“Weight” by Karin Lin-Greenberg. (Fiction. Vol. 6.1)
“A Writers Story” by Steve Edwards. (Fiction. Vol. 6.2)
“Let Down Your Hair” by Katie Cortese. (Fiction. Vol. 6.2)
“Where” by Loretta Obstfeld. (Poetry, Vol. 6.2)
“Nocturne to 60 in 10 Seconds” by Andrew Philip (Poetry. Vol. 6.2)
“Zongzi” by Sarah J. Lin. (Nonfiction. Vol 6.2)

To read these and other fine pieces by our Silk Road contributors order your copies at www.silkroad.pacificu.edu.

First page of David Foster Wallace's novel Infinite Jest. Archived at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas. http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/

Our editors would like to showcase first chapters that would pique a reader’s interest and get a great story rolling. We also want to encourage writers to keep going and finish that novel!

We will accept first chapters through May 1st, 2012, when our reading period ends.
Please follow the submission guidelines or we can’t consider your manuscript:

1. Submissions can be no longer than 15 pages in length. (Shorter is fine.)

2. No cover sheet.

3. One inch margins on all pages and double-spaced.

4. If your chapter is a prologue, please remember a prologue must for our purposes operate like a first chapter. It can’t be all set up. Something has to happen. (Do not send us a prologue and a chapter.)

5. The chapter need not be as self contained as a short story, but it should not operate solely as an introduction to your book. We need action and character development. We are looking for controlled prose, concrete details of landscape, vivid characters who come off the page and compel us to keep reading

6. Please do not send a previously published novel chapter, including one self published on the web.

7. We are not wild about pure genre fiction, but if you are walking the line between literary and genre fiction, then we are interested.

8. In our submission manager, please select the “first chapter” genre for the category in which you are submitting. The “fiction” category is for short stories only.

Our submission manager is here:
http://www.silkroadreview.org/submissions/

More about Silk Road Review at:
http://silkroad.pacificu.edu

Poetry commands a central place in Britain.

As I travelled by tube to the Southbank Centre to attend the first event of the London Literature Festival, and my first poetry reading since moving to London two months ago, I took with me my American expectations about poetry venues: coffee shops, small community centers, the occasional well-appointed-but-out-of-the way theater or library hall. Seated facing the podium on the sixth floor of this clean, bright temple to art, I kept examining the layers of the backdrop as if it were a painting. First, a Union Jack. Then the London Eye. And on the far side of the Thames, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. This was not a painting, however, but a window. The statement was clear: art, and for this evening, poetry, commands a central place in Britain.

However, centrality means anything but homogeneity, as the four readers in this “Poetry of Place” event demonstrated. They each came from one of the four countries whose flag had been superimposed to form the Union Jack fluttering behind them: England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. But their relationship to poetry, identity, and place was hardly as crisp as the bright-colored crosses that make up their national standard. I had come to the center of a foreign place to witness the complex crossroads and collisions of its poetry, and to experience firsthand a few of my own.

Blue-eyed Toby Martinez de las Rivas took the stage in a Dinosaur Jr. band t-shirt, sporting an earring and bald but for a Hare-Krishna-style ponytail. He looked nothing like the Martinezes or Rivases I grew up with on the U.S.-Mexico border. And although he represented England (ranging from Somerset to Gateshead, though recently living in Spain), the first poem he read was an homage to Robert Burns, written in Scots. His poems were abstract and eschatological, imposing the allegory of Israel upon Northumberland and courting concepts as “bisexual as death” in baroque and inward tones.

Although Toby prefaced his Scots poem with a nod to the poet representing Scotland, when Kate Clanchy took the podium, she spoke with a cut-glass English accent. Having grown up Catholic in Scotland, then studied at Oxford, she spoke of the double-edged ostracization of first being too posh, and not Scottish enough, for her Edinburgh peers; then not posh enough, and too Scottish, for her Oxbridge colleagues. She channeled this liminal otherness into her poems, fusing gorgeous imagery and sonorous delivery in ambiguous-yet-compelling commentary on the subtleties of the British class system and the insularity of academia (where Oxfordshire bluebells “dream only of bluebells being blue.”)

