Jean Ryan2 Comments

LOST SISTER featured on Snowflakes in a Blizzard

I wish to thank editor Darrell Laurant for featuring my novel LOST SISTER on his website Snowflakes in a Blizzard. Darrell approached me with this idea, having found LOST SISTER on Amazon. In the blizzard of books available to us now, he aims to showcase works of merit and reintroduce them to the public. Please visit his website to discover more good reads and become acquainted with their authors. You can read about Darrell’s mission here, and don’t miss that last line. I love his vision, his kindness and his wonderful sense of humor.

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Mothers and Other Creatures: A bioStories Anthology

As a writer, I strive for economy, precision and beauty. As a reader, I look for the same qualities; if I don’t find them, I’ll abandon the book.
I just read Mothers and Other Creatures: A bioStories Anthology, and I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Every story is genuine, moving and memorable, and the writing is first-rate, free of superfluity. Kudos to the talented contributors and many thanks to editor Mark Leichliter for culling such a fine collection. Please visit his website, bioStories, to read more excellent essays.

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Jean Ryan2 Comments

“Happy Hour” in Minerva Rising

header_20140213Great news on the writing front! Minerva Rising Issue #5, containing my piece “Happy Hour,” is now in print. I’d love for you to read what I’ve been working on, and also to support this independent literary journal. Minerva Rising’s motto is “Celebrating the creativity and wisdom in every woman.” To purchase a subscription or buy individual issues, please click on this link.  Thank you for your support of women writers.

Here’s a preview of “Happy Hour”

Roni picks up her vodka tonic, takes a long swallow, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.

“I wasn’t sure what it was at first,” she says, setting down her glass. “I thought it might be a turtle. But then it swam up close and stopped, maybe ten feet from me, and I saw it was a river otter. I smiled. I thought it wanted to play. ‘Hello there,’ I said, or something like that, and it growled.”

She shakes her head. “Yeah, that scared me. The otter went under then—I could see the water swirling towards me. I started backpedaling. The next thing I knew, it was biting the hell out of my legs.”

“Oh my god,” I breathe, “that must have been horrible. What did you do?”

“Screamed. Kicked. I tried to push it away—that’s how this happened.” Roni holds up her left hand; half her little finger is gone. I had been wondering about that.

“I got bit about a dozen times.” She pulls up her pant leg to show me, and I notice she has stopped shaving her legs. Sure enough her calf is riddled with scars: punctures and a couple dark crescents. “There’s one on my thigh that took fourteen stitches.”

I peer at her leg, look back up. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Roni, and studying her today is a pleasure I wasn’t prepared for. Like most women who are good-looking in their youth, she has grown more striking, as if now that her beauty is fully formed, she has taken possession of it. I would recognize that face anywhere, though much about her has changed. Her skin is very tanned for one thing, not those orangey tans you bake or spray on, but a weathered tan that shows the white laugh lines around her eyes. Her dark hair, which she used to wear in a long smooth braid, is now short and choppy. She is bigger, too, filled out with muscle; her arms are spectacular in that lime green tank top. What surprises me most is her smile—there’s an upper tooth missing on the side of her mouth; I can’t stop focusing on it. How long has she let that go?

“Jesus, Roni. How did you get away?”

“Someone in a boat heard me and zoomed over. They smacked the water with a paddle till the otter swam off. I had to get rabies shots.”

“Ewww. In your stomach?”

“No, they don’t do it that way anymore. Still hurts though. They give you shots in your hip when you come in, and then you get five more in your arm over the next month.”

“So they knew the otter was rabid?”

“No. You can’t tell if an animal is rabid unless you test its brain tissue.” She frowns. “I don’t think it was rabid, I think it was just protecting its young.” She lifts her drink and takes another swallow. “Otters have their pups wherever they can find cover—piles of driftwood, old beaver dens, log jams. I’d been fishing near the shoreline, near this huge fallen tree. I got hot, so I dropped anchor and went for a swim.” She flashes a grin, and the gap in her teeth comes back into view. “Wrong time, wrong place.”

 


Jean Ryan5 Comments

The Next Best Thing Project

As part of The Next Best Thing Project, I am answering some interview questions concerning my collection, SURVIVAL SKILLS, which will be published by Ashland Creek Press in April 2013. Many thanks to JoeAnn Hart for tagging me for this exciting venture.

http://joeannhart.com/

I am tagging these other authors so that we can continue to connect with one another and discover new works.

