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From Here - Author / Reader Discussion
hey there, I would like to receive a copy because I actually saw this on Melanie's Grab the Lapels blog and had been interested in it. I've also wanted to read something from Aqueous Books, especially since I heard it was closing or something. I will participate in the discussion as always. I live in Jackson, New Jersey. I think I want a print copy this time.
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Jen, I am very much looking forward to this as well! Can't wait to see how people connect with your stories.
Wow. "Moody and character driven" stories? FROM HERE sounds like something I would definitely enjoy reading.As I live in Canada I am entering to win a mobi version of this book and I am definitely willing to participate in the group discussion.
My Goodreads profile is open, but I can also be contacted by email at [email protected]
Thanks for the chance to win a copy. I have added FROM HERE to my "To Read" list.
I'm in Canada so I would love a mobi copy please if I win. I'm trying to discover more short story collections I actually like and since I also love discovering and supporting new authors, this is the perfect opportunity! I would of course participate in the discussion in May.
This book sounds interesting and should make a good discussion. I would love to win a print copy. I live in Texas. Thank you for this chance to read another great book.
So im New to the group and didnt have a chance to pick up this months book read but i would love to win next months read! ( Paperback so those outside of us can have them) I Love the idea of being in a book group that actually reads together! I am looking forward to chatting with everyone about this book even if i dont win, Ill just keep it in my amazon cart! Thanks for the chance!
This book looks like a great book club read.I love the one review that says it makes you want
To pull the covers tighter. I would read and paricipate in the group discussion in May 18 through May 24
I live in the US and would love to win a copy (print preferred). I enjoy short stories and it looks like this collection has some fascinating character studies. I agree to participate in the group discussion from 5/18 to 5/24.
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Julie, are you going to enter the giveaway? Follow the guidelines up above and make sure to post your comment soon.
I'd love to win a copy of this book. It sounds like the stories are very character-driven and emotional, so it seems like something I'll enjoy. ** I agree to participate in the group discussion from May 18 to May 24.
** I live in beautiful San Diego, CA
** I prefer a paper book because I like to release my books "in the wild" via bookcrossing.com after reading them. Often this introduces readers to new authors.
Thanks, all! Good luck and can't wait to chat with you! :)
I've already read this book, but I'd be happy to participate in the conversation. Jen has a good brain to poke :)
I'd love to be considered in this giveaway! I am a literature/women's Lit. fan and this collection of stories sounds right up my alley.
I will happily participate in the online discussion and also happily post reviews to Goodreads, Amazon, and my social media sites to promote it (provided I can honestly offer it at least 3 stars).
I live in Maryland.
If I'm a chosen winner, just drop me a message in Goodreads( I think that covers everything:0)
Print format is preferred.
I just read the first two stories "Orion" and "The Safest Place" from the Amazon sample and I cannot wait to read the rest. I would like a print copy. I live in the US and agree to participate in the discussion.
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FYI - I did receive my copy and am enjoying reading it!
is this give away still open? i thought it was thru May 8th. i will participate in discussions and would prefer electronic format. (my local library does not have a copy)
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I'll start things off a bit early, like I usually do, with a warm welcome and a question....
Jen, thanks so much for making copies of FROM HERE available for the group. I don't know about everyone else but I really enjoyed reading it. Well, as much as one can enjoy a stories where people are suffering and miserable and lonely :)
So here's my question:
Why are your stories filled with so much sickness and suffering? Was it planful or did they all just seem to fall that way?
You know, it's a very good question, one I hadn't considered until you mentioned it when you were reading it. I think, for the most part, we don't learn a lot when we are happy, aren't motivated or compelled to make changes--if everything is good, and we're happy, why change? What's the need. Which, unfortunately, doesn't make compelling fiction. I think fiction works best as sort of a crosswords--this way or that way. The character can't go back to the way things were--they have to find a new way. And usually those crossroads occur at major events in our lives, ie, deaths, breakups, disappointments. Situations that force us to grow, the grit that makes the pearl. You might not remember a romantic comedy an hour after leaving the theater, but you might roll "Schindler's List" around in your head for days.
Hi Jen,Thank you so much for the gift of your collection. It was beautiful and arresting and the stories will stay with me for quite some time.
