Articles – Page 152 – Philadelphia Stories

What Not to Submit

Though I have not written any interesting fiction in, oh, years, I still find it easy to judge the writing of others. This impulse comes not just from having taken years of workshops alongside teaching undergraduate writing, but also from my own dark little heart, which says something like,Well, I may not be writing, but at least I’m not writing this kind of stuff. However, I do think this list of things not to do can be helpful in avoiding common errors that seem to happen again and again in beginning writing.

1. Having a first person narrator who turns out to be dead at the end. As in: “And then he shot me dead…” Or, “And that’s how I died that day.” Because, really, how is the narrator telling the story then? (Also, it violates rule #3, see below). Same goes for: “And it was all a dream.”

2. Cramming 15 characters into a ten page story. Unless you’re George Saunders and using this technique satirically, the only thing it does is give your reader a headache: “Tommy opened the door. ‘Hi, Timmy,’ he said. Tony was in the kitchen, blending the drinks with Rich. ‘Come on in,’ called Joe from the living room where he was playing cards with Jack, Jim, Todd, and Dan. ‘Sam called,’ announced theman with the blue suit from the top of the stairs. The dog, Jeff, barked. ‘We’re in for it now,’ said a familiar voice.”

3. Again, unless you are a fantabulous writer or a blood relation of O. Henry, the “ah-ha” ending most often leaves your reader feeling tricked and cheated. The “ah-ha” ending occurs when there is a final huge reveal at the end that turns the entire story on its head. For instance, you find out that the narrator,who seems like this total womanizer (keeps referring towomen as “bitches”) is really….a golden retriever!

4. For literary journals, don’t submit genre fiction. That means your story cannot contain elves or unicorns or hobbits or dragons or vampires or swords andmost especially not elves on dragons with swords chasing unicorn-riding, undead hobbits.

5. Not a big fan of the “crazy narrator” story. Unreliable narrator: fine. Nutso: no good. It’s difficult to create an interesting, complex, believable crazy, and very easy to fall back on stereotypes from movies and clichéd endings such as the narrator making plans to escape his padded cell.

6. Third person stories where the point of view shifts suddenly and for no reason. You’ll be reading a story written in third-person limited (inside the mind of just one person) for the first 10 pages, and suddenly get a random interior thought from a periphery character. Often, the thought doesn’t impact the story and so serves to just be jarring: “His sister Mary wondered why it was that grapes were round.”

7. I’ve been told that you’re also not supposed to write stories about other writers, cancer, break-ups or mental illness. I know this rule, and yet, I have attempted to write all of those stories with varying degrees of failure.

8. Nonfiction masquerading as fiction. You can spot these pieces because they contain more “telling” rather than “showing.” If you happen to workshop such a piece, the author’s defense to criticism will be “well, that’s the way it happened, so…” So, write it as an essay.

9. Stories where the narrator is an animal or an inanimate object. My friend Luke recently toldme about a girl in one of his workshops who turned in a story called “Sweat Beads.” In the story, the sweat beads referred to the sweat between the breasts of the female character. In any case, cats, trees, mailboxes, etc. do not make compelling narrators outside of children’s books.

10. Avoid sound effects in writing unless you’re writing a graphic novel (“The car back-fired with a ker-blam, startling the owl who cried hoot-hoot, setting off the sprinklers, which went tsk-tsk-tsk amid the frat boys yelling whoo-hoo!”) Same goes for exclamation points! Or the overuse of adverbs (“she advised guiltily, knowing truly that she too was particularly given to this gravely amateur error”). Or the use of the participle clause. Example: “Revving the engine on his motorcycle, the two-year old began to wail“ (makes it sound like the two year old is about to take off on a Harley).

But you know what? Write whatever the hell you want. Someone famous once said that the secret to writing is “Ass in chair.” At first, I thought that meant you had to be a jackass to sit down to write. Later, I realized it means that as long as you’re showing up and sitting down in front of the page, you’ve already started to succeed. So go ahead.Write it.

What I Learned in Workshop Hell

Aimee LaBrie’s stories have been published in many literary journals. She recently received the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction, which will publish her short story collection in December. Aimee serves on the Philadelphia Stories Planning & Development Board.

From the Editors

Spring and summer brought many firsts to Philadelphia Stories: our first contest, the Rosemont Writer’ s Retreat, and the launch of PS Books, our new regional books division.

