This month, I want to preface our online exclusive interview with an anecdote. In my first semester of graduate school, I taught an introductory creative writing class in which I received four—four!—stories that were about a dying or recently deceased grandmother. My first thought: why no dead grandfathers? My second thought: along with stories about car crashes and college keg parties, I must ban stories about dead or dying grandmothers in future classes, and that's just what I … [Read more...] about Online Fiction Interview: C.M. Barnes
C.M. Barnes
In Our Defense
So help us, we spread her remains in a minnow bucket. It shouldn’t have come to that, but there was a law against scattering ashes in the lake, and we had to be clandestine out in the boat, the rope tossed casually over the side, the sooty remainder of her trickling out through the sieve holes. We played her favorite music: Sinatra, Bennett—old-timey, feel-good stuff—and sipped G&Ts as we plowed through the chop. No one said much, although Daughter-in-law Judith read a prayer. To throw off a … [Read more...] about In Our Defense