My first reading in 2004 will be at Kahala Mall on January 10th at 1 pm. COME SEE ME! My Mom and kid sister Jules will also be in atttendance so you get to meet them too. Jules is a local pop singer and song writer and her first album is due out in February. She's been working with local composer Pierre Grill on an album tentatively entitled COZY FASCINATION. I think when Jules saw me journaling for a writing course at UH it affected her because she started writing not long after. Also I don't think it hurt that her babysitter was DEAN PITCHFORD, the local guy who went to St. Louis who won an Oscar for FAME.
If you haven't already done so, I urge you to purchase my first book BEFORE THE CITY on Amazon.com. It would make a great stocking stuffer and for only ten bucks you can't go wrong. Bring your copy to the reading and I'll be glad to sign it!
A hui hou,
-K
Lucky you live Hawaii--I'm in Vista, California right now and the winds are kicking up from the desert at 10:45 am, about 30 mph. It wouldn't be so bad but remember that Firestorm? Well, ashes are being carried west and the sky has turned from bright blue to gray. Particulate matter has reached a critical condition and people have started walking around wearing their masks.
But it IS Thanksgiving and I've got 2 custard pies just out of the oven and an apricot ready to go in. Wishing you all a happy celebration with your family and friends,
a hui hou,
-Kirby
I'm convinced that if I write sexually oriented stories that they will sell to major magazines like Esquire and the New Yorker. Not to mention Playboy. I even think some of the more literary pubs will be interested, such as the Paris Review. Titillation is what most of these magazines think their audience wants, so I'll try writing a few and see what happens.
If you have any fun sex stories to share, send them my way at: kibs33@yahoo.com
An online magazine in London just purchased one of my sudden fictions for 37 pounds sterling. That's about 56 bucks American. The one thing I LOVE about online submissions is the speed in which you find out whether or not a publisher will take your material. There are also these little contests online that don't cost a nickel and there is such a shortage of good writers that, if you know where to go, you could easily earn about an extra 250 dollars/month. It's not a lot but it sure helps with the bills.
I'm writing several blogs simultaneously on http://www.Santa.com and it's fun to mesh the blogs so that several voices are discussing similar subjects, and you get a chance to play off one another. For example, Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer got sick and Santa has a different take on it than the Elves. We're getting dirty emails from a bunch of kids and I think they only do it because they know they can get away with it. I can't read the email anymore because it ruins the Christmas spirit for me, although one good email makes up for a lot.
Do you think kids today need more discipline from their parents? I get this sense that parentals let their kids run hog wild, including abusing the computer. But then again, I wasn't exactly an angel myself when it came down to Radio Talk Shows in Hawaii. I think I contributed to this one VJ's partial nervous breakdown. Sorry about that, Tom Slaughtery!
I've been thinking about Hemingway's advice about starting your story or chapter with one good sentence. Maybe it is a good thing to spend an entire week thinking of good opening sentences--call it your ONE GOOD SENTENCE WEEK.
Then later, you can go through your list of sentences and pick one out that strikes you. It's really a bank of good writing that will propel you forward and give you a good reason to write something truly memorable.
I suppose you could say novels such as Dreiser's SISTER CARRIE are full of creative non-fiction because the book is based on the life of times of Dreiser's own sister. Side bar: Can anyone tell me what character is Dreiser in disguise?!
Hemingway says write about what you know and, if the writer listens to Papa, then all fiction has certain elements of non-fiction in it. How could it not? But, a truly imaginative writer doesn't really need to experience something first hand in order to write about it. For example, consider Stephen Crane and THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE. He never went to war but still wrote about it. And Maxine Hong Kingston never went to China but still did a magnificent job of writing about it in CHINA MEN.
Yes, I'll admit it, I've entered them. The closest I came was Second Place in a chapbook contest. I get this nagging feeling that most are rigged, and we know that the winner they usually select is not very good.
I rarely if ever enter any more. Better to donate that $ to the homeless or some other charity. And that promise about getting a year's subscription to the magazine or journal "just for entering." BIG DEAL. Who wants to read a magazine or journal that doesn't want you to be part of it!
I've been using dialogue to end short stories that are first person, but it seems as though the last word of dialogue is uttered not by the first person narrator but a character who is the primary focus of the narrative. Dialogue may be an easy way for you to exit a story, especially if what is said stays with the reader by giving piercing insight into the soul of that character.
