Category: Across Town

John P. Deever’s short story “Where’s Jacob?” appears in the most recent CCC anthology,Across Town: Stories of Columbus.  This riveting, fast-paced tale about a parent’s worst fear is an exciting addition to the Across Town collection.

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John Deever grew up in Westerville, Ohio — a third-generation resident — and graduated from Otterbein University in 1990. After receiving his M.A. in English from the Ohio State University in 1992, he joined the Peace Corps as a member of the first group of English teachers in newly independent Ukraine. After living in California, Boston, southern Russia, and Washington, DC, where his children were born, he returned to central Ohio. He currently writes for the Ohio State Alumni magazine, Santa Clara Magazine, (614) magazine, and other venues. His recent essay “Back in the USSR” appeared in Volume Three of 50 Years of Amazing Peace Corps Stories: A Small Key Opens Big Doors—The Heart of Eurasia.

John Deever, a writer, husband, and father of two, was one of the first Peace Corps volunteers in newly independent Ukraine. There he found people living under an incredible weight—oppressive economic conditions, perpetually overcast skies, diet dominated by heavy root vegetables and alcohol. Yet in that place where even his young students carried the difficulty of daily life like a heavy burden, he also found new friends who took joy in the simplest pleasures and were thrilled to encounter the wider world through the first American most had ever known. With affection for his subject, Deever brings this little-known part of the world to life in Singing on the Heavy Side of the World.

Across Town: Stories of Columbus is now available for sale in paperback for only $9.35, and in a variety of e-book formats including Kindle, Nook, iBooks and Google Books for $4.99.  The book is available for Amazon Kindle for $2.99 for a limited time. Click here to order.

Gabrielle Gold’s short story “Hidden Brilliance” appears in the most recent CCC anthology,Across Town: Stories of Columbus.  This intriguing, thoughtful story is a wonderful addition to the Across Town collection.

During her senior year of high school, Gabrielle Gold took a class in creative writing. One of the assignments was to “write a story about yourself as an old person.” She portrayed her eighty-year-old self as a purple outfit-wearing, cat-owning attendee of a local science-fiction and fantasy convention, preparing to sign the third book in her fantasy series. While she only owns one purple shirt, and the cats belong to her brother, Gabrielle never gave up on that dream of being an author.  Across Town features the story “Hidden Brilliance,” her first published work of fiction.

As someone who finished out that last year at Bexley High School composing and mixing a CD of original songs, Gabrielle Gold has always been one to infuse reality with bits of her own worlds. Her hometown gave her ample reason to invent absurd fantasies with which to amuse herself. Being born in the Catskills of New York in a location fondly referred to by relatives as East Yechupitz, a Yiddish term for the middle of nowhere, had its indirect advantages. First of all, it encouraged her to use her imagination. The other perk of living in South Fallsburg was that anywhere else seemed just as fascinating as Disneyland, including Bexley, Ohio.

Turning those absurd fantasies into fiction, poems, and songs has been a part of her life since the third grade, when she wrote a forty-two page story purely for her own enjoyment. After high school, she considered earning her B.A. in creative writing, but eventually decided against it. Instead, she majored in Medieval Studies at Ohio Wesleyan University, seeking a grounding in the real-world examples on which most fantasy stories are based. She contributed multiple times to Confiscated, a student-run literary magazine at OWU, and also won third place in the university’s 2006 Global Outreach Talent Show, an intercollegiate contest that raised money for the humanitarian effort in Darfur. After she graduated, she went on to complete her M.A. in Art History. Defying the initial skepticism of her advisor, she successfully completed her master’s thesis on the symbolism of bears in medieval German and Swiss art. She particularly enjoyed analyzing the meaning behind bears on shields with silly hats, otherwise known to more serious people as the code of heraldry. Her story in third grade featured two bears and their adventures, and one of her young adult novels still in the works is centered around a two-tailed creature resembling a cross between a fox and a bear, so she seems to have come full circle.

Outside of academia, Gabrielle has been a loyal attendee of Columbus conventions since high school. She won first place in the 2004 songwriting contest at Marcon, a well-acclaimed fantasy and science fiction convention in Columbus.  She continued her involvement with Marcon, arranging for her own concert as part of the convention’s programming. Just this past October, she attended a local music convention known as the Ohio Valley Filk Festival for the fifth time, and is hoping to start her own Columbus filk music circle. She cherishes her five-year-old “Got filk?” t-shirt, and will likely keep wearing it until it develops holes beyond those necessary for correct shirt-wearing.

