Book Review: Siamak Vossoughi’s "Better Than War"

by Shadia Savo

Siamak Vossoughi’s debut collection of short stories, Better Than War, is more than simply a finely crafted, exceptional book: it is a living, breathing, emotional connection. Winner of the 2014 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, Vossoughi’s book begins with a Pearl Jam quote and a story ostensibly about shoes that delves into the politics and social reality of famine and war, and ends with a story about a book that is no ordinary book. Each story is tightly written with an almost austere use of language that is reminiscent of Jean Rhys; Vossoughi appears to have carefully crafted each story down to the word—there is intent found on every page that beautifully manages to maintain readability. The starkness of language allows the reader to easily jump right into the interconnected world of each story, yet the dynamism of thought and complexity of ideas disallows for an easy take away. Vossoughi is challenging us to think, to search for truths that may not even exist, but that isn’t about to stop him from inviting us on this journey. He is welcoming, yet passionately honest.

Vossoughi is Iranian American and much of his book speaks to what it means to be Iranian American without attempting to define the experience, or to universalize it. There is a socio-political undertone (both blatant and subtle) throughout the stories that serves to remind the reader that there is more at stake than what is on the surface. In the first story, “Shoes,” which focuses on revolution and famine, Vossoughi echoes Edward Said’s “Exile begets exile” in writing about the principles of respect, in family and at work. The binaries of success versus failure and hope versus despair—and the dichotomies at work in the creation/manifestation of revolution and/or war—remain on an individual level within the stories as the reader is confronted with the lives of an array of characters and sees the beauty, the confusion, the heart, the loss, the wonderment, the exploration. Yet it is the questions raised, the thoughts and hearts and minds of these characters that intersect with the broader issues of war, famine, the everyday, politics, and even sports, that create a lasting impression.

Each story stands on its own, yet is best read in order, allowing the characters’ to build on each other, to search for meaning alongside them, rather than simply just gazing upon them. Vossoughi is a writer with a lot to say, a voice we should listen to, because we might just learn something about what it means to live in a world where war is so commonplace, yet rarely takes place on American soil.

There is an intense level of awareness in Vossoughi’s writing of what can be at stake; in “The Broken Finger,” a piece of metafiction, he turns an extremely literal story into the importance of listening, without being prescriptive: “…a man my father knew in the Shah’s prison in Iran…was having his finger pulled back by one of his jailers when he said, ‘If you pull it back any farther, it will break.’ They pulled it, and it broke. ‘You see now,’ he said. ‘I told you it would break.’ ” He explores who we do—and who we should—listen to, and how important what the unheard have to say is. This exploration is reinforced in the final story in the collection, “The Book That Was Too Good to Read,” by reminding the reader that Vossoughi is writing beyond the page. In “The Street,” he mines the depths of what makes a place, in a manner reminiscent of Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place, and asks, “Is there love and beauty and sorrow in the world?”

In “The Movie Quitters,” the story revolves around an uncle asking, “ ‘I’m tired of being moved to tears by American movies. When are Americans going to be moved to tears by Iranian movies?’ ” In a time where one of the most crucial questions that has been asked this year—when is America going to love Black people as much as Black culture?—Vossoughi gets to the heart of the difference between cultural appropriation and cultural exchange by discussing something that appears innocuous—going to the movies—but is ultimately another example of an unequal power dynamic. This theme runs throughout the collection—in “The Theater of War,” he quietly reminds us of not only the folly of remaining ignorant, insular, and self-focused, but why many of the stories focus on children’s exploration of their identity and of the world: “…because the ones in front of him were kids, they were less likely to think that something was being taken from them when they learned about somewhere else.”

In the titular story, the story is told once-removed of an Iranian boy who waited to ask an American girl on a date until he knew if there would be war. The conversation between the two boys about whether or not he should ask the girl out on a date is a masterful exploration of the impact of even the idea of war and hatred and how to find connection and hope, how to be “better than war.”

Not to be missed: “In the Library” focuses on two boys reading about a woman in Iran being sentenced to death by stoning who are torn between their dream of going to an American dance with a girl and the importance of reading the newspaper the right way (which is paralleled in “Sunday in the Park”). “The two boys believed that they would want to know what was happening in Iran even if they weren’t Iranian. It was because the dance was half the story. The other half was the world.”

There are stories about shoes, running, movies, childhood games and school dances, a baseball game, a broken easel, cars, a girls’ basketball team, etc.—these are stories about everyday and extraordinary life, about war, about hope, and about heart. These are stories about people, about individuals, about places, about communities, about dreams and dreaming. These are stories about “why it’s always different when a black girl calls herself a princess from when a white girl does it.” These are stories where harmful dichotomies are destroyed—where a girls’ basketball team can be quiet while yelling and where it is okay to cry or to stop crying. Where everyone has a right to exist. These are stories that will stay with you, long after you have finished the last page.

Pre-order Better Than War on Amazon!

Interview: Rebecca Foust

by Renée

 Hamlin

Rebecca Foust was the 2014 Dartmouth Poet in Residence at The Frost Place and is the recipient of a fellowship from the MacDowell Colony. Her fifth book, Paradise Drive, won the 2015 Press 53 Award for Poetry. In reference to the linked narrative, Thomas Lux says, “There is great music in these poems, and sonnet after sonnet is masterful. Not sinceBerryman’s Henry have I been so engaged by a persona . . .” Fourteen Hills Press Staff Editor Renée Hamlin was excited to interview Rebecca Foust regarding her newest book and her creative process.

Fourteen Hills (14H): You’ve said you put the poems in your upcoming book, Paradise Drive, through hundreds of revisions, and you mentioned a similar process in a 2010 interview, with some poems being put away for a year or more. Now, five years later, has your revision process changed?

Rebecca Foust (RF): I think it’s still the same. I find revising vastly easier than original creation, and it’s kind of my fallback when I’m not feeling creative, to pull something out and revise it. And—knock on wood—I’ve never experienced “writer’s block” because I always have drafts of things that I can go back to, so when I’m not feeling creative, or new things aren’t coming to me, I just go back to my files and pull something out and start playing around with it. It happens two ways: either the poem comes out whole the first time and then I do slight revisions, often for years, or sometimes I just get a fragment, and sometimes it takes years for a poem to even come together as a poem, where I can revise it as a poem.

