Candy Crushes in ASKEW

Today, a first piece from my new book, ASKEW, is published at the innovative Atlas and Alice Journal. Thanks so much, EIC Ben Woodward and Fiction Editor Cathy Ulrich, who chose this one.

I wrote the first draft in Jonathan Cardew’s Bending Genres February weekend workshop. It coincided with the final edits on ASKEW that I made with Adam VanWinkle of Cowboy Jamboree.

Here is Candy Crushes at Atlas and Alice: https://atlasandalice.com/2022/04/14/fiction-from-robert-vaughan/

And also, another first for ASKEW- my first published review, from Leigh Chadwick. Full of fun, insights, heart and magic, published at Identity Theory:

https://www.identitytheory.com/review-robert-vaughan-askew/

For more information about ASKEW including where to order, visit my publisher’s website: http://www.cowboyjamboreemagazine.com/books.html

It’s so exciting to have a new book, my first in 5 long years.

Thanks everyone for either purchasing ASKEW, offering to review it, or planning on reading it.

Take care,

Robert

Spring into Summer

Hi friends! In Wisconsin, we look forward to the longest day of sunlight during each year, which arrives this week, on the Summer Solstice. We’ve had stunning days of searing sunlight, but cooler temps and this makes for frolicking outside a tad easier than holing up in one’s basement.

I’m also excited for my upcoming Bending Genres weekend workshop- Stop Making Sense, June 19- 21. It’s filled up, with 20 writers total, and many older and new friends have signed aboard. I look forward to a variety of innovative explorations. Here is a course description: https://bendinggenres.com/product/robert-vaughan-stop-making-sense-writing-the-absurd-meaningless-whimsical-and-silly-june-19-21/

In July, Meg Tuite will be leading our BG weekend workshop with something to do with violence in writing. More to come on that, and the dates!

Jonathan Cardew, our Microviews Editor, asked Leonora Desar to choose her Fave Five pieces from May and her selections are here: https://bendinggenres.com/2020/06/15/leonora-desar-my-fave-five/

Recently, Michael Maxwell wrote a lovely and creative review of our first Bending Genres Anthology. He notes ten particular pieces, some of which have been read in Jonathan Cardew’s new series, Bending Genres Presents: https://bendinggenres.com/2020/06/17/bending-genres-anthology-review-by-michael-gillan-maxwell/

Soon, we will have our Bending Genres t-shirts available for sale on our Merch page: https://bendinggenres.com/bg-store/

And that, my friends, is a wrap. Stay safe, and love each other.

 

 

 

Bending Genres Issue 14

It’s such an interesting journey, living through these daunting times, and I’m buoyed by the creativity and impulses surrounding us. One friend mentioned he’s dipping back through the Twin Peaks series, another is watching the now most popular Netflix projects. I had the longest ZOOM workshop/stimulation/exchange with three of my dearest writer pals yesterday. It’s amazing what we can manifest. And this morning, I had a lovely message from a complete stranger who lives in Serbia: his mission is to send love, and eliminate fear, one person at a time.

Yesterday we reached another Bending Genres milestone: We launched our 14th issue: March/ April. We now have an incredible staff: for fiction we have Meg Tuite, David O’ Connor, and Len Kuntz. Reading poetry we have Samuel Fox, Davon Loeb and Sara Comito. We have added Corey Holzman to our CNF team. And Johnathan Cardew, recently returned from Cape Verde, will re-join Emily Bertholf on MicroViews. Also, thanks Adam Robinson for all that you do, and KJ for your behind the scenes support.

We also sold our 100th copy of the Bending Genres Anthology today, this tally is only from our website, not including the sales from our AWP20 launch in San Antonio.

Coming soon, we will have merchandise and our online store, including the Anthology, Bending Genres mugs (designed by Michael Seymour Blake), BG Journals (also MSB), pens, bookmarks and stickers (designed by MSB and Ron Kibble). Eventually we will have tee shirts (Ron Kibble Design) also.

And that, friends, is it for now. Be kind. Wave at a stranger. Be safe, keep distance. Send a loved one a kind note.

I'm Back!

We have some more exciting workshops to check out in our Bending Genres monthly weekend workshops, including Nancy Stohlman on August 23- 25; Robert Russell on September 20-22, and Steven Dunn on October 18-20. More information is available here:

https://bendinggenres.com/monthly-workshops/.

