“Red Girl Rat Boy” is for me an unusual kind of story, and I’m pleased with it.  Some stories just kind of arrive in the writer’s head, and the majority of this one did just that. It’s very short, and a light fairytale motif runs through it.

Also, at http://www.foundpress.com , there’s now a much easier way to get my story “Addresses,” which appeared in January 2011. Under my story’s title (and those of the other writers in that issue) is a link to The FP Store. There you can choose between an EPUD or a MOBI version, pay online as usual, and then receive by email a link with the download.

Recently I was introduced to the short fiction of Barry Lopez, via a couple of his story collections — Field Notes, Light Action in the Caribbean. 

Lopez often writes about human connections with landscape, and often about connections between Native Americans and people of settler stock. His writing is admirable. However, I don’t wish I’d discovered it earlier, because in that case I would by now have read all of his published work. I intend to take my time, instead. Maybe in the New Year I’ll get one of his books of essays. 

Something one of his characters says about fiction has stayed with me. It’s from a story called “The Entreaty of the Wiideema,” about a 20th century American narrator who’s in Western Australia learning about a tribal grouping by that name. Of course he does not find what he came looking for. 

He says, And I finally came to see the Wiideema as a version of something of which my own people were a version. What we shared . . . was . . . a sense of danger. A sense that it was dangerous to be alive. . . . Human consciousness beckons us all. My Wiideema companions . . . had not accepted it fully. They didn’t shun knowledge, and it was not that they were never contemplative or curious about ideas or other abstractions. But their hesitancy had led them off in another direction. All that they knew, all they believed or imagined, they cast in stories. Stories for them were the only safe containers for what consciousness, as we have it, might have elucidated for them about life.

A story as a container  – that makes sense to me. So much intense feeling, time, energy can be packed into a few pages by fiction writers trying to convey what they are coming to see/understand. All that vitality is preserved, for reader after reader after reader.

Lopez’ character means that the stories don’t take away danger.  It’s still there, alive and bristling.

Too often when I’m reading fiction I feel that writers haven’t done that tight packing but have left a lot of loose stuff  to spill off the edges, where its dangerous force is lost. The story dies. There’s no elucidation. Not a problem with Lopez. Some of his stories are perfection, some not, but he is such a good writer that his failures are absorbing, curious, well worth reading. 

Early in 2011 a story of mine titled “Addresses” will appear in a new online literary journal, FoundPress. You can read all about this venture at http://www.foundpress.com/   Imagine, a publication devoted to the short story!  Crazy about the short story! Ready to give the short story some respect!  And publishing online is a first for me.

I’m looking forward to seeing the cover design for “Addresses”  – yes, each story in each quarterly issue will have its own cover. And of course to seeing the story in print. It’s about a young woman in 1960s Vancouver, an era — now almost unimaginable — when a married woman could not even request a tubal ligation unless her age multiplied by the number of her children was equal to or more than 120. Just play around with that math for a while. My protagonist isn’t seeking a tubal, but Julie’s for sure mired in 1960s social expectations for women, including those relating to marital sex and birth control.

The other new experience actually happened ten years ago, but I didn’t know about it till recently. In a book published then and titled O Canada Crosswords! by Kathleen Hamilton, the 1 Across clue in puzzle #40 is She wrote My Father Took A Cake To France. Since I’m a regular crossworder, and once wrote a story featuring twin sisters doing one competitively, to see Flood as part of a puzzle’s solution felt like a special validation! Thanks to Penny Goldsmith for finding this little treat . You can read about Penny’s PovNet work at http://www.povnet.org
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What a fine birthday present! subTerrain #56 arrived, with a good review of The English Stories on page 56.

Reviewer Kevin Donovan describes the book as “a lyrical gem,” and says that “Flood’s  skill in recreating a world long vanished, and her ability in bringing to life characters that are both original and vital, are exemplary.” The review focuses on the book’s political content — I’m glad to see that.

From a couple of his comments, I’d guess that KD’s age is somewhat less than mine, and that he was a tad surprised to find himself admiring the collection so much. Good! Cross-generational connections  can be a pleasure, and this review was that for me.

There will be readings and such. The issue features quite an eclectic mix of writers, so it should be an entertaining event.