Big Lonesome

Homeward Bound Hits Reader's Digest

 

The Ruland family received quite a surprise this weekend when we opened up the March 2012 issue of Reader's Digest and saw our faces staring back on the front page. Photographer Tamara Reynolds did a really amazing job of capturing the setting at Coronado Beach, one of our favorite places to spend time together as a family.

When I found out that "Homeward Bound" had won the contest, I didn't believe it. Not that I was skeptical, but everything about it felt unreal. The photo shoot on the beach at Coronado brought it all home -- and not just because we were wading barefoot in the water in December!

I owe a huge debt of gratitude not only to the editors and staff at Reader's Digest, but to everyone who read my story and voted. I know a lot of you voted every day and I can't thank you enough -- although I'm going to try. Check back at the end of the week for a special announcement. 

In the meantime, check out this video of me reading "Homeward Bound"

 

 

Read Me

I didn't see this coming. A work of fiction that was published in Canteen Magazine in 2010 is now available online. The piece is called "Off with Her Head" and was named the winner of Canteen's fiction contest judged by Porochista Khakpour. It's an excerpt from a longer work and I'm very grateful to Mia Lipman and everyone at Canteen. Enjoy. Or don't.

The Art & Craft of Quick Confessions

Sign up for my new Micro-Memoir workshop at San Diego Writers, Ink. The class meets for four consecutive Tuesdays in March. Click for details.

Strong Medicine at Barona Casino

Last summer, I had the privilege of serving as an instructor for a PEN in the Community residency at the Southern California American Indian Resource Center in  Alpine, California. The ten-week workshop had a focus on storytelling and comprised a remarkable group of Native American women. The project culminated in the publication of an anthology and book release party at Barona Casino on December 9, 2011.

It was an incredilbe night made even more memorable due to the fact that Nuvia's painting was used for the anthology's cover, which she presented to SCAIR after the reading. The image features an Indian medicine pouch with a feminine shape that follows the contours of the heart against a background of Oxaxacan flowers.  

I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to participate in such a remarkable program and owe a debt of gratitude to Michelle Meyering at PEN Center USA and Frank Panucci at SCAIR. Check out what all three of us have to say about Strong Medicine in this stunning and stirring video put together by Danny Corey and Heather Simons. 

                    S T R O N G     M E D I C I N E

The Rattling Wall Reading at The Standard

I'll be reading from a story called Cleopatra Douche inspired by my adventures in Morocco. That's all I'm going to say for now...

Ten Raddest Records of 2011

I had so much fun doing this for CityBeat, I decided to bust out an expanded version.

10. The Spits, Kill the Kool 12”
Special edition 2011 tour album from Seattle’s kings of three-chord punk. Strangely, The Spits sound better than ever, especially live. Their show at Til Tuesday was the tightest I’ve ever seen them play, a long list of shows that goes all the way back to their first album at the Three of Clubs in Los Angeles with The Briefs. This red vinyl record was a limited release and is sold and selling for $75 on eBay. Score.

9. The Steve Adamyk Band, Forever Won’t Wait, 12”
Ontario power pop punk that’s more Buzzcocks then Blink 182. Like an up-tempo Marked Men only poppier. One of many great releases from Dirtnap Records this year. 

8. Complaints* No Action 7”
San Francisco street punk. Stop me if you’ve heard this before: you go to see a band, and the opening act you’ve never heard of before blows you away. That’s what happened when I caught the Complaints* at the Shakedown in San Diego. I couldn’t figure out why the bass player looked so familiar until I got home and realized the bassist used to play in Swinging Utters and Working Stiffs, a pair of San Francisco bands that treated me very well when I interviewed them for Flipside what feels like ages ago.

7. Smogtown, Incest & Pestilence 12”
South Orange County punk rock. If you knew me ten years ago I was probably wearing a Smogjerk t-shirt, hungover from a Smogtown show, or just generally raving about how their concept album, Fuhrers of the New Wave, was the best shit since Repo Man. The Beach City Butchers are still at it and they're back with a new record that’s full of surprises. The B-side opens with a song marked by horn arrangements. But don’t worry. Smogtown isn’t going all Midget Handjob: they still bring their trademark mid-tempo punk rock with warped lyrics and blistering guitars on songs like “Keeping Bullets Out of the Roof of My Mouth.” An instant classic from Modern Action.

6. Red Fang, Murder the Mountains MP3
Portland stoner metal. Cross between Butthole Surfers circa Independent Worm Saloon and Queens of the Stone Age. If you were going to make a short film about H.P. Lovecraft’s writing process, Red Fang has your score. The music is baroque in its layering and ornamentation, “Wires” kicks off with the line “Kids don’t lose your cool” and then unspools six minutes of tension and release.  It’s a slow-moving missile of a song with a payload of unrelenting feedback that’s in no particular hurry to detonate. But when it comes, it’s hard not to feel like you’ve experienced something epic. The video is pretty rad, too.

