Warmed and Bound: A Velvet Anthology (46 page)

LIVIUS: You mentioned Write Club, and it came up in a couple of previous interviews. Could you tell our listeners exactly what Write Club is and maybe what benefits you’ve taken away from it? 

PELA: Yeah. Write Club’s really cool. It’s a private forum, and by private I mean there’s an enrollment period in the month of November every year. And then starting on January 1st, it closes; it’s shut off to any kind of visitor. So, that’s really, really nice, to have a community where you can just go and say anything you want. People are broken down into groups of four, and each person has a novel—it’s really designed for novels—and they all workshop each other’s project, a chapter a week, or whatever pace they’re on. And there are different areas in the forum for short work, or questions or just discussions having to do with all things writing-related. Anything and everything. There’s a
venting
thread that’s really fun—it’s my kind of thing, anyway. You just go in there and rant off some crazy vent that makes no sense, and you know that you’d look stupid if you tried to say it someplace else, but you get it out of your system and everyone kind of says, “Yeah, people are dumb,” and then you move on. So, there’s just a sense of community. It’s really, really neat. I don’t know how they’re going to do it, because it might be changing… For me and a lot of us, we have chosen not to workshop a novel this year, but Jason Heim, the person who created it and runs it, has let us stay in there as members. I don’t know if you have to have been a member at some point to have that happen, I don’t quite know. But it’s worth looking into, if people are interested. I’m sure you can Google “Write Club” and find it. I really like it. 

LIVIUS: How long have you been a member? 

PELA: Two years or so? This would be my second year. 

ROBB: Well this series of interviews is about the anthology
Warmed and Bound
so how about you tell us a little bit about your story that is in it, which is called “Touch.” 

PELA: Okay. It started out as a novel, actually. It was the first chapter of a novel, and I gave up the novel really quickly. I had an interest in this idea after seeing something, Frontline or some documentary somewhere, about people willingly committing suicide if they have a terminal illness. And that was just so fascinating to me, these families that go and they just let their loved one, you know,
go
in a peaceful way. And in my novel I wanted to have it where the father who has a terminal illness, he wants to actually take this idea of sacrifice that comes from a good place, he takes it to an extreme and maybe even kills his son, who has the same hereditary disease. And then I decided that as soon as I built up these characters, I realized that it just couldn’t happen. It wasn’t a plausible concept. I couldn’t write that book. I let the chapter get buried somewhere, and I went back and just kept playing with it till it became its own thing. 

ROBB: Would it be too much of a spoiler to say that it made me very, very sad? 

PELA: [laughs] No. And I’m such a weird… sadist, I guess, because I love hearing that. I really do. There are people—I won’t name names, but I’m totally tempted to, people who you would not expect, big gruff guys—that have e-mailed me in private just to say that they were crying, just full-on sobbing or tearing up at work or whatever, and I just… love that. [laughs]

LIVIUS: Here’s a little to boost that particular part of your ego. Robb read your story earlier this afternoon, and I have my phone in my hand. Here’s the text message he sent me. I love doing this to Robb, because if he tells me something off the air about a story, I’m all about sharing. It says: “Pela’s story is the saddest story in existence, FYI.”  

ROBB: So, mission accomplished. 

PELA: Awesome. [laughs] 

LIVIUS: Yeah, I’m going to have to agree. Very, very sad, but a very well-written story. 

PELA: Thank you. I appreciate that. 

LIVIUS: To lighten it up a little bit, can you tell us a little bit about the intro music we played at the top of the show? 

PELA: Yes. That is my husband. His background is in music. He’s a scientist now, but he was in bands forever, and I went out of town this past week, to Portland, so he was home by himself and he e-mailed me this thing and said, “I was bored, I made this song,” you know, “it’s just supposed to be funny, make you laugh,” or whatever. So of course I love it. It’s supposed to be an homage to The Misfits, which is probably obvious, and of course I love that. But really, I’m just proud of it. I really like the song, I really like that my husband can make that in a couple hours on a Friday night without even trying. 

LIVIUS: I’ll be honest with you, I’m somewhat of a punk music fan, and I saw the song, and it said, “My husband wrote this song” in the e-mail you sent, and my first impression, honestly, was [sighs] “Oh, God, maybe we shouldn’t ask for songs.” But then I put it on, and then I said, “You know what, for this being cut at home over a weekend, this is a really good, quality song.” 

ROBB: Do you want to tell the listeners a little bit about what you’re working on right now? 

PELA: Sure. I have a novel in progress called
Black Star Mother
. I just could say that . . . it has to do with a married couple—that’s just what I know; I’ve been married for 13 years—so it’ll start there, and the wife falls apart, first of all, and then she gets involved with some weird stuff in her job basically as an abortion doctor. So yeah, there might be some weird body stuff and bombs in wombs and that sort of thing.

