A Story a Day: Month Two

For the month of February, I have opted to read all works by Black authors. The following stories all come from the list put together by the editorial staff of the Chicago Review of Books. Feel free to read along!

  1. “Anything Could Disappear” by Danielle Evans
  2. “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” by ZZ Packer
  3. “The Era” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
  4. “Suicide, Watch” by Nafissa Thompson-Spires
  5. “French Absolutism” by Brandon Taylor
  6. “What’s For Sale” by Nicole Y. Dennis-Benn
  7. “Sunflowers” by Bryan Washington
  8. “Dangerous Deliveries” by Sidik Fofana
  9. “Williamsburg Bridge” by John Edgar Wideman
  10. “Biafra” by Nnedimma Okorafor
  11. “Bear Bear Harvest” by Venita Blackburn
  12. “Beg Borrow Steal” by Maurice Carlos Ruffin
  13. “How to Kill Gra’ Coleman and Live to Tell About It (Vauxhall, NJ, c. 1949)” by Kim Coleman Foote
  14. “Allentown, Saturday” by Gabriel Bump
  15. “Books and Roses” by Helen Oyeyemi
  16. “God’s Gonna Trouble the Water” by Randall Kenan
  17. “The City Born Great” by N.K. Jemisin
  18. “202 Checkmates” by Rion Amilcar Scott
  19. “All This Want and I Can’t Get None” by Tia Clark
  20. “Wet Paper Grass” by Jasmon Drain
  21. “Emperor of the Universe” by Kaitlyn Greenidge
  22. “Ark of Light” by Victor Lavelle
  23. “False Cognates” by Ladee Hubbard
  24. “What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky” Lesley Nneka Arimah
  25. “Milk Blood Heat” by Dantiel W. Moniz
  26. “Whiskey & Ribbons” by Leesa Cross-Smith
  27. “A Selfish Invention” by Donald Edem Quist
  28. “Best Features” by Roxane Gay

Rejection

I vividly remember the first rejection I received when I began to query my first book. Honestly, it was when I officially felt like a “real” writer – despite my telling my students over and over that being a writer simply means that you write. I wore that rejection like a badge of honor.

As the “no”s continued to drop into my inbox (or, as is more often the case, I simply never heard back and the timeline expired), it did sting a bit.

Ok, a lot.

Yes, it’s all part of the process. Yes, rationally, I understand that my manuscripts are not going to be for everyone (after all, I’ve not fallen in love with every book I’ve read in my life). But hearing no over and over can definitely make one question what they are doing.

Now, I lucked out with my first book. I was in the midst of querying agents when I participated in a pitch fest on Twitter, which is how I eventually signed a contract to publish the book. The process, though, afforded me five hard rejections and thirteen soft rejections (“if you don’t hear back from me in four/six/eight weeks, you can assume I’m passing”).

I am trying to keep this all in mind as I begin the query process on two manuscripts. I’ve already had my first rejection of the year for my YA novel, and I’ve only just begun.

For anyone who has stumbled onto this post and is just beginning the query process, remember – this is all about finding the right fit. You don’t want an agent/editor/publisher that isn’t going to be wild about your book – and not everyone will be. It can suck, it can hurt – just remember those books you’ve read that didn’t resonate with you – someone else out there loves it.

A couple resources if you are looking for agents/editors:

Agent Query

Manuscript Wish List

Rose – A Re-Homed Library Book

I spent so many hours in my youth amongst the aisles of the children’s books in the Arlington Heights Memorial Library, selecting that week’s stack of books that would accompany me home. We also had a bookmobile that would stop at the other end of our block (do those even exist anymore…?), and I’d traipse down to it with my arms full, returning with my new choices. It’s no surprise that even now I have a deep love for libraries (and the magicians that work within them).

This morning, I was perusing my own shelves when I stumbled across Rose (though as a kid, I always called her Rosie), a book that I checked out so many times that my mother ended up buying it for me. I couldn’t help but pick it up and flip through it. It’s pages are well worn, sometimes ripped (*sobs*), and one in particular is adorned with pen markings that may or may not have been mine (though given my aversion to writing in books, I’d wager a guess it was not me). The check out card and pocket are still there, too.

Do you, reader out there in cyber space, have such a book on your own shelf?

