Monthly Archives: March 2010

The complete wisdom of weirdos on the bus

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It’s official: I have to write a collection of short stories, entitled The Complete Wisdom of Weirdos on the Bus. There should probably be something catchier in there, placed before a colon, like maybe “Tell me about your conspiracy theories!” or “Look out!” or even “Wine, Women and Weed.”

It’s all in there, I swear. And I’ve got a new story every day.

People love talking to me on the bus. It must be something in my face that projects, “Yes, I’d love to hear your political rants and a wide assortment of derogatory terms for local minorities!” I’m not sure what that something is, or else I’d try to correct it surgically. But then I wouldn’t have this vast collection of bizarre bus stories, so I guess you win some, you lose some.

Stay tuned for weird bus stories, coming soon to a collection near you.

The weirdos are coming! (photo by Flickr user MaryEllen and Paul)

Literary journals that’ll blow your mind

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I’m currently in the process of retooling Black Heart Magazine, so that I can publish a wider variety of genres and not feel like I’m being disloyal to erotica.

Isn’t it stupid, how you start to have these ideas about Who You Are that don’t really match with What You Actually Are? Sometimes it’s because of how others perceive you, true, but sometimes it’s entirely your own fault. Perhaps spurred on by the things others believe, but ultimately up to you to correct.

It can be very hard to let go of a certain persona, particularly if it worked or was popular in the past. But I am definitely not the sex-hungry minx of Black Heart’s past anymore, if indeed I ever was.

(Was she or wasn’t she? I can see the gossip rags now. If anyone thought I was famous enough to celeb-profile, which I’m not.)

In any event, I’ve been madly storming the halls of my mind (some call this “brainstorming”), ransacking it for ideas, thoughts, conclusions on what to do next, and how to do it. So far I’ve decided this: Black Heart is now about fiction that breaks the rules.

What does it mean to break the rules? How does that translate to a mission statement? I say mission statements be damned; all you need is a nice soundbyte or elevator pitch. The fiction I publish breaks the rules, and that’s really all you need to know.

You can find our submission guidelines online. Supposing, of course, you’re rule-abiding enough to read ‘em. If not, you can send your submissions to me via the Black Heart contact form.

In other news, I’ve been madly reading up on all the other lit mags I can find online, and I think one of my new favorites is the Summerset Review. I was tracking down stalking an author whose work I enjoyed on another site, and discovered she’d published a piece at the Summerset Review. It turned out to be an essay, which was kind of interesting, since it seemed very much like her peculiar brand of fiction at first. In any event, I found it very strange and disarming and sad and funny by turns, and even wrote a letter to the editor about it, in a woefully misguided attempt to participate in their “Fifty-for-Fifty” contest (which encourages letters to the editor), only to receive a nice letter back from the editor explaining that this wasn’t the most recent issue, and there was a timeline involved, which I’d missed.

Whoops. I am an idiot. Or I was just so excited to read this piece that I totally didn’t realize it was from Summer 2009 and not Winter 2010. In either case, editor Joseph Levens kindly told me he could offer me a free copy of the actual current issue, so that I could potentially comment on that instead. So all’s well that ends well: free issue, nice editor, and some very well-written stuff at this journal, which I highly recommend (and not just because they’re sending me a free issue, although that certainly helps).

Therefore, you must now go read Aubrey Hirsch’s “Speaking from the Throat” at the Summerset Review, and while you’re at it, enjoy some of her fiction over at Litsnack, too.

Biblical Proportions

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Here’s my contribution to Dan O’Shea’s flash fiction throwdown, on the subject of churchly violence. His piece, Let Us Prey, can be found here, and the originally challenge is stated on his website, Going Ballistic, over here.

For the record, the following piece is a work of fiction, though it is based on certain real-life events that Montrealers may be familiar with. My own Dad doesn’t, so far as I know, actually believe that Jesus is magic, so let’s all stop conflating the author’s life with her work right now. Okay?