I'd like to ask you about your piece entitled Neighbors. Out of all of the stories in the collection, Neighbors seems the most abstract (or, dare I say, weird?). Was the ending meant to be ambiguous? It's almost as if it takes on this surreal, magic realism quality.
Also, I'd like to ask about your first piece, Orion, and what prompted you to choose a poetic writing style for it.
Lastly, I'd like to ask you about a motif that I picked up on, particularly in the title piece, as well as in Lilian in White and the Paleolithic Age. I felt that these stories carried a similar thread of unrequited love, on both sides of the gender spectrum. Was that a topic that was particularly meaningful to you as you were writing?
Thank you for engaging in this discussion. I loved each and every story; if they had been full novels, I'd have bought every one of them!
Hello Jen,I'm currently halfway through your book and loving it! Your stories are TOTALLY up my alley. I'm a quick reader so I'll be finished in no time, but I figured I'd ask a question or two that I already have rolling around in my head.
Something I really enjoy about your writing is how real it is (except Neighbors I suppose - unless you know something we don't!). You have the ability to put the reader in the same awful situation that's happening in your stories pretty effectively. So of course I'm going to ask the question I think everyone has for a writer, especially for one who writes about the ugly part of the human experience, and that's to what degree have your personal experiences contributed to your stories?
Also, in terms of reading, do you like to stick to fiction that's similar to your writing, or do you dabble in very different stuff, like genre fiction for example?
Hi Tabitha, Thanks for your questions! "Neighbors" is a little thematically and stylistically different than most of the collection, but not that different from my work as a whole. I tend to use magical realism, in small doses, in other novels and short stories, but since there is a strong element of displacement, I thought it was apt. "Neighbors," like "Orion," is based on semi-true events (to address Jane's question as well). Sometimes, with truer stories (I once lived next door to a man who looked pregnant and let his naked grand-toddlers play in my yard, and a college friend and I once thought we saw an alien in a tree that turned out to be Mylar balloons shimmering in the moonlight), I feel compelled to twist and disguise them a little bit, outrageously so, so no on comes to me and insists I wrote about them. ;)
To answer your questions about sad themes, ie, unrequited love and the like, I don't think I've had more than my share of suffering in my life, but i feel a little like an empath at times; everything makes me cry, particularly other people's pain. I think writing is my way of letting it go and processing it. I don't write about my own life very much; I feel it's too boring. It's easier to make stuff up! Even when my mother died late last year, it's my own, private pain, not to share.
Although I tend toward realism, I do like to inject some magical realist elements into them to see how they take off. My debut novel, The tide King,
Often gets misclassified as sci-fi because there are immortal beings in it. So I'm not averse to exploring other genres, noir or mystery or sci-fi, under the umbrella of literary fiction.
In real life, read whatever I can get my hands on. If it's got two covers and pages between them, I usually feel compelled to read it!
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Hi Jen. I love this collection. Your characters have such clear, unique voices. Do you have a particular favorite among these stories? And over what period of time were they written? What changes or evolution do you see in your writing from the earliest story to the most recently written?
@Jen,Thank you for your responses. My sincere condolences for the loss of your mother :(
May I also ask a question about your characters?After you finish with a piece, do you ever feel tempted to return to those characters, or do you feel like once the piece is finished you've said all you have to say about them?
Hello Jen. Thank you for the opportunity to read your book and delve into some of your thoughts. My first question has to do with the order of the stories - is there an overall arch or plan that was followed, or was it more arbitrary?
I will admit that I actually haven't finished reading From Here yet. I'm almost there. It's definitely one of the few short story collections where I enjoy most of the stories. Short stories, I can tell from reading them, are definitely some of the hardest to write. How do you know when to shut off the novel mode when you're writing a short story? How do you know when to keep it in a snippet? I don't know how to word this question to be quite honest.
That's a good question, Lixian. Sometimes you have an idea in your head of where you want to end, and sometimes you don't know. At least twice (and I think this is in response to Tabitha as well) I've written a short story that later turned into a novel (in fact, I'm finishing a novel right now that grew out of the title story, From Here). I think (at the risk of continuing to sound morbid), that ending stories is like putting a beloved animal to sleep: it should be done a little early rather than too late. You don't want to leave a story neatly tied with a bow; often, you want the reader to carry the story with her, to try and wrap that bow around the package herself. Maybe the bow I've given you is too short, or too long: then what? The best stories, I think, remain with readers, puzzles that they try to solve on their own (ie, "did she stay with him or not? What would I have done?").
