LOS ANGELES – (BUSINESS WIRE) – The Los Angeles Times Book Prizes steps into new territory as it enters its third decade, adding a new Innovator’s Award and a first-of-its-kind graphic novel category to the honors that will be presented April 23^rd at an exclusive ceremony at The Times’ Chandler Auditorium. The event is the prologue to the 15^th annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, the nation’s premier public literary festival, April 24-25 at UCLA.

The Book Prizes recognize 50 distinguished works in ten categories and the list of finalists in biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction (the Art Seidenbaum Award), graphic novel, history, mystery/thriller, poetry, science and technology, and young adult literature can be found at http://events.latimes.com/bookprizes/. The addition of the graphic novel category makes The Times the first major book prize in the United States to honor an art form that has indelibly expanded the literary landscape, both aesthetically and commercially.

The Innovator’s Award was created to recognize cutting-edge work, specifically endeavors that bring storytelling into the future via new business models, technology or applications of narrative art. The inaugural winner is writer and publishing impresario Dave Eggers, author of six books, including “What Is the What,” a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the bestselling Pulitzer Prize finalist “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” and 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Current Interest finalist “Zeitoun.” He also wrote the screenplay for “Where the Wild Things Are” and is the founder and editor of McSweeney’s, an independent publishing house that produces a wide range of books and a quarterly journal, as well as “The Believer,” a monthly magazine, and “Wholphin,” a quarterly DVD of short films and documentaries. In 2002, he co-founded 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center for inner-city youth in San Francisco’s Mission District. Local communities have since opened sister 826 centers in Ann Arbor, Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Los Angeles and Seattle.

Evan S. Connell is the recipient of the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement. Over his more than 50-year career, Connell has written fiction, essays, biography and even two book-length poems. His novels “Mrs. Bridge” and “Mr. Bridge” remain among the most insightful portraits of 20^th century middle-American suburban life ever written, and his biography of General George Armstrong Custer, “Son of the Morning Star,” re-imagines the story of the Old West as a complicated tragedy marked by narcissism and genocide. He has won numerous awards, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in History, the Pushcart Prize, a Guggenheim fellowship and an award in literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

The Los Angeles Times Book Prizes were established in 1980. Finalists and winners are selected by panels of three judges composed of published authors who specialize in each genre. Further information about the Book Prizes including past winners posted at http://events.latimes.com/bookprizes/previous-winners/year-2009.

About the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books was created in 1996 to promote literacy, celebrate the written word, and bring together those who create books with the people who love to read them. Between 130,000 and 140,000 people attend the event annually.

General event information is available online at latimesfestivalofbooks.com or by calling 1-800-LA TIMES, ext. 7BOOK. Detailed speaker and event information will be provided in the official festival program, which will be published in the April 18^th edition of the Los Angeles Times.

From The Writer’s Almanac: January 25th

It’s the birthday of the novelist and essayist Virginia Woolf, (books by this author) born Virginia Stephen in London (1882). She never went to school, but her father chose books for her to read from his own library. She was only allowed to move out of her family home after her father’s death, when she was 22. She moved into a house with her brothers and sister, and instead of writing letters about what she’d been reading, she began to write literary criticism for the Times Literary Supplement, and she became one of the most accomplished literary critics of the era. Woolf believed that the problem with 19th-century literature was that novelists had focused entirely on the clothing people wore and the food they ate and the things they did. She believed that the most mysterious and essential aspects of human beings were not their possessions or their habits, but their interior emotions and thoughts. She considered her first few novels failures, but then in 1922, she began to read the work of Marcel Proust, who had just died that year. That moved her to write her first masterpiece: Mrs. Dalloway (1925), about all the thoughts that pass through the mind of a middle-aged woman on the day she gives a party. Woolf went on to write many more novels, including To the Lighthouse (1927) and The Waves (1931), but she was also one of the greatest essayists of her generation. In her long essay about women and literature, A Room of One’s Own (1929), she wrote: “So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. But to sacrifice a hair of the head of your vision, a shade of its colour, in deference to some Headmaster with a silver pot in his hand or to some professor with a measuring-rod up his sleeve, is the most abject treachery.” It’s the birthday of the man who wrote, “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley” and “Should auld acquaintance be forgot, / And never brought to mind?” and “O my luve’s like a red, red rose, / That’s newly sprung in June; O my luve’s like the melodie / That’s sweetly played in tune.” That’s the “Bard of Ayrshire,” the ploughman poet, Robert Burns, (books by this author) born 251 years ago today in Alloway, Scotland (1759). Today people in Scotland and groups all over the world are holding Burns suppers to celebrate his life and work. They read Burns’ poems, sing his songs, eat haggis, and drink lots of whiskey.