Helen Mallon won the First Person Essay Contest with her essay, My Charlie Manson, published in this issue. Judge and contest sponsor , author Kelly Simmons (Standing Still), had this to say about the winning essay, “[My CharlieManson] was a subtle, affecting essay that took a lot of courage to reveal.”We’d also like to congratulate Victoria Barnes on her runner-up essay, Anthony—A Love Story, which can be found on our website. Thanks to all who participated!

To properly launch PS Books’ first novel, Broad Street, a rocking roster of four female bands will perform at the Tritone nightclub in Philadelphia on Saturday, September 27, following an 8 pm reading by the book’ s author , Christine Weiser . Pre-order Broad Street on amazon.com or through the Philadelphia Stories website. Read a sneak peak, and catch an interview with Christine, also in this issue.

Also coming this fall, the return of last year’ s wildly popular , Push to Publish. This year’ s conference will be held at Rosemont College, on October 18 with easy access from public transportation, the Main Line and 76 (and plenty of FREE parking). Look for more details to come on the website.

And, on a sad note, we must close this letter in dedication to our dear friend, colleague, and essay editor, Marguerite McGlinn, who passed away late this spring. We still feel her loss and know that her family does, too. We had the pleasure of publishing one of Marguerite’ s stories, The Sphinx. If you missed it, you can access it online.

All the best,

Carla Spataro and Christine Weiser
Co-Publishers

On the Radio
Carla Spataro, Editor of Philadelphia Stories,was on Radio
Times with Marty Moss-Coane Thursday, July 12. Listen in RealAudio
from the archives at whyy.org.

Philadelphia Stories at the Kelly Writers House
October 30, 2006 Hear the whole show

Some more Press

Top Three Reasons
Why Your Stories Are Not Getting Published
By Carla Spataro,
Fiction Editor/Publisher
Philadelphia Stories

Local Author Profile: Christine Weiser

Broad Street is set in Philadelphia during the height of the grunge-rock scene of the early-nineties. Why did you choose this setting, and how does it factor into the story?

I was in a Philadelphia band called Mae Pang, which was mainly a chick rock garage band that started in the mid-90s. It was a great time for garage and underground rock. We saw bands like Nirvana at a small Philly rock club called JC Dobbs before “Smells Like Teen Spirit” hit. Weeks later, they were playing arena shows. We saw Dinosaur Jr. and Tad and Mudhoney and they were all great, but it was really the women that inspired us — performers like PJ Harvey and Liz Phair and Hole and The Breeders. I remember this time as being wild and magical, and those moments inspired me to write a book about the time and the experience.

The main characters in Broad Street, Kit and Margo, make a drunken pact to form a band, ostensibly to get back at the overbearing men in their lives, but as the novel progresses, music becomes an outlet for them. Do you see the arts in general and music in particular as liberating?
I think having art in a balanced life—whether it’s writing or playing an instrument or knitting—finding that one thing that you love to do just to do it–can be incredibly liberating and satisfying. Finding that balance is important, but it can be tough. It’s great to pour your soul into a piece of art, but I think you still have to stay connected to the world. I believe life inspires art, and if you cut yourself off from life and focus only on the art, you lose a great source of material. In Broad Street, for example, Kit thinks that if her band just became famous, then all would be right in her world. She learns that isn’t true.

I think women are especially pressured to do it all, and our challenge becomes how to carve out some time for ourselves in a way that doesn’t overwhelm us.

There’s a certain irony in the name of the band, which also happens to be the title of the novel. “Broad,” of course, is generally considered an obsolete, sexist term, but Kit and Margo appropriate it for themselves in a way that’s empowering. Do the characters see themselves as “broads” in any way? Alternately, how do they redefine the term to suit their own needs?
Margo love to embrace sexist, backwards terms like chick, skirt, and broads, and flaunt them in a tongue-in-cheek way that make these words silly, rather than degrading. This is a challenge for Kit, who has been raised by sixties-era radicals who think life in a girl band is not the best use of her intellect and schooling. When Margo first introduces the name, Kit questions how this reflects her parents’ ideals:

“I thought about this, feeling a slight tug on my feminist upbringing. My parents had spent many hours dishing out the importance of equal rights to my sister and me. I wasn’t sure they would agree that this was a fucking cool name. But this was different, I rationalized. This was just a tongue-in-cheek poke at the gender of our band.”