Slow Mornings

I’m sure I’ve written somewhere about the joy of slow mornings that I’ve been experiencing the last couple years. How I actually eat breakfast. Every day. How I drink coffee every morning now, too. (Though that was still generally done while working.) I didn’t used to take time in the morning for such things – I’ve always been a “hit the snooze until I absolutely MUST get up and then just gogogo” type of person. But, it turns out, I don’t need to be that sort of person. (I still sometimes, usually, almost always eat lunch at my desk… I should work on that next…)

Another new addition to my mornings is the #365Stories challenge I’ve set for myself this year – to read #AStoryADay. This has become my coffee time, and I can tell you – my morning coffee has never tasted so good.

My goal was to encounter stories I might not have otherwise – to read things that I know nothing about – to be surprised. And so far, it’s been such a lovely experience. I have my breakfast. Then I roll up to my desk with my coffee and click on to the next story.

(Truth be told, I’ve wanted to do the 52 book challenge that so many of my friends post about on Facebook and such every year – but I also know that once the semester gets rolling, there are some weeks where a book is just not feasible. This feels much more manageable, for sure. But still – *fingers crossed*.)

There will be a post at the start of every month with the list of stories I plan to read (with links – you can find January’s here). There will also be links posted every day via twitter (@Ami_Maxine). Please feel free to read along! (I also have five more months to schedule – so please let me know if you have any stories you think I should read!)

A Story a Day: Month One

I went back and forth when picking stories for this month. I was trying to decide whether I’d allow myself to reread any stories – or if they had to be 365 brand new stories. I finally decided that I wanted this to be all brand experiences for me. If I opt to reread anything, it will be in addition to the new story for that day. The goal of all of this, after all, is to be exposed to stories I might not have otherwise come across – to experience new (to me) writers (though I’ll also do “not new to me writers but new to me stories of theirs” if they show up on such a list).

The stories listed below came from a couple top ten lists I stumbled over – the first ten are from the top ten out of the 304 stories Pravesh Bhardwaj read in 2021. The others come from the 2020, 2019, and 2018 top ten lists that are linked at the bottom of the page.

Feel free to read along with me! 🙂

  1. “Standard Loneliness Package” by Charles Yu
  2. “The Strange Story of the World” by Chigozie Obioma
  3. “House for Sale” by Colm Tóibín
  4. “When Eddie Levert Comes” By Deesha Philyaw
  5. “Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey” by Haruki Murakami
  6. “The Faery Handbag” by Kelly Link
  7. “Birdie” by Lauren Groff
  8. “All Saints’ Mountain” by Olga Tokarczuk
  9. “Flashlight” by Susan Choi
  10. “The Pinch” by Dina Nayeri
  11. “The Reverant” by Edwidge Danticat
  12. “Pineapple Crush” by Etgar Keret
  13. “The Migration of the Stork” by Ismail Kadare
  14. “Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu
  15. “Lois and Varga” by Lisa Taddeo
  16. “Tiger Bites” by Lucia Berlin
  17. “Slingshot” by Souvankham Thammavongsa
  18. “Shakespeare, New Mexico” by Valeria Luiselli
  19. “The Office of Missing Persons” by Akil Kumarasamy
  20. “The Frog King” by Garth Greenwell
  21. “On Destiny” Lee Chang-dong
  22. “Motherland” by Min Jin Lee
  23. “Redeployment” by Phil Klay
  24. “When the Tide of Misfortune Hits, Even Kelly Will Break Your Teeth” by Porochista Khakpour
  25. “Memoirs of a Bootlegger’s Son” by Saul Bellow
  26. “Cattle Praise Song” by Scholastique Mukasonga
  27. “Mucci” by Ursula Villarreal-Moura
  28. “The Proxy Marriage” by Maile Meloy
  29. “Dimension” by Alice Munro
  30. “The Fruit of My Woman” by Han Kang
  31. “Crooner” by Kazuo Ishiguro

A Resolution?

Traditionally, I’m not one for making resolutions. I’m not big on “starting fresh” just because I swap the calendar that hangs in my kitchen. According to several articles I’ve read, studies show that only 8% of people keep their New Years Resolutions all year long. (I should note these articles didn’t provide citations for said studies – so take this with a grain of salt.) A whopping 80% have given up on them before February even shows up. Given my time working at the YMCA during high school, I can anecdotally support this given how January was always our busiest month of every year I worked there.

So I’m leery to call this a resolution. But I’d like to attempt to read a short story every day this coming year. I say attempt because if I’ve learned nothing else these last two years, I’ve learned to expect the unexpected, and I don’t want to feel as though I’ve failed if I miss a day or a week. (So perhaps I’ll amend this as I’d like to read 300 stories this coming year. Gotta love a little wiggle room.) I’m also going to have a mix of new stories along with rereading stories I’d like to revisit for various reasons.