From The New York Times

What to Write Next

I recently published a novel, and now it’s time to get back to work. If you’re anything like me, figuring out what to write next can be a real hassle. A flashy and experimental brain-bender, or a pointillist examination of the dissolution of a typical American family? ­Generation-spanning door-stopper or claustrophobic psychological sketch? Buncha novellas with a minor character in common? To make things easier, I modified my dartboard a few years ago. Now, when I’m overwhelmed by the untold stories out there, I head down to the basement, throw a dart and see where it lands. Try it for yourself!

Encyclopedic Have you ever thought, There is a system that rules our culture, and this system also determines interaction on the individual level, and I have come up with a metaphor that describes both manifestations, and can provide many examples? If so, you may be postmodern, or postmodern-curious. E. M. Foster said, “Only connect,” and Lauryn Hill seconded him, maintaining that “everything is everything.” They aren’t postmodernists, but that’s the beauty of the postmodern — it’s not what it is, it’s what you say it is.

Realism Take this test. When you read “These dishes have been sitting in the sink for days,” do you think (a) This is an indicator of my inner weather, or (b) Why don’t they do the dishes? Does the phrase “I’m going as far away from here as my broken transmission will get me, and then I’ll take it from there” make you think (a) Somebody understands me, or (b) Why don’t they stay and talk it out? What is more visually appealing, (a) a Pall Mall butt floating in a coffee mug, or (b) those new Pop Art place mats in the Crate & Barrel catalog? If you answered (a), do we have a genre for you.

Recommended for: The rumpled, drinky.

Ist Simply add -ist to any oddball or unlikely root word, and run with it. You’d be surprised.

Ethnic Bildungsroman Your parents packed their bags and took a chance on a dream called America. From Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, Bangladesh and Beijing. Then you came along, with all your surly second-­generation-ness, and you wondered, Why do they eat that food, their accent is so heavy, why can’t they leave me alone and let me play baseball? For you are not like them, you Old World-eschewing, Otherness-contemplating, bubble-gum-popping, shiksa-smooching, WASP bastion-­charging, bootstrapping young thing. You got moxie, kid, and just like Mary Tyler Moore, you’re gonna make it after all.

Sample titles: “From Here, but Also Not”; “Annette Lipshitz for President.”

About A Little Known Historical Fact Possession is nine-tenths of the law. Find a little-known atrocity and claim squatter’s rights. Get in there so no one can take your lynching, massacre or overlooked genocide away from you. People like to be educated about tragedies that they’ve never shaken their heads sadly over before. Getting them to say “I didn’t know about that” is a surprisingly effective marketing tool. Practice speaking mellifluously — you’re going to be doing a lot of NPR.

Sample titles: “The Gridleysville Account”; “Shout! The Forgotten People.”

Fabulism Ladies with wings and men without mouths. Dancing trees and talkative cows. If it’s for kids, it’s a fairy tale. If it’s for grown-ups, it’s magic realism! Whether you’re 8 or 80, everybody loves magic. This is the perfect genre for writers who may be tempted to throw out manuscript pages when they get stuck — with magic realism, you can just conjure up a flaming tornado and whisk troublesome characters away. “Where’s Jasper?” “Remember that legend I mentioned 25 pages ago, about the Flaming Tornado of Red Creek?”

