Annotation Nation

A FB friend just pointed this site out. As I haven't been offering annotations/book reviews lately, this site offers ongoing additions.


http://annotationnation.wordpress.com/

It's been a long time coming

For the first time, I am writing about my first marriage.

Twenty-nine years ago, today, I swapped vows with my first husband. It ended badly a few months later.

For a good portion of my adult life I wouldn't even admit to the marriage. I used to make a point of wording my sentences very carefully when discussing former husbands so that someone had to listen very, very carefully to hear that I could count more than two. I have a son from my second marriage and a daughter from my third (which is where I parked and have stayed for 22+ years), so it is impossible not to refer to at least one ex-husband. I was mighty clever for a long time, and no one figured it out.

In recent years I have been more open about it, but I share very little information with anyone beyond my immediate family and close circle of friends. I'm honestly not sure exactly who knows what because I talk about it so little.

I was trying to decide if the story I am ready to tell would be best written as an essay or a short story. So far the essay approach is winning out.

I'm kind of excited.

Acceptance at Last!!!

I was going to post the acceptance email here. But it felt odd, so I won't. I had an essay, currently entitled "Scent Memories," accepted for publication by a press called Insolent Aardvark.

Insolent Aardvark

It is one of my favorite pieces that has been rejected by six other publications. I did a reading of it 2 or more years ago for the Redwood Writers Club and got a really good response. I changed the title for this submission; titles are not my strongest writing, so I'm wondering if that last change is was pushed it over the top and got it accepted.

I sent it out because my friend James Celestino had a short story accepted by the same publication. They asked him if he could refer some non-fiction writers because they didn't have enough pieces from the open submission period. He contacted me, I sent one it and IT WAS ACCEPTED!!

Funnily enough I'm not jumping up and down screaming, as I have done in the past when something was accepted for publication. I am feeling okay about it. And posting the information online. And texting my kids. *sigh*

Triumph is a good feeling.

Back in the Saddle Again

Whew! It has been one very long year for lots of reasons. I finally feel able to sit down and focus on creative writing again after a long battle with near apathy.

Last month I sent out two submission. One was the second piece of flash "fiction" that I have written. The definition of flash fiction seems to vary from publication to publication and anywhere from a 300-1000 word maximums. I have had a moment in time rattling around in my head for quite awhile and finally decided to write it down. It is only a few sentences long, a very, very short story, and I think it will leave potential readers filling in their own meanings.

The second piece is an essay I wrote several years ago. The publication wanted an essay that was something like 500 words less than the one I wanted to send. So I took a good long look at the pages and ultimately cut more than 500 words. And of course it is now a much stronger piece that I feel really good about. The art is certainly in the revision.

I'm also back to work on my book about investigating my own molestation story. I have cut a great deal out of the the original idea. I was simply trying to include too much, and it made the story unwieldy to write. I have decided to focus entirely on telling the simple story of being molested and the investigation and comparison of my memories to the facts I uncover. I have tossed out the retelling of my experience with PTSD. The memoir component that will reflect on my reactions both then and now will likely prove to be interesting enough to write and hopefully to read.

Writing and submitting again. Yep, that's me back up on that horse!

Books Part 3

This time around are three completely different books; each is an incredible piece of literature for very different reasons.

Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
This story has been told already, several times in fact. It has been the subject of at least two other books, including a pictorial of the actual events as captured by the ship's photographer. Lansing's style of story-telling, however, takes the reader far beyond the retelling of a harrowing event. He spends time developing characters, much like a novelist would, and he begins with the ship herself as she struggles to survive long enough to see her crew off safely. Riveting, fascinating and sometimes terribly disturbing, I could not put this down.


Lit: A Memoir by Mary Karr
This is a follow-up to Karr's earlier memoir, The Liars' Club, where she danced deftly between observing her parent's demons and fending them off. Here she attacks only her demons, and does so in a brutally honest and incredibly creative way. Not may authors can get away with prose like:

"Through that fishbowl lens, you’ve been looking for the truth most of your life. Recently that wide eye has come to settle on me and I’ve felt like Odysseus, albeit with less guile and fewer escape routes, the lens itself embodying the one-eyed Cyclops."

AND

"I shit you not!"