I was strangely comforted in my displacement by four poets whose relationship to “home” was as complex as my own. This in itself can be a kind of homecoming–to unite with other artists struggling in a liminal space, for whom art is the only refuge from this sometimes strange and troubling world.

Owen Sheers was no less a hybrid figure, born in Fiji, raised in Wales, educated also at Oxford. He read poems ranging the world over, including a chilling tale of his encounter with a Zimbabwean despot, entitled “Drinking with Hitler”, reminiscent of Carolyn Forché’s “The Colonel.” Another poem, “World Maps,” described the rashes that formed from Kava abuse in Fiji, and which bore the poem’s title as their nickname. And in “Sun City” (Arizona) he explored the eerie landscape of the Superstition Mountains in this retirees-only leisure world, a sun-drenched waiting room for death. Like the others poets, “home” seemed an elusive concept for Sheers, overshadowed by an archaeologist’s wonder at the strangeness of the world in which he finds himself.

Finally, acclaimed Irish poet Nick Laird’s poems detailed a more stark side of The Troubles than the accounts of Seamus Heaney–the quotidian violence of a life lived so on edge that the backfire of a car could bring one to suddenly sob. Unshaven and slightly disheveled, striking a figure not unlike Nick Cave, he delivered dark, lyrical meditations on living memory’s longest-running civil war. For Laird, poetry can be about, but never limited by, place–being itself a place apart and, from what I heard between the lines, perhaps a place of personal refuge as well.

The audience was rapt, and proceeded diligently to the book table after the final applause. As much as the new land, and new poetic landscape, in which I now find myself is foreign, I felt sure after a reading like this that I had found a good place to be. I was over the rainbow, and although I heard Dorothy’s words echoing in the distance–that there is “no place like home,” I was strangely comforted in my displacement by four poets whose relationship to “home” was as complex as my own. This in itself can be a kind of homecoming–to unite with other artists struggling in a liminal space, for whom art is the only refuge from this sometimes strange and troubling world. Art, I decided, is its own place, where blue-eyed Martinezes and English-accented Scotswomen can reconcile the question behind the difficult question, “Where are you from?”

For more on Robert’s reflections on poetry, London and life, visit http://www.robertpeake.com/

32 Writers from Around the World. Cover art from painter Anna Stump's Pacific Rim series

This issue features pieces like Ani Gjika’s farewell to India, Sarah Lin’s complex tribute to dumplings in Taiwan, and Katherine Mauerer’s reflection on a moment of arrival in Iraq.

Turkish Poet Ahmet Uysal says us a “breeze sings to me in all languages at once.”

John Ashford gives a subtle portrait of a young student in Botswana, and Bridget Booher maps the marks on her own body.

Steve Edward’s prize winning flash fiction “A Writer’s Story” opens our most intense issue yet. How do writers grapple with memory in order to reach a truth?

In an interview, novelist and humanitarian Masha Hamilton discusses the way in which difficult questions drive her both artistically and physically into places others fear to tread.

More info on the writers in this issue, excerpts and ordering at the link:

http://silkroad.pacificu.edu/Vol62.html

Many of the students who work on Silk Road, and many of our readers and contributors, love writing enough to want to stay within the writing world, but may not want to be full time creative writers. I myself got a masters in publishing from Portland State University and do freelance work, but I have also been looking for publishing-related jobs since graduation not too long ago. I’ll share with you the resources I’ve discovered along the way along with a brief description of what you’ll get out of it.

The Editorial Freelancers Association
EFA members are people with a broad range of freelancer skills ranging from editing to translating and more. The association offers clients a list of freelancers (the members) from which to choose in hopes of matching the right freelancer to the right gig. Membership is subscription based as the organization is a member-run nonprofit where the board does not dictate, but involved members do. The association offers classes (reduced tuition for members) along with connecting members to jobs, and offers resources for freelance professionals to improve their skills. Even if you aren’t a member, many of the resources are still available, and most import to any freelancer are the common, and updated, industry rates, which can be found on their website.

http://www.the-efa.org/

Elance
For freelancers starting out, Elance is a good place to look for clients. For a small membership price (there are different levels depending on your need), members create a profile and bid for jobs ranging from editing gigs, to ghost writing, to design, and even freelance telemarketing. Services are rated like an Amazon Marketplace seller, and payment is secure (Paypal is common).