The other thing that sometimes happens, very occasionally, is a poem will come to me completely whole; it’s almost like taking dictation. Those poems I just write as fast as I can to get them down, and when you write poems like that, you always think they’re great when you’ve first written them because you’re in this flush of creation, and those in particular I like to put away before I come back to them; you’re supposed to write drunk and revise sober, so I like to come back to those when I’m not in that “flush,” and see what I think then. So I would say that my process is still pretty much the same. You know, something inspires you, you get it, capture it, so you don’t lose it, and I find if you don’t write those things down immediately, they’re gone.

14H: The way you have described inspiration is so lovely—the river above us and us raising our nets to catch the ideas that are floating by. You also acknowledge the difficulty of always being open and ready for those ideas. What ideas would you give to other writers, perhaps ones just starting to tap into their poetic potential, that might help them to keep their nets “at the ready”?

RF: Oh, I forgot about that image. I like that image, because I feel that when you’re writing poetry you’re discovering things, not really inventing things, that poetry is a way of accessing some inexpressible and not necessarily coherent truth. Bits and pieces of it float by and if your net is out you can catch them. The first thing would be to maintain an openness, and whichever side of the brain that’s creative is easily overpowered by the side that’s not. If you have too much stress in your life, if you’re working super hard, if you have kids, if you have issues, problems, whatever, the brain is full of noise. A brain that’s full is not a brain that’s open to reception. What I’ve learned is that you have to empty yourself to step in. What are some techniques for doing that? Well, last year was the first year I ever went on a writing residency. Not everyone has the luxury—these residencies are paid for, but not everyone has the time. But if you do, that’s the first thing I would say to do: go to a residency. They open vast vistas of space and time where you can empty yourself and remove all those layers and thoughts that surround us when we deal with everyday life. If you can’t do that, there are other ways. I know a poet in Pennsylvania who goes on a retreat once a year by locking herself in her bedroom. She does it in the summer when she’s not teaching. There’s a bathroom there and a separate entrance and she puts a little fridge in there, and a hot plate, and she has worked it out that she is “on retreat”; there’s no phone ringing and no one knocking at the door unless they’re dying. She manages to put a book out every other year doing that.

You have to create space in your own life. Some people use meditation. Some people get up in the morning before their family is awake. My method is to stay up way later than everyone else. I love to stay up late at night. I could never indulge that when I worked full time and when I had small children, because I had to be up so early in the morning. But I start working typically at eleven at night, and often write until the sun comes up. I don’t need a lot of sleep, so I’ll sleep for a few hours and then get back up, and I can do that for a couple of days at a time. 

In those hours, everything stops. Email stops, the phone doesn’t ring, it gets really quiet . . . I find those hours the most creative. I also take walks. I try to walk every other day, and when I walk, I walk with a notecard and a pen in my back pocket. I have found that just going outside and lying down on the grass is a great way to clear my head. I keep a to-do list, and on my list it actually says, “Sit down on the grass!”

14H& RF: [laughter]

RF: A whole day can go by in just a flurry of answering emails and you won’t have given yourself any of that space. So I think the secret to getting inspiration is to create space. The other secret is to live, experience life widely, which is one of the reasons I don’t mind that I didn’t start writing until very late in life, because I really lived a life before I started writing. I think a lot of people decide they want to be writers when they’re young and it’s easy to get sucked into the world and do nothing but live, breathe, and speak about writing. But if you do that, you cut yourself off from experience, and where are you going to get your content? I think the third thing is to read really, really widely, because if you read widely, you experience life, and it gives you great ideas. And I’m not just talking about poetry. Kay Ryan used to read prose—at least, I read somewhere that before she even got out of bed in the morning, she would reach over to her night table and get a book of essays, and read an essay before rising, and sometimes compose a poem before rising. I often get ideas from prose, from novels, and from other kinds of reading. So I think the three things are: create space in your life by clearing out all that clutter and chatter that fills our modern brain; and second, to read very, very widely; and to live, make sure you’re having experiences.

14H: You have mentioned Louis Simpson and Sharon Olds were two poets you read very widely when you were getting back into poetry. Were there any others that caught your attention?

RF: I think a really influential book for me when I was in my third semester of grad school was The Whole Truth by James Cummins. He’s a new formalist, and The Whole Truth is a book of sestinas based on the Perry Mason series in a very tongue-in-cheek way. His protagonist is Perry Mason, but it’s a bipolar, lunatic Perry Mason, and the sestinas really hang together. It could be a movie. It certainly is a story. The characters are drawn from Perry Mason, but what he does with them is incredibly creative and funny and interesting. I remember reading it and thinking, “Oh my god.” He takes a form, and he makes it alive. And I read a lot of books by James Cummins, but The Whole Truth was a book that was really influential, and I read a lot of poetry that was trying to tell a story, and I’m not talking about the narrative poem: I’m talking about books. I read The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth, I readEugene Onegin [Aleksandr Pushkin]. And then I read Berryman’s The Dream Songs, and Berryman was a huge influence. Those aren’t sonnets, per se, each one of those is eighteen lines long but they are very similar to sonnets and how sonnets work. They have a beginning, a middle and an end, a turn, and each one is a thing unto itself, but they’re connected in a strange way. There are characters that continue—Henry, and the other voices—that just go through all the poems, and that’s one way they’re connected. That’s what led to Paradise Drive, when I was in grad school.

And the other thing is, I’m a really committed supporter of buying poetry books and subscribing to journals. I have a massive collection of journals, look at all these journals I have here. I subscribe to at least a dozen or probably more journals. They pile through the mailbox all the time, and it’s really hard to get through them all. I try to at least scan them, and if I see a poet that I like or a poet that I know I try to at least read that poem. That’s one way of keeping up with contemporary reading, subscribing to good journals and trying to read them. There are so many journals now, and I try to support them, especially if they've supported me, and I can't keep up with them all, but I try.

