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    Yes, They're Real: A Complete Collection of Creative Nonfiction
    Yes, They're Real: A Complete Collection of Creative Nonfiction
    Yes, They're Real: A Complete Collection of Creative Nonfiction
    Ebook79 pages1 hour

    Yes, They're Real: A Complete Collection of Creative Nonfiction

    By Travis Wildes

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    About this ebook

    Yes, They’re Real is a uniquely provocative collection of short stories from up-and-coming authors in Northeast Florida. The twelve original works by Sam Bilheimer, Sarah Block, Summer Brooks, Thomas Eadie, JJ Grindstaff, April Hutchinson, Benjamin Liff, Heather Peters, Matt Randall, Michael Selvester, Travis Wildes and Andrew Wilkins are forever linked by each author’s perspective of what the genre can resemble. This edition is the eBook version of the paperback. Featuring the shorts Get Off My Laptop, Impact, What Is, Sidewalks, Intervention, Mel’s Hole, Comic Relief, Green and White, The Games We Play, Robert, Snapshots, and Memoirs and Matchsticks. With a special Introduction from Mark Ari. Experience them all and answer the question, “Are they?”

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLeague Press
    Release dateOct 17, 2012
    ISBN9781301474745
    Yes, They're Real: A Complete Collection of Creative Nonfiction

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      Book preview

      Yes, They're Real - Travis Wildes

      Yes, They’re Real

      A Complete Collection

      of Creative Nonfiction

      edited by

      TRAVIS WILDES

      with an introduction by

      MARK ARI

      eBook, October 2012

      Smashwords Edition

      crwleague.wordpress.com

      crwleague@gmail.com

      All stories used by permission

      Cover and eBook design by Travis Wildes

      Also available as a League Press paperback

      ISBN-13: 978-0-615-68664-6

      Copyright © 2012 League Press. All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher or the authors except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      For our dads, moms, brothers and sisters

      Are they?

      Yes, They’re Real is a collection that first materialized during one of Mark Ari’s Creative Nonfiction Workshops at the University of North Florida. A series of three eBooks and a paperback went on to be published, showcasing the short stories of twelve up-and-coming authors. This edition presents work from those volumes together for the first time.

      Contents

      Introduction by Mark Ari

      Get Off My Laptop, JJ Grindstaff

      Impact, Matt Randall

      What Is, Sam Bilheimer

      Sidewalks, Travis Wildes

      Intervention, Michael Selvester

      Mel’s Hole, Andrew Wilkins

      Comic Relief, Heather Peters

      Green and White, Sarah Block

      The Games We Play, Thomas Eadie

      Robert, Summer Brooks

      Snapshots, Benjamin Liff

      Memoirs and Matchsticks, April Hutchinson

      Afterword & Biographies

      Introduction

      Self-publishing is for wusses. It’s the first recourse of the frightened or impatient, the last retreat of the desperately disappointed. It means you couldn’t find one house, not one no matter how small, with folks who thought enough of your work to want to share it with the world. Or you didn’t bother to look. Plainly, your work sucks.

      What a load of crap. None of that matters. Composers want to be heard, painters want to show, and writers want to be read. For the most part, they do. So the question for writers is how best to get their work in front of strangers’ eyes. There are plenty of topnotch scribblers who began their careers with self-published works or who took that route later for one reason or another. I’m not interested in providing a list. Google it if you care. And hold your hand to your heart, because the results will astonish you.

      The muscled independents are those authors who put their own labor into the process of design, printing, marketing, distribution, etc. Others pay some company, the so-called vanity press, to do all that for them. That’s why we view vanity publishing with such disdain. We imagine the well-to-do and doddering neophyte’s yawn, the passed wind of misanthropic self-regard, and the easy-access of cash slapped onto barrelheads with soft, fat fists.

      I don’t like soft, fat fists. But some artists have them. Some artists are chumps, too. Some are assholes or dopes or worse. I don’t ask for the author’s CV before I read a story or essay. Later I might get curious, but mostly I don’t care. All that matters up front is the work. Does it ignite the spark gap to spill its charge and burn deep and long? Does it pluck feathers from a human heart to build white pigeons that come to me with lighted eyes? Does it tear my shirt open?

      The works in this collection can do those things.

      I know every author here. I’ve joked with them. Banged skulls with them. Hovered over their hunched shoulders to witness shaky paws smoothing the creases of crumpled memory. Laughed until my lungs throbbed. And when they thought I wasn’t watching and scuttled to the corners of the room, signaling to one another with signs they made on the air with their fingers, I ignored it. I know when to look the other way.

      Travis got it into his head to publish stories and essays he and others shaped in my workshops. He chose the pieces to include. That’s what editors do. And like a good editor, he inspired his writers to make their manuscripts the best ones they could make, and he nurtured them along in the process. He conceived this book as a vehicle. Then he found the means to construct it and roll it out onto the public road. Editor AND publisher. Not the easy way. No deep pockets here. Just sweat and desire. This is where possibilities begin.

      There is terrific work in this collection. Such distinct voices. Such varied approaches to putting thoughts into words. But because these authors have worked shoulder-to-shoulder in the same workshops, they are bound together in a unique way. Better than most they understand the work of art—the story, the essay—as a meeting place, a means of connection, a chink cut into the bone crust between writer and reader to let leak, retina to retina, the light of singular minds.

      There’s a lot of love in a book like this. I’m astounded at the depth of it. And it’s a damned good read.

      Mark Ari

      August 2012

      Get Off My Laptop

      by JJ Grindstaff

      The majority of the time, I don’t like children. They’re loud, messy, and don’t know how to talk things out to get what they want. Under a certain age, all children are sociopaths. In my normal life, I try not to associate with sociopaths for the strict reason that they’re crazy. Therefore, kids and I just can’t get along.

      With that being said, my kid’s better than your kid. He’d eat your A-Honor Roll student in a minute. He doesn’t talk back, he loves me unconditionally, and is the most perfect child anyone could ever ask for. He’s also about to turn three in July. He’s got golden

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