You create a profile that acts as a resume and shows past jobs and the ratings you got from them. You can also prove your skills with a skill-testing feature that rates your proficiency with a given platform as a percentile of individuals in the industry. Elance also lets you upload your portfolio so that clients can see samples of our work.

New users can try it out free for ten project bids a month before they need to upgrade.

http://www.elance.com/

Media Bistro
Media Bistro is an online forum that keeps media-minded people up-to-date on industry news and research. It also has a large database of jobs that a member (membership is free) can search, either by location or industry. Their mission “is to provide opportunities to meet, share resources, become informed of job opportunities and interesting projects and news, improve career skills, and showcase your work.” The website and job database are updated daily, if not hourly, and is one of the most respected job search forums in my personal circle.

http://www.mediabistro.com/

BookJobs.com
BookJobs is a job an internship database, as well as a publishing industry resource. Their search lets you focus on certain areas within the publishing industry that are of interest. They also have a guide for matching college majors to specific focus areas within the publishing industry, noting that you don’t have the be an English or communications major to have a job in the publishing field. In fact, sometimes it’s better to be a business major than a book major. The unfortunate thing about BookJobs, however, is that it tends to be New York centric, but if you don’t mind relocating then this shouldn’t be an issue.

http://bookjobs.com/

Publisher’s Websites
Sometimes the best place to scoop a job or internship is right on the publisher’s website. They often post there first before sending the memo out to feeder sites like Craigslist, Monster, Jobdango, and even Media Bistro. Check out the websites of these local publishers:

Beyond Words http://www.beyondword.com/
Glimmer Train http://www.glimmertrain.com/
Hawthorne Books http://www.hawthornebooks.com/
Inkwater Press http://www.inkwaterpress.com/
Raintown Press http://raintownpress.com/
The Oregonian Newspaper http://biz.oregonian.com/
Timber Press http://www.timberpress.com/
Tin House http://www.tinhouse.com/home
Underland Press http://www.underlandpress.com/

Corporate Websites
Publishing related jobs don’t just live at the publishing house, but also in the corporate world. They are called communications managers, marketing copywriters, desktop publishers, among other things. Many different businesses from an owner-operated small businesses all the way to huge corporations need skilled editors and designers to handle their publications. Don’t count out how valuable your skills with language are to the world. It may come naturally to you, but it doesn’t to everyone. Keep your options open.

Tania Runyan

Interview by Valerie Horres

Tania Runyan’s poems have appeared in dozens of publications, including Poetry, Atlanta Review, Indiana Review, The Christian Century, Willow Springs, Nimrod, Southern Poetry, Poetry Review, Poetry Northwest, and an anthology A Fine Frenzy: Poets Respond to Shakespeare. Tania has been awarded an NEA grant and the 2007 Book of the Year Citation by the Conference on Christianity and Literature for her chapbook, Delicious Air. Her first full-length collection, Simple Weight, comes from FutureCycle Press. When not writing, Tania spends her days tutoring high school students, playing Irish music, gardening, and chasing three kids around the house.

 Read Tania Runyan’s poem “Beach Walk” online: http://silkroad.pacificu.edu/TaniaRunyanBeachWalk.pdf

The Interview

VH: Was this poem inspired by any particular person or event?

Tania Runyan: This poem was inspired by the story of Esther in the Old Testament, when King Ahasuerus demanded that all the “beautiful young virgins” go through twelve months of beauty treatments so he could inspect them and choose a replacement for Vashti. Of course, Esther turned this objectification around and ended up becoming the strongest force in the story, saving her people. But in reading the story, I am always struck by how little times have changed in regard to women’s beauty. That is, young girls spend their teenage years going through their own “beauty treatments” so that they, too, can be chosen.

