“Spinning Away from the Center”: Stories from the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction

By C.M. Mayo www.cmmayo.com

Just out from the University of Georgia Press, Spinning Away from the Center, edited by Ethan Laughman, includes the title short story from my collection, Sky Over El Nido.

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Book Trailer for Sky Over El Nido

I am endlessly astonished by the changes in the book business. As a writer, it feels like riding the Matterhorn: I'm never sure what's around the next bend (a dip or the Yeti?). Back in 1995, when the University of Georgia Press published Sky Over El Nido, my first collection of stories, a book typically came out in hardcover, received a passle of reviews from magazines and newspapers, and then (if luck had it) there would be paperback edition. Maybe movie options. Maybe foreign rights. Maybe (very rarely) audio. But that was pretty much the whole show. And in less than a slew of weeks, the book would be gone from the bookstore shelves-- adios! Out of sight, out of mind, out of print. (And whoever bothered to read back issues of newspapers for old reviews?) Now, of course, we have websites (mine, www.cmmayo.com, went live in 1999). We have e-books outselling print books, and who knows, maybe "vooks" (video books) will soon take off. Newspaper and magazine reviews are ever scarcer, while blogs, legions of them, have filled in the vaccuum. And because of on-line booksellers such as amazon.com, buyers can find a universe of books, from ye olde best-sellers to the most obscurely self-published, from 1895 or 2005, 2010 or 1973--- and at 4 am, should they happen to be surfing at such an hour.

So: herewith, some 15 years after the book's original publication, is the trailer, a 2 minute video, for Sky Over El Nido. Yes, Sky Over El Nido is still in print in a paperback edition. E-book coming soon.

Michael Talbot's The Holographic Universe

One of the books that has most influenced my writing, and in particular, my ideas about narrative structure, is Michael Talbot's The Holographic Universe. When I came upon it a few years ago, I was already a fan of Canadian novelist Douglas Glover and his notion of the story as net. In other words, even without the scaffolding of a formal plot (ye olde Fichtean curve), a net of images can cohere and indeed so powerfully resonate in the reader's mind that the net is the story. A satisfying story. It was directly--- literally, less than an hour--- after reading Glover's essays on the story as net and the novel as poem (now collected in Notes Home from a Prodigal Son) that I sat down wrote the one that became the title story for my first collection, Sky Over El Nido. In this story the images, woven throughout, have to do with flight: birds, nests, eggs, airplanes. What's the "plot"? A fistful of air.

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Later, before beginning to write my novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, I happened upon Talbot's The Holographic Universe, an elegantly lucid and very accessible overview of some of the (then) most cutting-edge theories in quantum physics and in particular, those of David Bohm. If the universe itself is a hologram, or has holographic characteristics, then this could explain why nets of images--- the suggestion of the whole in each of its parts--- can resonate with such strange power in a reader's mind.

Does my novel have that power? You decide. But one of the several paradigms I worked with while writing it was, again, the story as a net and, to borrow the title of one of Douglas Glover's essays, "The Novel As Poem." Yes, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire is a poem. And the main character is not a person but an idea--- the prince as living symbol of the future of the empire. Where does such an idea live? In many minds--- ergo, the novel has a crowd of characters, indeed, a net of characters, woven in among each other's minds and actions.

Just of few of the fleeting and repeating images: the Totonac bowl, Egypt, birds, sweets, twilights, composers, asparagus.

(Though indeed it does have a plot, and I worked with various paradigms--- Fichtean curve, Syd Field's three acts, and others--- while constructing it.)

Last night, I happened upon this video of pychologist Jeffrey Mishlove's interview with Talbot. It's well worth watching in its entirety. Sad to say, Talbot died of leukemia in 1992.

More anon.

San Miguel Authors Sala This Saturday

I'll be at the San Miguel del Allende Authors Sala Bookfair this Saturday with Miraculous Air, The Visitors, Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion, Sky Over El Nido, Tameme, and my audio CD, "The Essential Francisco Sosa or, Picadou's Mexico City." Other authors include Janice Eidus and Susan Page. More anon.

PEN Writers in the Schools

This morning I was a "PEN writer in the schools"--- visiting Mr Igoudjil's highschool humanities class at Washington DC's School Without Walls for a discussion of my collection of Mexican fiction and literary prose, Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion. In recent years, I've done several of these school visits, both for this anthology and my book of stories, Sky Over El Nido. It's a terrific program and the kids are always--- and especially this morning--- so bright and interested. This time however, there was something entirely new. Before my visit, Mr Igoudjil's class posted their comments about Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion on his blog--- to date, 53 comments, on everything from Monica Lavin's "Day and Night" to Juan Villoro's "One-Way Street" to Daniel Reveles's "Big Caca's Revenge." To read the comments, click here. The last PEN witer to visit Mr Igoudjil's class was Tim Wendel, and the next up is Marie Arana. More anon.