Gabrielle hopes you will purchase and enjoy Across Town in a similar manner. Be irrationally exuberant and manhandle the pages, be confused by incongruous dog-ears, and dimly know that once upon a time, the bent spine did not magically prompt the paperback to skip to page 53. Because the real reason to own a tangible book is to return to it years from now.

Across Town: Stories of Columbus is now available for sale in paperback for only $9.35, and in a variety of e-book formats including Kindle, Nook, iBooks and Google Books for $4.99.  The book is available for Amazon Kindle for $2.99 for a limited time. Click here to order.

The following is an auto-biography from Across Town: Stories of Columbus featured author Justin Nicholas Hanson.  Across Town is available here for $9.35.

Justin’s drama “Old, Young Men” appears in the most recent CCC anthology,Across Town: Stories of Columbus.  This serious, intelligent story is a wonderful contribution to the Across Town collection.

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Stories have always filled my life. They fuel my understanding of the world around me and my place within it. An imaginative child, I frequently lost myself in worlds of fantasy on the page and on the screen. The Hobbit was the first book to consume me; it was followed by the fantasies and adventures of Rowling, Pullman, Dumas, and Lewis, along with the rest of Tolkien’s oeuvre. Just as I consumed reams of books and hours of film, I also developed an interest in spinning tales of my own and began writing stories when I was just a child.

Although I count “Old, Young Men” as my first publication of literary value, I first published a story when I was a boy of eight, a story featured in a collection of very young writers. I vaguely recall it had something to do with a time machine and dinosaurs, with the kind of convoluted, whimsical narrative that only an eight-year-old can conjure.

My parents saw that I enjoyed writing and encouraged me. They sent me to the Thurber House for its children’s writing camp and also encouraged me to act in youth plays, which I helped write in collaborative efforts—luckily none of us, at ten-years-old, possessed authorial egos to lead to blows over creative content. I showed promise and continued my involvement in writing activities, sometimes to the disbelief of others (a famous family story involves a 6th grade teacher who insisted I’d plagiarized a story for a class assignment, which delighted me as I had indeed authored the work).

In high school, my writing dwindled for other activities: sports, competitive weight lifting, and a variety of extracurriculars occupied me while my creative side lay dormant. But my creativity was reawakened at The Ohio State University. In a beginner creative writing class, a professor rekindled my love of writing, and I’ve been at it ever since. Said professor, Manuel Martinez—gifted author, mentor, and friend—became my faculty adviser, and we keep a close friendship today. My interest in writing was so renewed that I changed my major from History to English, making the best decision of my college career.

As an English major, I met a brilliant group of passionate young writers—including fellow anthology writer Bill Hallal (“Suicide Guys”)—who welcomed me with open arms. While at OSU, I sought out the finest professors to learn from: I studied narrative under renowned critic James Phelan, and I learned the craft of storytelling from Lee K. Abbott, one of finest short story writers in contemporary fiction. Along with my creative writing, I undertook a considerable academic writing project concerning a 1970s civil rights journal called The Body Politic, from which I hope to publish a portion in an academic journal. In that project, I encountered the thrills of journalism and the immense responsibility of writing history.

Since graduating, I’ve worked some odd jobs during a year I intend to spend out in the world living and writing before returning to school for an advanced degree. Although my childhood imagination was awakened by works of fantasy, as a writer I’m a committed realist who bases my stories in a world as true to form as I can render.

My story “Old, Young Men” ruminates on feelings of personal identity within contemporary society and the American Dream. One finds similar themes in the work of Henry Miller, Faulkner, Tennessee Williams and in films by Elia Kazan, Mike Nichols, and Copolla, to name just a few, all of whose art on such themes has fascinated me. The story is quite personal, filling itself with scenes and characters from my eclectic Columbus life. I hope the reader enjoys the tale and finds it worthwhile.

Currently, I’m working on three stories that are all in various stages of development: a story of a broken marriage, a story of lost love returned, and a story about an underworld brawler for the 1970s mafia.

My current favorite writers include T.C. Boyle, Richard Russo, Michael Chabon, and Cormac McCarthy as well as my comrades from CCC. Some of my favorite writers of the past include: Will Durant, Hemingway, R.W. Emerson, Kurt Vonnegut, and Tolstoy.

