Contributor Update, Tayari Jones: An American Marriage

Today we are happy to share the news of past contributor Tayari Jones. Tayari’s latest novel, “An American Marriage,” published January of last year, is continuing to gather awards and nominations. Already a 2018 Oprah Book Club Selection and a notable book from both The New York Times and The Washington Post, the novel most recently won The Lost Angeles Times and Festival of Books’ Fiction Prize. “An American Marriage” follows a young African-American woman as her husband is wrongly accused of a crime and sentenced to twelve years in prison.

 

More information about the LA Times’ award can be found here and Tayari’s novels here. S[r]’s interview from Issue 2 can be found here.

 

Congratulations Tayari!

Contributor Update, Katie Cortese: “Four Pink Plus Signs” in Gravel

Katie CorteseToday we are thrilled to share news of past contributor Katie Cortese. Katie’s essay, “Four Pink Plus Signs,” has been included in the November 2018 issue of Gravel. You can read Katie’s essay in their website here. Congratulations, Katie!

Katie’s story, “Sugar Coat,” can be read in Issue 2 of Superstition Review.

 

Contributor Update, Kat Meads: New Book

We are happy to announce that past contributor Kat Meads from Issue 2 has recently released a new novel called “Miss Jane: The Lost Years.” Congratulations Kat!

Contributor Update
Contributor Update

Click on the link below to check out Kirkus Reviews book review on Kat’s new novel:

A “sharp and pointed tale … incredibly relevant to today’s reckoning with powerful men’s sexual abuse of the women around them.”-Kirkus Reviews – Miss Jane: The Lost Years

Contributor Update: Tayari Jones 2018 Oprah Book Club Pick

An American Marriage Cover

We are pleased to announce that Tayari Jones’ An American Marriage, a New York Times Best Seller, has been selected for Oprah’s Book Club.

Tayari was interviewed via phone by Oprah. The interview can be read at “Oprah’s New Book Club: An American Marriage by Tayari Jones” and is a wonderful exchange between the two women and offers insight into the writing of An American Marriage. There is a reading guide available though Oprah also.

Tayari was featured in Superstition Review Issue 2. The 2008 interview discusses The Untelling and writing and is well worth the read.

Congratulations Tayari

Contributor Update: Brian Doyle

Today, we here at Superstition Review want to take time to mourn the loss of past contributor Brian Doyle, who passed away in May at the age of 60. Brian’s writing first appeared in Issue 2 of Superstition Review, and he later became a frequent guest post contributor for our blog. Author Brian DoyleWe will always remember Brian’s abundant generosity.

We were grateful for the announcement of the release of his book Eight Whopping Lies and Other Stories of Bruised Grace, which he was working on at the time of his tragic death. In this collection of essays, Brian writes about the “I love you” that goes unsaid, the brooding shadows in our hearts, and finding God in the unlikeliest of places. We are honored to have been given the opportunity to read and share his extraordinary tales with the world, which left a legacy of love and compassion that will not be easily forgotten. Eight Whopping Lies and Other Stories of Bruised Grace

Purchase a copy of Eight Whopping Lies and Other Stories of Bruised Grace from Franciscan Media here.

Click here to read Brian’s guest posts for our blog, and here to read his essay, “Welcome Home Dick Queen!” in Issue 2 of Superstition Review.

 

Contributor Update: Tayari Jones

Good afternoon, dear readers! Today, we are thrilled beyond reason to announce that former contributor and fan favorite Tayari Jones has a new novel coming out next year, titled “An American Marriage,” which will be put out by Algonquin Books. Jones has previously penned the novel titled “Silver Sparrow,” and was featured in the Interview section of our 2nd issue here at Superstition Review. “An American Marriage” is available for pre-order here, and the aforementioned interview can be read here. If you’d like to get the news straight from Tayari herself, sign up for her mailing list here.

The stunning cover for “An American Marriage” by Tayari Jones, out next February from Algonquin Books.

