Portland Monthly features Wordstock Short Fiction 2008 competition winner "Calendar Girl Arrested, Freed"

Kurt Rheinheimer's 2008 Wordstock Short Fiction Competition–winning story, "Calendar Girl Arrested, Freed" appears in the December issue of Portland Monthly.

But it's comma, comma, comma, comma, comma chameleon over there at Portland Monthly, which features three variations on punctuating the title. We have the online version:

Calendar Girl, Arrested. Freed [comma following "Girl"; period after "Arrested"]

Then there is the title as it appears in the print version:

Calendar Girl, Arrested, Freed [comma following "Girl" and another comma after "Arrested"]

Finally, there is the title as it appears on the contents page of the print version:

Calendar Girl Arrested, Freed [comma following "Arrested"]

So which, if any of these, is correct? That would be the punctuation you find on the contents page of the print version: "Calendar Girl Arrested, Freed" (with the online version being, perhaps, the greatest violator of original intent):

But look at me, getting all hung up over some silly commas and a period. This story is so good it doesn't matter how you punctuate the title, and how many stories out there can make that claim? I could actually apply some simplistic literary analysis to justify each of these variations, and thereby reveal some hitherto-unsuspected genius to some carefully crafted editorial decisions, but Kurt would undoubtedly step in and tell me to just stop it, and stop it now.

To which I say, "OK, I, will, stop, it, now."

A change of pace for The Wordstock Ten: Jacob Aiello’s “Call Me Ishmael”

I’d be tempted to say that the first two stories in The Wordstock Ten are stories of heartbreak. In a way, are not all coming-of-age stories really loss-of-innocence stories? And is loss of innocence not the ultimate heartbreak?

If that’s the case, then a story of return to innocence ought to be a heart-healing one, but in fact the premise is false—there is heartbreak and heart-healing in both rediscovery and in loss of innocence. Jacob Aiello’s “Call Me Ishmael” is exemplary. It’s a story of an incomplete man made whole. I should reach end of this piece in full rejoice, so why is my heart in my throat?

No spoilers ahead, but here are the conditions of “Call Me Ishmael”: The protagonist, a family man in need of a healing experience, solicits a prostitute for (non-sexual) favors that will help him put to rest a demon of his own past with his own mother as he moves forward in his relationship with his own son. I hope that is a both sufficiently vague and enticing synopsis.

There are great touches everywhere: the whale you expect to encounter from the story’s title shows up on the first page of not Melville, but of Rudyard Kipling’s Just-So Stories. The opening scene, a completely seedy street encounter with the prostitute, moves to a surreal, almost-comic, hotel scene with that prostitute, to the final act of supreme innocence. The story moves with ease from scene to scene to wash away any ambivalence you may have felt about the protagonist.

To put it another way, the hero acts out the tenet expressed in Edward Albee’s memorable line, uttered by Jerry in “The Zoo Story”: “Sometimes it’s necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly.” There’s a very short distance the protagonist travels at the end of the story, to simply read to his child a favorite story from his own childhood, but the events preceding that simple act lend all the significance in the world to that final tableau.

Wordstock 2007: The visual

A few photos from Wordstock last weekend.

Paul Brians discussed Common Errors in English Usage in his presentation:


My old friend from high school and all the intervening years, J.otto Seibold, was there. He read from his book, Olive the Other Reindeer:


Which makes him kind of like Laura Bush:



. . . or like former Treasury Secretary John Snow.

But not really. J.otto is not like Laura or John. For one, he luxuriates in the Franklin, Beedle booth:


And he hangs out with Bart King, author of The Big Book of Boy Stuff and The Big Book of Girl Stuff (plus the newly-released reworking of his book on Portland architecture):


Here's one last view of the Franklin, Beedle booth, designed as ever as a living room:

In the frenetic spirit of early George Jones, K.Fann's "Little Herons" follows "The Creek"

George Jones excelled at this sort of thing. In 1962 alone, he had eight albums released on three labels. He was a Zen master of country music—just don’t give him time to overthink the process, and he’d bring home the hit records. Later in his career he had too much time, I contend, to drink and bring in a string section. Quality was the victim.

And so it was that The Wordstock Ten attained its je ne sais quoi, since the ordering of stories was determined by the order I received them and plunked them in for page layout. There was no time for the “concept album” treatment. I was too busy reading, re-reading, sending out and retrieving proof pages to and from authors. There wasn’t time to sit down and look at the big picture ordering of things. Themes . . . transitions . . . segues . . . DEADLINE.

So this raises the question—what if the Tom Editorial Brain (TEB) had been introduced in this process? Would the ordering of these pieces be “better”? Hindsight being 20-20, I can say quite definitively: No, I think not. The core material could withstand any ordering, actually, and this extra bit of effort may have yielded simply a different arrangement, no better and no worse than any other. I think it’s safe to say it wouldn’t have mattered to George Jones, anyway.