Historical Novel Sweeping. . . . Meticulously researched. . . . Something about verandas. Welcome to the world of the historical novel. This is different from a book About a Little Known Historical Fact in that you’re taking a recognizable event or milieu, familiar from PBS documentaries and Oscar-winning movies, and putting your own spin on it. If you get sick of those tedious period details (gas-lamp, chamber-pot, chandler — oy!), consider cutting between the past and the present, where the narrator discovers information about some ancestor’s role in things. Throw in a real-life famous person — Jimmy Hoffa, Emma Goldman, the Lindbergh baby — and watch the sparks fly.

Allegory This book is about the Black Death . . . or is it?

Sample titles: “The Forest”; “The Mound”; “The Illness”; “The Cubby”; “The Lump.”

Domestic Why is Timmy spending so much time with his door closed? Did I hear Janet sneaking out last night? Bert’s always working late these days, it’s like I hardly see him. Jamie has started another affair — she’s one of my best friends but I don’t know what she’s thinking sometimes. I guess it all began that fateful night when my car broke down.

Recommended for: People who stumble upon their muse in Aisle 8 of Whole Foods.

Thriller Nothing wrong with putting a little food on the table, especially in these times of economic uncertainty.

Recommended for: Those who know only five adjectives, but know them really well.

Southern Novel of Black Misery Africans in America, cut your teeth on this literary staple. Slip on your sepia-tinted goggles and investigate the legacy of slavery that still reverberates to this day, the legacy of Reconstruction that still reverberates to this day, and crackers. Invent nutty transliterations of what you think slaves talked like. But hurry up — the hounds are a-­gittin’ closer!

Sample titles: “I’ll Love You Till the Gravy Runs Out and Then I’m Gonna Lick Out the Skillet”; “Sore Bunions on a Dusty Road.”

Southern Novel of White Misery, OR Southern Novel What race problem?

Sample titles: “The Birthing Stone”; “The Gettin’ Place.”

Social Realism You: A canny observer in a white suit and a fine cravat. The Culture: Just waiting for someone to explain it to itself. When these two krazy kidz get together, it’s zeitgeist! Dig in and tell people how they really live today. Convince the reader that your ear is attuned to the modern vernacular, that your nose sniffs the tang of changing mores, and that your fingers are on the pulse of our time, somewhere around the neck, to better choke the life out of it. Hold up a mirror to our society, or at least to the lives of book critics who will write that your book “holds up a mirror to our society.” You’re not done until you come up with at least one spot-on description that enters the national vocabulary. Here are some freebies to start you off: “cyber galoots,” “walking kabobs,” “electric ninnies.” But please, please, please — know when you’re too old to pull it off.

Sample titles: “Yonder Lies the Glittery City”; “Sotto Voce.”

Remember, this is only a partial list — there are literally dozens of kinds of books out there waiting for the right writer to come along. Step right up, and see what happens. It works for me.

I’d like to share a recent post of his which is both enlightening and inspiring. Enjoy.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

What I Know

I’ve been blogging for almost five years, and am closing in on 500 blog posts all about the publishing industry.

As a result, this blog gets a lot of hits from people who don’t know who I am. That’s the point. As I’ve said many times, anyone can find you on the net if they’re looking for you. The goal is to have people find you when they’re looking for something else.

That said, I often get emailed questions that are already answered in my blog. On one hand, a newbie author discovering me is anxious to get answers, and often enthusiastically fires off questions to me without reading all 500 of my posts. On the other hand, anyone who wants to succeed in publishing needs to be in it for the long haul. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Reading all of my entries does a lot more than simply familiarizing you with my writing. It’s an encapsulation of how this business works, and how one writer views it.

So it’s worth it to the read old posts.

But it’s almost 2010. We’re in a technological tsunami. Instant gratification isn’t fast enough for us.

So here’s a blog post that distills the essence of what I’ve learned in this biz.

Luck Is Important

I say this all the time. In fact, I think it’s the #1 factor in determining success in this business. But I’ve never specifically identified what luck is.

In essence: Getting someone within the industry with enough power and money to recognize they can make money from your work. That’s luck. It involves having the right book, in the right place, at the right time. Too soon, too late, wrong person, not good enough–these all can minimize your luck. But hard work, paying attention, and being willing to roll with the punches and accept criticism can maximize your luck.