Jennifer Simpson, Director of DimeStories International  http://akajesais.com

Dyane Forde, fantasy writer   http://goo.gl/8VkTz

 

What is the title of your book? 

SURVIVAL SKILLS

Where did the idea come from for the book?

Most of the stories were inspired by something I had read or a show I had seen. “Migration” issued from the real story of a Toulouse goose that lived in a park in Los Angeles and became smitten with one of the visitors. “Looks for Life” also came from real events—a co-worker told me about a friend of his whose life changed after a plastic surgeon rebuilt his face. “Waiting for Annie” followed a special I had seen on coma, the “silent epidemic.” Improved emergency response techniques and sophisticated life support machines are keeping more and more lives in this eerie state of suspension. Especially intriguing to me is the mind’s ability to make connections by itself, to persist without the complement of consciousness. “Paradise” emerged from a program I had watched about intelligence in birds, parrots in particular. One bird had acquired a prodigious vocabulary and this stirred my imagination. I thought it would be fun to work this creature into a story, to use him in fact as a main character. In order to create conflict, the parrot in this tale is malicious as well as brilliant. The extravagance of Palm Springs, its artificial overlay, seemed an apt parallel to the various indulgences that Max enjoyed in his man-made abode.

What genre does your book fall under?

Literary short fiction. I love the short story form, how quickly the reader is pulled in. Poised between poems and novels, short fiction aims for precision and intrigue. I think the quality of writing in literary short fiction is often superior to the writing in novels. Novels can become weighted down with exposition. Short pieces must get to the point quickly. This urgency requires distillation, which is a challenge I revel in.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

As SURVIVAL SKILLS is a story collection, this is a tricky question to answer.  But if I had to cast one story, it might be “The Side Bar,” for which I would choose Helen Hunt as the narrator, Jeff Daniels as Ronny, Kristen Wiig as Carla and Cate Blanchett as Louise.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

“Ryan writes of beauty and aging, of love won and lost—with characters enveloped in the mysteries of the natural world and the animal kingdom.”

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

These stories were written over a period of several years. As they began to gel into a collection, I was able to understand what interests me most as a writer: the natural world and the vulnerability and interdependency of all living things. I enjoy exploring the connections, the synchronicities, the quiet miracles underlying the world we see. Fear and the relative fragility of the human mind fascinate me in particular.

 What other book might you compare to SURVIVAL SKILLS within this genre?

While there are many excellent contemporary collections—Jean Thompson and Antonya Nelson are brilliant short story writers—the closest match to the nature content and unusual relationships in SURVIVAL SKILLS might be BIRDS OF A LESSER PARADISE by Megan Mayhew Bergman.

Who or What inspired you to write this book?

I am endlessly inspired by natural phenomena and the many ways people find to survive their difficulties.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

I hope readers will enjoy what they might learn about the natural world; I certainly had fun doing the research. I also hope that the humor will make them smile along the way. I think people are reassured by humor; it makes them feel better.

 

 

 

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If You Haven’t Read These

I love the short story form, the distillation it demands. Poised between poems and novels, short fiction offers the best of both: precision on the one side, intrigue on the other. While the quality of writing in literary short fiction often surpasses the prose found in novels, most folks prefer the latter. “Why?” I’ve asked them, and invariably they tell me that short stories leave them feeling short-changed. Unsatisfied.

Here are some of my favorite collections, stories that will stay with you long after reading. Satisfaction guaranteed.

REASONS TO LIVE by Amy Hempel  −  Starling and poignant

DANCING GIRLS by Margaret Atwood  −  An adroit sampling by a long-admired author

BABE IN PARADISE by Marisa Silver  −  Great characters, fresh insights

DO NOT DENY ME by Jean Thompson  −  A stunning collection by an awesomely talented writer

ANOTHER MARVELOUS THING by Laurie Colwin  −  Tales of adultery, perfectly rendered

BIRDS OF AMERICA by Lorrie Moore  −  A delicious blend of wit and wisdom

IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT by Helen Simpson  −  Wicked fun

IT’S BEGINNING TO HURT by James Lasdun  −  Elegant and entertaining

NOTHING RIGHT by Antonya Nelson  −  Simply superb

CLOSE RANGE: WYOMING STORIES by Annie Proulx  −  Innovative and powerful

And speaking of brevity here are two short novels you absolutely must read:

TURTLE DIARY by Russell Hoban  −  An exquisite story of two social misfits with a common goal

A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY by J.L. Carr  −  Gentle, evocative writing

Enjoy!