5. Wavves, Life Sux MP3
Dirty surf pop from San Diego. Last year, I confessed to my late-stage fandom, so I made sure I got out in front of this year’s EP release. Supremely catchy and highly addicting, but listening to songs like “I Wanna Be Dave Grohl” I get the feeling that this king of pop thing comes way too easy for Mr. Williams.

4. Iceage, New Brigade MP3
Copenhagen post-punk. Gothic-sounding vocals with elusive lyrics, rumbling bass lines and dissonant riffs combine in an oddly textured post-punk effort that feels new, like Joy Division for the Internet age. Their live show at the Casbah was way more punk than their record, and I got the feeling their problem child/lead singer wouldn't have it any other way.

3. Cerebral Ballzy, S/T CD
Brooklyn thrash punk with a West Coast vibe. They toured with Off! this year and sound like Circle Jerks, Suicidal Tendencies and Sweet Jap from Minneapolis. The licks are tight and Honor Titus’s vocals are more stated then sung with varying degrees of impairment and affectation. (Wanna make an animated musical of The Warriors? Honor's yer man.) But does the world really need songs like “Don’t Tell Me What To Do”? Fuck yeah it does. Young, dumb and tons of fun, this record tops my list of guilty pleasures for 2011. 

2. A.A. Bondy, Believers MP3
Alabama alternative rock. Has it finally happened? Has “the great mellowing” I’ve been afraid of finally struck? Let’s see. I missed a gang of shows this year. The top two records on my list are super mellow. And an alternative rock record made its way into permanent rotation on my turntable. That sounds pretty mellow to me. But when I saw A.A. Bondy play a packed house at the Casbah on a Wednesday night I had an inkling I was seeing something special. The music didn’t bowl me over, but the sound was so lush and textured I knew I was going to really enjoy getting intimate with this record. And I did. 

1. Kurt Vile, Smoke Ring for My Halo 12”
Indie singer songwriter. Piqued by an ad for an in-store at M Theory, I picked up the LP and it quickly sank its hooks into me. Vile’s songs are minimal, full of non-sequiturs, and compelling without being catchy, but this record haunts me. There’s a riff in “Ghost Town,” that floats in near the end of the six-minute song, a plaintive echo, there’s not much to it really, but the whole songs builds up to it, so you wait for it and wait for it and when it comes it sticks in your head like a virus and stays there. The in-store was canceled and Vile’s show with Thurston Moore was sold out, so I never got to see him, but I listened to this record more than any other in 2011 so it gets the top slot on my list.

 

Thanks for Voting!

Typically, once I wrap up a raffle, fund-raiser, or giveaway, I’ll post a message expressing my appreciation. This invariably triggers a wave of responses from people who didn’t realize the raffle/fund-raiser/giveaway was over and didn’t get a chance to participate. So I thought this time I’d post my thank you message a day early so that no one would regret not having an opportunity to vote.

I feel like I ask for things more than many of my peers in the writing community. I send invitations to attend Vermin on the Mount events. I’m involved in an annual fundraiser for San Diego Writers, Ink. I make t-shirts that I sell or give away. It feels like I am always asking people to click here or visit there. So when Reader’s Digest sent me a note informing me that my submission to their contest had been named an Editor’s Pick, I was thrilled, but when I read the contest rules and realized the story’s success depended on online votes, I confess I felt some trepidation.

It was mid-September and I feared that if I started posting daily “vote for me” solicitations on Facebook, I’d be friendless by the time the voting closed. But here we are, two months and 1,135 votes later, which puts me 26^th overall in a field of approximately 5,400 stories. How did this happen?

Easy. I owe a great deal of thanks to many people: Randall Brown at Flash Fiction Net and Matter Press, Christopher Heavener at Annalemma, Scott Garson at Wigleaf, John Wilkens at San Diego Union-Tribune, and Sean Masterson at The Letter Punch. The fine folks at San Diego Writers Ink and So Say We All both made concerted efforts on my behalf. I owe a debt of gratitude to my Voltron and Vermin peeps. Last, and certainly not least, the amazing publicity generated by my sisters in Washington, D.C. and New Zealand, my brother in Virginia, my father in West Virginia, and my mother in Kewanee, Indiana, mad a huge difference.

And I'm still leaving hundreds out. If you clicked, commented or shared a link in the past few weeks, please know your efforts are very much appreciated. A great many of you went out of your way to say very nice things about my work as a writer and/or my character. “Homeward Bound” may only be 150 words, but in many ways I revealed more about myself in that short paragraph than I have in the bulk of my stories, essays, or manuscripts. Instead of feeling like I was intruding on your time and space, you gave me your support, and I thank you for it.