And on July 21-27, we will be back at Mabel Dodge Luhan House for our second Bending Genres retreat. There is more information about that here: http://retreat.bendinggenres.com. We’ve added our very first MIDWEST RETREAT for August 16- 22, 2020. More details are forthcoming! Needless to say, we are so excited.

And we will have our July/ August issue of Bending Genres available at the beginning of August. Some terrific writers are submitting, and we are still taking more fiction, poetry and CNF. Send us your best! www.bendinggenres.com

I hope your summer is rocking your world. Wasn’t it so great to see our Women’s Soccer USA team win the World Cup? Terrific for young girls and boys everywhere. For everyone, really.  ]]>

Oh! What a WEEK

ISSUE 8, published on Tuesday, April 9. Filled with amazing, diverse flash fiction, stunning poetry and brave, insightful creative non-fiction, we had more than 1,200 hits the first day we published! A new feat!!! Thanks to our BG editors Meg Tuite, Jessica Mehta, Samuel Fox, David O’Connor, Jonathan Cardew, Davon Loeb, Corey Holzman, Adam Robinson, and KJ. And also thanks to our writers, and those of you who tweeted, added your own or your favorite stories to FB, IG, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and more.

Also, this week, the stories in Best Small Fictions 2019 were announced. And my piece, “Six Glimpses of the Uncouth” was included with many stellar authors like Lydia Davis, Amelia Gray, Michael Martone, Kim Chinquee, Ann Beattie and SO many more. I’m truly honored to be included, my second time (I also had a piece selected in the 2016 BSF). I wanted to mention that the particular piece which was selected truly had some serious legs. Originally it appeared in Bud Smith’s anthology, Uno Kudo. He ran this project (2012-2015) with many friends including Aaron Dietz, Erin Parker, Erin McParland, and Chuck Howe (RIP). Then, it was picked up by Metazen, an online journal which mined GOLD in its heyday. Then it was selected to appear in my third book, Addicts & Basements. And finally, last November, it was published at Hobart Journal, with four of my other short fiction pieces. The theme here is never give up on your work!

And then, Nancy Stohlman, dear friend and terrific writer, interviewed me about my latest book, FUNHOUSE, in her series, So You Wrote A Book. She asked some terrific questions and I so appreciate her verve and support of fellow writers.

We still have some openings at Bending Genres for online workshops May 24- 26 with Kaj Tanaka; and June 14- 16 with Sabrina Orah Mark. 

Also, consider joining us in Taos, New Mexico for our second week long writing retreat at   Mabel Dodge Luhan House! July 21-27. Incredible vistas, inspiring daily writing talks, roundtables to receive and give feedback, gourmet food. Want to change your writing life? Talk about a busy week… and it snowed all day yesterday. What the latest with you?  ]]>

This Writing Life

Hobart Journal last November. Bud Smith was the guest editor and he accepted 5 flash fictions, mostly all from journals that have gone out of publication. You can read them all here: http://www.hobartpulp.com/web_features/five-stories. I can’t share the “exciting news” part quite yet. Just know I am over-the-moon!!! Today was the beginning of Jonathan Cardew’s Ugly Real Beautiful: Let Your Characters Tell the Story. It’s our third Bending Genres weekend workshop of 2019, and all three (Meg Tuite in January; Alina Stefanescu in February) have been full so far. We only take 20 writers max, and our next opportunity, Sara Lippmann’s Mine What Matters, is more than half full already. So, don’t wait!!! More here: https://bendinggenres.com/monthly-workshops/. Today I also booked flights for Synergia Ranch, our first Bending Genres retreat on May 10-16. I am so excited for this! Also, we still have some openings for our second Bending Genres retreat at Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos, N.M. on July 21-27. Come write your heart out in the desert, eat gourmet food, laugh and dream with like-minded writers: http://retreat.bendinggenres.com And, I hope to see you in Portland at https://www.awpwriter.org, March 27- 31? I’ll be floating around the book fair needing a haircut, hiding in back booths at late- night readings, toasting friends like Bill Soldan, Karen Stefano, Len Kuntz, Jayne Martin and a plethora of other talents who have new books, or books being birthed soon. Please let me know if you have any signings or engagements. Happy writing! What are you reading lately?]]>