LIVIUS: I was just going to say, it sounds like another shiny, happy story from Pela Via. 

PELA: [laughs] What’s wrong with me? I know. . . .  

ROBB: Or a crossover Caleb Ross story. 

PELA: Yeah. But it will probably have to be a love story, because I can’t seem to break away from somehow getting out some statement about love. Whether it’s negative or positive or what, that’s kind of what I want to talk about, over and over, is love. 

LIVIUS: I think that your type of, um . . . “romance fiction” we can get behind. 

PELA: [laughs] Okay. Thanks. 

LIVIUS: So, normally I ask some really hard question, and I’ve been scolded for this by numerous people, and I say, “Hey, tell me who your favorite author is,” or something like that. I’m going to go a different direction, because you had such an influence in this book, and I don’t want you to hurt anybody’s feelings. Can you give us three stories that are really standout in
Warmed and Bound
? 

PELA: Oh boy . . . you’re killing me with three. 

LIVIUS: That’s almost like 10% of the book. 

PELA: [laughs] I’m so tempted to just blurt out, like, eight really quickly before you can cut me off. . . [laughs] Okay, Rob Parker’s is short, but just complete insanity. Caleb J Ross can write a perfect story. And last one, okay, I guess I’ll say Clevenger’s. I’ve already made my statement about Chris Deal’s and Axel’s, because they open and close the book, and so that’s kind of how I was saying that those were really, really strong, and they have my endorsement, and so I excluded those from this sadistic little game of yours.  

ROBB: Richard Thomas took the big out, which was to say that “there’s not a stinker in the bunch.” 

PELA: [laughs] He doesn’t know that for sure, though. He hasn’t read it all. I don’t think
anyone’s
read it from start to finish. It’s long, though, too; it really is. Well over 100,000 words. 

LIVIUS: Okay, and now we’re really going to narrow it down, because that time we were generous with three.  If there’s one author you’d like to hear us review on Booked, who would it be? 

PELA: I’m going to go with Chris Deal’s same answer, to say D.B. Cox, because he is just the biggest secret around. I don’t know why he’s not more widely-read; he’s so talented. And, full disclosure, I did some editing work on his new collection, but honestly that was just my privilege. He’s
so
good, and so touching, and people need to find his book and buy it.
Unaccustomed Mercy
is what it’s called. 

LIVIUS: Is there anything else you’d like to plug before we let you go? 

PELA: No, I think I’ve got everything. Yeah, I think I’m good. 

LIVIUS: Plug your book! 

PELA: [laughs] I forgot about that. Um, yeah, we’ll there’s that. There’s
Warmed and Bound
. Which is really, really good. I think. And then also, I wanted just to have the chance to thank you guys for what you’ve done; it’s really quite amazing. And can I ask…
why
you’ve chosen to interview and why you guys have helped us so much with our promotion and getting the word out? Because it’s really interesting to me. Is there a reason? 

LIVIUS: Yes, there is. We’ve actually both been fans of Craig Clevenger and Will Christopher Baer for several years. And I know Robb has posted some stuff on The Velvet. I have been a lurker on The Velvet probably for five years. So I’ve been kind of familiar with a lot of the short stories that have appeared in links around the internet, and I read
Transubstantiate
last year. I honestly was probably one of the first people to get it in its e-book format because I had to e-mail the publisher and asked them why it had been like three weeks, and they said it wasn’t formatted yet.  

So yeah, we started the podcast, we had Caleb on as our first interview, and we talked a little about it then. And he had kind of mentioned it, and even in talking to him after the episode, I said, “We’d both really like to read that when it comes out, and would you be willing to come back and talk about it then?” And he said yes, and then in communicating with other people that were going to appear in
Warmed and Bound
, we kind of wanted to talk to everybody. And I mean, we’ve got almost half the book coming on the show. Craig Clevenger, one of my personal literary heroes, which is so cool to have him. So yeah, it was an opportunity to talk to some people we’ve been fans of, and it just seemed like a good thing. It’s something we want to see do well, because we’re fans of the medium.  

ROBB: And from my perspective, there were a lot of names in it that had just been creeping up in our list of possible reads and possible things to talk about on the show, anyway. So it was kind of just an opportunity to talk to people that we’ve been talking about anyway, and maybe just kind of lump it all together in kind of a cool— something different that what we were typically doing.  

PELA: Yeah. I really think it’s awesome. It’s helped us a lot. And it’s just been so fun; everybody feels really special when they get to be interviewed and, you know, we just all love to talk about ourselves, so [laughs] it’s been really nice for us.

LIVIUS: We’re glad we could help. It’s been a great deal of fun for us. And personally, we’d like to thank you for helping facilitate the whole thing.  