14H: Your book, All That Gorgeous Pitiless Song, is infused with myth and fairy tales. What draws you to incorporate these ancient tales into your work?

RF: Well, I'm sure it was my bedtime stories. My mother never went to college, but she was one of the most self-educated people I've ever met because she was a voracious reader, very bright, and had a great memory. She read to us all the time. I still have the books she read to us from. These were my father's books, volumes of mythology, fairy tales . . . we didn't have a ton of books in the house, we had a couple volumes of poetry that I still have on my shelves. My mother felt very strongly about having an encyclopedia in the house, so we had The World Book. I read all the way through that. It had some great stories, sections on mythology and fairy tales. I'm really drawn to those origin stories. And I'm not a religious person, so perhaps in some way, it's a hunger for spirituality and a larger connection that draws me to world mythology, and especially to making a mythology from nature.

14H: And so what place do you think mythology has—or should have—in today's world?

RF: For one thing, it's history, right? It's a poetic history. And I think we're learning in today’s incredible information exchange . . . I think we’re finally starting to understand relativity as tied to human events. What we’ve learned is “history,” no matter how hard it tries, can't present the “truth.” It's always filtered through perspective. So these things that are presented to us as “history,” it turns out, are lies. I mean, they’re worse than inaccurate, they’re actually lies because they present only one fragment of one perspective of what actually happened. Things like mythology are constructed, larger truths, with less specific attention to facts and more attention to . . . the bigger picture, maybe? And giving credence to feeling. I think the importance of mythology in terms of poetry, and any art, is it’s a way of apprehending truth . . . I don't know if it's more accurate, but it’s not as inaccurate as learning truth through conventional means, the scientific method or history books. And I think for some people mythology provides a belief structure, and it's certainly enriching or . . . when you’re trying to write, you read myth, because it’s so resonant and teaches you about levels of language and metaphor and symbol. It gives you great ideas and there are great plots in myth, great chapters. But I think it’s important to construct your own mythologies, too.

14H: Could you elaborate on that a little bit?

RF: Well, I think it’s important to go further than the source of what you’re reading and . . . I think I said before that it feels like poetry is not so much inventing as it is discovering what’s there, and there’s so much there left to be discovered. So I like poetry that reaches, and I'm happiest with my own poetry when it reaches for something. Maybe when I say “constructing mythology” I'm also talking about constructing voice or poetry that is somehow distinctive. It's really, really important to have read and explored what people call “the canon,” but it’s also really important to transcend that with your own work. And maybe that’s what I mean by “constructing mythology.” So in All That Gorgeous Pitiless Song, I’ve lived through some of these events, and some of these characters are real, like in the poem about the child who died. I felt something. It hit me . . . what was he? The kid who was the child of a drunk and kind of a hillbilly and not your traditional hero, and yet, to me he was like Icarus. So that’s what I mean about making it your own, and extending in some way.

14H: I see a lot of landscape in your poetry, from Pennsylvania but also from California. How do these landscapes differ for you?

RF: They're extremely different, and you’re right that this book, All That Gorgeous Pitiless Song, is filled with the landscape of western Pennsylvania. My other book, God, Seed, has a bit of Pennsylvania landscape, but it really has a lot of California, and one reason this book has California landscape in it is because it’s a collaboration with an artist who, like me, was born on the East Coast but, also like me, migrated to California pretty early in life. And her art is very heavily influenced by nature in California. Because I was riffing off her art to write these poems, there’s a lot of California in this book. And then, Paradise Drive is in Marin County, and, it’s a more people-oriented book, in some ways it’s a comedy of errors, it’s a social satire; there’s an awful lot of interiors in this book. But the first poem and at least one of the poems in the last section are straight-up nature poems about California. The landscapes are obviously very different: Pennsylvania has seasons, California has less defined seasons. The seasons where I grew up were extreme because it was in the mountains, so in the winter we had snow higher than my head, and in the summer we didn’t have air conditioning, and we couldn’t sleep at night because it was so hot; we’d go swimming in the pond at night just to cool off, run the garden hose on our heads.

When spring came it was an explosion. You remember that feeling when spring came? You don’t really get that in California, it just kind of wafts in. You know that poem by Philip Levine called “Keats in California”? It's a wonderful poem, and to me it captures something very seductive about living in a climate that doesn't challenge you. There's something about it I don't totally trust—kind of like being in the land of the lotus eaters. And he captures that very beautifully. The whole poem sucks you in with the incredibly rich gorgeousness of nature in California, and the last line is basically, “And that's what will break your heart.” Or break you. And I feel that sometimes. I mean . . . as an northeasterner, kind of a Yankee, I have this spirit of “challenge is good for you, you gotta get out there, fight the world, and not let anything stop you.” Sometimes I miss that, sometimes I miss that challenge.

Order Paradise Drive at Press 53. For information about readings, please visit Rebecca's website.

Revisiting 21.1: Matthew Zapruder’s “Penultimate Poem”

by Alanna Rae

In Matthew Zapruder’s “Penultimate Poem” from  fragile intimacy develops through final moments. To enter the poem, the speaker asks “us to walk one more time very slowly” to “see the ghost ship / sail off the lake and into the clouds.” Rather than invoking a universal voice from the “us” of the poem, Zapruder frames the subject with a desire for shared experience. As edges shift slightly from one line to the next, the words appear to linger on fenceless cliffs. Zapruder’s unpunctuated lines coexist with delicate images, all of which seem to be at risk in movement. At the core of the poem, transparent materials equalize small and large objects. Large windows become “glass cases the figurines / inside them so carefully painted.” Vulnerability spreads through the objects of the speaker’s wistful thoughts. The charm and melancholy of the poem exists in detailed descriptions with the backdrop of “the miraculous / unremarkable sky over the harbor.” Using ships as bookends for the penultimate journey, the poem continually moves through delicate states of being.

Fourteen Hills 21.1

To read the entirety of "Penultimate Poem," you may purchase Fourteen Hills 21.1 from Small Press Distribution.

