Bonus Post: Bringing Home the Bacon Keeps Bringing Home the Bacon

Learned that my Appalachian short story "Bringing Home the Bacon" was taught this semester at West Virginia University in Morgantown. Not a literature class, mind you -- a computer science course to teach students how to develop video games!

I don't know about you, but the wild and varied components of this situation delight and entice me. Picture some brilliant free-thinking young person who wants to develop video games. This individual is a computer science major at the state's premiere university. 

Interject my little tale about a middle-aged mountain woman who likely does not read or write, who instructs a young person on the finer points of hog butchering. 

Now, blend those two things together. Modern technology meets ancient tradition. Science fiction meets mountain culture. Who woulda thunk, I ask ya?

This little story was selected and honored by the West Virginia Folklife Center at Fairmont State University for preserving traditional folklore. And in almost the same breath, was chosen to help video gaming programmers. Now THAT is a versatile tale!

When our stories were first accepted for publication in "Fed From the Blade," I whined to my dear friend Marion Kee "Your poem about Bill Withers will be taught and beloved in classrooms for generations to come, while my story will be read, grimaced over, shuddered about, then set aside and ne'er thought of again. You will go down in history!"

I may not go down in history, but hey, my story was taught in one classroom! And who knows, maybe it will inspire some bizarre video game -- although we both know that isn't going to happen. 

The Universe is so clever!

I love the Universe. ~~GH

Fed From the Blade Author Interviews #1

Cat Pleska over on West Virginia Literary Soul blog is hosting a series of interviews with some of the authors of Fed From the Blade. The first one, with Kathleen Furbee, went live yesterday. Kathleen's story is titled "Christmas Cards."

I sometimes skip reading interviews because they can be boring. Cat and Kathleen created an entertaining, interesting read. So click on this link and a new window will open, and enjoy! ~~GH

Easter Eggs and Bacon

I have a short story in West Virginia Writers, Inc.'s latest collection, Fed From the Blade. My title is "Bringing Home the Bacon." Originally, I used the colloquial bringin' then changed it to the more proper bringing for simplicity's sake. I wish I'd left it at bringin', but what can ya do? Anyway . . .

Are you familiar with the term Easter egg as it relates to media? I tuck Easter eggs into all my work. Sometimes there are just a few; often, there are many. If a reader never discovers an Easter egg, the story makes sense. But the reader who discerns my hidden treats gets to enjoy deeper levels of meaning. It's fun for me, and fun for you.

From Wikipedia on Easter eggs:

A virtual Easter egg is an intentional hidden message, inside joke, or feature in a work such as a computer program, web page, video game, television program, movie, book, or crossword. The term was coined—according to Warren Robinett—by Atari after they were pointed to the secret message left by Robinett in the game Adventure.^[1] It draws a parallel between the custom of the Easter egg hunt observed in many Western nations and the last Russian imperial family's tradition of giving elaborately jeweled egg-shaped creations byCarl Fabergé which contained hidden surprises.

One of my favorite parts of writing is naming my stories (and blog posts). Often, the title is the jumping off point for my Muse. A phrase leaps off the Universe's general store shelf and yells "Pick me!"In fact, I'd say half my stories are named, and then written. Frequently, I use idioms that at first glance are familiar and have one distinct meaning. But look a little deeper, because if I use an idiom, it likely has a second (third, or even fourth) meaning as well as it relates to my story.

Bringing home the bacon usually means working for money. The head of household brings home the bacon, a reference to the original meaning of literally carrying home a piece of meat with which to feed the family. My story "Bringing Home the Bacon" is a step-by-step instructional on how that bacon is obtained. Yes, it is a narrative on how to butcher a hog. Told in from a crone's point of view as spoken to a younger person, my story is unusual in more than one way. 

It is not gratuitously graphic. In fact, it is not graphic whatsoever. It is dead-accurate, informative, and detailed. When the zombie apocalypse occurs and you find yourself in need of an instruction manual on how to prepare a pig, "Bringing Home the Bacon" is your go-to text. My crone describes the process in clinical fashion, the way all unpleasant activities have been explained throughout time. 

What makes it creepy is your own imagination, which I do my dead level (heh - get that? "Dead level"?) best to trigger at every turn. I think I succeed on a regular basis although it could be far creepier than it is. The point of the story is not to disgust. It is to preserve a process, a mode of communication and instruction, a way of life on the most visceral level. Told in the vernacular, directly, "Bringing Home the Bacon" puts you in a clearing in the woods shoulder by shoulder with a mountain woman who shares a wealth of knowledge with you in just 1050 words.