Still, at the end of the day, it always comes down to a roll of the dice. No one said it would be fair, easy, or fun. But if this is your dream, it is worthwhile to pursue it.

Why do I pursue it?

First, because I love to tell stories. I think it’s a fundamental part of the human experience.

Second, because making a living doing something I love is the whole point of life.

Third, because I’m ensuring my little place in history. The most important thing I can do as a human being is be a good husband and father. And yet, who remembers husbands and fathers? How many can you name that you don’t personally know?

But writers–everyone can name a dozen writers. That I’m able to reach people, and at the same time become immortal through my work; that speaks to to the essence of what I believe humanity is.

As a species, we love to create things. I’m doing my part and making my mark, in a way that makes me thrilled to be alive.

Understand The Industry

The publishing industry is broken. No doubt about it. Any business that allows returns,
where a 50% sell-through is considered successful, where no one can figure out why things succeed or fail, is fundamentally flawed.

But the more you know about how things work, the better you can manipulate the system.

Good decision-making comes down to facts. The better informed you are, the likelier your decisions will be correct.

Listen. Ask questions. Follow examples. Experiment. Take chances. Stay alert.

The Harder You Try, The More Books You’ll Sell

You will not become a bestseller by doing all the things I tell you to do, no matter how logical or well-informed I appear.

You will not become a bestseller through your blog, your touring, your speaking efforts, your internet efforts, or you social networks.

The only way you will become a bestseller is to have your books available, at a discount, in as many places as possible. And that’s beyond your control.

That said, every little thing you do to sell your books can help your career.

Books sell one at a time. If you’re the one that sells them, one at a time, its one more that probably would not have sold without your efforts.

The Race Is With Yourself

You can’t ever compare yourself to any other writer. EVER. This isn’t like the business world, where certain positions have a salary range. You can make $100 a year, or $5,000,000 a year, with no discernible difference in your output or your quality.

If you want to compare yourself to someone, compare yourself to yourself. Monitor your successes. Learn from your failures (and if you aren’t failing, you aren’t trying hard enough.) Try different things, make mistakes, grow, adapt, evolve.

Your peers are a tool you can use to better yourself. But they are NEVER something to aspire to.

Your only aspirations should be within your control. Which brings us to:

Set Achievable Goals

Goals should be within your power. In other words, anything that involves a yes or no from another human being isn’t a goal, it’s a dream.

You can and should dream, and dream big. But “I want to be a bestseller” isn’t a goal. “I want to attend three writing conferences this year, polish my novel, and send queries to ten agents by November” is a goal.

Learn the difference. And don’t forget to reward yourself when you reach those goals.

Love It

The term “tortured artist” is an oxymoron. Art is not food, clothing, or shelter. Art is what we do to express and entertain ourselves. If you slave over your writing, I recommend finding something more enjoyable to do. Life is too short, and too many bad things happen, to waste time making yourself miserable.

No one ever gets farmer’s block. No one ever bitches about being too uninspired to wait tables.

If writing is so hard, perhaps you should find something easier.

This may seem to run contrary to:

Make Sacrifices

Nothing worthwhile in life is easy. Victory is sweetest when it’s hard-won.

You shouldn’t EVER believe you deserve anything, or that you’re entitled to success. But if you want to reach your writing goals, it often involves giving up other things in order to focus on writing.

You need to love writing. In fact, you need to love it so much you’re willing to give up other things that other people (perhaps even you) deem important.

How do you know if your love is strong enough and worth the sacrifice?

When you write THE END, if it isn’t the coolest feeling in the world, perhaps you should consider a different career.

But if writing THE END is so fulfilling that it was worth giving up TV, sleep, food, sex, and surfing the internet, then you’re in the right profession.

Get Used To Insecurity

As a writer, you’ll have the biggest ego in the world, and no ego at all, at the same time.

Money will sometimes be plentiful, and sometimes be scarce.

You’ll have major accomplishments, and major setbacks. Your mood will swing on a daily basis.

Some dreams will come true. Some will be murdered.