But, Kit begins to find a way to move beyond these expectations through the music. In one scene, she comments on their music:

“One song used these chords for a surf instrumental. Another song rumbled over a primitive African rhythm to proclaim, “never pick a man who’s prettier than you are.” Our songs were about living out repressed post-feminist fantasies in glorious ass-kicking frenzy. No more dick rock. Enter three girlie feminists not afraid to wear a dress, makeup, heels. What the hell was wrong with being a chick?”

I think that sums it up pretty well.

On a related topic, do you see yourself as a feminist writer?
I think “feminist” has many meanings to many people, and unfortunately not always positive. To me, a feminist is someone who advocates equal rights for women. Based on that definition, I suppose you could say I’m a feminist writer. Broad Street illustrates the challenge of being a girl in a boys’ rock club. Kit and Margo strive to be equal to their male musician peers, but they don’t necessarily mind that they get attention because they look good and are considered by some a novelty act.

This metaphor could ring true in a lot of areas of work and life. Sex is such a huge part of our culture, it’s hard to figure out how everyone can be treated exactly the same way when so many judgments are made based on the way someone looks.

In addition to making a name for their band in the music industry, Kit and Margo also have to deal with a number of personal issues. For example, they both have interesting relationships with their parents: Kit thinks she’ll never measure up to her father’s expectations, and Margo’s parents worked on the fringes of pop-music superstardom before settling down to raise a family. Why the interest in family? What draws you to such issues as a writer?

I think the power of family history is huge. We’re all shaped by the way we’re raised, whether it’s rebelling against our families or striving to be accepted by them. Often times, this behavior is repeated in our lives with parent substitutes, like a boss or an audience. I’m fascinated by people’s family histories and what that often reveals about their choices and personalities. For example, like Kit, I am very influenced by my father who always pushed me to question authority, strive for social justice, and pursue a balanced life of work and art. I have a job, a kid, a husband, a band, a book, a charity – and it’s tough balancing all of these things sometimes. But I feel I wear all of these hats better because I am lucky enough to have this whole package.

Your novel is the first from PS Books, the publishers behind the widely read Philadelphia Stories magazine. What’s your relationship to Philadelphia? Do you find that there’s a thriving literary community there? What does Philadelphia have to offer the burgeoning (or established, for that matter) author that other cities might not have?
I think Philadelphia has a bad cultural rap. People who aren’t familiar with the city still hear “Philly” and think: Rocky, cheesesteaks, and The Hooters. And while these are all great Philly icons, we also have a rich, diverse cultural voice that often gets drowned out by New York. I’ve lived in many places, but when I moved to Philadelphia, I fell in love with the city. It’s humble, and raw, and welcoming. Philly is nothing like New York or Chicago or Paris. It’s more like a big town with lots of neighborhood flavors that become rich sources of inspiration for writing and art. I’ve never felt more at home.

Any plans for a follow-up to Broad Street?
I have completed a sequel that picks up with Kit and Margo ten years later. Without giving too much away, things don’t turn out exactly as they expected (otherwise, what would I write about?), but their adventure continues in a new and surprising way.

Read an excerpt from Broad Street

Hear another interview:

Christine Weiser on Rowan Radio 89.7 WGLS-FM, 9/22/08
Download [mp3]

More at christineweiser.com

Mexican-Restaurant, North Jersey

Had they had different names,
or had this not been her first job
Stateside, or had the guy
just ordered instead of insisting
his knowledge of typical Hispanic
names, perhaps then, the Mexican-
American manager standing next to her
wouldn’t have doubled over
and his three friends at the table
wouldn’t have fallen on top of each other
in uproarious laughter while
the two of them stayed silent
– she not understanding,
he much chagrined. But her name
was Ingrid. Though fair with
sandy brown hair, she was not
six feet tall and her accent
exposed her Columbian origins.
Yes, dees ees my name. Flirting,
he shook his head and continued
to resist, “No, it can’t be.” Years later,
when Ingrid was at dinner
in Kansas for a conference
with a group of us, she related
the incident and still she was not
fully knowing why the ten of us
lit up the diner with guffaws and tears.
Wat ees your name? she’d asked him, making
small talk as she’d learned while yet
in training, scoring points
with the manager beside her.
With any other masculine name,
anyone could have easily gone with “Yes,
you look like a…”, or “the name fits you”.
But because he’d answered,
Dick, and because she was new
to this country, the agreeable Ingrid
had replied gently, kindly,
Your face matches your name.