Happy reading and writing.

Justin

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Across Town: Stories of Columbus is now available for sale in paperback for only $9.35, and in a variety of e-book formats including Kindle, Nook, iBooks and Google Books for $4.99.  The book is available for Amazon Kindle for $2.99 for a limited time. Click here to order.

Andrew Miller’s short story “Broken” appears in the most recent CCC anthology,Across Town: Stories of Columbus.  This dark, thoughtful story is a fantastic addition to the Across Town collection.

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Andrew is a proclaimed Jack-of-all-trades – though he may not be the one to proclaim it. Mechanic, carpenter, tech support, community organizer, all terms that have been used to describe Andrew, and now fiction author. “Broken” is his first recognized foray into short stories, an art Andrew has come to love and produce regularly. His stories are culled from a life lived on the edges of American culture. From small town to big city, the characters in Andrew’s stories aren’t always likeable, but are always recognizable.

Beginning in 2012, Andrew plans to attend Otterbein University to hone his craft as a creative writer. In his spare time from working for the State of Ohio, Andrew is a freelance journalist for a number of local news organizations, such as WOSU, ThisWeek Community Newspapers and Columbus CEO.

He loves playing with his daughter, Sophie, particularly creating works of art with her and making up adventures on his World War 2-esque Ural sidecar motorbike. You’ll see him sun or snow, traversing the streets of Columbus on that bike. Motorbike or bicycle, he believes two wheels are always better than four.

Andrew lives with Sophie, two cats and his partner, Gail, in their Upper Arlington home, which suffers from a constant state of remodel, thanks to Andrew being that Jack of all trades.

Across Town: Stories of Columbus is now available for sale in paperback for only $9.35, and in a variety of e-book formats including Kindle, Nook, iBooks and Google Books for $4.99.  The book is available for Amazon Kindle for $2.99 for a limited time. Click here to order.

Todd Metcalf’s dystopic futuristic tale “Kweezi and Leek Go Shopping” appears in the most recent CCC anthology,Across Town: Stories of Columbus.  This insightful, complex story is a wonderful story in the Across Town collection.

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Todd Metcalf was not one to lie when he was growing up. Then he discovered that when he wrote his lies down and called them stories, they became palatable even to those who knew him. Perhaps more amazing, he realized that people would willingly ask to read what he made up. Unfortunately, he told so many fabrications as part of his new hobby that no one believed anything he said. Since he was unable to capitalize on his newfound gift, much less make a decent living, he focused on the lucrative world of business as well as FBI agent, stunt man, base jumper, and comic book collector. Well, maybe not comic book collector, although he intends no offense to pannapictagraphists. Somewhere along the way, his wife and two daughters were the illusion that became reality, just as the corporate ladder became an authentic metaphor. But reality has a peculiar way of distorting one’s life and he fell back on relating stories that kept him sane while making others crazy. The journey has brought many wonderful, interesting characters into his life, with perhaps the exception of the person who adamantly claimed 9/11 was a United States government conspiracy to justify war.

Writing has become a pleasant diversion in a busy life, if not a profitable one, although, with the publication of the Columbus, Ohio anthology, the financial windfall and justification of what had previously been called a questionable pursuit is only days away. Telling stories has provided him with various accolades. He recently won the Columbus Creative Cooperative’s Flash Fiction contest and earned recognition as a finalist in a William Faulkner novel writing contest.  He also has many framed letters from publishing industry professionals claiming his work is superior but not quite right for them.

At times, the complexity and direction of his stories gravitates towards the extreme, primarily to explore reader’s tolerance for outlandish tales. “Kweezi and Leek Go Shopping” is a near future, dystopian tale of two pre-adolescents who go shopping for an item not traditionally sold in the local department store. It is a disturbing vision of the future that explores both conservative and liberal biases. “Kweezi and Leek” is a political satire that is based on Todd’s service as a US Representative. There, he received first-hand knowledge of pending legislation that will soon make Kweezi and Leek a reality. OK, maybe he wasn’t an elected official because everyone knows a political figure would never admit to such a heinous profession. Nevertheless, that knowledge doesn’t detract from the truth and poignancy underlying this fact-based story.

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Across Town: Stories of Columbus is now available for sale in paperback for only $9.35, and in a variety of e-book formats including Kindle, Nook, iBooks and Google Books for $4.99.  The book is available for Amazon Kindle for $2.99 for a limited time. Click here to order.