Three Things We Loved This Week: 7/3/25
A librarian on the run, noir coming-of-age, and an accounting of birds.
Hello Callers. Thanks for being here.
ICYMI: Last week we published our interview with AD Schweiss, author of “When Things Get A Little Western.” Take some time today to catch up if you haven’t already.
And speaking of catching up: We are officially closed for submissions as of July 1 while we get caught up on our queue. If you missed the submission window, have no fear: We will reopen again on September 1. Keep us on your calendars!
Paul O’Connor interviews Anna Scotti
I really loved this interview between Paul O’Connor and Anna Scotti, on the occasion of her new release from Down and Out Books. I also love the central conceit of her story collection, which follows a librarian in the witness protection program as she tries to keep one step ahead of the cartel that wants her dead.
But what I really found fascinating was reading how Scotti’s understanding of her own characters evolved over the course of writing these stories:
O’CONNOR: Cam lives a "life interrupted" — she has a great future behind her with her academic life shattered by having to go on the run. She gives up her parents and her friends, and any hope of a career. In place of this, she takes tours through other people's lives, often seeing first-hand the things she might have had in a normal life. Does it make her regret what she can't have for herself?
SCOTTI: I love this question because it makes me, as the writer, take a close look at Cam's words and actions. Sometimes - as you probably know firsthand - you write something from the gut and if it feels right, you don't examine motives too closely. That's the case with Cam - being my younger, braver, smarter, and better-educated alter-ego, but nonetheless an alter-ego - she's a lot like me and I'm able, therefore, to write instinctively. A lot of her "happy to be on my own" bravado fades away as the stories progress.
For Laura, by Gabriela Stiteler
The prompts over at Stone’s Throw are always great, but my god I love this one:
PROMPT: School’s out for summer, and this month at the Throw, we want stories of junior rocketeers discovering the darker side of summer break. We’re looking for noir coming-of-age tales, set against the backdrop of freedom afforded by summer recess. Keep it dark, keep it mean, but don’t glorify violence committed against children . . . it’s got to be in service to the story.
Noir coming-of-age? Yes, please! Gabriela Stiteler knocked it out of the park.
The last time I went swimming in Lake Kezar was the summer I turned fourteen. It was the first weekend in June and the lake was entirely still. Other than Mark, there was nobody around to tell us what to do. I brought a bag of sour cherries from the cabin’s kitchen, and you brought a case of cheap beer and a pack of cigarettes. We laid the bounty next to our towels and jumped into the water, fully submerged our heads, shocking our systems. When we surfaced, we gasped and then giggled, our teeth chattering, our lips tinted blue.
It was too soon in the season, but these early, secret swims were our tradition.
We retreated to our towels and settled into our routine, drinking and smoking and listening ironically to an AM station that was mostly static. With a certain amount of ambivalence, you took off the top of your suit and stared at me, as if daring me to do the same.
“I don’t want lines,” you were saying, your eyes hidden behind a pair of sunglasses that would have looked awful on anybody else, a cigarette hanging from your mouth, your hair halfway down your back, streaming water in rivulets.
When we were younger, you’d go into stores with no shoes and pick grapes off the bunches and eat them unapologetically, daring employees to kick you out. You’d stare down Mr. Cashone when he confronted you about the length of your uniform skirt. You’d go into the bathroom and roll it up more. That year, you’d been suspended twice for picking fights. Lately, there was a harder edge to your testing.
Sometimes I knew you better than I knew myself. Sometimes I didn’t know you at all.
Counting Birds, by Jim Harrison
“As a child, fresh out of the hospital
with tape covering the left side
of my face, I began to count birds.
At age fifty the sum total is precise and astonishing, my only secret.”
Harrison an underrated writer.