Friends, is your email box full to the brim with STUFF? Yes, mine is too. And yet, there are a few emails from strangers that I really look forward to. These are writers and thinkers that I admire like Melissa Hart (I actually know Melissa) and leftist outlier intellectual Frederik de Boer. And, I love … Continue reading Yes, I’ve started sending out a newsletter and you should subscribe!
Author: Stephanie Barbé Hammer
Stephanie Barbé Hammer is a magical realist prose fiction writer, novelist, occasional essayist, and a committed, intermittent poet, as well as a passionate instructor of writing. A 7-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize she has published work in Hayden's Ferry, Pearl, CRATE, Rhapsoidia, NYCBigCityLit, the East Jasmine Review, Apeiron, Inlandia, Literary Alchemy and the Bellevue Literary Review among other places. She is the author the fabulist novel THE PUPPET TURNERS OF NARROW INTERIOR (Urban Farmhouse Press), a novelette, RESCUE PLAN (Bamboo Dart Press), a prose poem chapbook collection, SEX WITH BUILDINGS (dancing girl press), and a poetry collection, HOW FORMAL (Spout Hill Press).
Stephanie's new novel PRETEND PLUMBER is available for order from your favorite bookstore, and her poetry chapbook CITY SLICKER will release in July 2022.
In honor of Meat Loaf, a story about size
A story about being enough, inspired by hearing Meat Loaf on the radio a long time ago. A version of this story appeared in an anthology of short fiction, edited by my friend John Brantingham. It's one of my favorites. Thank you Meatloaf. Encore Plus "Honey, I'll gain today – I just know it," I … Continue reading In honor of Meat Loaf, a story about size
My mother and Anne Rice
It's oddly appropriate that famous author Anne Rice died just a day before my mother's Yarzeit. My mother was an extremely anxious, brilliant, troubled and fascinating person with wonderfully weird, eclectic tastes. She loved mysteries and she loved Wagner (the composer, not the NYC mayor) and she loved science fiction and she loved Agatha Christie. … Continue reading My mother and Anne Rice
Happy Nanowrimo — think you can’t write a novel in a month?
Well, you can't. Or at least I couldn't. But wait! WC Bryant writing https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:W_C_Bryant_writing.jpg Nanowrimo is a fantastic way to get a rough draft of something done and it's a wonderful way to experiment, to dare yourself to try to work with something impossible or wacky or both. Take me and my forthcoming novel Pretend … Continue reading Happy Nanowrimo — think you can’t write a novel in a month?
I read the Big Book (part 1?)
Dear friends of the unreal -- I have begun -- kind of without meaning to -- an unreal and at times seemingly impossible reading project. In a May 21 2021 article for the New Yorker francophile Adam Gopnik likens reading all of Proust's A LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU (IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME) to … Continue reading I read the Big Book (part 1?)
“these are trying times”
Dear friends of the unreal -- courtesy https://filmartgallery.com/collections/leone-sergio Well, reality continues to imitate art doesn't it? If I did polls (which I don't) I'd ask you to pick whether you think things resemble the Day After Tomorrow (the fire version), Outbreak, or one of the many Zombie movies that are out and about. Or, which … Continue reading “these are trying times”
Reading, talking and writing with writers from far away
Happy almost end of July dear writers of the not so very real. The more I go on in this writing business, the more I learn that the world of writing is all about relationships. It's the relationships that make it more than a job -- paid or unpaid. The people we connect with on … Continue reading Reading, talking and writing with writers from far away
What to read during PRIDE 2021 — Torrey Peters’ Detransition, Baby
We write to share our inner world -- what we remember, what we observe, what we hate and what we love -- with strangers. And we read to enter worlds and points of view and embodied experiences that are not our own, but that through reading and imagining become a part of us. This was … Continue reading What to read during PRIDE 2021 — Torrey Peters’ Detransition, Baby
What to read during Pride Month 2021: revisiting the work of Ryka Aoki (and looking forward to a forthcoming sf novel!)
My last quarter of teaching at UC Riverside, almost 10 years ago now, I elected to focus my Women's Lit class on issues related to trans-gender identities and to writing by trans and non-binary authors. It was during that time, that I discovered a hybrid collection of poetry and essays by the writer Ryka Aoki. … Continue reading What to read during Pride Month 2021: revisiting the work of Ryka Aoki (and looking forward to a forthcoming sf novel!)
Books to read during Pride Month 2021/revisiting Christopher Records’ CARE STORIES
I read Christopher Records' collection a year ago, and I was blown away by his delicate, thoughtful linked short stories. The focus of the collection is on people interacting in Southern California's Inland Empire in a slightly speculative future world. Here the young and old, queer and straight, cis gendered and nonbinary end up moving -- mostly -- … Continue reading Books to read during Pride Month 2021/revisiting Christopher Records’ CARE STORIES
Stephanie Barbé Hammer Writing (Un) Real 
