#52 Josh Maday: Satisfaction in the Things He Makes

Josh Maday was born in Saginaw, Michigan, and grew up near there in an almost childless subdivision. He has wonderful parents, but has struggled with depression since the second grade. Eventually, he learned to push those feelings down, but, directed inward, he grew to hate himself—for not fitting in, for not being a better athlete (even though he was a three-sport athlete), for not being good enough for anyone (even though his father attended every game he played and his mother loved him very much and Sarah eventually would too). Josh grew up stoic, stone-faced, and after high school he worked as a mason’s laborer, which he hated. Around the same time, he fell in love with Sarah, which was easy to do, and he began to have other feelings inside him. He kept laying blocks and bricks so that he could marry Sarah. He continued to build things up and his debilitating low periods were no longer so low. Sarah’s tireless positive outlook began to change Josh’s self-image. He began to understand that people didn’t actually despise him, that that was just a function of clinical depression. The chemical situation that often derailed his life was being corrected. The other thing that changed the way that Josh felt inside was reading. Josh found consolation in big ideas, unanswerable questions, and reading books. As his personal library grew to over 5K books, Josh began to turn his complex interior life into his own stories, which are often strange in content and/or form. He does not see the point of writing a traditional realist story. Anybody could do that and Josh is not just anybody, a fact that he now accepts, along with his tendency toward the dark, grotesque, heavy, weird, and satirical. And Josh now finds satisfaction in the things he makes—whether with bricks, with words, or with love. Sarah has taught Josh to care about someone else and their first child is due in September. He is excited. There are so many good things that are going to happen in his life.

Disseminating Josh Maday

Going Home to Michigan

I grew up in Michigan and went to school at Michigan State University. I've never gone back to Michigan as a writer, so I'm looking forward to this trip back home. I'll be talking to classes at MSU and giving a bunch of readings: October 7, MSU Library; October 8, Schuler Books in Lansing; October 9, MOCA in Detroit. In support of that, Bill Castanier at City Pulse wrote a nice profile/review of DEAR EVERYBODY.

Life-Changing Art

John Lewis of Baltimore Magazine asked me to write a short piece about a piece of life-changing art. I chose Barnett Newman's Vir Heroicus Sublimis (1950-1951).

#93 Myfanwy Collins: Terrifying and Exhilarating

Myfanwy Collins was born in Montreal, Canada during the 1967 World’s Fair. By 5, she had a crush on James Garner from the Rockford Files. She wrote her first short story in first grade—about a girl and her dog who run away from home but actually live under the porch. At 10, her parents separated and then her father died unexpectedly in his sleep, which may explain Myfanwy’s lifelong insomnia. Her mother remarried 5 months later and her new step-dad moved the family to a small town in upstate New York. Myfanwy liked her new step-dad at first; he was nice, but then he became an abusive alcoholic just like her biological father had been. Myfanwy loved going to school—because it got her away from home—and she was glad when her step-dad died of cancer of when she was 16. In college, she took a full load of classes, worked full-time, and dated an older guy who worked as a prison guard. Myfanwy could have been a high school English teacher when she graduated, but after one of her students asked her to go to the prom with him she decided to go to graduate school instead. That was when her boyfriend cheated on her and broke up with her. She didn’t expect to be so glad that that happened, but she started to have a lot of fun. She stopped writing her thesis (she wanted to write fiction anyway—and did) and went on the road with Cirque du Soleil. After that, there were some other jobs and other boyfriends, but all that matters is that she met Allen. They have always had a chemical connection and she loves how open and how funny he is. They got married and tried for years to have a baby, but couldn’t. In 2001, her mother died from lung cancer and that was a huge heartbreak. Myfanwy quit everything and she traveled with Allen from national park to national park throughout the US and Canada. Eventually, they went home. In 2006, Myfanwy unexpectedly became pregnant. It was terrifying and exhilarating. She knew that she was carrying her whole family inside her--a new life was beginning and then Henry was born and everybody is pretty happy about that.

Joseph Young on DEAR EVERYBODY

The good Joseph Young wrote a very nice review of DEAR EVERYBODY that just went up at JMWW. Here are my favorite bits: "entirely unique ... Kimball has written a book of beauty. It's a sad book and a wonderful one."

