Chthonos: · Letters · from · the · Primordial · Edge

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Robert Olen Butler is guest-judging the Red Room “Scandalously Short Story Contest.” I’m so excited that my short story “Intolerable Impositions” (first published at Bartleby Snopes) has been mentioned among so many fantastic stories. Congrats to the semi-finalists! Here’s the list and mentions…

• Author Vincent Louis Carrella writes the haunting story of the life of an alcoholic ventriloquist and the puppets he loved and lived his life with, in “Magnifico.”
• Author Louise Young writes about the stifling and violent results when there are certain expectations about the private lives of women in a remote tribe in “Beside Crazy Woman Creek.”
• Author Ibi Kaslik masters the realistic, rendering a portrait of a poor American girl neglected by her mother, struggling to make sense of her family and find her place among life’s little kindnesses and cruelties in “Car Nights.”
• Member Kathleen Preston Knight evokes a palpable atmosphere of lonely decay in “Fly Season.”
• A Young Adult writer, Member William Friskey, weaves fifth-grade love and the Challenger explosion into a story about how internal and external events shape a young heart in “Love Letters.”
• There’s a little bit of both Stand By Me and the Hatfields and McCoys in member Erika D. Wilson’s “The Spitwalk Contest.”
• Author Sylvia Petter writes of a man who is approached in a café by a mysterious woman in a burka who wants his used tea bag, in “The Burka.”
• Member Kelly Luce writes symbolic stories about lonely women and their things; this time, a haunting and almost surreal story of a Japanese woman in mourning who takes refuge in the home of a widow-where she has a dream as lonely and grasping as her life, in “Reunion.”
• Member Sandra A Jensen writes of a woman who is waiting for the man she loves, presumably married, to call or see her over the holidays in “Christmas 1987.”
• Author Charles Redner writes about a teenage boy, his favorite pelican, and how his fate is shaped by an environmental disaster straight from today’s headlines in “The Night BP Drove Old Dixie Down.”

In addition to our semi-finalists, there were dozens and dozens of stories that deserve recognition. For example:

• Member Greg Beaubien tells what should be but isn’t a happily-ever-after story about a couple stranded at the end of nowhere and the risks inherent in people trusting you, in “The Road To Banos.”
•  Perhaps the happily-ever-after comes in the form of unexpected romance in member Greg Cox’s “Strangers on a Train,” in which lonely widower finds escape in a movie house playing films that remind him of his youth.
•  Author Carol Cronin records the last moments before a despondent young woman summons to courage to go in “The Last Leaf.”
•  A mystery/domestic drama unfolds in member Cathryn Grant’s story; the narrator may be blind, but she can see more than anyone can think, and may be about to solve a murder, in “Love is Blind.”
• Author Karen Olson writes a short, exciting mystery that seems like it could be tomorrow’s headline, about a senator with a scandal that ends up on YouTube in “Smoking Gun.”
• Author Luke James writes an intriguing cliffhanger that reads like a cross between Camus and Bukowski, as a man gets drawn into a potentially dangerous job by an elderly sailor in “A Sailor’s Tale of New York.”
• Member Jam Hamidi paints a graphic picture of the self-destruction and desperation of a dying marriage in “Comeback.”
• Member Peter Morin provides a glimpse into the mind of an amoral man, who judges women-including his daughter-only by their bodies; he is finally confronted by the daughter he hurt when he left her and his wife to chase shallow fantasies in “All Blues.”
• Member Jerry Ratch writes an entertaining tale of youthful adventure as a young man travels to the Deep South and encounters his first cockroaches and Klansmen in “Driving Through Mississippi in 1964 Wearing a Chin Beard.”
• The mysterious narrator in member Trée George’s moving story “The Child” observes and speculates how war affects the father of a fallen soldier.
• Member Lauren Alleyne tells the story of a boy who can’t seem to tell his mother that the man of the house is hurting him in “The Boy Who Lived in a Glass House.”
• In her dark, atmospheric “Legacy,” member JM Cornwell extends the lineage of a famous tale with a new generation of suspense.
• Member Neal Ross Attinson gets a visit from a Martian who offers an incredible insight about today’s fantasy and sci-fi fiction as compared to the sci-fi of an earlier generation, in the amusing “The Little Green Man Who Didn’t.”

 And we noticed some themes kept popping up, like…

 Sex!

