Content Tagged ‘Douglas Watson’

Halloween is just days away. Maybe you’ve been planning a costume for months, maybe you’re putting on the finishing touches, but if you’re a costume procrastinator (ahem, like me), I bet that right about now you’re scrambling to pull something together. And if you’re a literature lover, then a book-themed, favorite-character-driven guise is probably your go-to.

But let’s be real—you want something other than your typical literary costume: Alice and the Mad Hatter, Dorothy and the Scarecrow (or the Lion, Tin Man, or Toto), Harry Potter, Red Riding Hood, Frankenstein. So over the past couple of days, I’ve browsed my Ecotone collection, and here are the results—five costume ideas that jumped out at me from the pages of my favorite issues. I hope to see some of these on Halloween—and if we’ve caught you a little too frighteningly close for this year’s All Hallows’ Eve, then go ahead and bookmark one for next year!

1. Why not go as Granna, from Clare Beams’s story in issue 17? Sure, her knuckles are swollen and pearly as knobs, but all you really need in order to pull of this illusion is a nightgown—one that reflects a certain kind of ageless glimmer, like a moth’s wings.

2. If you’re in need of a little comedy on the spookiest night of the year, then perhaps a good choice would be Amy Leach’s Modern Moose. Dress in rich shades of brown and decorate your antlers with one of the following: a pill-box hat or trinket horns, party horns, flirty horns. Or go all out and dress in sleek Armani horns.

3. Maybe you like something a little more on-the-nose. If that’s the case, then do some quick research on Egyptian mummification. Dress as Lee Upton’s “participatory mummy” and let someone unravel you. Don’t worry—if they look confused, just surprise them by saying “Hello! I am saying hello! Because that is what I do when I say hello!”

4. With the primaries just around the corner, and no opportunity for an Andrew Tonkovich–inspired Reelection Day, get a group of fellow citizens together and go as ghostly voters. Any combination will do—a female soldier, four bikers, a lost father and his children, a band of cyclists. Just be ready to show proof of residency, or some other evidence of eligibility, as you and your crew hit the town.

5. Perhaps you’re taking your pet to the local pet costume parade, and you’re feeling a little guilty about stuffing poor Fido in that polyester hot dog for the fourth year in a row. Why not make it feel like a brand New Animal, courtesy of Douglas Watson? With just a few tweaks, your pet could be looking like a winner as a miniature racehorse with a jet-black coat and a docile nature—an idea you can feel good betting on.

Have another freakishly delightful costume idea from the Ecotone archives? Send it our way!

–Ryan Kaune, Ecotone Fiction Editor

In House Guest, we invite Ecotone and Lookout authors, cover artists, and editors from peer presses and magazines to tell us what they’re working on, to discuss themes in their writing or unique publishing challenges, to answer the burning questions they always hoped a reader would ask.

Douglas Watson’s story “New Animal” is reprinted in Astoria to Zion: Twenty-Six Stories of Risk and Abandon from Ecotone’s First Decade.

I don’t know that much about philosophy, but that doesn’t stop me from poking fun at philosophers in my fiction. Really, though, it’s my younger self I’m making fun of. In 1990 I went off to college figuring I would major in philosophy. What could be better than staying up half the night thinking in a rigorous way about the most important questions? Wasn’t time spent doing anything else—like getting a haircut—ultimately just wasted time? In high school I’d been taken with Plato and the kind of existentialism found in Herman Hesse novels. Throw in a bit of Thoreau and maybe spin “All You Need Is Love” on the turntable and you’ve got the picture.

But a funny thing happened in Philosophy 101, a thing that probably happens to a lot of freshmen who think they’re going to be philosophy majors: I fell out of love with philosophy. Philosophy, it turned out, was difficult and rather dry and quite possibly beside the point. Sure, my new college friends and I stayed up all night talking about the meaning of life, but we weren’t talking about Aristotle. Life, we decided, took place in the world, not just inside our skulls, and the world needed our help right now! The Gulf War was brewing, global warming was happening, and whole societal systems needed to be restructured ASAP if there was to be any chance of something-or-other. Trading the romantic image of myself in a scholar’s study for the romantic image of myself on a barricade, I began skipping classes and protesting the war and listening to the Doors. What I wanted was peace, and when I wanted it was right then.

First we want to send a huge Thank You to everyone who made the Astoria to Zion launch parties possible. The Center for Fiction and Doyle’s Cafe were gracious hosts, our readers were entertaining and enthralling, and we couldn’t have asked for better attendees.

image via LilyandVal

While we were busy in Boston and New York, Astoria to Zion authors and Ecotone contributors were also busy. And we’ve got some interesting lit news lined up for you so keep reading!

Rebecca Makkai had us rolling with her Ploughshares piece “Writers You Want to Punch in the Face(book).” I think we all know someone like Todd Manley-Krauss.

Fair warning: shameless self-promotion ahead for our two Astoria to Zion launch events in NYC and Boston next week. You won’t want to miss these!

We’ll be at the Center for Fiction in New York on April 7 at 7 p.m., with contributors David Means, Maggie Shipstead, and Douglas Watson, who will read from their terrific stories in the anthology.

The post-reading Q&A will focus on how technology affects writing and literature—and the short story in particular. How important is the concept of place in an age when our physical location is largely irrelevant as long as we’re within cord’s length of a power source and range of Wi-Fi? Are digital resources essential to conduct and organize research? How do Twitter and Facebook influence our thinking and writing processes?

This week we’ve got a bevy of interesting articles. Let’s start with two things we love from our Pinterest account: pooches and print. What font is your dog?

Lorem Ipsum is typically used as placeholder text, but this article presents an interesting translation, and suggests several other placeholder options with a sense of humor.

design by Lookout intern Katie Prince

A few rare snow days in Wilmington allowed us to catch up on reading this week. We’re back at it today, though, and it’s time to follow that author.

• Aspen Times Weekly reviewed Brad Watson’s story collection Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives. “As all great writing should do, this series evokes a certain empathy for each of his characters and reminds us all that there is much more occurring underneath the surface with any one person than might be evident.”