Contributor Update: Barbara Crooker

Hey there, readers! In the most recent bit of good news that’s floated by Superstition Review’s open windowsill, we are immensely pleased to announce that past contributor Barbara Crooker has a new book out called “Les Fauves,” which has been published by C&R Press. “Les Fauves” is a collection of ekphrastic poems that utilize the works of the Fauve and Post-Impressionist in order to move through the world, both as it is given and as it is withheld. Crooker’s poetry was featured in the Poetry section of our second issue, and can be viewed here. Go check out some reviews and order yourself a copy of “Les Fauves” here. A hearty congratulations to Barbara Crooker, and as always, feel free to let us know what you all liked about “Les Fauves,” as well as the rest of Crooker’s poetry, in the comments section down below.

Buy this book!
The cover for Barbara Crooker’s new book of poems, “Les Fauves.”

Guest Post, Matthew Blasi: The Many Lessons of Barry Hannah, Part 3: Break it Down

Here’s a thing. Finish your story and print. Then read that sucker out loud. Does it sing? Does it have rhythm? Have you driven all music from the mouth? Even the best of us run a few sentences to bedlam. Myself, I used to whittle, say, five thousand worn down to three. I believed I’d done the piece justice, a day’s good labor. From there, I believed, there would be little in the way of heavy editing. Just a bit of spit shine here and there.

But think back to my last essay. A good spit shine is neither about whittling nor bulking. Those are just the crude transactions we make upon the page. No, a good polish only comes through purposed editing, a thorough break down of every sentence to better fit it to the writer’s natural rhythms and voice. It’s less the work of rough demolitions, more a careful tailoring. I got another name for it. I call it filling.

Barry Hannah was the master of filling. Take a gander at this excerpt from the Tennis Handsome:

Barry Hannah B&W

Please,” begged Word. “Something to eat. But no coon, no turtle, no snake.”

 

Daryl went to a wooden box and lifted out a whole cabbage. He walked to the cot Word lay on and slammed it down into the empty pit of Word’s belly.

 

Word lost consciousness.

Note the second sentence of the second paragraph. A lesser writer might be tempted to trim some of the fluff from that sentence—“the empty pit of”—to get what many of us seek: tight, concise sentences. But such a cut destroys the music, the tone. The threatened clause lends a layer of detail to the scene, informs us on Word’s condition, his gauntness, his privation. When taken with the dialog it’s altogether pleasant medicine whose effect is felt in the belly, the ribs. The next sentence, broken into its own paragraph, is effect. Word blanks out. So too the narrative eye, switching lenses in the following paragraph to the abusive captors until a sudden shift sends us back.

Filling must be used cautiously. That’s about as close to a hard rule as I like to get on it. But I’ll go a step further: filling must be used to preserve the natural rhythms of the storyteller provided it does no harm to narrative functions (plot progression, character development, and so forth). That’s a good deal clunkier than I’d like but you get the idea. Filling’s not about the length of the sentence. It’s about delivery, tone, rhythm. It’s about music. No coincidence music played such a big part in Hannah’s life and stories. The man understood that a good ear for rhythms and melodies, pitches and refrains and all the many parts of a good tune make for a perceptive writer. And mind, I don’t mean perceptive in the traditional sense, that of the eye, the voyeur. I’m talking something else entirely, an awareness of and fondness for space, for sound. I mean a real love for the music of human beings, human things.

What makes Hannah’s work so unique is the abundance, the clarity of the man’s music. It’s in every sentence, rich but never saccharine. Good writers pull it off once or twice per book. Hannah threads it in every sentence. In the strictest sense, his beats are up tempo, somewhere in the range of one hundred and ten, twenty. Unlike Baldwin, Hannah is pure rock and roll, aggressive and driven and rarely cacophonous save for the finer moments of entropy. Late in The Tennis Handsome Mr. Edward, father to French, struggles to get his mind straight. He’s got animals upstairs, a naked wife, beauteous. He’s got noise. He leaves on a rather apt note:

“Mr. Edward’s eyes went shut again.

Olive, the music.”

But here’s a thing in closing. I don’t think such music is beyond the ken and craft of other writers. We can learn from Hannah, take his lessons to heart. We may not have Gordon Lisch but we have Hannah himself. We can break his sentences down, figure out the notes, the melodies. We can ask ourselves probing questions. Where is my music? Where are my notes?

