BEYOND CATEGORIES: FINDING YOUR PLACE IN SPACE AND TIME

A Phantom Drift fiction workshop, “Beyond Categories: Finding Your Place in Space and Time,” with acclaimed short story writer, Ray Vukcevich, will be held on April 28^th from 2 – 5 p.m. at Arts East White House Gallery on the corner of Sixth and L in La Grande followed by a free public reading at Cook Memorial Library Community Room at 7:30 p.m.

“Beyond Categories” is the second workshop sponsored by Phantom Drift Limited, a non-profit organization dedicated to building an understanding of and appreciation for fabulist literature. The workshops were made possible in part due to a grant from Union County Cultural Coalition.

In this workshop, Vukcevich will be talking about Interstitial Art, New Weird/New Fabulism and what people are calling Sudden or Flash fiction. Examples of this kind of fiction can be found in the Interfiction anthologies and Sudden Fiction International. “My basic idea is that people can free themselves up to write what only they can write given that they are the only ones in that particular time and space and life situation,” Vukcevich said. Through some basic writing with prompts and exercises that demonstrate how to get in close to the things that really concern the individual writer, the Eugene writer hopes to show that “innovation in art comes from finding things that only you can say and then saying them.” Participants will learn to reach places that are more receptive to cross-genre, toss-out-the-rules approaches to short fiction.

There is a limit of ten participants for the workshop. A $25 fee is being charged. Checks or money order can be made payable to Phantom Drift and sent to Phantom Drift, PO Box 3235, La Grande, OR 97850.

Registrants should also include their name, address and email for confirmation.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch says Vukcevich’s stories “engage the mind and the heart. He even makes grocery lists interesting…one of America’s best writers.” His latest story collection is  Boarding Instructions (2010, Fairwood Press). Other books include Meet Me in the Moon Room (2003, Small Beer Press) and a novel, The Man of Maybe Half-a-Dozen Faces (2001, St. Martin’s Press). For a bibliography, visit: www.rayvuk.com

His story, “The Problem of Furniture” appeared in the first issue of Phantom Drift (October 2011).

Phantom Drift Limited is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting an understanding of and appreciation for fabulist literature.

For more information on the workshop, you can contact David Memmott, Managing Editor of Phantom Drift at: phantomdrifteditor@yahoo.com

“Warning Ball” by Mark Matthews, Sauder Village, Archbold, Ohio.

‘There is no such thing as a typical Ray Vukcevich story. They all start a  strong left turn from reality and then do the Charleston through a space warp.” Adam Troy-Castro

Fiction by Ray Vukcevich,  Eliot Fintushel, David Eric Tomlinson, Peter Grandbois, Carolyn Ives Gilman, Daniel Grandbois, Nisi Shawl, Brian Evenson, Joe L. Murr, Geronimo G. Tagatac, and Stefanie Freele.

Poetry by Aaron Anstett, Joshua McKinney, Wade German, Anita Sullivan, Richard Crow, Stephen McNally, Jonathan Ball, and Lawrence Raab.

Non-fiction/Features by Thomas E. Kennedy, Jessica Plattner/Jodi Varon, Matt Schumacher, and Richard Schindler/Michael Chocholak.

Edited by David Memmott

Fiction Editor Leslie What

Poetry Editor Matt Schumacher

I will have a store, too.  It’s already built, but I am still thinking about what writing to sell there.  Watch for it to appear on the top menu bar soon.

“It is a story of realization and healing. The exploration of a common human moment – sometimes as small as a thought and other times as large as a decade – when a character fights his regrets and wrestles with self-compassion. . .” Stefanie Freele, Fiction editor

 ”My Eyes, Your Ears” Issue 6

“Climate modelers tend to rely on charts and graphs to get the message across.  The contributors to this volume offer something else — stories.” From the Forward by Elizabeth Kolbert

From OR Books.

Edited by Gordon Van Gelder.

Forward by Elizabeth Kolbert.

Stories by Brian W. Aldiss, Jeff Carlson, Judith Moffett, Matthew Hughes, Gregory Benford, Michael Alexander, Bruce Sterling, Joseph Green, Pat MacEwen, Alan Dean Foster, David Prill, George Guthridge, Paul Di Filippo, Chris Lawson, Ray Vukcevich and M. J. Locke.