VH:  Like the two girls in this poem, who are so fixated on attracting attention from the lifeguard, are we all doomed be ignored and become stuck, no longer able to move?

TR: I believe if people live for others, especially young people who are still forming their identities, they do end up becoming stuck in a way, like soldiers on a doomed battlefield. I do realize that wanting to attract sexual attention at that age is developmentally appropriate to a certain level, and I am not downplaying the importance of being aware of our sexuality. However, it pains me to see young people, especially girls, throwing away time that could be spent on developing gifts and talents to primping and going to great lengths to attract physical attention. I know because I too squandered a lot of time in high school worrying about my looks and clothes. Maybe I am idealistic to believe there can be another way. But the Disney princess and rock star culture that has skyrocketed these past few years (and finding younger and younger consumers) concerns me that things are not going in a better direction.

VH: Could you tell me a little bit about your book that is coming out soon? 

TR: This year WordFarm will release A Thousand Vessels, a collection I based on the lives of ten women in the Bible. The poems explore these women’s lives both from their perspectives and from my own, such as in “Beach Walk.” While many of the poems grapple with suffering and doubt, I believe, or at least hope, that they ultimately point to faith and God’s working through women.

Luisa A Igloria

By Valerie Horres

Luisa A. Igloria’s poem “Status, News Feed, Most Recent, Last” can be found on page 51 of Vol. 6.1 and viewed online: http://silkroad.pacificu.edu/LuisaIgloriaStatus.pdf

The Interview

VH: What there some particular event that sparked the creation of this poem? What was the inspiration for this piece?

Luisa A. Igloria: I’m going to have to confess that I initially wrote this poem as part of a submission for another journal’s call for Facebook-themed poems. I wrote two for that submission, but they didn’t interest the editors at that journal, after all. I continued to work on the poems, though–this one in particular engaged me most because I liked the mixture of tones emerging in it: upbeat, perhaps in some places a little cavalier or a wee bit punk, maybe even borderline irreverent, but also increasingly, toward the end, earnest and wistful. The title is of course self-explanatory: “Status, News Feed, Most Recent, Last.”

VH: How did you go about picking the images for the poem? Was there one that you started with and the rest follow? What was your process to create this poem?

LAI: This second question is related to the first one–so I’ll continue by saying that after I decided to write the poem as an abecedarian, other decisions seemed fairly easy to manage. I knew that because of the subject of the poem–which is in part the sheer welter of information that comes through the specific social networking experience that is Facebook, and also the randomness of such information–I wanted to arrive at some satisfying emotional justification for all the different images that came into it.

Picking images was easy–I simply looked at my Facebook news feed when I was writing–the poem gives away the date (June 01 last year) I was working on it; and it’s true that on that day a number of news sources (New York Times, etc.) ran the headline of the story about sculptor/visual artist Louise Bourgeois’ death.  I didn’t lift lines whole from other people’s status posts – but I think I worked in some of the typical threads one might encounter there – those that write environmental/nature-themed posts (Earth Hour), those who write about where they’ve recently traveled, those who play games (Farmville etc.), gush about tv shows (Glee, etc.)

The last few lines of my poem echo a sentiment that many other poems have written of in their own way and in their own time — about the weird or wonderful serendipity of human encounters, and that despite the odds, they can and do happen.

VH: You write “O agony and ecstasy, our lot on this blue-green/ planet.” Are those two feelings the only ones we can experience? Is there a way to lessen the agony and extend the ecstasy, or is there reason for experiencing both?

LAI: You ask, “are those two feelings the only ones we can experience?” I like to think not; only, they do seem to define some of the extremes of human experience. I believe in nuance. But in this particular line or part of the poem, I think I’m speaking to the idea that the reason we recognize one state is because we also know the other. I don’t know if there is something in my particular upbringing or background that has predisposed me to such a worldview, but I believe that all experience is yoked to its opposite; that we are capable of deep feeling to me signifies that we have also opened ourselves deeply to everything that life might offer of both pleasure and suffering. We need to experience both because our understanding would be imperfect and untrue if we only knew one state. Is there a way to lessen the agony and extend the ecstasy? I don’t know that a formula for that has been discovered — but I think that poets try to find some respite, or some way at least to meet experience more deeply–in language.