And once again she goes beyond the naval gazing effect of the confessional memoir to share her descent into alcoholism and climb out into the arms of her newly discovered God. So good on so many levels.


The Kiss by Kathryn Harrison
This is not for the faint of heart. It is the story surrounding Harrison's incestuous relationship with her estranged father. There are no real details of the sexual encounters included, only the raw emotional truth that resulted. I kept asking myself how something so horrific could be written so beautifully. I have read some of her fiction, which is quite good, but the level of writing here is above and beyond the other attempts at retelling her story through fictional characters. As difficult as this must have been for her to write (and I once heard her tell a story about just that) the truth truly set her creative powers free.

Silly Ol' Internet!

I have been honing my online research skills for a few years now. Investigating my (deceased) childhood abuser has proven to be very challenging and so has forced me to learn to be creative and patient in my searches.

It has also taught me that although we are in the new technology age, the information age, that not a ton of information is available online. Okay, there is a ton, but not as much as one might think or as accurate. In fact, unless one chooses to have an online presence, it is difficult to track someone down without having access to government records (many of which are simply not available to honest lay-people).

For instance, I spent years looking for my good friend Pat. I knew that he left the area when he joined the Air Force, but I didn't know if he was still on active duty, where he had settled, etc. The military doesn't exactly post regular updates about where its people are living/working. I actually sent out several emails over the years hoping to track him down. Eventually it worked, abut 10 years after I started. He made an obscure posting on an obscure website years ago that happened to have a still active email address attached to it. We have been in touch ever since, and I eventually convinced him to join Facebook for more regular contact.

Recently I have been searching another old friend, Flo. I heard from a mutual friend, who is nearly invisible on-line or off, that she had married her long-time sweetheart and said honey was now teaching. I stumbled across his (the honey's) name because he is an active musician and pops up occasionally online. About 5 years ago I sent off an email to the band address asking about her, but heard nothing. This week I found him on MySpace and sent him a message. So far nothing.

Then I found a listing for them both in San Francisco--IN THE ONLINE WHITE PAGES. D'Oh!! I could just call her at home!

That is way too easy. Calling someone at home? Isn't that a little out there? I mean, email is a nice safe way to make contact and just as easy a way to avoid someone. I'm going to have to think about this...

With Some Explanation

Part 2 of my list of favorite non-fiction books, but this time I'm going to include some exploration of what I enjoyed about each one.

Fire in a Cane Break: The Last Mass Lynching in America by Laura Wexler
Lynchings are not a new concept, and one reason many stories are still timely is because the silence surrounding the perpetrators is slowly cracking. This leads, in a few cases at least, to prosecution of the evil doers. This book takes the time to solve a decades old mystery. The author spent probably hundreds of hours doing research and tracking down the living survivors, guilty and innocent, of a horrific and unjustified mass lynching. Wexler takes what could be a fairly simple story and tells it in a way that is always riveting. I find her combination of reporting and suspense building to be inspiring.

Wrapped in Rainbows: Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Valerie Boyd
I originally purchased this book because I wanted to work with Valerie in my graduate program. I did work with her, but didn't read the book until a few years later in preparation to teach a Hurston novel for a community college English class. This book is the first time that someone attempted to unravel the various stories that Hurston told about herself to get to the truth of an extraordinary life. A fascinating story, and great insight, about a fascinating woman.

Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
Why are we fascinated with serial killers? Never mind, don't try and answer that. Just read this book. Larson does a wonderful job of telling the stories of the Chicago World's Fair just before the turn of the 20th century, one of the first serial killers who preyed on people who flocked to the fair, and the detective who cracked the murder cases. The author's only flaw is his tendency to take on the lofty tone and sentence structure of the men of late 19th century Chicago, and to refer to historical happenings that were (sometimes only peripherally) related to the story as if we all know all the stories. It sucks to be on the outside of an inside joke without enough information to find the story yourself.

Let's Not Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
I could relate to most of Fuller's experience even though she grew up in Africa on a ranch and I grew up in a small town in the U.S. The woman simply has a great way of telling a story. An interesting life doesn't hurt.

Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
On one hand this is an incredibly inspiring book. A young girl lives through cancer, the chemotherapy and years of failed reconstructive surgeries. She is a world-class poet and all around fun gal. On the other hand it is depressing because she ultimately died of a drug overdose. It is still a great read.