
In reflections of the sky
Leaves deny death.
Mild, then meek, in wind,
Branches scratch testaments.
Leaves deny death,
But frosty breath withers.
Branches scratch testaments.
Sun draws blood,
But frosty breath withers
Holy ghost mist.
Sun draws blood
In morning’s sacred hour.
“Autumn Sacrifice.” Poetry. 2006 Explorations, MECC, Third Place.