 

Where We Write

by Brittany Smail

I spent a good portion of my allotted writing time today performing a neat bit of procrastination called ‘reading about writing,’ a trick that, done properly, can trigger virtuous feelings of productivity with little to no actual production required. Specifically, I was clicking through the more recent installments of The Rumpus’ online column, “Where I Write,” cadging information about where, and therefore how, other writers get themselves to ‘do the work.’ The column comes in all shapes and sizes and each is written by a guest columnist who, through their own chosen combination of forms (essay, canto, verse, illustration), muses on how where they write affects their efforts as a writer. I was posted up sideways on my couch, one leg tucked under the other, laptop perched awkwardly on a throw pillow in front of me, as I read about city benches, home offices, notebooks, note cards, sinks full of dishes, and various internal states of mind.

Each column confirmed in its own way what anyone who’s tried to make a regular practice of writing learns: writing will happen somewhere as long as you put in the effort. I didn’t get much active writing done on the couch this morning, but once I got outside for a run I found myself stopping every half-mile or so to tap a line into my phone. Later, in the shower, as ideas continued to rain down, I thought of a good friend who, in the homestretch of writing her first cookbook, realized she wrote better “in the back of my head.” “You know,” she said, “when I’m not pushing everything into the front of my brain, focusing on it too hard.” Because she was doing the work—the thinking, the planning, the preparation—her brain had material to play with once she relaxed her focus.

Some writers write at a desk, some on planes, some in notebooks, some on computer screens. My friend writes in the back of her head. I write while running or showering (or, more regularly, in crowded coffee shops, on my computer). And I ‘write’ while surfing around The Rumpus, reading about where other writers write. What about you? Where do you write?

Check out the latest installment of "Where I Write" at The Rumpus.

Exciting changes are taking place here at Fourteen Hills

Right now, we're integrating our blog with our website. To keep up with our latest news and updates, move with us to our new, spiffy home.

Have you noticed? Fourteen Hills is looking real high-tech these days! We're leaping into the digital age by preparing to accept submissions online. That's right, we're getting closer to becoming a smoother-running, green, paperless machine.

In the meantime, we're all hard at work on the next issue, 17.2, scheduled to be released later this spring, so thanks for your submissions, and keep them coming!

To our loyal subscribers, expect to receive your copy of the magazine soon (and for those of you who'd like to become a subscriber, click here). As you can see, we're busy getting copies of the latest issue ready to send.

Keep your eyes peeled for all the updates on the horizon and thanks for your continued support!

Notes From The 17.1 Release Party; Buy The New Issue; Happy Holidays

In the style of Fourteen Hills contributor Noah Gershman’s Brunch -- in which his poem details a grocery list of very interesting characters who accompany him during a meal -- let’s recap what the Dec. 16 release party entailed:

Friends, family, wine, delectables, cocktail dresses, professors, more wine, poets, editors, sock monsters, coffee (at a bar), undergrads, graduates, alumni, multi-talented baristas, engaging conversation, birthday wishes, laughter, new friends, lounging, snapshots, literary paparazzi, slick ties, undivided attention, authors, comedy, discovery, diversity, raffle tickets, raffle prizes, pie, and Brian Boitano (sort of).

If you were there, you felt it and heard it. If you weren't, please check out Litseen's full coverage of the event, including video of our fabulous readers Adam Johnson, Maxine Chernoff, Molly Prentiss, Stephen Elliott, Myron Michael, Jason Bayani, Noah Gershman, and Kasper Hauser.

If you weren't able to pick up a copy of our enthralling new issue, you can order one from Small Press Distribution right now. It will make its way into bookstores across the country in February. If you want to stay on top of future Fourteen Hills events (since you missed a helluva great reading), it only takes a minute to join our mailing list.

Until next time, happy holidays!

-Chani Mooring, Fourteen Hills staff

Why Is Everyone Talking About Brian Boitano? (Maybe Because He's Part Of Our New Issue, Available For The First Time Tonight)

Our favorite skater, Brian Boitano

Brian Boitano is an American figure skater, cook, and overall nice guy. He is the 1988 Olympic Champion, the 1986 and 1988 World Champion, and the 1985-1988 US National Champion Figure Skater. More recently, Mr. Boitano has been inducted into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame.

Off the ice, Mr. Boitano is a culinary mastermind – wielding a saucepan and spatula with the same excitement, charm, and skill we have all come to love. Mr. Boitano even hosts a cooking show on the Food Network called What Would Brian Boitano Make? (Sundays at 1pm).

By now, you are probably wondering why a literary magazine, staffed by creative writing graduate students at San Francisco State University, would blog about Brian Boitano. After all, the two have nothing to do with one another; Fourteen Hills is an internationally renowned literary magazine and Brian Boitano is an Olympic champion. Nary the two should meet, let alone be spoken of in the same breath.

Pick yours up tonight!

Unless, of course, there’s a story involved.

The newest issue of Fourteen Hills includes Michael Reid Busk’s story The Eighties, A Brief Primer. This short story is a fictional romp through the decade, made all the better with just one sentence: “In 1989, Brian Boitano was elected President of the Eighties.” With that, we are tossed into a parallel universe where Mr. Boitano saves America from disgruntled postmen propaganda, promotes healthy life-style choices, and brings out the figure skater in us all.

But that’s not all. Oh no. Not by a long shot (or a perfectly executed triple axel).

Enter to win this book!

Mr. Boitano has graciously donated an autographed copy of his book, Boitano's Edge: Inside The Real World Of Figure Skating, to the list of raffle prizes available at tonight's release party (join us at Coffee Bar at 7pm for your chance to win).

Mr. Boitano’s generosity doesn't end there. He has taken time out of his busy schedule to send us a video greeting. Behold:



So, please join us TONIGHT for all the fun and excitement that only the combination of Brian Boitano and a new release of Fourteen Hills can bring.

Long live the President of the Eighties!

-Rose Booker, staff member, Fourteen Hills

Shakespeare, Tattoos, And Finely Cured Meats: Win These Raffle Prizes At Our Release Party On 12/16

When Fourteen Hills releases issue 17.1, our goal is to get the whole community involved. Our party will not only have amazing readers, it will also feature a long list of fantastic raffle prizes from Bay Area stores. You could win movie and theater tickets, books, burritos, tattoo art, brow waxing, and a night out at the club. Pretty swell, for the low, low price of $2/ticket.

