Bean Ball

A while back I promised a bit of my baseball fiction. Here is the beginning of a recent story, "Rain Day".
It begins with our hero splayed out in the batters box, recently beaned by a pitch. It is a position I know well.

Rain Day

Plastered on the ground, Kevin winced and reminded himself that batting helmets don't ring. It must be his imagination. He hoped that he'd also imagined his skin being peeled back and mixed with the chunks of gravel that surrounded home plate. He smelled rain. It was far off, but headed his way. He tasted one of the chalklines. Time dripped.

The coach yelled something from the bench. Kevin decided to stay on the ground for a few more seconds.

Fan Boy!

Just found out that Wilco is coming to town in August. Aieeeeeeeeeeeee.
I am such a fan boy of this band it is embarrassing. Well not really, but, I mean Jeff Tweedy is a genius.
And, well.
Aieeeeeeeeeee.

Okay, I need to focus. Tickets go on sale tomorrow.

Carve

A big woofreakinhoo to get a story into this mag named after one of my literary heroes, Raymond Carver.

Here is the beginning to "Samurai Bluegrass"

Their harmonies teeter on the edge of sweetness and mournful whine. It's that high lonesome sound. The bluegrass band enraptures the pierced patrons, their ghost-white faces tilt toward the stage. I'm sitting in the basement of the Apocalypse Club thinking of dogs carrying severed hands. It's a scene from the Kurosawa movie I watched with my nephew Zack last weekend. I came here because Carol used to say bluegrass gets into your soul.

Read the rest at: Carve

Home roads

I've been on the road this week - back in the motherland (Saskatchewan). Every time I drive these roads I am struck by the landscape. I've waxed eloquent about prairie roads before, so I won't go on and on about it. But I understand why so many of my stories take place in these sort of settings. The huge skies and miles of flatness have a John Ford-ian feel to them and they cry out to have characters placed into them. I know I am dancing close to some pretentious purple prose when I think like this. And I guess that those who grew up in the mountains or by the ocean have similar feelings; home gets inside you. That is the place I go to first when I think of where my characters live. When they look out there windows they see what I saw growing up.

But there are times where I want to break out of that setting and write some urban tales. I did that with my story, "Samurai Bluegrass". It takes place in Toronto, in and around Chinatown. I learned this week that it has been accepted into the magazine, "Carve", which takes its name from the brilliant writer, and literary hero of mine, Raymond Carver.

I believe the summer issue goes live today, so I'll post a link when it's up.

Cheers from the flatlands.

Cormac and Oprah

I watched my first complete episode of Oprah yesterday. The reason: Cormac McCarthy first ever interview on television. I wasn't sure what to expect. I have been amazed and moved by his books, by their bleakness and beauty - what would he be like? What would he sound like?

In the end, it was a decent interview. Oprah might get slagged for some of her inane, cliched questions, but she seemed somewhat respectful. I was left wondering why McCarthy said yes. He is known to never talk about his work, and that did come across as he dodged a few questions, or at least alluded that there was no reason to explore them (ie: the role of women in his fiction).

So I'll leave the media type to sift through the event, or non-event, and make their judgements. What grabbed me was his talking about not wanting to have the sort of job that you just fill in time - it was voiced oddly as "avoiding work". Anyone who writes seriously knows the amount of work it demands. But CM said that we only get one shot at this (life) and he wanted to spend it doing something he enjoyed.
I wholeheartedly agree.

And he has been willing to forgo the materialistic needs of money and stuff, to walk this path. I admire that. Now of course, he did get the Macarthur Fellowship, and with Oprah's help, The Road probably sold a few million copies. Somehow, though, I don't think he is out there buying a big screen TV and a SUV.

Great writer. And he seems like a pretty fine human being.

Another take on the interview