What’s next? Now I wait for the results, which I’ll share just as soon as I hear some news. In the meantime, I booked an appointment with a San Diego tattoo artist for a “Homeward Bound” tattoo. My first session is in two weeks. I’ll be sure to post images as they emerge. (Hint: it’s going to be big, and it’s going to be painful.)

 

 

 

"Homeward Bound" in The Letter Punch

VOTE FOR MY STORY HERE!

"Homeward Bound," my entry in the Reader's Digest contest Your Life in 150 Words, was named an Editor's Pick! You can help me by voting for my story. 

MORE ABOUT "HOMEWARD BOUND"

* In his new blog, The Letter Punch, Sean Masterson writes "Homeward Bound is a lyric example of Jim’s recent storytelling. His main character... is brought to us in under 150 words and each is used precisely."

* John Wilkens of the San Diego Union-Tribune gets "a chuckle out of Ruland's wordplay" in The Read at Sign On San Diego.  

* Wigleaf: [Very] Short Fiction features a Postcard from San Diego about the ways I'm bound to the town I call home. And if you think 150 words is short, check out my new sailor story that's half as long. (Thanks, Scott!)

* The Observer, the weekly paper in Kewanee, Indiana, ran a story about "Homeward Bound" on the front page of the October 20th edition. (Thanks, Mom!}

* Annalemma calls "Homeward Bound" "A salty tale about sinking to the depths of a metaphorical sea.” (Thanks, Christopher!)  

* There's a nice write-up under the title "(Very) Short Fiction Piece Has a Chance for $25,000 Prize" at Flash Fiction Net. (Thanks, Randall!)

* For more details about the evolution of my story, check out "A Good Bit More Than 150 Words About a Drunken Sailor" on the SDWI blog. 

Thanks for your support!

 

NOUNS OF ASSEMBLAGE

Check out this new anthology of super short fiction organized around the theme of collective nouns.

Speaking of which, what is the collective noun for writers: wheeze? Slasm? Purfle?

The book, Housefire's debut, features a gang of writers, including Legion of Vermin members Matthew Simmons, Kevin Sampsell, and Matty Byloos.

My contribution is an apocalyptic tale featuring Sea Monkeys, but you'll have to buy the book to find our more...

 

SAN DIEGO ÜBER ALLES

 

My first cover story for San Diego CityBeat: an interview with Jello Biafra. An excerpt:

The last time we played in San Diego was at some kind of auditorium Downtown, and the cops came in and just kind of lingered there and said if anyone got out of their seat and danced in any way, they’d shut the show down. A very weird way to force people to watch The Dead Kennedys—like it was some kind of classical recital.

BUMP IN THE ROAD

Roadside memorial, Valle de Guadalupe

I have a short work of creative nonfiction up at the Journal of Compressed Creative Arts. It's meant as a companion piece to Handful of Dust, a story that appeared in Esquire in 2007. An excerpt:

We came around the bend in the road and saw what little of the road the lights and the fog would allow. The wrongness of your being there an overwhelming fact we were going to have to get used to. The awful sound. The panicky jolt. The pieces of you we took with us. 

 

THE FLOATING LIBRARY #1: TRAVEL NARRATIVES

The Floating Library embarked on its maiden voyage in the August 31 issue of San Diego CityBeat. In my first books column, I take a look at travel narratives past, present and future.

A brief editorial note: In the recap I'll try to link to book reviews, author interviews, or profiles of the book's subject, and avoid linking to stores where you can purchase the book. (You can use the actual column at San Diego CityBeat to do that.) My column is very brief, limiting the number of words each book gets. My goal here is to share additional information and continue the conversation.

First on deck is Judith Schalansky's Atlas of Remote Islands, a visually arresting collection of fictions presented as an atlas. If you love tales of nautical adventure and exploration, this book is a must have.

Next is a brief consideration of Frank McLynn's new biography of Captain Cook, one of the most brilliant nautical minds of the 20th century. (San Diegans have a unique opportunity to learn more about Cook's voyages.)

From there the column takes a sharp turn into modernism with Jean-Philippe Toussaint's new novel The Truth About Marie. I have a lot to say about Toussaint's new work and  the conclusion of the Marie trilogy, but if you're new to Toussaint check out this interview at HTML Giant I conducted at the LA Times Festival of Books in 2010.

Lastly, there's Charles Yu's devastatingly somber take on time travel, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe. 

The Floating Library is a monthly column, and I'm looking forward to sharing my thoughts on the first two novels I read on an e-reader. Hint: They were two of the most-hyped works of fiction in 2010... 