But there are more meanings to bringing home the bacon as it relates to my story. And if you've read this far, I'll reveal this third Easter egg to you, Faithful Reader. From thesaurus.com:

Main Entry:	hack it
Part of Speech:	verb
Definition:	to succeed
Synonyms:	accomplish, avail, be successful, bring home the bacon , carry off, come out on top, come through, cut it, cut the mustard, deliver the goods, get to the top, hit the mark, make a go of it, make it, make the cut, make the grade, prevail, pull it off, score, win Yes, bringing home the bacon also means to "hack it." In the dictionary sense, hack it means to endure, and to get through "Bringing Home the Bacon," you have to endure a bit of unpleasantry. Then there is the delightful additional meaning of hack it, as in chopping something up. Like the hog. So there you have it. A world of meaning in four little words. I never choose a title arbitrarily. So think about it a little, and have fun unraveling the mysteries. Or not. It's up to you. As for me, I'll keep bringin' home the bacon. And the Easter eggs as well.~~GH

Banjos, Fiddles, History and Pies

Today was a lot of fun. So was yesterday. The Universe has swung Its light in my direction, and things are coming together. I need to make hay while the sun shines, as the old folks used to say. As a result, I will cut back on the daily blog posts for awhile in order to concentrate on my longer-term writing projects. Please keep checking back – I will post something at least once a week (and probably more often).

Kim Johnson, John Morris, Dr. Wilson

I got to listen to two of West Virginia's most amazing musicians perform this afternoon. Kim Johnson is the Grande Dame of Banjo Pickers. She said when she began playing, the other women were all forty years older than she was. Now they have moved on to the next dispensation, and Kim is the Matriarch now. Very sweet lady and uber talented. Truly a treasure.

John Morris is the younger of the two Morris Brothers from Ivydale/Clay County, West Virginia. Yes, that's the famous Morris Family of the Morris Family Farm Festivals held at Ivydale every year in the 1960s and 1970s. Yes, the same festivals where angry rain fell from the skies, flooded the creek, and threatened to wash away the festival goers and everything else! 

John says legend has it there was an old woman who lived at the head of the creek on the farm, and she didn't cotton to music. She'd bring out her Morris Family voodoo dolls and pour a pitcher of water on 'em! I tend to believe it – I remember those festival floods.

Kim Johnson (plays banjo), John Morris (plays fiddle),
Me (plays video games)

John gave a running history lesson on West Virginia fiddlers. I took pages and pages of notes. I also recorded about a dozen tunes Kim and John played, created one video of them performing (the battery on my cell phone was very low to start with), and I got a handful of photographs.

In the middle of the two-hour performance, I received a phone call announcing I had won a random drawing and needed to come to the student union pavilion – to throw a pie in my history teacher's face! 

Dr. Peyton is an esteemed historian with his own page in the West Virginia Encyclopedia. He has published one book (so far) as well as produced/written a documentary film (he has his own page on IMDB.com). He regularly appears in PBS documentaries as an expert in West Virginia and Appalachian history. And we were high school classmates and regularly share memories of The Good Old Days. He's also a mensch of a human being, and I had to buck up my courage to do something as dastardly as hit him in the face with a whipped cream pie (but I managed somehow).

So all in all, today was a blast. Got to meet new people, enjoy wonderful music, and pie a professor. And the odometer rolled over on my blog -- 13,000 hits as of today. Life is good. :) ~~GHC

The latest collection of short stories from West Virginia Writers includes one of my stories, is ready for pre-order. Fed From the Blade: Tales and Poems From the Mountains is ripe with promise. 

Click Here For Pre-Ordering Info (New Page Opens)

Washing Dishes

I was drafted into a war I didn't want to fight. I couldn't move to Canada to avoid it, and conscientious objecting was not an option.

Unknowingly, I stumbled into the front lines when I received my draft notice: "The pathology report was positive, and the margins are bad" translated into "You have breast cancer, and it has spread." The unspoken translation: “You are going to die."

Washing Dishes

I despise the symbol for breast cancer – the pastel pink ribbon. My treatment for breast cancer temporarily robbed me of my outward signs of femininity. I lost all my hair – my eyebrows, my pubic hair, even the fine tiny hairs on my knuckles sloughed off.

Following two surgeries within a month (bad margins the first time), my affected breast was markedly smaller and had ugly red and purple tracks on it. Unusual complications from radiation turned the already assaulted breast into a swollen, deep red, leathery lump.

Chemotherapy withered my ovaries, ensuring I would never again know the pleasure of conception, pregnancy, or future children.

No, the symbol for breast cancer should be a black ribbon or, at the very least, a deep brown one. There's nothing girlie about breast cancer.

