WIPs

Jen Knox grew up in Columbus, Ohio. She works as a creative writing professor and associate editor in San Antonio, Texas. Jen’s writing was chosen for Wigleaf’s Top 50 (Very) Short Fictions in 2012, and she was a recipient of the Global Short Story Award for a different portion of We Arrive Uninvited. Some of her current, short work can be found in A cappella Zoo, ARDOR, Bound Off, Bluestem, Burrow Press Review, Gargoyle, Istanbul Review, JMWW, Narrative, [PANK], Prick of the Spindle, Short Story America, and The Bombay Literary Magazine. She has published two books, including the Next Generation Indie Book Award winner in Short Fiction, To Begin Again (All Things That Matter Press, 2011). Her new collection, Don’t Tease the Elephants, is forthcoming from Monkey Puzzle Press.

Website: http://www.jenknox.com
Blog: http://jenknox.blogspot.com/
Twitter: @JenKnox2

Jen, this section from We Arrive Uninvited is very compelling and leaves the reader wondering what happens next. While everyone in town considers Amelia “a blessing,” Kay considers her a curse, a reminder of her own bad choices and the cruel fate that befell her. Amelia senses her mother’s contempt for her, but never understands why. Does she seek the answer as the novel unwinds?

Amelia is driven to understand Kay and gain her acceptance, but this desire will prove problematic. Kay seems to transfer all her anger and regret to the part of herself she sees reflected in her child. Throughout much of the novel, Kay is depicted as a sort of villain. But life is never that clear cut, and neither is this story. Perspective shifts with awareness. When Amelia comes to understand her mother—learning everything the reader knows to this point and more—her desire to gain acceptance fades, and the way she views reality somersaults.

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LaShonda Katrice Barnett’s stories appeared this summer (2013) in the New Orlean’s Review (“Hen’s Teeth”), Gemini Magazine (“533”), and the Chamber Four Literary Magazine (“Ezekiel Saw The Wheel”). Additionally, her short fiction appears in numerous anthologies and journals such as Callaloo and the African American Review. Barnett edited the interview collections I Got Thunder: Black Women Songwriters On Their Craft (2007) and Off the Record: Conversations with African American and Brazilian Women Musicians (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014). She is the author of a story collection (1999). Her debut novel, Jam!, is forthcoming with Grove/Atlantic. She lives and writes full time at home in Manhattan.

Web: www.lashondabarnett.com Twitter: @LaShondaKatrice

LaShonda, “Road to Wingo” finds Edrow Bodine in the middle of a mid-life crisis of sorts, but one in which he’s pretty much accustomed—a perpetual crisis of a mundane existence. He’s “never felt in power or control like the king of his own castle—more like a serf bound to small town life.” In the timeframe of the story he’s “preoccupied,” oblivious to his wife Mina’s gall bladder problems while daydreaming about Katie, his unattainable object of desire and temporary diversion from his dreary days. Mina, to the contrary, is relatively content with their lot in life, and forges ahead despite the pain of everything. Will Edrow appreciate what he has a little more now that he’s reawakened to reality by story’s end?

I like this question a lot and wish I could be in a room with you posing it to readers because the answer(s), I think is really telling about the respondent. Also, to answer this means to think about Mina: what kind of love does she possess and give to her husband? Mina is not very demanding because she doesn’t need to be, as you pointed out, she’s content—especially with her tomatoes. So she can love freely and easily, which includes a lot of acceptance and tolerance. I think I identify much more with Edrow who certainly appreciates Mina to the extent that he’s taken her for granted (the ultimate show of appreciation), but he wants more. I think that Edrow will continue to want more, my hope is that his definition of more will include Mina because something very beautiful could be borne out of that reciprocity.

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Randolph Splitter has published two books, the novella/story collection Body and Soul (Creative Arts) and a critical study of Marcel Proust from Routledge & Kegan Paul. His recent and forthcoming publications include stories in Chicago Quarterly Review, amphibius, Ducts, The Milo Review, and JewishFiction.net. He’s also written prize-winning screenplays (Gotham Screen, Amsterdam Film Festival, Oaxaca Film Festival) and made short films. The Gotham Screen award-winner is a version of Bonobo Boy. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Hamilton College; earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Berkeley; taught literature and writing at Caltech and De Anza College; and edited the national literary magazine Red Wheelbarrow.

Randolph, this is quite a chapter. The courtroom scenes are like an amalgamation of the recent Steubenville rape trial and the Scopes Monkey Trial of nearly a century ago. What inspired your work on Bonobo Boy?  Should the reader consider the court case and arguments having broader implications than simply relating to Ben individually?

I became interested in the subject of violence (and how to prevent it). I was even teaching classes with that topic. In the process I read a lot about nonhuman primates, and I discovered that bonobos are quite different from chimpanzees—but both are closely related to us.

Yes, there are broader implications. I’d like the reader to think about human gender roles, with bonobos as an alternative role model.

Although I’m firmly committed to realism—depicting what things are really like—I have a fondness for slightly outrageous ideas that stretch the bounds of plausibility but give us deeper insight into reality.

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