TOWARD A THEORY OF INTERNET ENTROPY

I recently created a Twitter account. It's something I've been wanting to do for a while but held myself back, much as I did with Facebook two summers ago. I was afraid it would take up too much time. In the case of Facebook, I waited until I got an iPhone because I didn't want to devote time I might use for writing on Facebook. This happened anyway but not to the extent where it negatively impacted my writing. It did, however, have a noticeable effect on the amount of time I spent at Zoetrope Virtual Studios, Francis Ford Coppola's only writing workshop and grassroots social network for writers.

After Facebook I cut way, way back on my time at Zoetrope mainly because everyone I "saw" in Zoetrope's offices ending up becoming a friend on Facebook. Now I'm spending slightly less time on the FB while I figure out Twitter. I'm also spending more time on Goodreads. But not only have I been neglecting blog lately, I've been letting my email back up as well. What does all this mean?

I could tell you about the million ways my life has changed in varying increments, or I could share my new theory, which goes like this: We each have a finite number of hours we are able and/or willing to spend online each day/week/month. When our usage exceeds or falls short of that number, it negatively impacts other areas of our life. To countermand that negativity, we intuitively maintain level of optimum usage. It's like one of those immutable laws of thermodynamics. Entropy and shit. 

In other words, it's time for a not-quite-end-of-summer round-up. But before I do that, let's take a look into the future, and point out some things that I might be blogging about in the not-so-distant future. 

Speaking of the future, the &Now 2011 Festival of New Writing: Tomorrowland Forever will be held October 13-15 at UCSD. The program hasn't been posted yet but I'll be on a panel discussing the pleasures and perils of repurposing stories, which is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. For one thing, it's the premise of Re:Telling, an anthology of purloined plots, stolen settings, borrowed premises, and appropriated characters, by Ampersand Books. My contribution is a story called Jack & Jill, which re-imagines the troubled siblings as sex workers in Amsterdam. "But I already have a copy!" you say? OK, but what you don't have is the print or t-shirt I made inspired by the story. That's because I haven't made them yet, but it's getting close. The block has been produced, artist proofs have been made, and now it's a matter of making the prints, which will happen very soon. In the meantime, here's a glimpse of the image...

 

As soon as they're ready t-shirts and prints will be available at the Vermin store. In the meantime, there are still a handful of Vermin on the Mount t-shirts left in all sizes, so go get 'em!

Speaking of stories, I have a new one coming out in the Journal of Compressed Creative Arts in early September. It's based on a true story and is a companion piece to this story.  

Also, coming in late summer is the debut of my books column, The Floating Library, in San Diego CityBeat. My first book-related feature appeared earlier this summer. I also wrote a story about the San Diego garage band Northern Tigers. 

Last but not least, I'm teaching a class on the art and craft of the micro-memoir: artful personal essays of 1,000 words or less. Interested? Sign up today!

 Thanks for reading, "see" you "soon"!

 

THE HARD STUFF

El Take It Easy is getting their liquor license on Saturday, June 4. To celebrate, you are cordially invited to a night of The Hard Stuff: hard-hitting stories from five acclaimed authors. Here are some reasons why you should consider attending:

1) Roy Kesey lives in Lima. That's Lima, Peru, where his astonishing debut novel is set. And he's married to a Peruvian diplomat. That means his next post could be even farther away. Chances like this only come around so often. 

Goes well with: Pastured calf's brains, house-cured country ham, summer squash

2) Scott O'Connor lives up the road in Los Angeles but his debut novel, Untouchable, was selected by Barnes & Noble for their Discover Great New Writers Program. Here's your chance to get in on the buzz early so when he becomes a household name you can brag about spilling salsa on his shoes (except you wouldn't actually do that).

Goes well with: Thirtieth Street Pale Ale Green Flash

3) Ryan Bradford. What else is there to say about San Diego's favorite mail carrier?

Goes well with: Calimocho (red wine, coca cola, citrus)

4) Justin Hudnall worked in the Emergencies Division of UNICEF for three years, prior to accepting his fate as a writer. He currently serves as the Executive Director of So Say We All, a San Diego-based production company and arts advocacy organization

Goes well with: Whole fried Cardinal snapper

5) This is your last chance to hear me read from Re:Telling, a kick-ass anthology of re-purposed stories that was released earlier this year. My story features Jack & Jill and poses the question: What if they were Amsterdam sex workers?

Goes well with: Shrimp & Anson Mills grits fritters

6) The last time I read at El Take It Easy, it was pretty kick ass...

The show starts promptly at 6pm. Don't be late!

 

URBAN ART MARKET

What's Mercado Golondrina? It's San Diego's newest urban art market. This roving collective of artists finds new venues in which to nest and temporarily set up shop, offering kick-ass arts and crafts directly to the people! I'll be joining them Saturday May 21 from 11am to 6pm at Casa Artelexia 2419 Kettner Blvd. Little Italy, San Diego, CA 92101. I'll be selling books, zines, t-shirts, prints, and a few surprises...