09 Sunday Jul 2017
If you follow me on twitter, you’ve already seen this, but for those who are email subscribers, you might have missed my chapbook interview over on William Woolfitt‘s fantabulous Speaking of Marvels blog. Check it out!
09 Sunday Jul 2017
Posted in C.A. Explains It All, Sunday Sentence
Tags
#readwomen, Ashley Shelby, David Abrams, Picador, South Pole Station, Sunday Sentence, women novelists
My weekly contribution to David Abrams’ “Sunday Sentence” project in which participants share the best sentence read during the past week “out of context and without commentary.”
SOURCE: South Pole Station (Picador, 2017), a novel by Ashley Shelby
08 Monday Aug 2016
Posted in C.A. Explains It All
Yes, BoneSparkblog has been sadly neglected this summer, but I have something yummy for all you fiction writers out there…………….
A BRAND NEW YOUTUBE CHANNEL
featuring a Craft Talks (Writers on Writing) playlist that will blow your socks off.
But don’t let the genre labels fool you, scribblers, these videos have juicy advice that is applicable across categories.
So dig in!! And look for its poetry cousin in the very near future.
16 Wednesday Mar 2016
Posted in C.A. Explains It All
Tags
book review, Cherokee Ice, John T Biggs, Liffey Press, magical realism, Native American lore, new books, oklahoma author, Oklahoma Book Award, Pen-L Publishing, Sacred Alarm Clocks
ISBN: 978-1-942428-34-3 (272 pgs) from PEN-L Publishing
What do a dwarf, a holy man and a ghost horse all have in common? –Danny Riley, a mixed-up NDN on the wrong nation’s rez, who may or may not be a witch.
Riley is at the center of writer John T. Biggs’s latest magical realist novel CHEROKEE ICE, which I am excited to learn is a fiction finalist for the 2016 Oklahoma Book Award.
On its surface, the novel is about the rise and fall of a designer drug in several Southwestern states, but at its core it is a family saga that is as much about what we would do for family as what family does to us.
With this book, Biggs proves again that he understands how to ground the magical in the real, be it a young man’s first, awkward sexual encounters or his fraught mother-son relationship.
Biggs also understands the beauty of a well-written prologue. In the taut, three-page scene that opens the book, he manages to create sympathy for an otherwise unsympathetic character, thereby steeping us literally (in-utero) in the main character’s same conflicted emotions. Emotions that are later mirrored in other characters, both major and minor.
One such example is supposed tough-guy Tommy Bracken, a drug dealer whose own addiction to the emotional vulnerability of a sexually sadistic relationship (with Danny’s grandmother, no less) and acute fear of spiders is often at odds with the extreme macho-ism needed to maintain his territory.
In this sea of emotion and drama, characters, over time, begin to merge into each other. Whether it be morphs between fathers and sons, brothers and husbands, drug lackeys or cops, the unpredictable shape-shifting heightens the vision-like quality of the storyline.
One of my favorite vision-like scenes comes in the last quarter of the book, when Lil Bits, the aforementioned dwarf, tries to kill Danny for the second time, this time with the help of silver bullets and a few hired goons. Pardon the long passage (readers and publisher), but the space is needed to see how Danny works his special kind of mojo:
Green goo covers the African American dwarf’s eyes, spoiling his aim as he fires a silver bullet into the wasp nest on Danny Riley’s pickup truck.
Danny feels the burn of the wasp toxin for the time it takes his heart to shift into overdrive. The nausea clears. Poison tumbles through his drug factory enzymes and winds up in his brain, where it’s a lot different than it started out. Danny Riley suddenly understands that bullets aren’t nearly as dangerous as wasps.
His wasp-sisters’ poison doesn’t turn into visions inside Little Bits’ hired killers. They have their pistols out, squeezing shots off this way and that, filling the air with projectiles than fly off to lodge in buildings and automobiles and maybe an innocent bystander or two.
Clouds of nitrate-flavored smoke don’t hinder Danny or his wasp-sisters at all. Gunpowder residue tastes as sweet as nectar on his lips. It doesn’t burn his eyes or dull his vision. Everything is crystal clear, broken into a thousand pieces Washed in rainbows, as if Danny is gazing at the world through a cut diamond lens.
Danny Riley knows he is not a wasp, as much as he knows anything, but he is moving too fast to think about it clearly. Faster than thoughts, faster than all the reasons a man can’t move this fast. Faster than Little Bits can take aim through the haze of smoke and vomit and superstition.
The African American dwarf empties his revolver of silver bullets, tries to make one land on Danny, who is moving around him the way a swam of hornets attacks a marauding bear.
Danny snatches the pistol out of Little Bits’ hand. Throws it at one of the Italian killers. Hits him square in the face. Knocks him out as he fires his pistol one last time and shoots his partner in the knee.
Little Bits takes off running down the center of the street, screaming for one of his two silver Jesuses to save him from witches and wasps.
The situation only gets more complicated after that, and what a wild ride to get to the conclusion!
That said, I felt that the ending, which was satisfying in its own way, needed to go just one step farther with Danny by letting his newfound courage bring him back into his own identity.