#091 Kathryn Jachowski: Almost Completely Happy

Kathryn Jachowski has lived her whole life in Maryland. When she was a little girl, she loved animals so much that she had to pet any animal that she saw. She would stick her head in holes in the ground and talk to the worms. When Kate was 10, her parents divorced and then she lost contact with her father. Her mother told her that her father was clinically depressed, but this wasn’t true. Her new step-dad was a pastor, which was fine since Kate was always religious. Later, she learned that her father had a drug problem and was in jail. During her teen years, Kate told her friends that her dad was dead so she didn’t have to explain it. Kate always got good grades, but never liked school. Kate never got into trouble, but she did things like drugs that other people didn’t know about. She never told anybody because she always wanted to be the good girl. Eventually, Kate wrote her father a letter in jail, explaining why she was angry with him and enclosing a Get Out of Jail Free card from her Monopoly game. After he got out, they talked on the phone and eventually decided to see each other in person (Kate hadn’t seen him since she was 11), but he died from a drug overdose before that happened. Kate always got along with her mother, but she had a hard time realizing that Kate was growing up. Kate started dating Pat, an atheist, which her mother had a problem with. Kate had a breakdown and told her mother that she hated God. Kate moved out of the house and her mother abandoned her. But, really, all Kate wants is to be happy. She says she’s about 75-80% happy now that she doesn’t live at home, so she’s almost there.

#90 Michael Mussman: Speaking Spanish (and French) Saved His Life

Michael Mussman was born on October 27, 1978, a birthday he shares with Dylan Thomas and Teddy Roosevelt. His parents were Jehovah's Witnesses and were not happy when he brought home Madonna's Immaculate Collection. They were less happy when he started burning incense and reading the Lotus Sutra in his bedroom. They were incensed when he declared himself Jewish. Michael has lived in California all his life, except for one brief attempt at bohemia in Europe, which ended with a serious gall bladder attack on a staircase in the Gare du Nord. He spent a harrowing night in a Parisian hospital, in a cot beside a gunshot victim. He might not have survived if he didn’t speak Spanish and French so well. When Michael ran out of money, he flew back to San Diego, and crashed on the floor of his little sister's apartment until his big sister got him a job in human resources, for which he was terribly ungrateful. He despised that recruiting job and four more years of different jobs until he was saved by a marketing job in which he is quite content to get paid to write. Michael used to be a poet, but he abandoned that muse when he realized that he was no longer a hysterical sobbing teenager. Now that he’s grown up, he’s writing his second novel, the story of a cutthroat salesman who runs away from home. What else? Michael finds a certain satisfaction in the fact that Spanish still finds its way into his mouth quite often now that his boyfriend is from Chile. His boyfriend, Michael loves that he gets to dance and sing and misbehave around him without a drop of embarrassment or self-consciousness.

Emotional Clarity in Baltimore Magazine

I was reading our copy of Baltimore Magazine (we have a subscription) and was surprised when I turned the page and saw the cover of DEAR EVERYBODY on Page 56. It's a really nice review by John Lewis in his Read It column. I couldn't find it online, but here are my favorite bits: "Lightning has struck again with this Baltimorean's book ... Kimball's protagonist possesses an emotional clarity that makes his eventual suicide all the more believable and tragic. ... You feel his pain."

Lit Crawl NYC

After the Baltimore Book Festival, I took the train up to NYC for Lit Crawl, which is just like a pub crawl except that there are books and beer instead of just beer. I read at the Arrow Bar with the wonderful people of New York Tyrant. Also, thank you to Time Out New York--which made Lit Crawl, and our particular part of Lit Crawl, one of the week's Critic's Picks. Leigh Newman read from her great story, Family Pics, and Chris March from Project Runway said nice things about us. It's always harder to read in mixed-use venues. There are people that came to Arrow Bar just to drink and talk (or drink and not talk) and they were talking through the first couple minutes of the reading, but then I realized that it had gone completely quiet and I knew it was going well.

There were so many great readers at so many different venues that I was only able to see a couple of things, but the after party was great and nearly everybody from every reading was there. Thank you to Todd Zuniga for organizing the huge event. Thank you to Giancarlo DiTrapano and Ellen Moynihan for inviting me and to Chris March for introducing. Thank you to David and Amy for the surprise of you being there (all the way from Texas). Thank you to Eleanor for the genius of being there, and for your early and continual support.

