Happy New Year! And may 2019 be a weird one (good weird, I mean).
Maybe you haven’t heard that you can buy the entire series—all five volumes of Year’s Best Weird Fiction from Undertow—together in a tidy bundle, thereby securing hours of weird reading pleasure. Go here for more about this fabulous deal!
(I’m honored to have my stories “Rabbit, Cat, Girl” and “Curb Day” included in volumes 3 and 5, respectively.)
I haven’t made time to post lately, but here’s a short list of books I’ve enjoyed recently. Enjoy!
Banish Your Inner Critic by Denise Jacobs
Salt by Renee Ashley
Another Phase by Eloise Klein Healy
Bone Black by bell hooks
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
Family Trouble edited by Joy Castro
We Were Witches by Ariel Gore
Don’t Let’s Go To The Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
Drum Roll, Please by Lisa Jenn Bigelow
Monday, December 3, 2018 (6:30PM – 7:30PM)
Do you have a novel or short story in the works? Learn how to revise and edit your work of fiction in preparation for publication.
Click HERE to register!
Rebecca Kuder is offering this engaging workshop that will allow people to rediscover and liberate a sense of play; unleash the creative spark; and demystify & disarm the inner critical voice that’s holding us back! Please wear comfortable clothing (always!). Please bring pen and paper.
This is NOT just for writers! This is for anyone who wants to tone down self-doubt and find more joy in life.
National November Novel Writing Month is right around the corner! Novelist Rebecca Kuder leads you in several creative writing exercises to help inspire your inner author. Please bring a pen and notebook.
Learn methods for revision and editing of creative work, and find out what steps you need to take to get published. Rebecca Kuder returns to answer your questions. Please bring a pen and notebook, though we will have some supplies on hand. Registration required. To register: https://preview.tinyurl.com/ycqwlkj9
Rebecca Kuder’s short story, “Curb Day,” was chosen for reprint in Year’s Best Weird Fiction vol. 5. Her essays and stories have appeared in Tiferet Journal, Shadows and Tall Trees, Jaded Ibis Press, Lunch Ticket, and The Rumpus. In addition to leading community workshops, Rebecca taught creative writing at Antioch University Midwest, Antioch College, and The Modern School of Design. Currently she teaches at Stivers School for the Arts in Dayton. She served on the board of the Antioch Writers’ Workshop, and lives in Yellow Springs, Ohio, with her husband, the writer Robert Freeman Wexler, and their daughter. Rebecca holds an MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles, is a recipient of an individual excellence award from the Ohio Arts Council, and blogs at www.rebeccakuder.com.
Exciting news—Year’s Best Weird Fiction, vol. 5 (in which you can find my story, “Curb Day”) is available for pre-order. This is the final installment of YBWF from Undertow. (You will not want to miss it, because soon, you’ll really miss it.)
I’m exceedingly grateful to Robert Shearman and Michael Kelly for their support of my work, and for curating this anthology of endearing weirdness.
Please support this wonderful small press!
You can order the hardcover here, or the trade paperback here.
Or from Amazon.
I’m keeping a list of books & resources that have helpful to me in raising a human person. I thought it would be helpful to share them here. Please preview to see if they will work for your family. :)
BOOKS for pre-teens and teens
BOOKS for adults
ONLINE:
Drugs & Alcohol education for teens (harm reduction model):
Want to talk to your kids about drugs? Take a look at this helpful, free brochure from the Drug Policy Alliance called Safety First. And here is their free curriculum.
I’ve been thinking about the hippocampus lately. I did a web search and found Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony. I’m pasting it below.
“Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter,” Ford says, her voice cracking. “The uproarious laughter between the two. They’re having fun at my expense.”
“You’ve never forgotten them laughing at you,” Leahy says.
“They were laughing with each other,” Ford replies.
“And you were the object of the laughter?” Leahy asks.
“I was underneath one of them, while the two laughed,” Ford says.
In an essay I wrote about my childhood sexual abuse, as I shaped and shaped the narrative, it became clear that most of the piece should be told in the present tense. I did this to replicate how trauma works in the memory.
The brain stem, the so-called lizard brain—the part of the brain that registers trauma—has no sense of time. The lizard-brain is the part that keeps us alive, eliciting a fight, flight, or freeze response. Because of the lack of time involved with the lizard brain, when long-ago trauma is triggered, it is remembered outside of time. The sensation is as if it is happening now.
Dr. Ford was questioned 36 years after she claims to have been assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh, but on September 27, 2018, when questioned, she says, “They’re having fun at my expense.”
Present tense.
A grammatical slip. But also true.
Because that’s how it feels.
From Page 131:
“You may feel uncomfortable with the word
‘authority.’
Perhaps is sounds dominant, overbearing, ‘authoritarian.’ You may need to work on the problem of self-deprecation,
Self-distrust,
Especially when it comes to noticing the world around you
And what you’re able to say about it.
You may be used to denying your perceptions and dismissing your awareness.
You may be caught in a constant state of demurral
Or have the habit of belittling yourself.
Watch for the chronic language of self-disparagement,
The moments when you say, ‘My problem is…’
Or ‘It doesn’t matter what I think.’
If you say these kinds of things, you probably say them out of habit, almost unconsciously.
This is a product of your education too, at home and at school.
Pay attention to it.
Recognize how harmful it is.
Its message—subliminal and overt—is that your perceptions are worthless.
Do everything you can to subvert this habit.”
I’m so grateful that Antioch University asked me what the Ohio Arts Council grant means to me. You can read the interview here.
Rebecca Kuder 