There are no guarantees.

This business is unstable, and being an artist, you’re probably a bit unstable to begin with. These things can feed on each other. Doubt, insecurity, and depression, are all part of the career.

There will be long periods of waiting. Lots of them.

There will be challenges (and by that, I mean you’ll get screwed.)

But you need to roll with the punches. Set-backs are opportunities to grow. Rejections are learning experiences. This is a business, and can’t be taken personally.

If you go into this understanding you’re in for an emotional roller coaster, you can handle the turns and dips much better.

Know When To Quit

The measure of a human being is what makes them finally give up. The stronger the person, the more they can take.

In my previous blog post, I said that you are the hero in the movie of your life. Act like it.

What do you want? Who do you want to be?

That dictates what you need to do.

Quitting, like admitting you’re wrong, is one of the noblest things you can do in life. It says that you understand, and accept. It allows you to grow.

But if you want to conquer, quitting isn’t an option. No one ever accomplished anything great by quitting.

Know your limitations. But also know your potential for greatness.

Be Cool

Gracious. Grateful. Easy going. Helpful. Fun. Giving. Thankful. Courteous. Honest.

In other words, be a nice person.

While “nice” doesn’t mean “successful”, it does mean you’ll sleep better at night.

I believe a successful life is one where people miss you when you die.

As a writer, you have the potential for a great many people to miss you.

But not if you’re a dick.

There. Now you don’t have to read 500 blog entries.

Happy New Year! See you in 2010!

I have a feeling it will be the best year ever…

What Troy Wants

By Linda Sands

Troy is always asking me to do this, asking me to pose. I feel like that sock puppet that went around the world, passed from place to place, pulled out of suitcases and backpacks, covered in the dirt of continents, only to be propped up against cold stone lions or balanced on precarious ledges.

He tells me to feel the art—that a photograph lives beyond the moment, beyond the room or castle or field in which it’s shot. He says everyone will find something different once they stop looking for themselves. I can’t help thinking how my red shoes shine next to dead roach lying belly up on the floor of the Hindu temple.

Troy isn’t just picky about the lighting, or the framing of the subject—something else and me—he honestly thinks he’s a professional, telling me to straighten my leg ten degrees, drop my chin, arch my back, now point. Good. No, less pointy, a gentle gesture. A hint of what lies beyond.

He loves you so much, my friends say. Look, you’re in every picture he takes.

Not me, I want to tell them. A piece of me. His version of me. Not Moira. Troy doesn’t know Moira. To him, I’m a soldier following the orders he spits out, taking the ridge, climbing the base of the statue, sprawling across the hood of the custom Corvette.

He’s like this in bed too, I want to explain. Not with the camera. I put a stop to that early—but with the orders—flipping me over like a fish, pushing my head down, circling his fingers around my neck, the whole time telling me to touch him there, kiss him like that, bite this, slap that, come.

Last week, the drugstore clerk slipped wrong photos in our batch and I saw someone else’s life. A birthday party, a dog sleeping with a cat, a baby naked in a bucket, happy people dancing wildly at the edge of a pool. Photos of a life worth capturing.

I want to point that out to Troy, tell him what I think. Instead, I’ll lean against the broken ship and say, “Take my picture.”

The old FAMILY ANNUAL REPORT poking fun at all those holiday letters you can’t wait to mock then toss in the fire.

Check it out over here:

http://linda-sands.blogspot.com/

What They Want,
Monday,
Or The Three Strangers You Nodded To On the Street
By Linda Sands

What Shelly Wants.

She wants to be the girl who slices his roast beef. She wants to be the one who teaches him the difference between Lacey Swiss and Buckeye . Shelly wants to spread mayo on his rye and add a side of chips. She wants to serve him in bed on a wicker tray.

But most of all, right now on this rainy Tuesday in May, she wants him to notice her behind the deli counter at Walmart even if she is wearing a white shower cap over her new haircut, even if she forgot to put on eyeliner and only now pinched her cheeks and bit her lips to add some natural color like they showed on last week’s Top Model.

