Cat Russell and the End of Days: An Interview

Cat Russell is a northeast Ohio writer whose first book I had the honor of publishing last year through Crisis Chronicles Press. Recently, she has also provided invaluable assistance keeping our Cleveland Poetics literary event calendar [see above] up to date. Now Cat has a brand new book out through Venetian Spider Press, and I wanted to talk with her about it.
 

JB: Thank you so much for agreeing to a brief interview for the Cleveland Poetics blog. Tell me a little about your new book, An Optimist's Journal of the End of Days and Other Stories. Was the title inspired by the Covid-19 pandemic?

Cat Russell: No, it wasn't, although present circumstances certainly make it seem that way! My book is actually a collection of my favorite short stories, mostly flash fiction, that I've written over the past thirteen years.

The title is taken from the first story in the book, which was inspired by the fact that I actually do keep a "Favorite Things" journal. The idea behind the practice is to help you focus on things you appreciate each day, and—as you can imagine—when things aren't going so well, it's harder to find good things to fill those pages. So I started wondering what I would write in the event of an apocalyptic event.

JB: Well, it certainly feels a bit prescient. One of the many things I find interesting about your book is that it is printed in a font that makes it appear as though it was all written on a typewriter. To me, this makes it all feel more intimate, like I'm getting to read a private manuscript of yours that no one else gets to read. Whose idea was this, yours or your publisher's?

Cat Russell: I always use Courier New font when I'm turning in a manuscript, because of the monospacing. I also have a second reason that's more personal: I use a typewriter-style keyboard, so the aesthetics appeals to me. But my publisher decided to keep the font in the finished book, which I think works really well with the mottled journal-style cover; it gives the impression that each story inside is a journal entry typed on an old fashioned typewriter. In fact, Venetian Spider Press, especially William F. DeVault, deserves full credit for how beautifully the finished product came out!

JB: 2020 has been a tough year for small presses and for authors with new books coming out. Most events have had to be either cancelled, moved to 2021 or conducted online. I know when your previous book, Soul Picked Clean, was released last year you did an impressive array of readings, signings and book fairs around northeast Ohio. How are you adapting with your new book? What are your plans when it comes to An Optimist's Journal of the End of Days and Other Stories?

Cat Russell: I have looked into readings at different libraries and other venues for when restrictions ease and people feel safer gathering for events, but in the meantime I'm mostly doing online events. Last month I read some stories for SpoFest Poetry & Prose, and I also shared my unboxing video online when I received my author copies. I made my readings from other events available on my YouTube channel and promoted on Patreon and social media.

My biggest event that I have planned for 2020 though is Halloween-themed. On Friday, Oct 30th I'm doing a joint reading with three other authors called the "Spooky BOOKtacular." James Bryant, the host of SpoFest, will kick the event off at 7pm EST, and then I will pick up the baton at 7:30, followed by horror writers Faryl (8:30) and S.T. Hoover (9:30). It's set up like a blog tour, but for FaceBook Live, so people can join by clicking the individual event link for each author, with 15 minute breaks between readings. Since so many authors I know can't do a traditional book launch this year, this seemed like a fun way for us to mutually promote and support each other.

I also have some tentative things lined up for later in the year, but I'm honestly not sure how things will work out for any in-person events. I would like to do some online holiday sales though. Since the book has a lot of stories in different genres, I think it would make a nice gift for other bibliophiles of pretty much any taste.

JB: I look forward to the Spooky BOOKtacular! Thank you again, Cat, for agreeing to this interview. It's always a pleasure to chat with you. Is there anything else that you'd like to add before we sign off?

Cat Russell: Thank you so much for this opportunity! I really appreciate it, and I hope everyone is getting through these difficult times as best they can.

I know it can feel lonely with all the social distancing and event cancellations, especially for those of us who get our energy and inspiration from being around others, so it's nice to know we can reach out to each other online or even with just the phone. This is such a supportive community, I'm very thankful to be a part of it. And it's a pleasure talking to you too!

# # # # #

Don't forget to tune into the Spooky BOOKtacular on October 30th 2020.