Teresa Méndez-Quigley, a Philly native, was selected Montgomery County Poet Laureate by Ellen Bryant Voigt in 2004. Her poems have appeared in four volumes of the Mad Poets Review, Drexel Online Journal, Philadelphia Poets, and many more.

After Nothing

He took my hand
that grey day
dark, muscled
trees emptied of birds.

As if I were watching
a grainy video
myself, led away.
The man was strong,
all twists, low voice.

It’s silent.
Shouldn’t have
taken the shortcut.
There’s nothing after
the path. See
maybe I was meant to.
Nothing after the
Or had to.

Deborah Derrickson Kossmann won the Short Memoir Competition at the 2007 First Person Arts Festival in Philadelphia. Her essay, “Why We Needed a Prenup With Our Contractor” was published as a “Modern Love” column in The New York Times. Her other essays have appeared in many other journals and magazine. She teaches in the graduate counseling psychology program at Rosemont College.

DNA: Memory

So we were watching
a documentary on cows standing
not in fields of green grass
like we saw Upstate, but
on cement, squeezed in together
with black surfaces from their
droppings that get washed up
into lagoons and run off
into waterways, and how
they still moo, but mostly
how they only get to eat
corn, though I’m sure
they recall in their DNA
memory the way a blade
of grass felt in their mouths,
how the breeze cooled
them by the creek rippling
beneath an old weeping willow
and how they hope to rub up
against a tree to scratch
their hind quarters or be able
to switch their tails
to tag a fly

Teresa Mendez-Quigley, a Philly native, was selected Montgomery County Poet Laureate by Ellen Bryant Voigt in 2004. Her poems have appeared in four volumes of the Mad Poets Review, Drexel Online Journal, Philadelphia Poets, and many more.

Midway

The two-headed pig was jammed into a jar
so I couldn’t tell it from the cat with two bodies

or the cloven-hoofed devil baby discovered
dead in a dumpster in New Jersey but Snake Girl

was alive— no arms, no legs, no bones in her body.
The word illusion floated, pale grey, like a misty ocean

underneath her name, but I was distracted
by two men hosing down the world’s smallest horse

so I only remembered that later. Snake Girl
was alive, a woman in her twenties, her head stuck

through a hole in a fake table and wound around
with perfect fake snake coils. She wore her hair

in bangs and flicked her eyes from side to side
but mostly she looked tired. I asked her how she was,

she answered: cold. After that, there wasn’t much to say.
I wandered up and down; I couldn’t go. The horse

looked like a long-necked, stump legged dog and I,
well, I’d finally figured out I was part of the show.

Hayden Saunier’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Rattle, Nimrod, Margie, 5 A.M., Drunken Boat and Philadelphia Stories. Her book of poetry, Tips For Domestic Travel, is due out in Spring 2009 from Black Lawrence Press.

Out of Nowhere

As the three men rush the cab – your cab – the truth hits: what only happens to others is about to happen to you. You are not the exception.

Moments ago, you and your Aussie boyfriend were splurging in a Bogotá bistro: grilled steaks, bottles of wine, and scoops of coke on an ATM card going black on the sides from acids. The waiter had looked away each time you ambled to the rest room. And here’s the killer: after thanking you for the fat tip, he’d offered to call a cab (neither of you had cells). But something about his eagerness, Davy had muttered, already paranoid. He’d probably call a friend, one of those dodgy drivers, saying, these gringos are loaded. And careless. Graciously, you’d answered, no gracias, and instead hailed a taxi off the street. Like you’d been told not to do a million times.

So here you both are, your hearts beating merengue, the coke redundant, the air around you stinking of fake pines and human grease. Davy’s round face suddenly looks gaunt.

A tsunami of silence then slammed car doors and heavy breathing. This is how it’s going to go, the one now in the passenger seat barks in Spanish. You and Davy get sandwiched between the other two. You can’t make out their features and never will.

Davy lets out a gurgling holler and stomps his feet as if running in place. A child scared out of his wits. Then the one in the front pulls out a gun.

The two of you dutifully unclasp your watches, unsnap your wallets and relinquish money, debit cards and pin numbers. For a rippling moment, you believe you may have to open something else as a sweaty hand reaches around Davy to caress your head, and the cab mazes deeper into unknown neighborhoods. You get a flash of yourself, flopping like a fish on the pavement as your jeans get yanked down and shadowed faces land on your face and neck. You imagine the aftermath: you and Davy lying face down, the sound of air being ripped by bullets.