Here is a list of some of the raffle prizes that could be yours at Coffee Bar on Thursday, Dec. 16. All proceeds help support our non-profit journal. Huge thanks and gratitude to these fine businesses (and patrons like you) that keep independent literature alive.

Entertainment & Movies

Yours, for the price of a raffle ticket.

Two Tickets to California Shakespeare Theater
Two free tickets for one performance of the California Shakespeare Theater's 2011 Season which starts May 3, 2011 and includes: Titus Andronicus, The Verona Project, Candida, and The Taming of the Shrew. Cal Shakes' home, the magnificent Bruns Amphitheater, is one of the most beautiful and unique settings imaginable to experience live theater. This is an amazing opportunity to experience live theater the way it should be.

$25 giftcard to Regal Cinemas
This prize is good for two. Take that certain someone to enjoy a classic night out at the movie theater. Regal Cinemas is the largest movie theater company in the world and its theaters can be found here in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco at the Stonestown mall. Visit the theater to check out the latest arthouse flick du jour including film festival darlings from Danny Boyle, Daniel Afredson, Sofia Coppola, and the like. Stonestown Twin Theater is located at 501 Buckingham Way, San Francisco CA 94132. Enjoy your movie.

Eats & Drinks & Sweets

$40 Gift Certificate to 222 Hyde
This prize will get two through the door to enjoy complimentary drinks. Located in the Tenderloin, 222 Hyde has a clean yet bass-booming sound system—they recently won best sound system in the SF Weekly's “Best of San Francisco 2010” poll—perfectly suited to the club's always-exciting rotation of local, national, and international DJs. Full bar and amazing made-to-order thin-crust pizzas on the main floor, DJ dancing in the basement. Located at 222 Hyde Street at Turk. Easy to get to from Civic Center. (415) 345-8222.

Want to eat here? Buy a raffle ticket.

$30 Gift Certificate to Nopalito Mexican Cuisine
Nopalito is a gourmet Mexican restaurant that celebrates the traditional cookery of Mexico while utilizing local organic and sustainable ingredients. This charming little restaurant is located at 306 Broderick Street (between Oak & Fell) in San Francisco, 415-437-0303. 

$25 Gift Certificate to The Monks Kettle
Enjoy great food and well-crafted beer -- over 250 beers to choose from -- at this Mission district hotspot. The Monk's Kettle serves a rare vintage of beers that have been aging in their climate-controlled cellar. Located at 3141 16th Street, San Francisco, 415-865-9523.

$25 Gift Certificate to Avedanos Holly Park Market
This small butcher shop & deli serves delicious meats along with produce and specialty gourmet items that are organic and handpicked just for you. Visit Avedano's Holly Park Market at 235 Cortland Street, San Francisco.

$20 Gift Certificate to Hudson Bay Café
Great neighborhood just down from the California College of the Arts in Oakland: good place to work with WiFi, food, wine, or good, strong coffee. Atmosphere is effervescent with a variety of ages. Sidewalk tables in sunny or shady sections, and good street viewing from inside. Hudson Bay Café is located at 5401 College Avenue in Oakland, 510-658-0214.

$18 Gift Certificate to Mission Pie
We all love pie and this lil’ corner café, bakery, and gathering spot is located in the Mission District of San Francisco, nestled between busy streets and vibrant communities. Mission Pie has an atmosphere for writers to gather. Because they only use produce from local farms, their menu changes seasonally and offers exceptional baked goods along with fair trade tea and coffee. Located at 2901 Mission Street (25th & Mission), 415-282-4PIE

Gifts for your body

$200 or Two Hour Session at Body Bazarre Tattoo
One of Northern California’s premiere tattoo artists, Chris Evans, is awaiting one lucky individual to have either a two hour session or $200 dollar piece of artwork permanently placed on their body. Chris is a talented artist that is willing to create what you can only imagine. Body Bazarre is located at 5847 Auburn Blvd, Sacramento Ca. 916-705-8903

The Brow Lounge

$30 Gift Certificate to The Brow Lounge
A variety of eye enhancements and facial waxings that have you looking good! Not only do the technicians do good work, they are enthusiastic supporters of the arts, and some are artists themselves! The Brow Lounge is located 5916 College Ave. Oakland, Ca. (north of the Rockridge BART Station)

Outlets for the imagination

$50 Prize Pack of Three Omnibucket Books
You will receive The Book of CLAV, Eleventy Billion Miles Away, and God's Acre: The Ravens & the Rhyme. They're not art books. They're not coffee table books. They're not a comic books or even graphic novels. They're not a children's books, that's for sure. They're not popup books, and they certainly aren't just plain old books. They're a different kind of book. Omnibucket books.

$25 Gift certificate to Dog Eared Books
Reflective of the Mission district itself, Dog Eared Books is the largest and most eclectic of their three stores — you'll find anarchist magazines next to Vanity Fair, Nina Simone cds next to Joy Division and Michelle Tea poetry next to Chaucer. Located at 900 Valencia Street in San Francisco.

One of these could be yours.

$20 Gift Certificate to Amoeba
Amoeba Music is the “world’s largest independent record store” for new and used CD’s & DVD. They also have posters, T-shirts, and just about everything. They are located at 1855 Haight Street in San Francisco & 2455 Telegraph in Berkeley.

There are many, many more raffle prizes to be given away, so don’t miss out.

We look forward to seeing you this Thursday night at 7 pm to celebrate the San Francisco literary community with food, drinks, and great entertainment.

If you have yet to purchase a raffle ticket, not to worry, you can purchase tickets at the door. A big thanks to all of our local contributors, writers, readers, and artists for helping Fourteen Hills and the rest of the independent literary community. (RSVP on Facebook.)

Looking forward to seeing you there.
-Jason Johnson, Fourteen Hills staff

Sketch Comedy Plus Filmmaker-Poetry: Two More Featured Readers At Our Party On 12/16

The Fourteen Hills release party is only FOUR DAYS AWAY! Please join us at Coffee Bar this Thursday, Dec. 16, at 7 pm. Attendees will be treated with readings by hilarious comedy group Kasper Hauser and poet/filmmaker Noah Gershman. (If you missed our countdown of other featured readers, you can get up to speed here and here.)

