Well, I'm Here

 Remembering Sandra Seamans

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Well, I'm Here

Okay, so I've finally surrendered to the world of blogs. Welcome to my little corner of the world, pull up a chair, get comfortable, and let's see if we can find something to talk about. 

And Sandra Seamans indeed found a lot of things to talk about. I doubt there was ever a blog that celebrated short story writing as well and a fully as MY LITTLE CORNER. Nor one that served a community as thoroughly and as selflessly as hers. She found her niche surprisingly quickly and although she claimed she mostly started a blog so she could participate in flash fiction challenges (remember those) it required hours of work for Sandra to pull up the information she did so willingly.
And it was also clear that she read many blogs herself and there were a lot of them back in 2008. 

If you go through the ten plus years of entries, you will see names come and go, zines come and go, contests come and go. And nobody was a bigger champion of other people's success than Sandra. Her "little Snoopy Dance" was always joyous. If someone wanted to a history of the online crime short story community over the last twenty years, her blog would be the place to start. A place to collect every contest, every call for submissions, the writers, the ups and downs of the business, and on and on.

In 2015, in the course of a week, Sandra lost her husband and mother and a lot of the joy went out of her. Although she came back to blogging, it was not about writing short stories so much as continuing her service to her fellow short story writers. How brave.

I only ever knew Sandra online but somehow it seemed like I knew her pretty well. She was candid on her blog. And we shared a year of reading short stories. Brian Lindenmuth suggested the challenge and initially there were quite a few participants, but by the end it was mostly Sandra, Brian and me. (Why wasn't Jeff in on this?)

Reading a short story every day doesn't seem like an onerous task but the mere chore of finding 365 stories you are willing to read was harder than we thought. Anyway, through her blog and through flash fiction challenges and through this assignment, I felt like I knew Sandra well.

Here are a few words from short story great, Art Taylor.

"In my writing courses at George Mason University and in any workshop I led elsewhere, I regularly devoted a section of my PowerPoint to resources for writers trying to market their short fiction. At the top of the first slide was My Little Corner, and I felt like I could never say enough about Sandra’s expertise on short story markets, her dedication to staying on top of market news, and her advocacy always on behalf of the authors, finding opportunities for us and warning us about venues to avoid. I never met Sandra in person, sadly, but she and I chatted sometimes, mostly in the comments section of My Little Corner. When she included something about me in her posts, she called me a “friend of the blog,” but in our own way in this age of online interactions, I felt like she and I were actual friends. I’m sorry I missed the chance to let her know how very much I appreciated her and her work." 

An interview from 2012 on DO SOME DAMAGE.
Some words from Paul Brazill 
Sandra on PULP CURRY 
Here are some words from Kate Laity
And from Sandra Ruttan 

Sandra's collection of stories COLD RIFTS is out of print, but it won't take much effort to find many of her stories online. A particular favorite of mine was one she wrote for a flash fiction challenge I ran a long time ago. The challenge was to write a story that uses the song  "SWEET DREAMS." Hers was clever and beautifully rendered. Google "Repeat Offenders" if you care to sample it. It's just a thousand words after all. Just a short story. But for Sandra and a few others, a good short story is the gold standard of writing.

Goodbye, Sandra. We will miss you.

Monday, Monday

 I was lucky enough to see MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG on Broadway in June of 24 so I was eager to see the filmed version. Seeing everything in closeup rather than as you see an a stage sort of threw me off. Still it was worth seeing if you like Sondheim, which I do.

The weather here is awful. So cold that everything is icy and a fear of falling makes me walk even less assuredly.

Saw two concerts one with the DSO with a terrific violinist and the other was Detroit Chamber Orchestra.

Watching the Beatles Anthology on HBO.  So much footage I don't remember seeing before.

2019

 My street in Philly in the fifties. 

What about you?  

FFB: CONTINENTAL DRIFT, Russell Banks

 

Continental Drift, Russell Banks.

It is hard for me to choose between AFFLICTION and CONTINENTAL DRIFT as my favorite novel by Russell Banks. But I am going with this one today. You may have seen the filmed version of AFFLICTION, a tremendous film with Nick Nolte and James Coburn.

Bob Dubois is a furnace repairman in a blue-collar town in New Hampshire, a state the American Dream has bypassed. Although Bob has a wife, three kids and a steady, if low-paying job, he is persuaded to look for a better life in Miami by his brother.

Bob is a good man although not a smart one. The sixties has persuaded him that there is something better out there. That it is foolish to be satisfied with a meager living in a depressed town.

Another character is also seeking a better life in Miami. A female Haitian refuge, who truly does need asylum and comes to the U.S. in a perilous manner. These two lives intersect in a Florida that is the antithesis of paradise, both characters suffering tragedy. This is not a happy book or one to escape into, but it is one that presents characters and situations that seem real and compelling.

(And sadly the life of a Haitian refuge would be even more precarious today). 

Short Story Wednesday: "Elephant" Raymond Carver

 First I read "Safety" by Joan Silber, which was so depressing I had to wash it down with a second story. Briefly it recounts the bad deeds of ICE and how similar it is to what went on in eastern Europe nearly a century ago.

 A late in life tale by Carver relates the story of a man who cannot stop loaning and giving his family members money to keep them going. It is just about that. Over and over again until you fear for his sanity. I am sure such things happen in families but I would disown them all. Mirian Toewles reads and discusses it. I am going in for another try and what the title means. There is no tragedy here and yet...

TracyK 

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

Monday, Monday

 Saw Wake Up Dead Man, (slept through some of it) and Eternity (same). Enjoyed seeing Kevin and celebrating his turning 19. He is taking quite a group of classes next semester. One in music, one in art, one in writing, one in philosophy and one in math.  He's trying out all the family businesses.

Saw the movie Lurker, which was strange but interesting. (Apple) 

Trying to settle into a book. Maybe THE COPENHAGEN TRILOGY. Or A Pale View of Hills. 

Watched a Poirot-- FIVE LITTLE PIGS, which is one of my favorites and so beautifully made. Also watching the many episodes of THE BEATLES ANTHOLOGY on Disney. Also watched Sad Cypress. What's your favorite Christie. 

Snow here. Ugh. 

What about you?  

Apparently sending out three group emails with 20 names on each has meant friends are getting things from other friends and not knowing what is going on. Sorry if you've had that happen. 

Short Story Wednesday: "The Peach Stone" Paul Horgan from THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF THE CENTURY"

 In this collection, I am familiar with most of the writers although not always the story selected by John Updike. I had never heard of Paul Horgan and I guess he mostly wrote historical fiction. Originally published in the YALE REVIEW in 1943, I find the selection of this one somewhat mysterious. It is well-written but terribly sad-maybe it seemed like a story written in wartime should be sad even if it is not about the war.  

Four of them are in a car headed toward Weed, New Mexico. Well five if you could the body of a two-year old laid out between her mother and a school teacher, coming along to provide support. The child's death is due to a fire caused by the wind blowing some tumbleweeds, which the chimney then set on fire. The father was to have cleaned up this area and did not. By the time the fire is spotted and run to, the little girl is dead.

There is almost no conversation but various people break down along the way. What could they possible talk about on this long painful drive. There is no subject worth the difficulty of the words. We are told what they are thinking, one and then another. It is a relief when they reach Weed and this journey ends. 

George Kelley 

Jerry House