Luisa A. Igloria is the author of Juan Luna’s Revolver (2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize, University of Notre Dame), Trill & Mordent (WordTech Editions, 2005), and eight other books. Luisa has degrees from the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she was a Fulbright Fellow from 1992-1995. Originally from Baguio City, she teaches on the faculty of Old Dominion University, where she currently directs the MFA Creative Writing Program. She keeps her radar tuned for cool lizard sightings. To visit her website go to www.luisaigloria.com.

Karin Lin-Greenberg grows seedlings on her own balcony.

By Valerie Horres

Karin Lin-Greenberg’s short story “Weight” can be found on page 119 of Vol. 6.1 and viewed online: “Weight”

The Interview

VH: After reading just the first sentence of your story, I was immediately curious about how you came about creating this piece. What was the inspiration for it? Did it start off as a story about one subject and then morph into something else? If so, what was the process by which it transformed?

Karin Lin-Greenberg: This story started out with the narrator’s voice. I lived in Missouri for two years and taught there. Sometimes my students would tell me that I had an accent, and they’d ask me where I was from. I grew up in New Jersey, and I don’t think I have that stereotypical accent that people associate with New Jersey (think MTV’s Jersey Shore), but my students let me know that I definitely sounded like I wasn’t from Missouri. So my goal with this piece was to try to capture a particular voice that sounded like it was from a particular place, and I wanted this voice to sound different from the way I speak. So the first step in writing this story was to listen to people talking (I suppose this could be called eavesdropping). I’d go out, listen, and then I’d jot down some phrases that caught my attention. One example of this is the phrase “fixing to make dinner,” which I overheard one day while I was grading papers in a coffee shop. The word “fixing” was what was interesting to me about that sentence; growing up, I’d only heard people say, “I’m going to make dinner.” So I gathered phrases like that and then I just started hearing Darlene’s voice come together in my mind. I hope her voice sounds somewhat authentic in the final version of the story. Once I had the voice, the story followed.

When I got back that afternoon, both Wes and L.J. were wearing brand new overalls, which were covered in dirt but were still stiff with newness. Neither of them was wearing a shirt, and they each held a hoe and were working the soil. Above each of the older plants, the ones they’d started weeks ago, three wooden stakes were tied together in the shape of a teepee so the stems could have something to lean on as they grew taller. All in all, the whole thing looked pretty professional, like they really knew something about what they were doing.

— Excerpt from “Weight”

VH: What about gardening drew you to use it in this piece? How do you find the best symbols to use in a story? When you are writing a story, do the symbols pop up first in your process and then the story line and the message grows out of them, or do you start with a plot or a message you want to impart and the symbols follow?

When I was in Missouri, I decided to start a garden. I lived on the third floor of an apartment building, so I only had a balcony on which to garden. I got all these buckets and some sacks of soil and tried my best to grow vegetables. I had no idea what I was doing; I knew nothing about using good soil and composting and fertilizing. I managed to get the plants to grow (and grow and grow; I hadn’t yet learned how to trim plants back so they don’t get to “Jack and the Beanstalk” proportions), but I wasn’t very successful in getting many actual crops to develop. Every day when I went out to the balcony with my watering can I was confronted with plants that were tall and leafy and green without any tomatoes or peppers or other vegetables on them, and I suppose that image made its way into the story. At that time, I was also getting a lot of rejections for my stories with notes from editors on the rejections saying things like “too quiet” or “too restrained,” so I decided that I wanted something “loud” to happen in this piece. I’d been writing a lot of stories with characters who were passive—they would notice and observe, but they wouldn’t do much—and I think those little notes were a reminder that readers are interested in characters who act and don’t only observe. So I had the image of the garden that didn’t produce crops and then the goal of writing a “not quiet” scene, so then I ended up with the idea of Darlene smashing the plants. And then I had to figure out why she’d do such a thing, especially after her brother and son had spent so much time on the garden. As for symbols, I don’t worry too much about symbols and symbolism as I’m writing. I’m more concerned with character and plot, and I think symbols emerge later. When I’m writing fiction, I never, ever start with a message that I want to convey; if I have that urge, I’ll write an essay instead of a story.