Okay, let’s do this thing! I call mine:

Biblical Proportions
by Laura Roberts

My Dad believes that Jesus is magic. And not in the Sarah Silverman way, either; he really and truly thinks the dude performed miracles, even from beyond the grave. Which is a shame, because if he really were magic, then maybe this whole thing would never have happened, and all those people wouldn’t have had to die.

I mean, it’s not like it’s Jesus’ fault, exactly. He did, supposedly, do a lot of great shit for a lot of people. It’s just that my dad wasn’t one of ‘em, and I guess he took that personally.

Wouldn’t you?

I’ll be the first to admit, I found the whole thing bizarre. Even—dare I say it?—crazy. It just doesn’t make any logical sense, and I’d always figured my father for the logical type, down to his pressed khaki pants and 9 to 5 as an accountant. Sure, he played the organ at church every Sunday and believed in a dude who allegedly walked on water, but so do millions of otherwise sane people, right? It’s the opiate of the masses, after all, and lots of people swallow that pill every weekend. But most of the others aren’t going to burn their churches down in a fit of righteous rage when things don’t go their way.

Presumably, anyway.

Dad had made it very clear that something was wrong with him that Sunday, but I hadn’t been following the details. He said something about a score to settle, and in my bleary, pre-coffee haze I’d thought he was talking about the previous night’s hockey game with “Les Boys.” (The “boys” were all middle-aged men with children, so I dunno why they still insisted on the moniker, but I digress.) There was always some rivalry on the ice between him and Kevin O’Malley; they were old pals who took the sport way too seriously, for a couple of has-been wannabes.

St. George church fire, Cincinnati, Ohio (photo via eBaum’s World)

Anyway, it didn’t really cross my transom that it could possibly have anything to do with THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY until I heard the sirens and ran to the window to see smoke billowing out of the church just up the street. My Dad’s early-morning handiwork had set the thing ablaze.

It was a total mess. The place was like a tinderbox from Heaven, all original wood this and hardwood that. Went up like a book burning in Nazi Germany. The congregation narrowly escaped, by virtue of the fact that nobody in town ever made it to the service before 9:15, thanks to some quirk of timing at a particularly narrow covered bridge. Dad had started his spree at precisely 9:01, and even Father MacDougall hadn’t yet made his way from his breakfast at the rectory over the 15 feet to the sacristy by the time his loyal organist had doused the place in diesel (scrounged from his tractor) and struck that fateful match.

So why the hell did he do it? Well, it’s been all over the papers, so you’ve no doubt heard all the rumors already. But just in case you haven’t, here’s the straight dope: the dope wasn’t straight at all, and had recently been the victim of a botched operation that was meant to deliver Mr. Stephen Harris fresh from the ER as Mrs. Stephanie Harris.

I never suspected a thing. He’d told me he was going in for a routine procedure, something to do with a bum ticker, and then this.

As you can probably imagine, I’m mortified. Not only is my Dad a failed trannysaurus, but a murderer and arsonist to boot. (Wouldn’t have been so bad, except that a couple of the attending firefighters got trapped under a burning knave as they swept the building in search of church-goers. Tragic loss.) The whole town’s been talking about me, like maybe I’m next, and with that kind of pressure who knows? Still, I’ve been turning up weekly at the local synagogue, which is where the church’s weekly services have been transferred while the rubble is sorted (how’s that for irony?) and the congregation tries to raise money for a new church. I try not to make eye contact, but I can feel them staring at me, judging me. I try to take solace in the book of Job, but I really wish I’d just get swallowed up by some whale like Jonah instead. Seems like the stinking belly of the world’s largest aquatic mammal would at the very least offer a little peace and quiet.

Jesus ain’t magic, I can tell you that much. My dad found that out the hard way, and I guess I just wish someone had told the old boy a little sooner that the Good Book isn’t meant to be taken quite so literally.