Peauxdunquian Alex Johnson has joined the ranks of contributing writers at The Bitter Southerner, with his feature interview published yesterday with Georgia Congressman John Lewis and Congressman Lewis’s collaborator on the March trilogy of graphic memoirs, Andrew Aydin: “Good Trouble.” A deep and fascinating dive into the life of Congressman Lewis and the creative process behind March.
Also, Janis Turk‘s latest guidebook, Frommer’s complete guide to Texas, is also now out. So everyone take a trip through the bitter South to Texas; Peauxdunque will have you well-equipped!
John Lewis and Andrew Aydin talk with Alex Johnson; photo by Willis Bretz for The Bitter Southerner
A raft of new publications by Peauxdunque’s own have been launched recently, along with news of publications on the horizon:
First, Cassie Pruyn‘s Walt McDonald First Boo Prize-winning book of poems, Lena, is out now from Texas Tech University Press. Writes Rachel Mennies in the foreword, “Pruyn lets us feel what lovers feel–the magnetism, the physicality, the tenderness, the rage, the wondering–with language both musical and visceral.” Room 220 will host a book release for Cassie at Saturn Bar on May 11 at 7 p.m., featuring readings by Cassie and by Ben Aleshire.
Next up in publications just out, the incredible story, “Eufala,” by Emily Choate, is now out in the latest issue of Shenadoah:
My stepfather Des got famous, eventually. Fame of a particular stripe—for writing a handful of the most soul-throttling country songs of the seventies and eighties, for a drinking habit so dedicated that it verged on religious solemnity, and for the time my mother left him handcuffed to a tree, alone, for twenty-six hours.
The story of that ordeal was what mattered most. I heard Des tell it over and over—the heat of the day collapsing his throat, the sun moving across the sky, then the moon, then the sun again. At last the bending of sky and trees, ushering the visitation of fearsome beasts, heavenly creatures come to chasten and guide him.
If my mother were within earshot at this point in the story, she’d shrug off all the majesty: “It was the DTs.”
People ate that shit up.
We suspect y’all will eat up the rest of this story, as soon as you head over to Shenandoah to check it out.
Zach Bartlett will have a new story, “Excerpts from the Diary of Theodore Miro, Competitor on CryptoChefs Season 2,” out in Mad Scientist Journal, in December 2017.
Maurice Carlos Ruffin‘s story, “Beg Borrow Steal,” will be included in the anthology Mojo Rising, out from Sartoris Press in September 2017.
And Tad Bartlett‘s novella, Marchers’ Season, will see the world in print and e-book in 2018, as the L.A.-based literary journal Storylandia will devote a full issue to it.
Two more Peauxdunquians are piling on the publication credits. The fiction podcast, Gallery of Curiosities, is picking up a story by Zach Bartlett. And The New Laurel Review will be publishing the short story, “Flight Path,” by Janis Turk! We’ll post links and more on our Facebook page as those stories become available.
Arion Berger’s novel It’s Made to be Broken has been accepted for publication by Ellora’s Cave Books! It will be available as an e-book soon, with the print book to follow soon after.
Janis Turk has teamed up with several of her travel writing colleagues to launch a travel writing seminar series, Try Travel Writing, with the next seminar scheduled for October 18-21 on Mackinac Island, Michigan! Like them on Facebook, too!
We’re excited to announce that founding (Founding Founding) Peauxdunqian Amy Serrano‘s poetry collection, Of Fiery Places and Sacred Spaces, was officially released on April 15, and you can purchase a copy right here, on Amy’s website. While there, you can also read more about her exciting new multi-media arts initiative focused on city self-definition (beginning in Miami), This Is Who We Are. Look for Amy soon at a curated reading in Chicago. More information as the details come in.
We’re also very excited that globe-trotting Peauxdunquian Janis Turk‘s essay, “Feeling Up the Map,” won second place for travel writing from the New York Travel Festival. Also, Janis’s photography is featured in the cookbook Come In We’re Closed, which has been nominated for a James Beard Award.