Buy a signed copy of An Optimist's Journal of the End of Days and Other Stories direct from the author: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/authorcatrussell ($29.95 and please be sure to include your mailing address).

And for more Cat Russell, check out these links:

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Cat-Russell/e/B00BL6DMYI
Cat's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/authorcatrussell
Writing Blog: https://catrussellwriter.wordpress.com/
Personal Twitter: http://twitter.com/ganymeder
Author Twitter: http://twitter.com/THECatRussell
Author Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/authorcatrussell

Hallowe'en Poetry!

Happy Hallowe'en!
Once again, the SFPA has posted their Hallowe'en reading, with audio files of poets reading their spooky poems.  Something to listen to while cuddled up to a black cat and listening to the ghost wind howl on a dark hallowe'en midnight!
Boo!

"Smilin’ Jack". Image by Karen A. Romanko

• SFPA Hallowe'en Reading

Poet's Haven Halloween Jubilee

The Poet's Haven will be holding a Halloween Jubilee on Saturday, October 31st at Oak Knoll Park in Massillon! Doors will open at noon with poetry and music performances starting at 1:00. This will be an all-ages event featuring poetry and music performances from; Steve Brightman, Theresa Göttl Brightman, Nikann Charney, Joshua Gage, Marissa Hyde, Azriel Johnson, KnowEyePoetry Collective (CUPSI team from College of Wooster), Kristen Laine, Lennart Lundh, Nick Mayberry, Jen Pezzo, Vince Robinson, Dan Smith, J.E. Stanley, and The Stetson-Marlowe Project. J.E. Stanley's new book, The Persistence of Night, will be making its debut here. We will also be joined by our friends from Blood Pudding Press, Crisis Chronicles Press, and Writing Knights Press. Food and drinks will be available, with sales in support of the Lake Effect Poetry slam team!

More info on Facebook.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Hallowe'en!

For your spooky poetry pleasure, here's a cat ghost poem by John Philip Johnson:

• Bones and Shadows

And, once again, for those of you who do your ghosting with poets on Hallowe'en night, the annual Hallowe'en show of Ray McNiece and Tongue & Groove is at the Barking Spider, 8pm, at 11310 Juniper.

photo by Geoffrey Landis

---

•  this year's SF Poetry Association's Halloween Poetry Podcast.

Halloween Poetry Reading Online

Once again, the Science Fiction Poetry Association is featuring their annual Hallowe'en Poetry Reading, a half-dozen poems read by the authors, featuring spooks and jack o' lanterns and candy, and available for free in audio form, with poetry by

• David Kopaska-Merkel 
• Shannon Connor Winward
• David L. Summers
• Adele Gardner 
• Dennis M. Lane
• F. J. Bergmann
• Mary Turzillo
• Liz Bennefeld
• & yours truly, Geoffrey A. Landis 

Looking for something to listen to on the evening when ghouls and children walk the night?  Check it out!

Photo by GL 2012

And, if you prefer to get out and do your celebrating with poets on Hallowe'en night, how about trick-n-treating over to the Hallowe'en show of Ray McNiece and Tongue & Groove at the Barking Spider?  8pm, over on 11310 Juniper behind Case-Western-- a good time is guaranteed.

Hallowe'en Poetry Podcast

The moon is waxing, and the trees are starting to poke skeletal fingers into the sky... Hallowe'en is coming!  Are you ready to be spooked?  How about listening to some Halloween poetry to set the mood?  The SFPA's annual Hallowe'en Reading is now online.  It's an audio compilation of thirteen Halloween-themed poems, from:

David Kopaska-Merkel

Dennis M. Lane

David L. Summers

Linda D. Addison and Stephen M. Wilson

Bryan Thao Worra

Chris Vera
Jacqueline West
Michael A. Arnzen

Maria Alexander
Elissa Malcohn
Liz Bennefeld
Kath Abela Wilson
F.J. Bergmann

image credits

"Pacific Rim" by Deborah P Kolodji

"Werewolf Moon" by Geoffrey A. Landis

52 Cleveland Haiku (42)

Ghouls hang from trees,

zombies with light-bulb eyes:

celebrate sugar, and death.

