Meg Pokrass reads her story "The Serious Writer and Her Pussy"

Meg Pokrass reads her story "The Serious Writer and Her...." for Monkeybicycle from megpokrass on Vimeo.

The Serious Writer and Her Pussy

by Meg Pokrass

The serious writer has embraced the word “pussy”. Other words for this part of the female anatomy are repugnant, carnivorous.

A pussy has a life of its own. A secret life. One can smuggle drugs inside a pussy.

As a serious writer, in mid-life, she must master speaking the word “pussy” with confidence and authority. She practices doing so out loud for her next book store reading. The serious writer is starting a book tour to promote her new novel which is bursting with ‘pussy'.

She practices reading in front of the mirror, engaging her slightly furrowed brow... medium voice...

"'I love your pussy,' Ian says softly to Trina, his hooded eyes at half mast," the serious writer reads to her refection in the mirror.

“'I love cock," Trina offers, imagining his range of movement.”

Her dialogue is raw. Edgy. The serious writer is known for this.

"'You're huge, Ian... my my my...' and she is touching it through his cords. She is feeling its neck, perhaps its beak... but doesn't want to frighten Ian by admitting to her deepening fear...her hunger,” the serious writer reads.

"'My god. You're damp,' Ian says, stroking her muff, her moistened ball of hair, the underwear covering Trina's pussy," the serious writer says, her voice tiring.

(The serious writer is sick of the adjective wet. She is experimenting with other adjectives. She wonders if a man would really say ‘damp'... Not just any man... but Ian, the vegetarian with an occasional weakness for farm raised fowl.)

She looks at her face in the mirror. It is a successful face, one that has accepted three Gertrude Smallwood awards. A face that should not have any trouble with the word 'pussy' for fuck's sake.

“Pussy,” she says it again. She says it, right to her face.

Lend a Hand

The turnout to help the people of Haiti has been nothing short of incredible; people and organizations from all over the world are doing their part. Whether it's traveling there with an organization to help out, donating money, or just spreading information about it, the outpouring of assistance is like nothing I've ever seen before.

One of our literary journal brethren--and Monkeybicycle contributor--Roxane Gay has very personal tie to the events in Haiti, and my heart and thoughts are going out to her--and to everyone involved--in a big way today. Yours should too.

Because of Roxane's involvement with this event, PANK Magazine has made the generous offer to donate ALL of their proceeds over the next month to Haitian aid in the form of contributions to The International Committee of the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders. There are lots of things to choose from in the PANK Store--chapbooks, journals, subscriptions, t-shirts--so please, please consider making a purchase today and not only will you get some incredible reading material (or a cool shirt with a typewriter on it!), but you'll also be contributing to saving lives in a place that can use every cent they can get right now.


A few other organizations doing some great work raising money for Haiti (not just now, but all year round) are FINCA (which has a really incredible mission statement) and Artists for Peace and Justice, who were just in Haiti not two weeks ago to assist with the schools there. Lots of great people doing great things. Join them.

EDIT: Speaking of Artists for Peace and Justice, photographer/filmmaker Tao Ruspoli went there on their behalf shortly before the earthquake and captured some amazing photographs. Take a look at this link and see the faces and homes of the people who are now desperate for your help.

Miscellany for the New Year

Happy new year, everyone. While you're debating whether to say "twenty-ten" or "two-thousand-ten," here are a few things for you to chew on. We don't do a lot of digest-type stuff on this blog yet, but since it's a new year we thought maybe we'd try. here are some current things that we find really interesting and exciting:

Monkeybicycle contributor Stace Budzko has a piece among the many wonderful works in the January issue of Hobart.

Jerry Waxler interviews Monkeybicycle6 contributor Curtis Smith at the Memory Writers Network.

Have you read former Monkeybicycle.net editor Eric Spitznagel's Q & A column over at the Vanity Fair Web site? You really, really should. Go here to do so.

Guernica magazine features a really fascinating look at the darker side of Dubai.

There is a great interview with Dave Eggers at The Onion's A.V. Club page. He talks about the San Francisco Panorama, which is a design marvel.

CLMP's Lit Mag Adoption Program is ongoing. Very interesting idea. Learn about it here.

If you're looking for a movie to rent, don't waste your time with nonsense like Paranormal Activity or The Hangover. Next week will see the release of two of 2009's most unsung heroes: Big Fan and The Hurt Locker. Make these your priority.

