good reader: amelia gray
photo by sarah faulkner
Those of you who have already read, cut, and collaged our October issue may have noticed that there is a Q+A with fiction writer Amelia Gray in the Culture Club section. This month, FC2 released her second book, Museum of the Weird, and we’re big fans of it.
Here’s a quote from the story “Diary of the Blockage,” to give you an idea of what we’re dealing with here:
I repeat a litany of self-assurances. I am kind, I am thoughtful and beautiful, I am clever, I am kind I am thoughtful and beautiful I am kind of clever and thoughtful and beautiful and kind though clever. I must perform the litany in a somewhat secret manner. I have taken to ducking my head under my desk as if I am looking for a dropped pencil[.]
Gray, (who would like you to know that unless stated otherwise all of her stories take place at the Days Inn where Selena was murdered) has put together an online reading list for us. Click the link for her picks and excerpts from the stories that she has read and loved lately. After all, it’s Friday and you deserve a break from whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing.
When I Say Love, by Meredith Martinez
“In February, my best friend died in a creek. His mother, driving home from the morgue, stopped at Food Lion and bought frozen turkeys, nine of them”
That Baby, by Lindsay Hunter
“we’d seen a show once where what looked like a 12-year old boy was in a giant diaper his mother had fashioned out of her front room curtain, sitting there with his legs straight out in front of him like he was pleased to meet them”
Sometimes I Feel Like Punching Someone In The Face Until They Can’t Breathe Anymore And That’s The End Of It, by Christopher Higgs
“I buncvh m,y fists up into these tight clenche4d fists and I shout and scream and want to0 kill the fucking sun and bleed the shit out of every fucking animal on the fucking earth”
A Flower for You, by Athena Nilssen
“He buys you Lipsmackers, a set of six, and says go pick out some new shoes. He’s sick of looking at your feet.”
Russians, from The Book of Freaks, by Jamie Iredell:
“Should you—god forbid—go whistling Dixie in one of these microscopic rooms, every microscopic ruble and microscopic kopek sprouts microscopic wings and flaps away in a dizzying scatter of impoverished fractals.”
October 25th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
Highly recommend Amelia Gray and Lindsay Hunter’s new books. Here’s my best attempt at a review: http://vol1brooklyn.com/2010/10/25/amelia-gray-lindsay-hunter-on-the-big-ugly/