From the Garden

VH:  In the last paragraph of your story, the narrator notes that “All of us here are trying to coax something out of this place, and who knows what will come of our efforts.” This resonates on a much higher level than just the garden she is trying to grow. Do you think that we all, like the narrator, are stuck and limited to coaxing something from the different places in our lives? Can we do more than this, or are we just watering and waiting and hoping that something good will grow out of what we do?

Those are some good questions, and I don’t know that I can answer them for everyone. I think that most people have likely been in situations where they’re stuck in some way and hope sustains them. As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t really know what I was doing with my garden, so I started researching and talking to people about gardening, and that’s when I learned about the rocky ground in the area. (I had no clue about the rocky ground since my gardening endeavors were limited to my balcony.) So I had that idea of this difficult, rocky land, and in this final draft, I was able to use the idea of a struggle against the rocky ground in the last scene. I do have to say that earlier drafts of the story—including the version that I initially submitted—didn’t contain those ending lines. I was contacted by Silk Road’s Editor in Chief, Kathlene Postma, and urged to work on the ending. I’m really grateful that she gave me the opportunity to rewrite the end of the story because I hadn’t quite figured out what I wanted to say at the end until I was asked to revise it. I ended up putting the last few pages through several more rounds of revision before I got to this ending. Earlier drafts didn’t have Darlene’s new garden, and I think her attempt at gardening allowed me to really play with the setting and have the idea come through that she’s trying to coax something out of this place that seems inhospitable. In earlier drafts, she was just listening to the beeping of the scale and the beeping of the trucks down the street, and I think the old ending felt a little hopeless. But in this version, she’s given something to do in caring for her new garden, which moves her from passivity to activity. My hope is that Darlene’s final actions give the ending a more positive feel.

Karin Lin-Greenberg’s recent publications appear in or are forthcoming from The Antioch Review, Epoch, Inkwell, and Many Mountains Moving. She teaches creative writing at The College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio.

Publication in Silk Road’s summer print issue
and featured on our website.

Length: 1200 words or less.

No submission fee.

All pieces considered for publication.

Please submit through out online submission manager.
http://silkroad.pacificu.edu/Submit.html

Put “FLASH FICTION CONTEST” for your submission name.

No more than two entries per writer. Thanks!

DEADLINE: MAY 6th, 2011

Judged by SILK ROAD REVIEW editors.

Charles Finn

By Valerie Horres

For the next few weeks this blog will feature interviews with several of the writers who have pieces published in Vol 6.1 of Silk Road. The first such author is Charles Finn, whose nonfiction story “A Secret Hideout of Leaves and Mud” can be found on page 114 of Vol. 6.1, as well as viewed through this link: http://silkroad.pacificu.edu/ASecretHideoutbyCharlesFinn.pdf.

Finn’s vivid descriptions of a child traipsing through nature were what initially drew me to this story. The evocative language reminded me how as a little girl my own backyard was a place of magic, how the discovery of a small pebble or a daffodil budding earlier than the rest of the flowers could fill me with a magnitude of delight, the purity of which I have not felt in many years. Like many of the other pieces in this issue of Silk Road, “A Secret Hideout of Leaves and Mud” holds a nostalgic tone, one full of longing for the sensation of wonder that only children seem to possess. This story speaks to the fear of growing up and leaving something behind in childhood which can never be found again.

The Interview

VH: What inspired you to write this story? For instance, was there any particular event that provoked you to write it, something that made you think back to this location and the sustenance it provided for you?

CF: I can almost always remember the exact moment that leads to a piece of writing. What I was reading or thinking about that spurred me to put down the first few words of an essay or poem. ‘A Secret Hideout’ is unique in that this isn’t the case. I remember the circumstances, but not the actual trigger that prompted my memory of the hideout I write about. It is also unique (for me) in that it grew out of a writing class. As a rule I don’t put much faith in such things – workshops, writing groups, even MFA programs – but in the summer of 2009 my good friend Dr. Neil Browne at OSU-Cascades in Bend, Oregon was teaching a two-week class on the personal essay and invited me to sit-in. I balked at first, seeing my aversion and skepticism, but I also knew deadlines could be helpful, and at the very least it seemed a good way to get another essay out.

