Nightmare Inducing Fiction

Sorry, there’s nothing creative for you today. I’m working on finishing up the Hellspeare story which has a link (but no page) on my Other Writings section. I hope to get that link up tonight or tomorrow morning, so check back tomorrow to read it.

Two days ago, I mentioned my Beginning Short Story class and how my TA, Ian, made us read some really messed up stories. Some of these stories were so messed up that the majority of the class had nightmares. Here’s my list of these strange pieces of creative short fiction- the end of the scale closest to number one being the strangest/most disturbing of them all for me. If you decide to pursue these stories and read them, have fun and email me your thoughts about them when you’re done.

7. “Initiation” by Viktor Pelevin
6. “Arthur Bond” by William Goyen
5. “House Taken Over” by Julio Cortàzar
4. “Letter to a Young Lady in Paris” by Julio Cortàzar
3. “Blood” by Shelley Jackson
2. “Car Crash While Hitchhiking” by Denis Johnson
1. “A Distant Episode” by Paul Bowles

The best thing of all, is that I accidentally signed up for another class with Ian this fall. I absolutely adored him as an instructor, but I also have this philosophy where I want only one instructor once so I can pick up a variety of ideas about writing. Hopefully, he didn’t tone down his reading selection for this next class- I’m looking forward to reading even stranger works in two months!

P.S. Message Machine is playing a gig near my pad tomorrow. Here’s the details:

Saturday August 23rd 7PM
Earth River Records
4744 University Way, Seattle, WA
FREE, All Ages