Author Jennifer Ball’s memoir-style “fiction” accurately captures the desperation of “sexually liberated” young women trying to find themselves in North Hollywood in “One Night Stand.”  A young trophy wife realizes she has too much in common with her father’s trophy wife in a perverted and humiliating email snafu in Author Jessica Anya Blau’s “Fishnet.” Read the sincere and funny exchange between the two authors in the comments section of Ball’s story.

Surrealism!

Member Rae Bryant makes literal the metaphor of chewing off one’s arm so as to extract oneself from a one-night-stand in “Intolerable Impositions.” Member Stephen Harris writes about a man who suddenly finds himself being interviewed on a talk show for something he knows nothing about in “Teddy on a Talk Show.” Anup Bishnoi writes a poignant and comedic soliloquy of the special abilities and unique perspective of a slightly odd tree in “Queer Tree.”

Westerns!

Member Will Hiles writes a suspenseful cowboy tale of a mysterious stranger and the woman he couldn’t save in “In the Land of the Dead.” Member Bob Mustin writes about cowboys hot on the trail of Billy the Kid, they think, in “Then the Smoke Began to Clear.” Cynthia S. Becker writes what appears to be a clichéd Western until the delightful surprise ending (trust us—read to the end!) that made it one of our favorites reads during the contest: “The Heist.”

Albanians?

Does anyone know how to effectively translate Albanian into English? Member Kujtim Agalliu courageously translated his story entry, “A Conversation in the Air,” into English, but our (non-Albanian) Red Room editors still couldn’t tell what the story was about exactly. It may be brilliant in its original Albanian and we just can’t tell. Red Room is an international community and while it’s too late for this contest, we want to recognize Kujtim for his efforts and find him a translation buddy.

Originally published at Rae Bryant. Please leave any comments there.

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A big thank you to all who came out to enjoy readings by Lisa Marie Basile and Winona Wendth, comedy by Rachel Bloom. It was a fantastic group.  Lots of fun. We look forward to doing it again. Enjoy these after event photos of D.C. touring with Lisa Marie Basile and Rachel Bloom—White House and the Exorcist Stairs, what more could you want to see in DC? More photos coming soon…

Originally published at Rae Bryant. Please leave any comments there.

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When Moon Milk Review‘s first issue released in February 2010, I thought maybe it would satisfy a few readers’ tastes for the aesthetically off beat, the desire for mixed mediums, the nod to traditional forms. As a writer, myself, I wanted to give back, show off the talents that abound in Small Press-dom. Before long Will Grofic (Poetry Master) and Gabriela Romeri (Associate Editor Extraordinaire) joined up to turn this one-woman effort into a rockin’ version of its former self. Never would I have expected that in just seven short months, MMR would enjoy this rallying of talents and readership.

Then Barrelhouse offered to host MMR for our first ever reading. Bam! No introductions needed. Still, they must be named–Dave Housley, Dan Brady, Mike Ingram, Joe Killiany, Matt Kirkpatrick, Aaron Pease (collectively known as the Barrelhouse Boys, because, truly, they travel in a pack), something like the Outsiders but with looser t-shirts and without the switchblades or the hair grease. Their fantastic and eclectic, “pop-flotsam, cultural jetsam” publication has been a ‘cultural lit with a bent’ mainstay in DC for quite a while now, but the BH Boys wouldn’t stop there.  They’ve become mission central for hip and lit DC in a way that can only be explained as generous and inspiring. Check out the upcoming mags for their Reading Series–Artifice, Rose Metal Press, Supermachine…. at Barrelhouse. Careful, these guys are the crack. Barrelhouse is addictive.

Much love to our uber-talented authors and poets—Mike Allen, Randall Brown, Foust, Britt Gambino, Molly Gaudry, and Penelope Mace. Truly, they each read words drug-laced, and if you can’t tell by the photos depicting a word-high audience, let me tell you, these readings, each one, were beautifully rendered.

You all made this an event to remember. All I can say is thank you, everyone.

Until next time…. Make sure to mark your calendars for the The Mad Hatter Party on October 2nd. Come on out and join Moon Milk Review and Barrelhouse along with our performers/readers–Rachel Bloom, Lisa Marie Basile, and Winona Wendth to name a few. We all look forward to seeing you there.

Cheers,

Rae

Originally published at Rae Bryant. Please leave any comments there.