I was told by my oncologist that if I live long enough, complications from breast cancer will likely end my life. Of course, I may get lucky and be clobbered by a Mack truck or mugged or have a heart attack. But my chances of "dying peacefully" in my sleep of "natural causes" are slim to none.

I don't like to read obituaries which state someone succumbed "after a long courageous battle with cancer." Who says they fought a courageous battle anyway? At the risk of sounding insensitive, I cried like a baby at the prospects of being torn from my children and husband. There was no option but to try and survive; courage did not play a role. My heart pounded and I felt trapped, often. My body had turned against me and there was little I could do about it. It wasn't like I could run away; the monster was inside me.

I want my obituary to read "passed away after a valiant battle with the laundry beast." We all can relate to that fight. It's a zero sum game, but we all play it.

Personally, I am not fighting a battle against cancer, and I am not a survivor. Women are notably strong, but I believe it's unnatural and unhealthy to maintain a battle-ready state of mind.

Cancer is part of my daily existence. Why should I program my mind to engage my body in a battle with itself? Studies have shown that folks who picture battle themes such as shooting, bombing, and stabbing cancer cells have a shorter life expectancy than those who use less violent imagery.

Positive imagery is a wonderful concept where folks picture their cancer cells and then picture themselves eliminating them. I envision my body as a plate and the cancer cells as leftover food on the plate. I scrape what I can into the garbage. Then I use hot water and detergent to thoroughly clean the plate. I love the idea of throwing and washing away the cancer and seeing sparkling clean body cells. It is satisfying and something I can relate to in my external existence.

To apply the medical model to my visualization, scraping equals surgery; hot water equals radiation; detergent is chemotherapy. You can just as easily visualize without relating to the medical model (although I am NOT advocating omitting traditional treatment methods).

The term `survivor' irritates me. There are concentration camp survivors who will never again be in a concentration camp. There are earthquake survivors and rattlesnake bite survivors – even bear and shark attack survivors. None of those folks ever have to repeat their experience again.

Breast cancer doesn't go away forever for those whose cancer has spread. We are not survivors. We are veterans on the front lines of death, ever vigilant for renewed enemy attack.

But we don't have to live each day in a war zone.

Instead of battling breast cancer or calling myself a survivor, I have learned to love my body and its limitations. I have a renewed appreciation of the satisfaction possible in imperfect human relationships. Having breast cancer has transformed how I experience the smaller moments of my life. The smell of dinner cooking is precious. Daily annoyances don't seem as irritating now.

Despite my aversions to wearing a pink ribbon or labeling myself as a survivor, I feel an inexplicable connection to my breast cancer sisters. There are as many ways to get through breast cancer as there are types of individuals. Just as with so many other aspects of life, each of us faces our challenges in our own way.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have plates to wash.~~GHC

Note: You can pre-order "Fed From the Blade" (the upcoming anthology that I have a story in) by clicking HERE (new window opens).

Fed From the Blade Cover Announced

Unexpected news today! Woodland Press released the above image of its latest forthcoming publication, "Fed From the Blade," due to be released in a couple of weeks (I'm guessing). This book is special to me for several reasons.

"Fed From the Blade" contains my short story "Bringing Home the Bacon." The unnamed narrator is a crone instructing a young person on the finer aspects of, well, bringing home the bacon (in the realest sense of that phrase's meaning). I wanted to preserve a traditional procedure, and I experimented with how best to disturb the reader without being at all graphic.

I believe I succeeded wildly, in both regards.

My mentor Cat Pleska edited the book. She also designed the composition of the cover, arranged the apples, chose a special knife from her daddy's collection, and created the photograph for "Fed From the Blade." 

Co-editor Michael Knost sat across a table from me not two months ago over Mexican food in the Barboursville Mall and issued a challenge for me to begin writing again. He urged me not to let the chaos in my private life rob the world of my gifts and talents. He demanded that I attend my readers.

Cat has supported me in so many ways over the past couple of years that words are inadequate. Suffice it to say that there are portions of my walk down Life's Beach where the single set of footprints belong to her and not me and I mean that in the most respectful way. I am eternally grateful, Cat.

Close to a dozen of my colleagues and friends are also involved in this wonderful anthology. My friend since first grade, Marion Kee, has her poem "On Hearing Bill Withers in the Ninth Grade" in "Fed From the Blade." I am tickled that fifty years after we first met, two of our word babies have likewise met on the pages of this book and will march hand-in-hand together throughout Time for future readers to enjoy. And if that sounds corny, well, that's how I roll tonight. 

Thank you for your loyalty and love, from the bottom of my heart, and from the little girl version of me -- the one who inspires and encourages me to be who I am and to have the courage to share it with you.~~GHC

Pre-order information