She wants to slice his lunchmeat as thin as paper, then ring him up with a knuckle and seal his bag with her teeth.

What Max Wants.

He wants to go home and never think about her again. He wants someone to come in the night and smack him over the head with something round and hard so that the part of him that remembers how she smells like a meadow will forget. He wishes the movie about the place that can erase hurtful memories was true because he would be the first one in line on Monday morning with a pocketful of cash. He wants to believe in small dark places where no one can find you and he thinks maybe he can get there without a ticket, with just this bottle of pills that he stole from the pharmacy when the girl in the labcoat was talking to her boyfriend and the pharmacist had to chase her daughter down the crowded aisle.

He wants the time to pass so that the hands on the clock will be in perfect alignment and then he will know that wanting to be dead is enough, there will be nothing else to want. No answers, no smiles, no happy gestures, no yearnings no false starts, no feelings of inadequacy – the words alone make him want to forget he can hear, he can read, he can breathe.

More than wanting to forget, he wants to be forgotten.

What Sam Wants.

He wants to forget he’s a she. He wants to buy flannel shirts and baggy jeans and pay with man hands.

He wants the men to nod as they pass or not notice him at all. He wants the girl at the register to offer to help him choose dress socks. He wants someone to measure his inseam. He wants to stand in the store and hold the door for beautiful women. He wants to buy a hat he can tip, a handkerchief he can lend, a rubber cock he can slip inside his underwear and adjust.

He wants to feel the things men feel. Passion as rage. Honor as duty. Sex as power. Love as whatever love is supposed to feel like when you fill a doorway.

He wants to give more than he gets and he wants to get as good as he gives. He wants to feel your eyes on his ass when he walks out the door then turn and catch you staring.

- – -
( part of a larger body of work, 21 sections of flash- told in triplets)
I drank with Daniel Grandbois in a big hotel in Manhattan one night after I stalked Amy Hempel. Danny Pants sent me music, Hempel got a restraining order. My writing is everywhere, even on some walls in Switzerland. I have an agent, and I didn’t even have to sleep with him.

One piece I’d written and entered in a spoken word contest, but the others had never really been completed, I think there are about nine total.

I found an interested editor, sent in three to his new journal and they liked them, publishing them immediately.
A wildland fire service organization got hold of the link via Facebook, liked what i had to say and how I said it and now I may have another project in the works.

I love how my work is like knitting… the ball of yarn unravels, the needles click, something is born and inevitably, a stitch is dropped and the yarn runs out, because nothing is ever perfect and nothing is ever done.

Here’s hoping my knitting doesn’t catch fire.

You can read it here: linda-sands.com
or on the journal, Moronic Ox

and yes, that is just perfect for me.

JOHN DETWEILER

HETCH HETCHY BASIN, KYBURZ, CALIFORNIA

THANKSGIVING DAY

The dog walking witness told the cops she saw a guy in a suit with a blowtorch in one hand and a gun in the other hiking down this trail. The cops called us when the smoke rose.

Captain sent in the machines, but it’s too dense back here. You need the hand crew. Wasn’t like we didn’t think we’d be called. We were taking bets on it at the firehouse- Marshall’s got the pot at forty bucks for a brush fire. I was going for the flaming turkey fryer disaster, but hey, it’s early yet.

I’m on McLeod duty with four other guys- coming up eleven men behind the lead chainsaw. Our job’s to rake the grass and debris with the McLeods, throw it onto the green side and bare the cool, brown soil to the heat of the fire.

When I talk about my job, I say we draw the line then dare the fire to cross it. Chicks dig firefighters. Guys think I’m full of shit- but fuck them- they’re not out here frying their nose hairs, filling their lungs with black smoke, busting their ass to save a bunch of half-dead trees and dilapidated houses that carry way too much insurance and will never be rebuilt.

Washington brings up the rear. He’s the CYA guard. He’s the guy nobody wants to be when the wind changes and the fire flares up behind us.