After I read the very first story in the book, I stopped for a second, stunned at the ending, and then laughed out loud. It takes a lot for a story to really surprise me, and even more to make me laugh out loud. My interpretation of the story was that the two people were sharing a lovely few hours together, and they were stoned. My experience when stoned is that often you disappear from your own story or your own existence for a while, and then come back, wondering where you had been in your mind. I have no idea whether that experience while high had anything to do with the ending of that story, but I am very curious to know why it ended the way it did. Did anyone else have another interpretation? After reading that story, I knew I was going to like the entire book :)
Lori, this is such a tough question! In general, I love the work of Michael Cunningham; his characters feel very real and are very imperfect and his storytelling credible. I also enjoy Michael Chabon-incredible overload, at times, of details and beautifully crafted sentences, but witty and imaginative. Virginia Woolf and Louise Erdrich have influenced a lot of my more experimental, circular writing, particularly my novella "May-September."
I love authors who try to bend the world a little bit and see what happens when it attempts to right itself, like Shirley Jackson and Flannery O'Connor and Haruki Murakami.
I do like a little sci-fi and fantasy if I just want to lose myself in something else and not try to pull apart the book and see how the magic happens, like Philip Dick or Ray Bradbury.
And sometimes, really I really want to get to the bones of a story, a clear, hard prose, I'll re-read Ernest Hemingway.
One of my favorite books is Bridge to Terabithia by Kate Paterson. The confluence of emotions and friendship and loss is one of the most striking I've ever read.
Peg, I think the stories were written in a seven-year span, with "The Mural" being one of the older stories and "The Safest Place" being one of the newer ones. The changes are not so apparent from story to story, but I felt as I was writing them that each could be its own novel, so much so that I've written three novels since most of these stories (one published, one in submission, one almost finished). I began to realize, ironically, that maybe I wasn't a short story writer--maybe I was a novelist instead. There's just so much I want to do in the story, once I'm in its world, that I often return to the characters either in novels or they just kind of take up real estate in my head for a long time, like soap operas that I check in to watch from time to time. ;)I don't know if I have a particular favorite; they all have stayed with me in some way. I guess when I open the book up and reread stories or choose stories to read at readings, I return to "The Substitute," "Lillian in White," "Killing Rabbits," and "From Here." Sometimes I re-read them just to see how I've done something or solved something before, or realizing maybe I could have done something better, in retrospect. But I try not to dwell too much on what I've already written, and it's such a weird, trance-like state of writing them that only rarely I remember the year I wrote them, or why, or what inspired them, or even what I was doing in my life at the time, which I find extremely weird. Like writing is a catharsis after a sick, delirious night of which I have no memory.
Judy, thanks for your question. The couple are definitely high. It's kind of based on something that happened to me during college, when a friend and I were walking through a wooded area and saw something shiny and moving rhythmically in the branches. We were so frightened and couldn't figure out what it was, and we debated whether it was an alien. It took a long time to get up the nerve to approach it, and we felt pretty stupid when we realized it was just a mylar balloon stuck in the tree. But the real impetus of the story came in the middle of the night, when I wondered whether I could write a story using the same first word for every sentence. (I admit, "they" is kind of a cheat. I should have used "pineapple" or something.) I imply that they see the constellation Orion at the end, and it's meant to be a loop, the word Orion bringing you back to the beginning of the story.I also chose it as the first story (to answer Leslie's question) because it sets the expectation that the reader, along with these characters, is about to enter a strange, unfamiliar place. Since most of the stories address dislocation and disorientation in some way, it seemed fitting to warn the readers about what they were getting into. :)
Jen wrote: "Judy, thanks for your question. The couple are definitely high. It's kind of based on something that happened to me during college, when a friend and I were walking through a wooded area and saw so..."Hi Jen, Thanks for elaborating. That story just struck me the right way, I'm still thinking about it. It's a good warning (or for the right readers, an invitation) to the rest of the book.
The story "Killing Rabbits" stuck in my head also. As I was reading it, I kept wondering how people who are actively alcoholics maintain that existence. I could never deal with the bleariness and hangovers. It seems worse than dealing with reality. I felt so badly for Kennedy, having to rely on her father when he was so unstable. Could not blame her at all for calling him a "rabbit killer drunk". It does have a satisfying ending, makes you wonder what happens next.
