Tag Archives: stories

LA Times Festival of Books! Day Two

Photo by Carolyn Kraft

Back again and better late than never with another field report from the LA Times Festival of Books. The magnanimity continued on the second and final day of LATFOB’s 20th anniversary. Well done, folks!

Here’s a few pearls of conversation from the author panels I attended:

“Families are like their own civilizations.”

“A lot of the times I’m writing I feel like an actor; I have to feel the emotions.”

“I had kids smoking, getting drunk, and my editor’s worried about the scene where they aren’t wearing their seatbelts.”

“A writer’s only responsibility is to tell the truth.”

“If I want to know how great I am I call my mother; if I want to know the truth, I call my brother.”

“I’m always taken aback when people [who know I’m a YA author] ask me when I’m going to write a ‘real’ book.”

“People have suggested that hackers and artists are exactly alike.”

“Quality relationships allow for the right amount of solitude and the right amount of connection.”

“The digital revolution has undercut our need for expertise and professionalism.”

“I’m on board with the digital revolution being frightening, but I’m not so nostalgic about what we’re leaving behind.”

“All these media outlets want to ‘pay’ for your writing by promising exposure; exposure is just a way people die out in the cold.”

“Technology is whatever has been invented since you were born.”

“Why can’t we have a platform that actually benefits the people who use it?”

“Every time I hear how I am as a writer I want to rebel against it.”

“Most of what happens to human beings is funny; humor in stories is integral, it’s not a condiment.”

WHO SAID THIS STUFF: Jandy Nelson, David Arnold, Carrie Arcos, Arnold, Robin Benway, Nelson, Vikram Chandra, Joshua Wolf Shenk, Scott Timberg, Chandra, Jacob Silverman, Chandra, Silverman, Amelia Gray, Jonathan Lethem

Build A Story With Bryan 2013 – Story in Verse

1 Reply

Photo by Green Lane

Build A Story continues this week and what do you know, our story in verse has grown by four lines. Give us a read and add your own line or two or three or maybe even four. Begin your rhyming legacy today!

As always thanks for reading and thanks for playing. Here’s what we have so far.

The old man who smelled of memory loss leaned in

He said “Pull my finger” then grinned

It felt cold and omniscient as a skeleton key

And once tugged a door did fall open before me.

The past lay before me, all musty and grim.

My hope for some cheer grew depressingly slim.

I first saw my teacher, from elementary school,

Who said I was foolish, as well as a fool.

Build A Story With Bryan #5 – Mrs. Blendinson Lives On

1 Reply

Thank you story builders, thank you for coming through once again and extending the life of our dear Mrs. Blendinson. Let us continue, shall we? Give our story-so-far a read and take this thing to the heights of your imagination. Don’t hold back just because Mrs. B is a 70-something. As you’ll read, she’s also vengeful and has secrets inside her dress.

Mrs. Blendinson had certainly entertained a foolish thought in her day, had even been married to one for twenty-five of them, but never had she been so resolute in her belief that this foolish thought, the one occurring to her now while she rooted through the neighbor’s trash, this was the foolish thought that if acted upon would put her back on top.

“If I can just find that clown nose,” she mused, “I’ll prove once and for all that the circus debacle was all Mr. Freddie’s fault, not mine!”

Mrs. Blendinson’s musings, unlike her foolish thoughts, took on the affect of a nobler woman, usually a duchess of some vague royal lineage, the kind who would never consort with a sad clown and his dim associates, who endured scandal with a stiff upper lip and dry eyes, not a stiff drink and stolen credit card.

In spite of her contemplative irrational thoughts and ramblings of life on the road with the circus, there were times with Mr. Freddie that were downright playful. Even though there were moments of joy and ecstasy, they somehow turned into long hours of nervous, frightful horror. Mrs. Blendinson remembered the time when her and Issey (that is Mr.Freddie’s self-appointed first name) created an impromptu beach setting at midnight behind the pup tent, which was just south of the Big Top. Mrs. Blendinson smiled to herself with the contentment only a woman in her 70’s could understand as she reflected on the unusual foreplay that occurred prior to the laying of the blanket.

But then she remembered that fateful BBQ afterward. She frowned, and her entire visage changed from nobility to something far less regal – vengeful. “That Mr. Freddie, and all the Freddies,” she mumbled. “They won’t know what hit ‘em.”

And with that, the circus was relegated to a forgotten compartment in the portmanteau of her mind, for her new resolve was building, the resolve that drove her to reach inside the hem of her dress and pull out the thin strip of microfilm hidden within the gingham.

What’s next? Only you know the answer…