Kasper Hauser is a San Francisco-based comedy quadruplet consisting of Dan Klein, James Reichmuth, John Reichmuth, and Rob Baedeker. They’ve been making quite a name for themselves, having written for Comedy Central and HBO, and now appearing within the pages of Fourteen Hills Issue 17.1. (Get a sneak preview of their act by listening to their podcasts.)

Their talent doesn’t stop at writing. The group boasts a hearty resume of live performances, having competed in and won various comedy contests around the bay, including the Universal Comedy Orgasm and Big Bang Holy Championship.

Noah Gershman may be best known for his talents behind the camera and in the director’s chair, but on Thursday he will share his poetry live and in person. Though he can be quite elusive on the Internet, his work can be found in many literary journals. To hear his work performed by a puppet (no, this is not a joke), click here.

So come on out to Coffee Bar. There will be tons of great, fabulous, random, exciting, and entertaining raffle prizes, as well as drinks, readings, laughing and all sorts of other tomfoolery.

-Phillip Van Sant, staff member, Fourteen Hills

North Korea, Hip-Hop, and Homeless Men: A Look at 3 More Readers Who Will Perform on 12/16

It's December, and we all know what this month is about: going to mad parties, letting it all hang out, and then guiltily planning New Year's resolutions afterward. Fortunately, here at Fourteen Hills we will help you out with all of the above, minus the guilt. Come to our release party on Thursday, December 16, at Coffee Bar in the Mission to hear some guest readers so incredible, they will make you want to get to your writing desk/recording equipment/sketch pad immediately to lay down some serious inspirations for the new year. But you can't leave too soon, because we will be partying and getting literary like crazy.

If you want to feel inspired early (and maybe really jealous) check out some of the super talented contributors that will be reading at our release party:

ADAM JOHNSON is a self-described “maximalist;” he favors bold plots over subtle ones, and manages to always entertain. So if you ever find yourself bored with “the literature of the times,” do yourself a favor and pick up one of his publications. He has been a construction worker, a former Wallace Stegner Fellow, and the Senior Jones Lecturer in Creative Writing at Stanford University. Playboy magazine even named him “one of the nation's most influential and imaginative college professors.”

Winner of the Whiting Writers’ Award, the Gina Berriault Award, and an NEA Fellowship, he is the author of a short story collection Emporium (2002), and the novel Parasites Like Us (2003), which won the California Book Award. His fiction has appeared in Esquire, Harper’s, The Paris Review, Tin House, and Best American Short Stories.

The excerpt that appears in Fourteen Hills 17.1 is from his recently completed novel, tentatively titled The Orphan Master’s Son. Set in a modern North Korea, and partially narrated by a “propaganda loudspeaker,” The Orphan Master’s Son promises to be quirky, poignant, insightful, and tender all at the same time. If you are as intrigued as I am, you can read an excerpt.

MYRON MICHAEL's words hit hard. After reading his piece in the Harvard Review Online, I found myself momentarily unable to process any thoughts beyond “whoa.” His work is gritty, honest, and eye-opening. He is a Cave Canem Fellowship recipient, and his works appear online and in The Harvard Review, Days I Moved Through Ordinary Sounds (City Lights, 2009), Tea Party, and Nanomajority.

In addition to being a writer (his chapbook Scatter Plot is forthcoming), Michael is also a recording artist and a writing teacher. He is the proprietor of Rondeau Records, which produces “Poetry for Hip-Hop, literature, and music of the highest quality.” Under the name Money The Mystro, he records his own songs which you can check out on Myspace and on his website. He also has a blog with more insightful words, and even pictures of spiders.

MOLLY PRENTISS is full of charm and wit. She doesn't believe the idealized “cabin of solitude” that many writers desire would really work out so well, because, as she says, “we don’t want to be even lonelier than we already are!” She recently received her MFA in Creative Writing at the California College of the Arts and is now a resident writer at Workspace with the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. She is also a co-director of an arts and writing collective called factorycompany.

She has been published in La Petit Zine, Miracle Monacle, Plaid Review, The City Reader, and elsewhere. Her story appearing in Fourteen Hills 17.1 is about, as she says, “a homeless guy who hums into a jar and sleeps with other people's girlfriends.” It is even more amazing than it sounds. Check out her blog to see more of her writing, her illustrations, and her really adorable handwriting.

-Stephanie Doeing, staff member, Fourteen Hills

Introducing 3 Of 8 Fabulous Readers Ready to Enthrall You At Our Release Party on 12/16

What follows are a few brief descriptions of writers who will be gracing us with their presence at one of this winter's finest literary events in San Francisco: the Fourteen Hills Release Party for Issue 17.1. It’s on Thursday, December 16, at Coffee Bar in the Mission. (You can RSVP right now on Facebook.) We will be profiling all of our special guest readers, and when you come to the party, you'll be able to pick up a copy and read their work for yourself.

READER #1: Jason Bayani is someone to hear and see. When performance and writing mix, the terms "spoken word" and "slam poetry" often get thrown around, and names like Jason Bayani appear floating on the roster. Bayani is a Filipino from our side of town -- a San Francisco State University graduate. He later received his MFA at St. Mary's College in Moraga. His accolades include published pieces of poetry in the 2005 National Poetry Slam Anthology, membership to seven National Poetry Slam teams, an appointment as the 2010 IWPS representative for Oakland, and the 100th episode winner of Literary Death Match.

He is also among a group of three Asian American poets known as Proletariat Bronze who have risen from the Bay Area and gained national recognition. As much as poetry is part of their method and medium, they also see public enrichment as an intrinsic facet of their lot as poets in society. They are self-described "working-class romantics."

READER #2:  Maxine Chernoff is a name that does not wait on a shelf. At Fourteen Hills, we know her as the director of the Creative Writing Program at San Francisco State University, but we also know her as an expansive writer whose merits have allowed her to travel the world over. She has produced a long list of novels, short stories, and poems over the course of two decades.