Omega Institute: Nick Flynn

You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me, his new memoir about his mother. Plenty of bewilderment! The workshop was held in the Creekside cottage, which was a tight space for 25 writers! After selecting a word from the white board (I chose “to Lose”) we were given a postcard image. We meditated for seven minutes (a welcome recurring theme before our writing prompts) and then wrote “descriptive writing”- trying to stick with details. We repeated this exercise with slight suggested revisions, so that eventually we had written four or five different prompts. We also read Larry Levis’s lyric poem, “Sensationalism.” My small group was Laura, Kathryn and Carrie. I also partnered with Sean on a couple of exercises. Teacher Nick Flynn, author of several books, including his memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, which I read during our Omega workshop. (http://www.nickflynn.org) One evening, we saw Aja Monet read from her stellar poetry collection, My Mother Was A Freedom Fighter at the Omega Library. She was amazing. In class we also drew maps of a specific location, and a map of our body (placing both trauma and joys on the body). These were used for prompts. We did a movement exercise with Omega staff and writer JoJo that helped us to identify a place in which we might go deeper into a writing piece. Then we wrote a piece toward a direction on our maps. We also visualized our ‘home direction,’ and figured out a gift to give to our “person,” (used from our original postcards) and wrote a fairy tale prompted piece to a younger self in a deep woods. Stanley Kunitz, a mentor of Nick’s said: “You have to become the person that can write the poem.” (of compassion, of anger, of solace, etc.) On Wednesday, Nick’s friend and music collaborator, Guy Barash visited the Omega campus. We did an afternoon workshop with Guy, directing us with non-musical instruments, graphed and designed on paper. We did a silent meditation just listening to local ambient sounds (heater, planes, crickets, etc.) and “recorded” them, then attempted to translate them to the class (from our papers). Then, in groups, we performed our pieces. Then Guy directed the entire class as an aural orchestra. We dubbed ourselves the Unstable Atomic Pigs! Nick was so kind, he invited us to open for Nick and Guy’s performance in the Lake Theater that evening. Also Jared Handelsman, another collaborator, provided video footage. Their show was beyond inspiring! On Thursday our class occupied the Lake Theater at Omega. This was an entire day devoted to our “working project.” We went through our various collected pages, new writing and brought pieces, and various favorites from the group. We marked the “resonant parts,” and Nick coached us to be generous- not one or two words, mark “whole passages.” From there, we literally cut out those parts, and placed them onto 30 blank sheets of white paper. I sort of figured out that I had three or four threads for my project. And I had organized them all in these groupings. Then Nick came over, listened as I described my chaos, and said, “okay, now you can switch them all up- move them around, etc.” I literally felt nauseous! But so did everyone else. Chaos… opposite of organized. The last morning, Nick fielded a quick question and answer. Because I had to leave early on Friday, I was the first in order for the final reading. I read “Tributaries,” and “When He Left it all to Me.” I was only able to stay for the first four or five other readers. I felt so badly when I slipped out, but I had to catch the train, to the cab, to the plane, to the car ride home. My dear friend David Carter (who incidentally was the first friend I workshopped with at Omega in 1994), came and spent an overnight on Thursday, and transported me to the Rhinecliff train station. Bless his heart. What a week. So grateful to Nick Flynn, teacher extra-ordinaire, my co-writers and creators, to Omega for hosting this amazing workshop. To friends, new and old. And always to my honey, who makes life seem more technicolor than ever.]]>

Synergia Ranch 2017

We had 17 writers attend, some stayed the entire week, some commuted. It was a treat, the support flowed, and the powerful, astounding writing that all of the workshop participants conjured up was refreshing. Not to mention the lovely grounds, and sunrise/sunsets, fire pit, organic orchard, GeoDome, Dance Studio, and amazing restaurant/ food.   SAVE THESE DATES: Meg Tuite and I will be returning to Synergia Ranch for Bending Genres on April 27-May 3, 2018. We will have our website up and running very soon! In addition, we will be back in Taos, New Mexico on July 22-28, 2018 for Exploratory Fiction at Mabel Dodge Luhan House. Again, website forthcoming. Come one, come all. Let either Meg or me know if you have any questions, or plan to reserve for either week. WE BOTH HOPE SO!!! Big hugs, and warm wishes for a terrific, inspiring late summer/ autumn. More news forthcoming as we move ahead. Our September issue of (b)OINK published and is full of terrific fiction, poetry, CNF, and the VOICES column, dedicated to scatalogical issues this time around. www.boinkzine.com. What are you reading? I am almost through Maggie Nelson’s Bluets. Comments welcome!]]>