So the randomly-appointed second story in The Wordstock Ten was not awarded second prize, but it is—as if some hand of genius were actually guiding the process—another coming-of-age story, one that fits very easily as a twin to accompany “The Creek.” K.Fann’s “Little Herons” is also an American Pastoral, but it brings in heavier elements of the three S’s: surrealism, symbolism, and eroticism. Or hold on—that’s two S’s and an E, isn’t it? How about sensuality? Better.

K.Fann adopts the voice of a young girl who, with her sister, follows a mysterious Huck Finn–type character named Audubon out to a remote place to learn about the enigmatic tar fruit tree. Do I need to add that the bitter, sour, inedible tar fruit gets its sweetness from mixing with human flesh? As the three youths learn together, the fruit will not reveal its delectable secret unless it is licked from the skin.

What does this mean? The symbolism of the tar fruit runs deeper than you may think, and any more about it here may just put ideas in your head. Or further reveal the limitations of the TEB.

Wordstock Short Fiction competition comes of age: "The Creek" by Joshua Michael Riedel

In the end, I was lucky; but I wondered from the start what I’d think of the outcome. I signed on to help judge the Wordstock Short Fiction competition in its inaugural year. An unknown fiction competition could very easily, I suppose, have a rough time of it. Submissions may not be first-rate. You may end up announcing finalists and winners, knowing deep down that you are working with—let’s just say it—thin material.

Nope. Not this competition, not this time. We have ended up with a tremendous collection here, with The Wordstock Ten, and it seems therefore quite appropriate that the story selected as the overall “Best in Show” is a coming-of-age piece, Joshua Michael Riedel’s “The Creek.”

As with all great coming-of-age stories, you’ll read this and recognize your own youth in it. No, I didn’t grow up with a creek behind my house, much less a haunted creek. And my parents were not divorced or even separated. The staid ease of my childhood compared against this protagonist’s may seem enviable.

But this is effective story-telling, and the details of the hero’s life don’t bog down the big-picture, big-humanity effect of the events. The invitation to wander beneath the surface comes out early and strong—the first paragraph introduces the creek as an out-the-backdoor, through-the-window feature of the narrator’s home. In your mind’s eye you want to capitalize the main elements right away: Door, Window, Creek, Home. The Creek is a place where the kids in this neighborhood gather to socialize, make rules, create ritual. The events that unfold are a reminder that the surface has a spirit; the soul is the true wanderer in this world, occasionally trapped in its skin.

Congratulations to Josh Riedel as the first overall winner of the first Wordstock Short Fiction competition. “The Creek” will appear in the December issue of Portland Monthly magazine. It appears now as the first story in The Wordstock Ten, leading off a stellar collection.

When the competition was over and the winners selected, I got to put together the book. The finalists’ names were then revealed to me, and I got to go through this collection with each of the writers represented, fixing straggling typos or other last-minute gilding-the-lily activities. I’ll be writing more about these pieces in the days ahead, but for now I encourage you to go read “The Creek,” and read the other nine stories here (Hey, we outdid Salinger by one—not bad). I’d like to know readers’ other favorite stories in the collection—let me know in the comments or at tsumner at fbeedle dot com.

I've got a secret

Here at Franklin, Beedle + William, James we are all in a fit of rush preparing for the Wordstock Festival this weekend. Yes, we will be there as always, standing by in our booth ready to meet and greet all comers, and--perhaps--strumming a little on the ukes.

I have fond memories of the first two Wordstocks. The first year we presented visitors to our booth with the Common Errors in English Usage quiz, complete with no prizes, and entered names for a giveaway of the now-famous Common Errors Calendar. We played our rendition of "King of the Road" on ukulele, while discerning passersby noticed we did not modulate for the final verse and chorus (one of Roger Miller's favorite devices for creating the effect of having composed a bridge). At the second Wordstock Festival, we premiered Far from the Madding Gerund, the great collection of Language Log posts by Mark Liberman and Geoffrey Pullum, announced by Geoff himself over at Language Log.

This year, among the many things "Wordstock Is . . ." is a Short Fiction competition. The finalists have been posted on the Wordstock site, and the book, The Wordstock Ten, is available at bookstores all around Portland. A big, gigantic congratulations to the finalists:

Jacob Aiello
K. (Kevin) Fann
Samantha Hudson
Matthew Korfhage
Margaret Malone
Tina M. Ontiveros
Pamela Rentz
Joshua Michael Riedel
Rachel Sims
Jennifer Springsteen

I had the pleasure of working on this collection and with all of these authors as we picked away at the pieces to weed out lingering typos or other last-minute changes, so I don't know if you want to take my word for it. My word, for those still reading, is that I'm very impressed with each of these entries. I will be writing some personal takes on each of these stories in the days to come. Watch this space.

The top prize winners will be announced at the festival this Saturday. There is one way to find out who they are even today, but you must be very attentive and know where to look. And that's as far as my secret goes.