Guest Post, Mimi Schwartz: Second Act

It’s never too late to be what you might have been – George Eliot

Mimi SchwartzWhen I was fifteen, I saw South Pacific and, imagining my name in lights, I signed up to audition for Play Pro, my high school drama club. But before my name was called, I chickened out, fleeing to the bathroom. My best friend, performing Juliet’s balcony speech, was just too good.

That was that, I thought—until a friend, fifty years later, asked me to join OnStage, a group of closet actors, all over 55, who met weekly with a director named Adam.[1] “We learn theater techniques and do documentary theater,” she said. Which meant gathering stories from the community about senior memories and experience and performing them at libraries, schools, senior centers, hospitals— “whoever wants us.”

I’d just retired from fulltime teaching and this sounded like fun, something different —with “scripts” more like stories you tell over lunch or hear on a bus. What do I have to lose? I thought. The pressure of youth was off.

Every Wednesday afternoon, at the Community Room, I do theater games like becoming a watermelon to my partner’s grapefruit, each of us conversing with our one word –“Watermelon!” “Grapefruit!” “Watermelon!” “Grapefruit!”—saying them loud and soft,  sexy and timid,  fierce and giggly. A whole range of emotions, just like that.

I like morphing into someone else, sometimes younger, sometimes older—all is possible.  I like moving my body on stage, feeling braver than I did at fifteen. And I like how audiences connect to our stories as if we were telling theirs.

Take the large, wild-haired grandmother at the Metuchen Library, who came to see “You Win Some, You Lose Some” –-about everything from losing your false teeth on the subway to dating after 60, to end-of-life decisions. Afterwards, in a lively post-show discussion, she told everyone: “The beach week story is just what happened!” She pointed to me (I had played the grandmother). “Like you, I didn’t want to go to beach week again. Like you, I told my daughter that the bed too uncomfortable. And then she, too, dialed my grandson.” I tried to explain it isn’t really my story, but she ignored me, “How can we say no, right?” She delighted in having her story validated, and I delighted in her delight.

A week later, on a roll, we enter an assisted living/nursing home, our first. Wheelchairs, maybe thirty of them, are lined up. Some residents are sleeping; most are just staring straight ahead. No one except the aides seems to interact with anyone else, and talk is about rearranging wheelchairs. Please God, don’t let me land here!  we whisper to each other as a squat, indifferent man hurries our group into a cluttered room beyond “the theater space,” really the cafeteria. A guy is mopping the floor, something easy to slip on if it doesn’t dry fast.

No post-show discussion, we decide quickly. These people don’t talk; they don’t smile. It is too risky. The floor hasn’t quite dried, but we start anyway–with the refrigerator buzzing and the loudspeaker interrupting every few minutes. Some people keep sleeping (Are they drugged?), but others smile and nod, especially about stories of love, marriage, and sex. Lines like “I learned that a second marriage can be better than the first” get a big whoop.

Forty minutes later we take our bows and head towards the glass front doors as if lingering is contagious. I edge past the wheelchairs waiting to roll back down the long corridor, and that’s when four people take my hand, grip it, saying thank you for coming.  Their silence was not a given, their isolation not inevitable. They want to be reached, need to be reached, and we…I…  fled too quickly—as I did when my grandmother was in a place like this.  I couldn’t conjure up her elegance and what her magic cookies tasted like—and that scared me. I was nineteen.

Suddenly I realize our mistake. We should come back here for a post-show something, despite the sleepers and the silence—for those who gripped my hand or might, you never know. Theater can do that, erase the self of now enough to become who we might be—or once were.

We’d have to ask our director Adam to help, by using his magic to unlock some of what he unlocked in us: that bit of risk that leads to a smile.

It’s worth a try. After all the boundaries between ‘them’ and ‘us’ are fading with each passing year.



[1] Adam Immerwahr’s is Associate Artistic Director at McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey and Resident Director at Passage Theatre in Trenton, New Jersey.

To see learn more about Onstage, go to www.onstageseniors.org