I just finished writing a short story set in Honolulu that focuses on my sister's life. It's first person from the brother's p.o.v. and I found it interesting how, by telling the sister's story, the interior world of the brother is revealed. The first person narration seems to give me more bang for the buck because the filtering process of the narrator allows for excursions to poignant moments in the family history where the sister isn't even a character. By writing about a sibling, you can really delve into the narrator's psyche.
I think getting published on the web is going to get you a bigger audience than if you limit yourself to hard copy literary reviews and university magazines. Not too many people buy those reviews and magazines and it has been my experience that those published inside them rarely even read the other writings! However, if you are interested in applying for the NEA Grants, they're still old school and require a certain % of hard copy reviews, so, you should still submit to places like HAWAI'I REVIEW and CHAMINADE LIT. REVIEW, among others.
I remember that young reindeer couple Rudolf & Clarice from that Claymation version of RUDOLF, back in the late 60s/early 70s. Could there ever be such a perfect couple? Clarice's love for Rudolf was so fierce that she was willing to fight that monster in the cave for her beloved.
Anyway, I'm writing about Rudolf getting lost in the Valley of Ice at Santa.com, go check it out.
He loved her but she married another man and moved to another island. He often drove to the cliffs and stared out at the hump across the channel.
He ran into her on her island. She'd been married two months and worked at the car rental. When she passed him his keys, their hands touched and there was a moment where anything was possible. Then she told him she was expecting a baby.
He asked for directions to his hotel. The highway skirted a pineapple field that stretched to the horizon. He was tempted to stop but the fruit was too small and green.
As he drove east, he prayed the baby would never be born.
Snacking with Sadaam
Sadaam strolls into my studio and slams the door. His face is gaunt and he’s wearing a tattered tuxedo. I can see a pistol tucked under his belt. “Asalama alaikum,” I say and he winces. He reaches into a bowl of kibble perched on my dresser. I don’t want to tell him it’s cat food. “It’s difficult to find much during the occupation,” he admits as he chews. Then my cat comes in—she leaps up on the dresser and nudges Sadaam’s hand out of the way with her head.
Sadaam holds up a kibble and examines it. “What’s in here that cats like?”
“Fish,” I say, “only dried fish.” Sadaam nods. He opens the door and pauses in my doorway. He pulls out his pistol. “Do you brush the cat’s teeth?” he asks. “Sometimes,” I answer. “Americans,” he says shaking his head, “treat pets better than humans.”
I watch Sadaam disappear into a cloud of dust swirling in the sunset.
Hello there! I'm currently the voice of Santa on http://www.Santa.com, go to the Blog and read about Santa's adventures in Hawaii and the mainland. Also, let me know if you want me to post any of my latest prose on this site and I will. I recently was turned down by Booklines Hawaii as far as carrying my book of poems BEFORE THE CITY. Guess poetry just doesn't sell. Check this out--UH Professor Frank Stewart refused to give my Lemon Shark Press a blurb for the book even though he was my first ever poetry prof at UH. The community of writers should be more supportive, especially in Hawaii. When I met Garrett Hongo at the Foothill Writers Conference in Los Altos, California, he mentioned the cliquish nature of the literary community in Honolulu.
p.s. Ask me to post UH Professor Paul Lyons response to my invitation to a boxing match after I told him he helped nix my writing deal with Lyons Press, run by his brother, who just happens to be his publisher!
Maxine Hong Kingston was my first ever creative writing instructor, and she introduced me to the likes of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Allen Ginsberg, and Merwin at the East-West Center Conference back in Spring Semester, 1979. Yes, I am ancient. Anyway, Maxine gave me a blurb for my poetry book BEFORE THE CITY, now available at lemonsharkpress.com. She talked about losing her dead father's glasses in the Berkeley Hills fire, glasses she would use to stare out at the world as if using his eyes. There were students from La Jolla High in the crowd and an entourage of Maxine's friends. I told Maxine I always had wanted to be a poet/writer after taking her class in '79 and that my father had always wished I'd never taken her class because he wanted me to be a lawyer. I'VE SAVED THE WORLD FROM ANOTHER LAWYER! Maxine said and boy did that crowd get a giggle.