Baltimore Book Festival

The forecast was rain, but a lot of people still came out for the Baltimore Book Festival. When I started reading, there was a reggae band playing up the midway somewhere, so I held the microphone close and projected as much as I could. When I started reading, I could see straight into the tents across the midway, but by the time I finished the CityLit tent was full and my view was blocked by a few rows of people standing under their umbrellas along the edges of the CityLit tent. I felt as if my voice was bringing people out of the rain and that felt good.

Thank you to Gregg Wilhelm for organizing and to Aaron Henkin for introducing and to everybody for coming out in the rain.

Reading DEAR EVERYBODY

I'll be reading from DEAR EVERYBODY on The Signal today (WYPR, 88.1)--noon and 7pm. There's more press here.

And I'll be reading from DEAR EVERYBODY at the Baltimore Book Festival tonight, 6-8pm. This is with Madison Smartt Bell, Rafael Alvarez, Jen Michalski, William Henry Lewis, Christine Schutt, and Betsy Boyd. Also, there will be free beer. There are a bunch more book events, including Saturday night's Lit Crawl here.

#86 Jen Michalski: Unchanging and So New

Jen Michalski’s twin brother, Scott, came out first, but his nose and ear were all bent up. His nose still looks a little smashed. Of course, this early struggle just made Jen even more ambitious. When Jen and Scott were toddlers, their mom used to dress them up in matching outfits even though they were fraternal twins, one a boy and one a girl. Their mother would take them shopping to department stores and they would sit on the mannequin stands and sing songs from Sesame Street (today, Jen has a mannequin in her house). Their mother always knew where they were. When Jen was 4, she learned to say Fuck You from her father. But all the fighting in the family made her reserved in some ways. Jen’s filter became quite thick and sometimes she'd rather say nothing than risk what the response might be. Around this same time, Jen decided that she wanted to be an elephant when she grew up. She thought it was a viable career choice. She thought that elephants looked peaceful and that they must be brave (there aren't many hiding places for an elephant). Over the years, Jen wanted to be an elephant, then a writer, then a policewoman, then a writer, then a doctor, then a writer. She wrote her first short story when she was 5 and she read everything she could find--to try to find out how other people lived. She assumed that everybody else was happier than she was. By the time she started college, Jen had written six novels. In college, she wrote poetry. After college, she wrote short stories and two more novels, but she never tried to publish them. Also after college, she was in a relationship for eleven years, which was difficult to end. Jen doesn't like change. She doesn't even like going on vacation because then she has to get used to a new routine. She has lived in the same city for most of her life (B’more!). Now, Jen’s much much happier with her life and especially with her new partner, the wonderful Phuong. And Jen still reads all the time and runs an online e-zine, jmww, where she publishes other people's stories. She’s fascinated by what people write and why. And last year, Jen published her first collection of stories, Close Encounters (So New Media). Now she’s writing another novel and this one she’s going to publish.

More Jen Michalski
JMWW

I'm an Indie Heartthrob

I've been reading Bookslut for at least 5 years, probably longer and now I'm an Indie Heartthrob.

Blake Butler on DEAR EVERYBODY

Blake Butler wrote an amazing review of Dear Everybody.

#83 Cecilia Baader: Your High School English Teacher

Cecilia Baader was born in Chicago in 1973. Both of her parents were history teachers and the family’s summer vacations were at Civil War battlefields. Her senior year of college she was depressed, stopped going to classes, and dropped out of school. She got a job doing technical support and training for farmers and their GPS equipment. She hated the job and was 5 minutes late every day as a form of protest. When she hated the job too much, she quit and went back to college. She finished her degree and then earned her masters as well. Now she’s an English teacher in an inner city school in Chicago and she gets to work early every day. Cecilia loves the kids and loves that she’s doing something that matters. She fights so hard to keep her kids in school. She calls them at home. She goes to their houses. It’s good that she’s a teacher. She was always a stage person, so now she gets to spend a lot of time in front of her class. Cecilia became a teacher, in part, because she thought that the job would give her time to write, but, of course, the job is overwhelming. And the summers, a good teacher needs all that time to recover and get ready for the next school year. That is when Cecilia gets to hang out with friends and family. Cecilia’s close with all of her siblings and loves being the favorite aunt to her many nieces and nephews. Eventually, she will attend graduate school in educational administration or educational policy so that she can change things that she can’t change as a teacher. What else? Cecilia loves kung-fu movies. That’s not enough? Well, she loves to run and is obsessed with penguins. More? OK, she’s taking tap dancing lessons, but that’s all I’ve got. OK, one more thing: You should wish that you had her for your high school English teacher.

More Cecilia