PELA: Yeah, my pleasure. 

ROBB: Do you want to tell everybody where they can find your stuff or get ahold of you online?  

PELA:
pelavia.com
, and from there, I’m on Twitter and Facebook and the Google+. So I’m around. 

LIVIUS: Well, thank you, Pela, for taking time, again, out of what must be a busy week for you, with the launch earlier today. So thanks again for taking the time to come on and talk to us.  

PELA: Yeah, anytime. Thank you.

The Fuse

What follows is a series of Warmed and Bound sentences chosen by
Richard Thomas
. During the week of the book’s release, Richard took his favorite lines to Twitter, where an afterthought of a project became quite popular. Myself an adoring fan of his idea, I sought permission to use his posts and have since compiled and re-sorted them here. The excerpt from the book’s foreword captures well what these stand-out lines do for us. Many thanks to Richard Thomas for being the hardest worker in Noir, and to Steve Erickson for eloquently saying what we mean when we grin and sigh. Enjoy. —
Pela Via

“…and the moment you read this sentence you know there’s a fuse attached to it, you can see in the distance its glint and hear in the background its hiss, this fuse that was lit before you ever picked up the book and which burns closer and brighter with every page turned.” —
Steve Erickson

“I give her the truth on an ordinary day. It’s the release she’s been praying for.” —
RT

“Every move she made was slow and soft like the bubbles in a bath, loving like a mother” —
SPF

“Lester felt something give deep inside him. Like a Christmas ornament in space” —
SGJ

“Crime-scene slides project themselves onto the wall…dust motes suspended in the lamplight.” —
GH

“My head throbs like a beaten heart. My first instinct was wrong.” —
TB

“She’s a whore and will always be a whore, he said. Bright flashes lit up the room.” —
DD

“Broken glass glitters under the streetlamp, a thousand green eyes tracking me.” —
NK

“On this road he had run from the fire. On this road, he was the wind.” —
VLC

“In the woods they held hands…the trees bent into a portal blowing a voice through their flesh.” —
GP

“Her body inspired a tactile covetousness: you wanted it to be your hands alone on her body.” —
CD

“I touched her face and slowly ground my lips into hers…She tasted like bubblegum.” —
BP

“The streets glisten and a veil hangs over the sky, blotting the moon, the sun, and stars.” —
EJR

“Each orgasm a flurry of pixel and data. Patterned chaos. A self-replicating archive.” —
RP

“Where is the fifth ace?” “The fifth ace?” says the voice. “Sir, you are the fifth ace.” —
BE

“They came to see her dance, people with money and people with love.” —
CCD

“You’d find the good gossip downtown…where grass and power lines fight for dominance.” —
JDO

“From across the bar, I couldn’t stop staring at her, at that breathtaking mouth of hers.” —
MB

“She smells like a dryer. She has black hair but wears it like it’s blond.” —
PGT

“Anarchy fucking rules. Riots in the streets fucking rule. Pee wee soccer games fucking rule.” —
BS

“Try to fall on your head when you land…A bloody nose will make it look more realistic.” —
CW

“Tonight in Sector 7, come see The Amazing Asher kill himself for your entertainment.” —
AT

“If you love me, she says, you’ll do this. She hands me a razor blade.” —
DOD

“Like the brain, everything about you will dry up & deplete. Until you’re nothing but bones.” —
BT

“You killed me that day. Have you ever had to hold your mouth with both hands?” —
PV

“Ernie learns to walk. And soon after, takes to chasing trains.” —
CJR

“Ralph, What is sex like in the later years? My sweet, have you ever shot pool with a rope?” —
GPL

“The baby died. I put it in the trash. Remember to pull the can to the curb tomorrow.” —
CP

“Yes, I could see it in the child there, a black door under the confetti of his brains…” —
BB

“The thing was hissing and it tried to curl in on itself and Myra started shaking” —
JRJ

“You were heavier than I expected, and the room felt bigger than it was.” —
NY

“They take you at night. Or, they take you early in the morning.” —
KM

“What was supposed to be an infant in seven months now sits in the palm of my hand.” —
GT

“Without Tilly the world was clocks. They hovered with round faces and she scurried away.” —
AG

“The moon is full on the horizon, full and dancing along the top of every gentle wave.” —
ADJ

“She flared in the dark like some wild animal’s lone eye in my headlights.” —
CC

“I look at her again. I want to see something there…to remember the woman I married. But I can’t.” —
JRH

“She bites down hard on my collarbone and my whole body jerks.” —
MJ

“For the 15 seconds it takes her to saw through the arm I’ve never loved anyone as much as her.” —
CJD

“When I came out of that fever dream, stumbling into the sunlight…I had resurrected myself.” —
LC

(photo:
Charles King
)