We’re grateful to count both Amy and Janis among the citizens of Peauxdunque!
Writers Camp is where Peauxdunque repairs at the beginning of every year, to reflect on the past year and recharge for the coming one. Usually an overnight to a place appropriately called Hopedale, 2013 saw us take a whole weekend instead. Gathering from all points Peauxdunquian, eating at a place (appropriately) called Dreamland on the way up, taking roads northward pointing, dwindling steadily in lanes and traffic until it was dark, twenty degrees, on a one-lane, moss-covered track at the bottom of a holler, next to a brook, icy water over rocks, and the GPS saying, “You’ve come as close to your destination as you can travel by car. You must now exit the car and walk.” Up a rise that felt like a mountain but surely wasn’t, until all the travelers were together. Susan Kagan, who had secured the hilltop retreat from a good soul; Emily Choate over from Nashville; J.Ed. Marston over from Chattanooga-way; Janis Turk flown all the way up from San Antonio; and Denise Moore, Terri Stoor, Maurice Ruffin, and Tad Bartlett the long drive up from New Orleans. At a place not near any other places, nameless, now called, appropriately, Peauxdunque, Tennessee.
Late into the night, twice, a whole day in the middle, and a far-too-short morning on the end, plus the long hours of driving up and back, there was solid talk about writing and reading and words. There were plans discussed, theses, novels, stories, essays. We took time to be silent and to write, to wander the hillside over fresh snow and under old stars. Below is a slideshow of some photos from our time, taken by Terri, Maurice, Emily, and Tad. We invite all to share; but I particularly invite Peauxdunquians to come back and view them and remember the times in Tennessee over the next year, when you’re feeling momentarily adrift. One more year, then we’ll do it all again.
Yesterday, November 28, six Peauxdunquians read from their fiction and nonfiction, and a seventh was the emcee, during a session of the 2012 Words and Music Conference at the U.S. Mint in New Orleans. The emcee for the event was Peauxdunque’s own Terri Stoor, who was the 2011 gold medal winner in the short story category of the Faulkner-Wisdom writing competition, awarded by the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society in conjunction with the Words and Music Conference.
Terri Shrum Stoor emcees the Writers Alliance reading at the 2012 Words and Music Conference
Emilie was followed by Tad Bartlett, who read an excerpt from “Addressing You,” his short story that was a finalist in the 2012 Faulkner-Wisdom competition:
J.Ed. Marston then read an excerpt from “The Truth Project,” a novel he collaboratively wrote with Tad, and that was on the short list for finalists in the novel category of the 2012 Faulkner-Wisdom competition:
Next up was Sara Paul, who read an excerpt from her historical fiction about a young scientist moving into New Orleans to conduct some experiments at the turn of the last century:
Maurice Carlos Ruffin followed, reading an excerpt from his current novel project, from a narrator looking back on the former city of New Orleans:
Rounding out the afternoon’s reading was Janis Turk, who brought the “music” into the Words and Music Conference with her reading of a minute in the day of New Orleans:
Great readings by all, and Peauxdunque looks forward to the final four days of an excellent conference!
Here we are with our first post on our spanking new website/blog/thing, a mere almost-four years after we started this great experiment. So I guess we’re official now. The About page will tell you a few things that you might expect to find in a first post. Here are a few pictures of some of the folks in the group:
Maurice, Bryan, Terri, Susan, Sabrina, and Amy at the first Peauxdunque Writers’ Camp in January 2009; Hopedale, La.
Sabrina, Terri, Emilie, Tad, Maurice, and J.Ed., looking spiffy during Words and Music, November 2010
Looking more normal during Words and Music 2010: Tad, J.Ed., Terri, Emilie, Sabrina, Maurice, our dearest friend Jamey, and Janis
I could go on and on with the pictures, but we’ll save those to dribble in in future posts. Cheers! Write or die.
Peauxdunque Writers Alliance 