And if you're looking to head to the theater, try to find a way to track down a showing of Crazy Heart. It's only in about 12 theaters right now, but it's sure to get wider release in the upcoming weeks, especially because of the well-deserved Golden Glob nomination for Jeff Bridges.

On the music front: Eighteen Individual Eyes is a Seattle quartet that sounds kind of like Sleater-Kinney-meets-Yo La Tengo-meets-Blonde Redhead, and they just released their first EP, Slightly Frightened, Mostly Happy. It is awesome. Take a listen to a few of the tracks here, and then buy the whole thing at iTunes here. And if you happen to be in the Seattle area, they'll be having a record release party at the Crocodile Cafe on Thursday night with The Globes, Elba and Explone. You should go.

January RUI cancelled

Unfortunately our reading in January has been canceled, but look out for one later in the spring. Sorry folks.

Monkey Media

A few new things are up on the Monkeybicycle site for your eyes and ears.

In our Podcast section, we've got "A Fair to Remember," Tyler Stoddard Smith's hilarious excerpt from Monkeybicycle6.

And in our Video section, watch Meg Pokrass read "What the Doctor Ordered," a little gem from the Monkeybicycle archives.

While you're at it, why not subscribe to our podcast and YouTube channel?

And if you're a past Monkeybicycle contributor and would like to record your work for our Multimedia endeavors, drop us a line.

It's Over! It's Over! A guest-post from Shya Scanlon

Though most of my feelings about the Forecast 42 Project are positive, I think it’s healthy to permit myself some space to vent relief. Though I certainly don’t discourage anyone from trying it—it’s a great way to discover and help build the literary community—it’s not actually very easy, it turns out, to serialize work across 42 different sites.

Turns out, you won’t necessarily be at the top of everyone’s priority list.  Or even on it at all!  Which is to say that, whereas I entered into the project with something akin to bravado, I learned very quickly it was going to require a great degree more humility, patience, and perseverance.

And why shouldn’t it?  It’s humbling to ask so many people for their time, their support—essentially for their approval.  And then, once you’ve asked, to remind them four weeks, even four months down the line, “Hey, uh, remember when you said you’d…”

Not that I ever encountered even the slightest hint of regret over an earlier offer to participate.  On the contrary, but let’s just say that I’ve never had to say “thank you” so frequently to so many different people.  After a while, I couldn’t help suspect it was coming across as rote, or worse, flip.

But that was no doubt my own bullshit.  And frankly, I should probably have been saying “thank you” more often to begin with.

Another unexpected element of the serialization (at least my own experience thereof) was the fact that, as soon as a month after launching the project, I began revising the book for print publication, and as such was working on improving and changing—in some cases dramatically—the very material I was sending out into the world.

It confused the natural order of things (write, revise, publish), and at first I found this disconcerting.  But after a while I began to enjoy it.  It kind of surrounded me in the text, as though I wasn’t working forward in time, rather expanding the book around me in all directions.  Living inside it.

In the end, serializing the work let me let go of it, which turned out to be the most important part of my editing process.  Knowing it was already out there—or headed that way—made it feel less precious, like something I didn’t “own.”  As a consequence, I was able to be both ruthless and receptive while editing: chopping the text down to size, even altering some basic elements of the premise, but also
re-discovering the work, the story.  Letting it speak to me and develop more organically.

I confess to having fantasies about serializing again.  I don’t think it would take the same form, per se, and I think it would have to demand less of the reader—in an age of media saturation and limited
attention spans, 100,000 words and five months is a little much to ask—but it made me feel kind of like a gardener tending his garden, or perhaps, due to the perambulatory nature of this particular project, a shepherd tending his flock.  That is, it made me feel useful to my fiction.  Isn’t that really the most an author can hope for?

—Shya Scanlon

Orange Alert & Monkeybicycle

Okay, Monkeybicycle and Orange Alert
Febuary 21, 6 PM, at The Whistler in Chicago.

Our line up is as follows:

Tim Jones-Yelvington
Anne Valente
Brandon Will
Amanda Marbais
Charlie Nadler
Michael Czyzniejewski

Are you so excited that, at this moment, you are doing a happy dance?

Well, you should be. We are.

And we are still looking for readers at RUI, so let us know if you are an interested contributor.