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Lori, my writing routine is whenever I can. Like most writers, I work full time, and I also run the weekly lit journal jmww (https://jmwwblog.wordpress.com/) and a monthly fiction readings series, Starts Here! (startsherereadingseries.blogspot.com/). Mostly I write during the weekends and evening, but usually I am doing a lot of thinking and processing in my head, so I'm when I do sit down to write, I actually write quite a bit as opposed to staring at the screen, trying to make something happen. Dreams also influence my work a lot. I get a lot of story ideas from my dreams. It almost feels as if I'm cheating, doing the work subconsciously.
I would have to have a big, set routine with a fancy writing room and desk and favorite coffee and CD, but it's never worked out that way, and why change what ain't broke? ;)
This sounds weird to ask, but I noticed that you have characters from various backgrounds people rarely talk about, like the story with the Chechen family. Did you grow up in an area where there was an influx of European immigrants? I just found that interesting.
Lixian, what a great question! My upbringing was not incredibly diverse (white working-class), so I've always been interested in other cultures, and writing is one way for me to learn about them. You Were Only Waiting for This Moment to Arrive" features a Vietnamese mother, courtesy of my partner (but only a small mention--her stories as an immigrant growing up America are so great, but their hers to write, not mine). My cousin, who's a language major (Arabic and Japanese), was really interested in Chechen culture for awhile, and passed along a book to me about Chechen people, which worked its way into "The Safest Place." "From Here" germinated from a stay at a hostel in New Mexico and becoming interested in the neighboring cultures--in that story, Hok'ee is Navajo.
I guess I subconsciously extended the idea of home through different cultures. But as to whether different cultures have the same idea of home or dislocation, I really couldn't say.
You mentioned that you feel like an empath and that the emotions of others impact you deeply. When you are creating such emotional stories for your characters do you ever feel caught up in their emotions or find that you need to take a break from writing? (I posted a variation of this question yesterday but I don't see it yet. I apologize if it posts twice.)
Jen, I just have to say, a week out and my mind is still chewing on so many of these stories. The Mural, The Substitute, Killing Rabbits, From Here . . .so compelling. I appreciated Lixian's question about the various backgrounds; I wondered the same thing. When you get a spark for a story from an aquaintance or a location, do you do a lot of research into the culture, place, etc or is it more organic? You really are able to bring us into a variety of cultures seamlessly.
Also, can you talk a little more about your dreams influencing your work?
Hi Rachelle,Thanks--that's a great question! I think the writing of the characters is very controlled and detached, a way for me to examine those emotions and release them in a safe place. I usually feel a sense of relief when I've given my characters their "peace" or their "say," and I rarely feel overwhelmed by them. However, sometimes the character will bother me enough go to back to them, to make sure I've told their story completely, given them their due.
The closest I can describe about needing to write stuff out is feel very constipated in the heart and head beforehand, and a lot of closure and lighthearted afterward.
Jen and her publisher Aqueous has given us a total of 10 copies to give away (a mix of print and digital).
Print is for US residents only. The Digital (PDF, mobi and epub)is open to everyone!
In order to be considered, you must comment here or on the blog for a shot at winning one and secure a spot in the discussion that kicks off on May 18th:
http://thenextbestbookblog.blogspot.c...
This giveaway will run through May 8th.
Winners will be announced here and via email (if you provide one) on May 9th.
Here's how to enter:
1 - Leave a comment here or in the giveaway thread over at TNBBC's blog (linked above), stating why you'd like to receive a copy of the book, what format you prefer, and where you reside remember, REMEMBER only US residents can win a paper copy!.
ONLY COMMENT ONCE. MULTIPLE COMMENTS DO NOT GAIN YOU ADDITIONAL CHANCES TO WIN.
2 - State that you agree to participate in the group read book discussion that will run from May 18th through the 24th. Jen has agreed to participate in the discussion and will be available to answer any questions you may have for her.
*If you are chosen as a winner, by accepting the copy you are agreeing to read the book and join the group discussion right here in this thread next month.
3 - If your goodreads profile is blocked (set on private), please leave me another way to contact you.