All in all, though, another great book from Biggs, who also has a new short story collection out from Liffey Press, called appropriately, SACRED ALARM CLOCKS. The collection made the best selling Oklahoma Writers list in February.
For more news on his writing, check out johnbiggsoklahomawriter.com
13 Friday Feb 2015
Posted in C.A. Explains It All
MULTI-STEP EQUATIONS
by C.A. LaRue
—for Red Fox Man, beloved father
everything tastes of smoke
though the house has had 27 days
to bear your absence
i scrape your tools along cracked
walls that have waited 9.25 years
to mend Katrina scars
mama starts your truck 1x per day,
goes 0 miles: x equals the
qty of gas burned
dry mouths swallow Mound bars
from the stash you thought you hid in
your desk drawer: 240 calories per
serving
son #1 digs the drain you
laid out for the backyard: 3ft deep,
1 ft wide
son #2 googles that your
remains weigh 6.3lbs, peeks
inside the urn
we sit them beside your birthday cards
(which you missed by days)
no one can move towards home or
dare to take a final sum
14 Sunday Dec 2014
Posted in C.A. Explains It All, Sunday Sentence
Tags
David Abrams, Getty Iris Magazine, My Lifelong Quest for Color, Sunday Sentence, The Brilliant History of Color in Art, Victoria Finlay, women essayists
My weekly contribution to David Abrams’ “Sunday Sentence” project in which participants share the best sentence read during the past week “out of context and without commentary.”
SOURCE: “My Lifelong Quest for Color” essay by Victoria Finlay, author of The Brilliant History of Color in Art (Getty Museum, 2014).
24 Friday Oct 2014
Posted in C.A. Explains It All
Tags
31 Days of Halloween, Abyss&Apex, Ada Hoffman, Alex Carrigan, All My Love to the Monster Devouring Me, Amazing Stories, At That Age When We Girls Become Fairies, Betwixt, Brooke Wonders, Carol Holland March, Carolee Sherwood, Clarkesworld, creepy poetry, David Kopaska Merkel, Day of the Dead, Devilfish Review, E. Kirstin Anderson, Edgar A. Poe, Eleonara, Erik Amundsen, Fish Boy Hits the Teen Years, Ghostweight, Goblin Fruit, Gorgon Girls, Graveyard Rock, halloween, Hand Me Down Halloween, Harvey's Dream, Headmistress Press, Helen Kitson, Henry Wouk Is Still Alive, Here Be Toothsome Wolves, Hilary Joubert, Inkscrawl, Judith Barrington, Kelly Link, Lilla Ashley, Liz Henry, Liz Kay, Luna Station Quarterly, Made of Lines blog, Maria Dahvana Headley, Menacing Hedge, Michael J. DeLuca, Mother Frankenstein, Natalie Diaz, NightBlade, Nightmare Magazine, Pat Cadigan, Poetry Society of America, Quail Bell Magazine, Real Witches Don't Wear Hats, Rose Red Review, Sabotage Reviews, Saira Ali, Samhain, Sestina at the Maldron Hotel Ireland, Shannon Hozinac, Small Beer Press, Soul Harvest, Stephen King, Stone Telling, Taxidermist in the Underworld, The Axe-Eaters, The Faery Handbag, The Gingerbread Dress, The Girl Who Couldn't Fly, The Golden Key, The Mermaid at SeaWorld, The Stone Horse of Flores, The Witch Has a Purpose, Unfair Exchange, Wake Up Poetry, When the Wife Brings Love Back From the Dead, Witch's Primer, Women Destroy Horror, Yoon Ha Lee
Or perhaps you are atop a broomstick or pumpkin. Wherever you find yourself this Halloween, don’t let the hour arrive without first indulging in some of these SPOOKTACULAR finds:
STORIES
D. Long’s (Lushly illustrated) version of E.A. Poe’s Eleonara—from Amazing Stories Here Be Toothsome Wolves
Harvey’s DreamUnfair Exchange by Pat Cadigan–at Nightmare Magazine: Women Destroy Horror! Special Issue
POEMS
Gorgon Girls by Saira Ali–at Strange Horizons
Mother Frankenstein by Liz Henry–at Stone Telling
Lilla Ashley–at Rose Red Review
Sestina at the Maldron Hotel, Ireland
Judith Barrington–at Rose Red Review
The Mermaid at SeaWorld by Ada Hoffman–at NightBlade
Hillary Joubert–at The Golden Key
Day of the Dead by Helen Kitson–at Sabotage Reviews
Samhain by John Montague–at Wake Up Poetry
Witch’s Primer, Lesson 4 Erik Amundsen –at Inkscrawl
All My Love to the Monster Devouring Me by Alex Carrigan–at Quail Bell Magazine
Hand-Me-Down Halloween by Natalie Diaz–at Poetry Society of America
ART
31 Monsters of Halloween at Made of Lines blog
Real Witches Don’t Wear Hats
FUN
02 Thursday Oct 2014
Posted in C.A. Explains It All
Tags
CL Moore, comics, Digital Archives Hub, io9, Mammoth Mystery, Mars Attack Trading Cards, megan burns, New Pulp publishers, penny dreadfuls, pulp art, Pulp Character Grid, Pulp Era, pulp fiction, pulp stories, PulpOMizer, space babes in danger, space opera, Startling Stories, The Black Mask, The Golden Age of SciFi, The Pulp Project, Thrilling Tales, Weird Tales
If you have a sweet spot for the old pulp mags, poke your head in at The Pulp Project for a whole slew of free reading material, including full-color downloads or browse-able issues of Mammoth Mystery, Weird Tales, Startling Stories & the Black Mask, to name just a few.
