I asked a lot of my favorite writers to contribute to Necessary Fiction in this, my month as writer-in-residence. Writers whom I’ve long admired for the “wildness” of their writing and by that I mean: daring, surprising, open. Steve Himmer said it very well in his kind introduction, that reading my book, Wild Life, was “like spotting a bear in the everyday space of my own yard.” The work I’m featuring this month did the same for me, over and over again. Expect a diversity of styles, voices, forms in these pages in December. There will be short stories, flash fiction, poetry, art, photography, interviews, reviews and maybe even a lyric essay for good measure. I am very honored by this opportunity Steve has given me and by the kind participation of the talented artists who gave so generously of their work.
Below is just a taste of what you can expect in the coming days. I hope you are as knocked out by the beauty, strangeness, wildness of the work as I was:
“Did you think a pencil drew a horizontal where the sea became the clouds?” ~ James Robison
“The caveman filled the cave to overflowing: tiger ribs, petrified branches, reflective rocks, feathers of burnt purples and reds.” ~ Randall Brown
“I stare out the window hoping people will think I’m looking at something normal like a sunset, but the truth is I’m sure I can see Damien, silent today, because he knows I’m one of them and doesn’t want to tell me about two-headed turtles or pigeons suspended in free fall; he doesn’t even wave hello.” ~ Jenny Halper
“Something or other begins to take shape within the loose blow of his days.” ~ Scott Garson
“mister bill you don that ski mask, we all gone to war” ~ Dennis Mahagin
“All of this happened in Inconsequential, Oklahoma, for whatever it’s worth.” ~ Robert Lopez
“Oyster watch the feet, wash the feet, tanning breaks of water.” ~ Joseph Young
“In court, he could not care less about the woman who was unable to make amends with her husband, and who weekly drapes herself across his grave and claws at the earth, fills her fingernails with sod.” ~ Chad Simpson
“At last, she pulled open the ancient ironing board and crossed through to the other life.” ~ Ellen Meister
“It was the head of a child or a small person with its eyes closed and with short curly hair.” ~ Marcus Speh
“I can see his ailing pickled heart sitting in a laboratory glass jar on a top shelf too high to reach.” ~ Robert Vaughan
“If they were too cold to live I rolled up my body with a lot of dying birds in the nest I created between my belly and breasts and thighs.” ~ Daphne Buter
“the wish for sprawls of field so deep, so white the eyes must turn away, a need for something more than sun” ~ Sam Rasnake