You teeter on a precipice, flabbergasted by this possible fate. And to think it would be nothing personal, life just a minefield of ever-shifting odds.

But then, out of nowhere, peacefulness descends. Or maybe it’s passiveness. You let go, as if on a hilltop, allowing the sky to unfurl you into a mound of autumn leaves. They just want your money. This isn’t it. You’ll see your family again. Breathe in real pine trees again. You’ll get sober, dump Davy, study for the LSAT…

The gun-holder gently orders, close your eyes, like a parent putting you to sleep. Later he’s dropped off to procure cash from your accounts, earning two month’s wages in an hour. You can almost hear the purr of the machine.

The other two ask what you do, if your boyfriend speaks Spanish. You’re a receptionist at a law firm and no, he doesn’t.

The taxi driver just coasts along and you wonder what his cut is. Before the trio had emerged from peripheries, you’d sensed you were headed the wrong way, but couldn’t summon the boldness to order, “Stop. This isn’t it.”

But now words are tumbling, from nowhere again. You know the deal, you fib, because this has happened before. This is your second “paseo milionario,” as they’ve dubbed this hold-up. This is old hat, you’re calm voice suggests. No, this made-up gang hadn’t hurt you because you had cooperated. Just like you and Davy were doing now. Neither of you were going to trade your lives for money.

“Good girl,” the stroker says in his husky, friend-like Spanish. “That’s the way.”

You have the temerity to ask for enough cash to escape the shanty town you’re about to be dropped off in. The stroker says, “But of course,” though naturally he leaves you and your mute boyfriend peso-less, surrounded by houses that look like fangs in the dark. Finally, another cab catches your semaphore code for help and takes you to a friend who pays the driver and pours two glasses of scotch. You don’t touch yours.

At some point Davy gets up for more ice, and your friend leans in and calls you brave. Numbed by everything, you shrug. Brave? You turn the word over like a shirt you’re not sure will fit. What had you been more afraid of, really, death? Or feeling forever hijacked, speeding in the wrong direction, unable to say, this isn’t it?

Angela Canales was born and raised in West Philadelphia. From 1996 to 2004, she lived in Bogot?, Colombia, her country of heritage, where she taught high school English at an International Baccalaureate school. She is currently living in Ardmore and working on an M.A. in Writing Studies at Saint Joseph?s University. This is her first published piece.

Transparency

In a better world
casinos comp grafts for those about to be burned,
poetry workshops include vocational training,
mega hardware stores hang signs all around saying
Put that shit back before you hurt yourself,
and you, Inamorata, draped only in barrier tape,
read me my Miranda Rights.

Anthony Nannetti’s poetry has appeared In UK Guardian Unlimited and online in Ygdrasil.
He lives in the Bella Vista area of Philadelphia with his wife and two daughters.

At The Mutter Museum of Medical Oddities

It’s a miracle we survive at all,
I say, as we walk the cases,
wincing at a colon as big as a stove pipe,
scowling at ribs deformed
by corsets, and spines collapsed
into little broken heaps, the horns
and warts and tumors
jutting out of waxen faces,
carbuncles and gouty toes,
a lady whose fat has turned her into soap.

But my brother, being a man, jokes on.
He sees a petrified penis and gasps,
I’ll never look at beef jerky the same way again,
as I giggle and cringe.

Until a whole wall of bloodless
babies in jars breaks over us like a wave,
all stages of fetal development,
followed by the terrible web of maladies;
so many damaged dolls,
each one a lesson in fragility.

He points to the anencephalic ones,
saying they look like trolls,
but then a lonely floater
in its little sea of tears
sends him into silence,
for we could be at the grave
of the little ghost he’s been
tethered to for seventeen years:
his first girl, all tangled in her cord,
born still and cold as snow.
I can’t bring myself
to tell him about the tiny
pearl of a zygote my heart tows.

Eileen Moeller has an M.A. in Poetry from Syracuse University, and many years experience as a Storyteller. Her poems have appeared in The Paterson Literary Review, Feminist Studies, Icarus Rising, Writing Women, and more. She judged the 2004 Milton Dorfman Poetry Contest, and the 2005/2006 Syracuse Association of American Penwomen contests Her work Body In Transit, is online at skinnycatdesign.co.uk/eileen.