--Geoffrey A. Landis

Halloween Poetry Reading

The SFPA has posted their Annual Halloween Poetry Reading of horror, Halloween, and science-fictional poems.

image "Alien Life" by Liz Bennefeld

52 Cleveland Haiku (39)

The werewolf moon!

But we are safe

Inside.

--Geoffrey A. Landis

It was a Dark and Scary Night...

The Science Fiction Poetry Association has put up their 2010 Halloween Poetry Reading podcast-- nine scary poems in MP3 format, by the likes of David Kopaska-Merkel and Elissa Malcohn. If you like ghosties and ghoulies in your ears-- check it out.

If "short" is your style, on the other hand, this month Microcosms, the twitter poetry-zine, is running horror-themed short-shorts poems.

Happy Hallowe'en!

image: "A Halloween Collage with Spiders,"

© by Elissa Malcohn.

Halloween Online Poetry Reading

To celebrate Hallowe'en, the SF poetry Association has put together an online audio Halloween poetry reading, of poems spooky and otherwise.

If haiku are more to your liking, then check out the Haiku Foundation's Halloween Masque.

And have a happy Hallowe'en!

Ghouls. Photo by Geoffrey A. Landis

Forms: Nested Meditation

One of the “Sleepless in Alliance" overnight poem contests at Ohio Poetry Day introduced me to a poetic form I hadn't previously heard of, the "nested meditation". The nested meditation was invented by an Ohioan, Kevin Anderson (no, not Kevin J. Anderson the SF writer; Keven Anderson the poet and psychologist working in Toledo), who has 76 of them in his book Divinity in Disguise, 2003. (The title is from a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote, "Every human being is a divinity in disguise.)

Since then (thanks, google) it's a form that seems to have been picked up by a number of other poets.

Here's a example from Anderson's book:

Do you have the time?

Do you have the time

of your life?

Do you have the time

of your life

or does someone else perhaps?

Do you have the time

of your life

or does someone else? Perhaps

it's later than you think.

Anderson gives the rules of the form in the appendix to Divinity in Disguise, and there are a number of versions elsewhere on the web. In brief, the rules are:

• The first stanza is a single line that, by itself, forms a complete sentence


• Each additional stanza adds repeats the previous one, then adds a single additional line, one which changes the meaning of the piece, so that the stanza, with all the lines read together, still reads as a complete sentence. (Or several complete sentences).


• Punctuation can be changed in a line from one stanza to the next, but not words or word order*


• Repeat for as many lines as desired.

Done well, each stanza mutates the sense of the previous sentence, changing or even reversing the meaning.
The examples I find scrolling around on the web are, indeed, mostly spiritual in nature, some religious, some meditations about the natural world, some elegies, but all of them more or less meditations, following the pattern Anderson had originally set. Here's one by Sharon Rollins (from Dangerous Love, 2006):

We Can't

We can’t.

We can’t go on living.

We can’t go on living as if nothing has happened.

We can’t go on living as if nothing has happened. War, hunger, despair must be faced.

We can’t go on living as if nothing has happened. War, hunger, despair must be faced with peace, justice, and love.


But the form seems to be one that would be open to other types of content-- a clever poet could, I think, write a quite nice little narrative poem in the form. (Perhaps we'd need a new word for the form when it's not a meditation: one might call it a "nested progression" instead of a "nested meditation" when such works are not meditations)

So, here's my "nested progression" for you, a special for Hallowe'en:

I am.

I am

thirsty.

I am

thirsty

for your love.

I am

thirsty

for your lovely

blood.

I am

thirsty

for your lovely

blood

and you have not barred the door.

Happy Hallowe'en!


--
*In Anderson's rules, he also says that you shouldn't use homophones to mutate the meaning-- changing "there" to "they're" would be a rule-breaker. But then he admits that he sometimes does it himself. So it may be a flaw, but not a fatal flaw.