I’m surely not the first person to attempt this. And I won’t be the last. So I’m curious – any of you out there that might be reading this – what’s your favorite story? What should absolutely be on my list this year?

My plan is to give a monthly update rather than post every single day. So fingers crossed that I make it at least into February. 😉

Alice Hoffman

In March of 2013, I found myself, thankfully, in Boston, Massachusetts for AWP. I say “thankfully” because Chicago was getting hit with a snow storm the day I was supposed to leave, and I was fairly certain my flight would be cancelled. But I got out in time – and then the storm caught up with me in Boston, bringing along its frigid winds that made wandering about the city a bit of a challenge.

For folks who aren’t familiar, AWP (The Association of Writers and Writing Programs) holds an annual conference and book fair, moving cities each year. The conference is an overwhelming experience of too many people, too many sessions, and a giant book fair of publishers and literary journal and college writing programs. As an introvert, it’s an exhausting experience. As a writer and reader, though, it’s a place to encounter some of our favorite writers – and discover a love for some new ones.

At this point, I’ve gone to six or seven of these conference – my first to New York, a couple closer to home (Chicago and Minneapolis), and over to the west coast (Seattle and Portland). Boston was somewhere in the middle of my list, but it’s the one that sticks out most readily to me – because I got to meet Alice Hoffman.

After listening to her keynote talk, I headed out into the throngs to wait for a chance to speak a few words with her while she signed my very worn copy of her book Practical Magic – whose covers were being held on thanks to wrapping the entire novel in contact paper. While she signed this (and a couple new copies I was using for gifts), I managed to croak out that I reread this book every single year.

“Are you one of the ones that started when you were twelve?” she asked me.

“Thirteen.” As a young writer, I loved the poetic language and magical story. My dream was to write my own story like this someday, to set it next to Hoffmans on my own bookshelf.

Cut to 2018 – me walking through Barnes & Noble, wandering the shelves. I catch something out of the corner of my eye, stop, take a step backward, and turn – The Rules of Magic, a prequel to Practical Magic. Needless to say, I bought a copy, took it home, and then stayed up until three in the morning reading it. I may have also geeked out a bit when I tweeted about the experience, and Hoffman responded to me – and then teased that Maria Owens probably has a story to tell.

Maria did indeed have her own story to tell – Magic Lessons, which came out in 2020. And this was followed closely by a fourth installment – The Book of Magic.

One of my goals (read: pleasures) planned for this winter break is to read the entire series start to finish – beginning with that well-worn first copy. I can’t wait to dive back into this world I’ve loved for so long – and see where this new installment takes us.

I Put a Bow On It

To say that this semester has been the hardest of my career feels woefully inadequate. Yes, it was worse than Spring 2021 when we had to shift mid-semester to fully remote teaching. Honestly, that semester seems like a breeze in comparison. And I’m sure you’d think that after that plus an entire other academic year of remote teaching under out belts that this semester would have been a breeze.

But you would be wrong.

I went into this year completely burned out. After the chaos of Spring 2021. After spending Summer 2021 teaching and prepping for Fall being all online. After an entire year of dragging students across the finish line. After another summer of doing the same (I also somehow ended up with nine credits for summer session – when six would be considered “full time”). I went into this Fall semester barely holding it together.

Thanks to my friends in and out of academia, I still managed to give my students everything and then some. (It really does help when you’ve got good folks in your corner that can prop you up when you’re too tired to stand on your own.) But we can only do so much if the students don’t show up. This semester, I had more students in one section fail than I normally have across all sections in a semester – because they simply didn’t show up. They didn’t respond to emails offering second chances. Or they did respond but then never followed up with the work. Or they just stopped signing into the course altogether.

Because they are burned out, too. Because it’s been almost two years, and we’re still in it. Many students are still forced to take online courses even if they aren’t wired in a way that they can be successful in them. We’ve offered a bit more face-to-face this semester, but even that wasn’t enough. I just keep thinking – it didn’t have to be like this.

But here we still are.

I submitted final grades yesterday, but unlike the usual relief that comes with this act, I just feel tired and sad. It doesn’t feel real, honestly. I can only hope that students (and my friends/colleagues) can get some rest over this break. I can only hope that next semester will be better than this one.