On the first day of class we were asked to imagine a place, any place. Earlier we had been discussing Faulkner’s invented Yoknapatawpha County and perhaps for this reason my thoughts went back to my childhood home of Waterbury, Vermont. As I sifted through my memories, my attention became centered on the dead end street where I grew up. As images tumbled past I hurried to write them down until I was led to the very end of the street and the “hideout” that resided there; a place I hadn’t thought about in years.

VH: Did you have to imagine most of the details for this story, or were there vivid memories you could draw on from your childhood?

CF: I had no specific memories of times spent at the hideout. What I had were vague impressions, the feel of being there, and maybe this is why the essay has such an elegiac tone to it — I had to create language around sensations instead of events. Granted, I could recall the damp soil, rotting leaves and the shifting patterns of shade, things like that, but what my friend and I actually did was difficult to bring back. I know we “hung out” in the best and truest sense of the word, and that we conducted ourselves in classic little boy fashion: burning ants with magnifying glasses, whittling sticks, talking about everything and nothing. But all this was background for what? I kept asking myself.

VH: Do you think we lose something in the process of growing up that we can never get back?

CF: I think as we grow older and burden ourselves with responsibilities (real and imagined) we yearn for simpler more carefree times, times when our days were open-ended and less structured, when they unfolded of their own accord. I also think as we grow older we often lose touch with Nature, literally as well as figuratively. As I began to write I saw these ideas converge, and I realized that’s what the hideout represented for me; a carefree time when I was in direct contact with the natural world. As the essay began to take shape I also remembered being that little boy and how the first hints of self awareness began to surface, and what felt like a knowledge of a reality beyond the perceived. There was an epigraph to the essay (I don’t know where it went) “… for childhood is certainly greater than reality,” from the Poetics of Space, a fantastic little book of philosophy and the nature of houses by Gaston Bachelard. When I struck upon this, I knew I had all the elements I needed for the essay.

VH: Do you think that having this hideout, a place to imagine and create as a child, influenced the person you became as an adult? Did it have anything to do with you becoming a writer?

CF: The honest answer is no. My whole childhood, which was half feral, informed me more than anything else. I grew up in a different time. When being outside all day on my own or with friends – away from adults – was the norm. That’s what was important. Unstructured time, down time, time to be bored, to be curious, to poke around streams and fields shaped who I became. Richard Louv has written an important book on the matter, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder. I grew up as (possibly) the last generation where we did or do not suffer from this. As to becoming a writer, that would have happened no matter where or how I grew up. It is the nature of my childhood, the opportunities it provide (such as the hideout) that influenced the type of writer I would become.

VH: Did you make any significant changes to your story as you were drafting it?

CF: Originally the essay had a different ending, an epilogue of sorts that was a specific memory, a ritual my best friend and I performed to become “blood brothers.” I remembered this scene only belatedly, and was surprised it hadn’t come to me right away. For space reasons it couldn’t be used and so for Silk Road I looped the essay back to the epigraph by Bachelard as well as the quote by Thoreau. I’ve always thought of memory as a kind of time travel. It is Thoreau’s stream he goes fishing in. Firmly ensconced in middle age, I now wonder how I got here. I wonder if I really was that little boy. It seems like another life and lifetime ago. Childhood, with its inherent and incumbent innocence is a holy land. One of the tragedies of life is how quickly we grow and have it taught out of us.

Charles Finn is the editor of High Desert Journal, a literary and fine arts journal out of Bend, Oregon, dedicated to further understanding the people, places and issues of the interior West. His writings have appeared in over 50 journals, anthologies, newspapers, and consumer magazines. He lives in Bend, Oregon, with his wife, Joyce Mphande, and their two cats, Pushkin and Lutsa.