These include her novel, American Heaven and a book of short stories, Some of Her Friends That Year, which were both finalists for the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award. In fact, you can see a long list of the awards she has received here. Along with her husband, poet Paul Hoover, she is the editor for a long-standing literary journal, New American Writing.

Her writing and work is often in conversation with other writers and places, using it to investigate and grow through the exploration of engaging material. In a recent interview she stated, "We are living in perilous times, and I hope that my writing is exploring and addressing some of these perils."

READER #3:  Stephen Elliott has been there and done that. He's lived to tell. He's known for sex, drugs, and metaphors.

You might also know him from The Rumpus (he's the editor) or you might know him for his books which include his acclaimed memoir, The Adderall Diaries and novel, Happy Baby. Much of his thematic content revolves around the process and shape his own life has taken. He unabashedly coats his life under a thick fictive varnish. In his essay, Why I Write, he describes the way he entered into writing, "My fiction was just reality-PLUS, a slightly more intense version of the world I lived in."

Elliott was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and he is now a member of the San Francisco Writer's Grotto. His work has been published in Esquire, the New York Times, GQ, Best American Non-Required Reading 2005 and 2007, Best American Erotica, and Best Sex Writing 2006.

Stay tuned  for more details on our other featured readers (and more reasons to come out and celebrate with us on December 16 at Coffee Bar).
-Erica Eller, staff member, Fourteen Hills

"Everything Faces All Ways At Once" Release Party Recap, Now With Video!

Since Zulema Renee Summerfield has such a long-winded name, I'm going to refer to her as ZRS for the remainder of this blog-post. And if the remainder of this blog-post feels like a recurring set of acronym-plugs, trust your powers of observation because you aren't imagining it (how shameless of me). Oh, and since I haven't mentioned it yet, WE ALL HAD AN AWESOME NIGHT LAST THURSDAY at Space Gallery. Thank you to everyone who came to see ZRS read from her debut collection Everything Faces All Ways At Once (otherwise known as EFAWAO) published by Fourteen Hills Press. (If you missed out, copies are available at Small Press Distribution. If you want to read coverage of the event in Golden Gate [X]Press, check it out here.)

The book is amazing. For those of us who went to the book release before seeing its contents, we were blown away. Buy one today. Yoko Ono herself added visual cleavage to the event space (her sexy posters hung on the walls everywhere). It also made for a funny, anecdotal conversation-topic throughout the evening.

For example, ZRS has a section on her website that says, "Yoko Ono called." When Zulema rose to the mic, she explained that this is an ongoing fiction of hers. Within her hopeful logic, she feels that by saying it, it will happen. So in order to somehow make this phone-call manifest and get an endorsement to happen, you can send Yoko's fan-club a message. Let them know that ZRS, a unique and noteworthy author, would like to connect and to make Ono's acquaintance.

The warm-up readers included none other than DWL (D.W. Lichtenberg) and PO (Peter Orner). How did Zulema get these famous authors to come and join her, and why? DWL was last year's Michael Rubin Book Award Winner for his book of poetry, The Ancient Book of Hip. PO has been not only a creative writing mentor of ZRS's at San Francisco State University, he was written in, as a character-of-sorts to several of the "dreams" in ZRS's book, EFAWAO. He is also the author of Esther Stories and The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo.

Here are video excerpts of their warm-up readings:





ZRS's book, EFAWAO is filled with Fictions and Dreams (F&Ds). This might make you inquire, what isn't made of these things? Well, for example, a sandwich is not only made of F&Ds, it is also made of two similar outer parts containing an inner part. This book keeps to the realm of F&Ds. One of her stories included a visual cue to incorporate a pun that appeared in the text: "Impaired" vs. "Im-PEAR-ed." This particular "fiction" involved a pear-truck driver.

Because I know I'm leaving a lot to the imagination, I've included a few video excerpts to help you see how exceptional the work really is:





ZRS had many of her friends and family members in the audience, including people who have greatly missed her presence in the community of San Francisco since she moved to Canada.

Among them were her best friend, who helped her with book-signings, and her father, the dignified man with the pipe in his mouth. In addition, each and every member of the 14 Hills staff attended, as well as former staff members. In fact, a whole slice of the Bay Area literary community came to celebrate. Space Gallery catered to the crowd with a lovely selection of beer, wine, and cocktails.

Next on our calendar is the release party for Fourteen Hills Vol. 17, Issue 1. Save the date of December 16, and join us at Coffee Bar at 7 pm. There will be comedy. There will be drinks and readings. There may even be Brian Boitano. You won’t want to miss it.

-Erica Eller, Fourteen Hills staff

Space Gallery + Book Release + Two Fabulous Readers + Yoko Ono (?)

It’s November 4, and Fourteen Hills is throwing a righteous party. The celebration is in honor of Zulema Renee Summerfield’s new book Everything Faces All Ways at Once. Every year, one promising writer from San Francisco State University is chosen for the Michael Rubin First Book Award, published by Fourteen Hills Press. This year the honor goes to a collection that resists all labels other than "awesome."

If you happen to be on the fence about coming to the Space Gallery tonight (for any inadequate excuses like the onset of winter encouraging your already hermit-like, antisocial tendencies) there are an overwhelming number of reasons you should motivate.

First of all, you get a copy of a remarkable book and get to support an emerging writer’s success, which is win/win. Zulema describes her award-winning work as “a collection of flash fiction and dreams.”

"One minute they're sporting monocles...and the next they're drunk and rowdy and throwing patio furniture off the roof...but in this and all things, they seek the nature of truth" quotes contest judge Terese Svoboda. Everything Faces All Ways at Once is an utterly fresh, unpredictable tour de force.

There is also much speculation about the involvement of Yoko Ono. Conspiracy theories revolve around Yoko’s interest in blurbing the book and other matters of manifestation that you will only find answers to at the release party. For background on the unique relationship between writer and artist, check out Zulema’s website to learn about her quest to get in contact with Yoko.

Then there’s the venue, the Space Gallery. If you have been, you need no further explanation. If not, do not miss this opportunity to check out a landmark of San Francisco culture. There is plenty of room, a bar downstairs, and the perfect space to host literary events and parties. Last year we held the release party here for D.W. Lichtenberg’s debut collection The Ancient Book of Hip. Needless to say, everyone had a great time, and copies of Lichtenberg’s sold-out collection are now a much coveted, hard-to-come-by commodity.