Captain calls a break ten yards before we hit the Manzanita. Half tree, half bush, it’s a vicious plant- full of sap that will burn for days, sap that sears like a branding iron. As I uncap my canteen, the tallest tree in the stand catches fire. Flames lick across the gnarled surface, bite into a long twisting branch. Mahogany sap bleeds down its trunk like the tears of a prizefighter. The branch falls, igniting the bushes below. Whiff. Crackle. Burn. It’s arresting.

Washington sees her first, a small white rabbit rousted from her burrow, patches of fur missing on her back and feet. She hops toward us, toward our road and the cool, freshly turned soil, then raises her ears and changes direction- back to the burn zone.

Washington looks at me. I don’t know why but I run after her, grass and brush crunchy dry under my boots, my breath raspy, the heat of the fire burning my throat. I get close, lunge and miss. As I stand, the wind shifts, sending a scorched tuft of fur tumbleweeding across my boot. Manzanita and Mother Nature- the white rabbit death cabal.

Later, back at camp, I take a hit of oxygen, then pull the rabbit out of my jumpsuit and lay her on top of the steaming body bag.

Kyburz, California, news radio, KLMA

Authorities believe the body is that of former day-trader Richard Celebrini, suspected of killing his wife and two daughters in their Brentwood home on Thanksgiving morning. Celebrini apparently drove his Porsche to Hetch Hetchy Basin, where he set a series of fires, then shot himself in the head under a Manzanita tree.

WINFRED JAMES SCHOONER

LEAWOOD, KANSAS

THANKSGIVING DAY

Perhaps it was the poltergeist. Perhaps it was the canola oil. Perhaps I should have implored the maid to walk the hound. Perhaps I should have let Buffy do the cooking, but she looked so sweet asleep in her quarters, so drained from the week’s social events, so calm with her pill bottles arranged just so on her 17^th century marble nightstand.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have had that third martini.

I’ll have my attorney explain to the insurance company that the turkey was an inordinately large bird and we had been assured previously that the flooring was fire-retardant.

It must be the contractor’s fault. That stupid Mexican or his filthy beaner son, who’s always peeking in the window of the billiards room then asking to use the bathroom.

I can always do things the political way- a pair of Chiefs tickets on the fifty or a discreet envelope of spending money- and they’ll see things my way. After all, it’s only smoke and we’re all adults here and Lord, imagine if it had been me in the house when the second story came crashing down.

LETICIA REYES KING

SUNRISE APARTMENTS #5, ATLANTA, GA,

ALMOST THANKSGIVING

I wish there could be meat every night. I wish I could give my children meat and I wish I could buy them clothes in their size with labels from the mall- clothes that smell like starch and Venezuela- not thrift store clothes, that smell like mothballs and dead grandmas, poverty and despair, Lysol and Hamburger Helper.

Tonight there will be meat, thanks to Mr. Gonzales, a roast- an early holiday gift, he’d said. Enjoy.

The kids will be surprised when they get home from school. I’d like to see the look on Carlos’s face- always telling me how I’d never amount to anything- well, look at me now.  I got an apartment and two jobs and I’m still not too tired to cook. We don’t need you or your late checks.

The table’s set, the roast’s in the oven and I have the night off work. What could be better? I even have time to lay down- just a little siesta, here on the couch.

Atlanta, GA, WABE 5:00 news, live with Doug Kellerman

“Thank you, Janice. The fatal fire at Sunrise Apartments in northeast Atlanta broke out at 3:00 this afternoon. The apparent cause, a faulty oven in apartment five.

Authorities on the scene are investigating claims from eyewitnesses that the smoke detectors failed and no alarms or sprinklers were engaged.

Before help arrived, Mr. Raymond Gonzales made two attempts to re-enter the burning building and rescue his neighbor, Leticia Reyes King. Each time, he was pushed back by extreme smoke and fire. He’s currently being treated for smoke inhalation and minor burns.

Ms. King, a recently divorced mother of three and new to Atlanta, did not survive.

When I spoke to Mr. Gonzales earlier, he expressed regret, saying, ‘There was just too much smoke.’

Live from Atlanta, I’m Doug Kellerman. Back to you, Janice.”

first published in MORONIC OX Literary and Cultural Journal – Escape Media Publishers / Open Books