You’ll also find a tidy listing of pulp links in its vast Digital Archives Hub, with everything from scholarship to RPG’s to radio adaptations to forums thoroughly covered. You’ll even find a few more sources of free downloads (some penny dreadfuls and comics sprinkled in).
And in case you want a more user friendly roundup of “New Pulp”publishers, (i.e. stories by modern writers that recreate the feel of the old style pubs), click on the Pulp.net link above. There’s a bit of a revival going on in the genre, as you will see.
While you’re out there browsing, hop on over to the very cool PULP-O-MIZER at the Thriling Tales website, which lets you create a customizable vintage style cover.
Also worth a read is this trio of articles up at io9.com titled, Badass Women of the Pulp Era, The Weird Life of Pioneering Female Pulp Fiction Writer C.L. Moore & Space Babes in Danger: The Space Opera Pin-up Art of Megan Burns [Burns mini-gallery below]
You might enjoy these fun 60’s style Mars Attacks trading cards too, but expect to tweek before printing. Sample image below:
And for the brave wanting to put pen to paper after all that fine reading, whip out this fillable Pulp Character Grid first.
~Until next time, a million thrills, subscribey-wibeys!!!! We’ve got more good stuff coming up, including Halloween reads & interviews with three Louisiana small presses. STAY TUNED.
26 Friday Sep 2014
Posted in C.A. Explains It All
Tags
Angel Coulby, arthurian legends, Arthurian romance, bbc merlin, bernard cromwell, Bradley James, California Polytechnic, Colin Morgan, Cromwell's Warlord series, Debora B. Schwartz, Emilia Fox, Guinevere, Katie McGrath, King Arthur and His Noble Knights, Knights of the Roundtable, M.K. Hume, Mary Stewart, medieval bestiary, medieval literature, merlin, Merlin Trilogy, Mists of Avalon, Modern Arthurian Legend, Monty Python's Holy Grail, Pendragon Cycle, Steinbeck, Steve Lawhead, the camelot project, the Gawain Poet, The Idylls of the King, The Once and Future King, The Sword in the Stone, Tolkien
Young Merlin (Colin Morgan) with Prince Arthur (Bradley James)
If Fall TV has disappointed, cast your gaze upon the BBC’s Merlin, available now at Hulu.com, free for the full five seasons. Great scripts, gorgeous actors and all the beauty that the BBC brings in recreating the period, plus some very kicka$$ medieval chicks!
But don’t spend all of your time in front of the screen when there are more Modern Arthurian Legends to explore. Dr. Debora B. Schwartz,
Associate Professor English Department, College of Liberal Arts · California Polytechnic State University recommends these texts:
The full reading schedule is available on her very detailed course page. You’ll notice she’s sprinkled in viewings of several films, including The Sword in the Stone and Monty Python’s Holy Grail. 
And if you are dying for something more authentic, consider working through her
Medieval Arthurian Legends syllabus, which looks at the older texts such as Chrétien de Troyes’ Arthurian Romances, or the Medieval Literature course, which adds in the writings of the Gawain-Poet (try the Tolkien version) and other classics. There are extensive links to background resources at both sites.
If you visit none of the others, do click through:
and
And do not close the door on all things Arthurian until you’ve read all of Bernard Cromwell’s thrilling Warlord series.
====> BUT WAIT! If it’s more Merlin you want, try these enchanted reads:
Mary Stewart’s Merlin Trilogy
M.K. Hume’s Merlin series
Steve Lawhead’s Merlin (Part of the Pendragon Cycle)
T.A. Barron’s Lost Years of Merlin Series (YA)
Priya Ardis’ My Merlin series (YA)
Jane Yolen’s Young Merlin series (YA)
23 Tuesday Sep 2014
Posted in C.A. Explains It All
Tags
Destiny, Elizabeth McCracken, Free Fruit for Young Widows, free short stories, Louise Erdrich, Nathan Englander, North Country, Roxane Gay, Short Reads, Sister Godzilla, The Atlantic, The House of the Two Three Legged Dogs, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, Zoetrope
The Cyberworld is reaching out, demanding that you plug into these free reads from your favorite writerly folks:
At The Altantic:
Sister Godzilla & Destiny
by Louise Erdrich
At Zoetrope:
The House of the Two Three-
Legged Dogs
by Elizabeth McCracken
At The New Yorker:
Fre
e Fruit for Young Widows & What We Talk About When We Talk about Anne Frank
by Nathan Englander
At Byliner:
North Country 
by Roxane Gay