Last, and certainly not least, the aforementioned D.W. Lichtenberg (2009 Michael Rubin Book Award winner) will be making a guest appearance at tonight’s event. D.W., or Dan as we know him, is the current managing editor of La Petite Zine and is “excited to pass the torch to Zulema.”

Interesting, fun, and good-looking people, exploring the power of positive thinking, will gather tonight at the Space Gallery. Who knows, maybe even Yoko will drop by.

Space Gallery. 1141 Polk St. 7pm. Join us. RSVP on Facebook.

-Kelly McNerney, Fourteen Hills staff

10 Questions for Zulema Renee Summerfield, the 2010 Michael Rubin Book Award Winner

Although she recently moved to Vancouver, author Zulema Renee Summerfield will be back in San Francisco this Thursday Nov. 4 to celebrate the release of her debut collection, Everything Faces All Ways at Once. Join us at 7 pm at the Space Gallery on Polk Street to pick up a copy of her book and hear selections from this new work from Fourteen Hills Press.

To prepare for the big event, we asked Zulema a few questions about her past, her dreams, and the realities of being a Canadian. Enjoy.

1. How did you get your fantastic name?

Ninth-grade Spanish class, baby! The teacher was handing out Spanish names and I said "What do you have that starts with a 'Z'?" I used it as a nickname for a long time and after a while it just kind of stuck. I actually prefer it over my legal name now.


2. Where did you grow up?

I grew up in good ol' Redlands, California. A nice little town. My parents split up when I was young, and I quickly gained a whole slew of new family members -- step-folk and siblings. I wrote my first story when I was fourteen, about a girl who lives on a planet with no rain. Her only recourse in this dry land is to listen to her rainstick. Pretty lame. I think I stole the idea from Ray Bradbury. So thank you, Ray Bradbury. Thank you.

3. Tell us about your manuscript, the 2010 Michael Rubin Book Award winner.

Everything Faces All Ways at Once: Fictions and Dreams came in fits and starts over the past two or three years. I took a flash fiction course with Barbara Tomash as an undergrad at SF State and it changed my life. (If it's being offered and you can take it, do so! I promise you will love it.) The fiction pieces span back to the start of my graduate career and range in tone and theme.

In terms of the dreams, a few years back I read a story by Roberto Bolano in the New Yorker. It was the first time I had read a dream sequence that was written as a dream -- the syntax and tone and shifts in narrative precisely matched the experience of dreaming, and I wanted to try that. So many dream stories read as flat and boring. I wanted to try to write my dreams as I had dreamt them. I hope I succeeded. Now that my book is being published, I feel honored, humbled, and completely stoked out of my mind. It's a lovely feeling.

4. What’s the difference between fictions and dreams?

The difference is everything, and nothing at all.

5. If you had to describe your book in four words, what would those words be and why?

"Yoko Ono blurbed it!" I'm trying to get Yoko Ono to call and offer to blurb my book. (Read more about it here.)

6. Tell me about Rene Magritte and your relationship to him.

Rene Magritte and I went to prom together. He tried to get in my pants.

That's a total lie.

I've always been fascinated, intrigued, and completely floored by Magritte's work. Those paintings where the figure is facing away from the viewer? Freakin' brilliant. His "Perspective" coffin paintings are hilarious and poignant. I love stuff like that -- art that is clever in a not-irritating way, stuff that makes you laugh and think. (I'm looking at you here, Yoko.)

Here's a true story: Years ago, I had a dream that I was at an outdoor wedding party. There was a pond in the yard, and in the pond were a group of birds made entirely of leaves. Live birds, made of leaves. At the time, I'd never seen Magritte's The Natural Graces, but a few weeks later I went to a showing of his work at the SF MOMA, and guess what was hanging on the wall? Cheesey as it is to say, there's been a connection for me to his work for a long time, a connection I can't always explain. And I would have gone to prom with him, if only he'd asked.

7. Did you have any of the dreams you write about? Was it scary? (I’m thinking of “Rattlesnakes!” here.) What is your favorite dream and why?

All of the dreams are real dreams I had. Most of them were narratives; some (like "dream of when we were the same") were sentences that I dreamt. The rattlesnakes dream was scary (thank you for asking) while I was dreaming it -- but then, as often happens, you wake up and you realize that scary equals hilarious, so the goal was to try to get that down.

My favorite one is "dream of change we can believe in." I'm going to send a copy to Barack Obama and hope he writes back. That kid in the dream, Ricky Ramos, he's a real guy, my first "true love" -- I dream about him all the time. I'm still trying to figure out a way to write to him without sounding creepy: "Hey, remember me? I dream about you all the time." Of course, it's not really him, just the idea of him. He's just a metaphor for something else floating around in my head. Poor guy...

8. What are you working on now?

I'm writing a YA novel about grief (fun for all ages!), and also working on revising/editing a whole slew of short fiction and creative non-fiction pieces. I'm also trying to get Yoko Ono to call. Did I say that? I want Yoko Ono to call.

9. Do you feel like a Canadian yet? When will you know you’re a real Canadian?

When I'm nicer and own hockey equipment.

10. Imagine: Yoko Ono is calling you right now, but you’re on the other line and can’t answer her call. How does it feel?

There's no way in hell I would not answer Yoko Ono's call. This question is ridiculous.

11. Bonus question! Terese Svoboda says your work "has a point and it's fixed like this in space, but also it's shifting … to pierce right through your skeptical, unbelieving, tender human heart." How did you achieve this feat? As fellow writers and fans, any tips or hints you can give would be much appreciated.

Gosh, tips? Write, write, write, write, write, and then write some more. Read anything and everything. Read it slow. Read it again. Also, if you're a student at SF State, take full advantage of your time there. The halls are swarming with inspired, brilliant, incredibly talented people. They will change your life if you let them.

Thanks, Zulema. We’re counting down the hours until Thursday.
-Leanne Milway, managing editor, Fourteen Hills