Category Archives: Dogfight

by Dogpatch Writers Collective | June 7, 2015 · 11:51 am

We Should Do Something

Hello from the Dogpatch. In December 2006, Dogpatcher Laurel Leigh’s 21-year-old nephew was arrested and charged with the murder of his girlfriend’s two-year-old son. Below is an excerpt from the book-length memoir Laurel is writing about the events, along with our comments on the manuscript. As always, your comments are appreciated.

anthony inmate pic

He never gets angry at me for saying I’ll do things that I don’t do, or for not writing very often anymore, or forgetting to send a book he asked for. I’m one of the few people on the outs as he calls it who bother with him at all, so he can’t afford to get angry with me for fear of pissing me off. How hard must that be, to ask and ask and then have to be content with the fourth or fifth that comes back, late and offhandedly?

“I love you, Aunt Laura,” Anthony says, after the next time Helga breaks in to say that we have one minute of talk time left.

Does he? I wonder. Can he? Can I? It’s harder and harder to sustain a relationship in this void, where he is frozen in time and place, his days composed of interminable sameness . . .

Jilanne: The Writer’s Shadow

Laurel, Laurel, Laurel,

I’ve known you forever, and I saw the first pages of this years ago when the story was raw and shattering. It hasn’t lost its power over the course of time. In fact, the story has deepened to the point of ache, a heartache so profound that I’m not quite sure where the pain is coming from because it seems to be everywhere.

I do hope you find a place for your memoir, because it needs to be out there for the world to see. And perhaps raise questions that will end with some positive result. I can only hope. And that leads me to the biggest point I’d like to make about your opening. Continue reading →

Horse Sense

Scarily, sometimes there is no way out, an example of which is delivered in this raw encounter with the grim facts of life in “Horse Sense,” by our very own Jilanne Hoffmann. We hope this story soon finds a home, because it packs a wallop you won’t want to miss, dealing with the cruelty of making choices where the only good choices are bad ones. Meanwhile, here’s a teaser and our thoughts on the story. Yes, it’s dogfight time, and as always, your comments are appreciated!

Florence Owens Thompson seen in the photo Destitute Pea Pickers in California. Mother of Seven Children. by Dorothea Lange (source: Wikipedia)

“Got another for you,” he said. “What happens when your Grandmother leaves alphabet soup on the stove too long?”

“What?” I asked and grinned with anticipation.

“It spells disaster,” said Gramp, his poker face completely blank.

I rolled my eyes again.

“One more,” he said. “How can marriage be both a word and a sentence?”

“Don’t feed that child beer!” Gram yelled again.

In the years since my parents died, Gram had ruled my days until canning season started. Then Gramp took over, though his form of supervision was usually not up to her standards.

“She’s almost thirteen, not two,” Gramp muttered and swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. Then he yelled, “How’re those pies of yours a coming, Nettie?”

Gram tossed an exasperated shake of her apron out the door and returned to her baking.

“Always got to keep the cat distracted,” said Gramp, “if you’re ever to be successful in this life.”

“What’s the answer?” I asked.

“The answer to what?”

“To the question,” I said. “You know, about marriage.”

“Annie, some answers you just have to wait and experience for yourself.” Continue reading →

8 Comments

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Tagged as Coming of Age, Horse Sense, short stories

by Dogpatch Writers Collective | November 14, 2014 · 12:59 pm

Dogfight: No More Mrs. Nice Guy

When one of our own comes up with a story that involves six adults dressed like superheros wandering through San Francisco’s Tenderloin district (after they’ve lined up babysitters, that is), a ’70s blaxploitation film, adult adoption, and Venus Palermo (this is only chapter one, people!), there’s only two things to do: read the riotous piece and then fight about it, because that’s what we do. Welcome to the dogfight.

Art by Reid Forster a.k.a. clubraf

Here’s an excerpt of this whale of a tale by DWC co-founder Wes Pierce:

He had seen this movie too many times to count. Yet no matter how many times he watched it, the movie still always seemed to bring him the same warm, comfortable feeling. When he first popped the VHS tape into the machine, it made a funny grinding noise, perhaps because the tape was so heavily used; but soon the familiar sound of an ascending three-toned scale — accompanied by the logo of the production company behind the release of the film, a cartoon image of a white bird in flight over a dark mountain range — signaled the start of Black Mamba, starring one of the queens of 1970’s blaxploitation films, Venus Palermo, and almost instantly he could feel his breathing come easier and his heart-rate drop.

And here’s another excerpt, because we couldn’t pick which one we liked the best (read: which one would be the most fun to fight about):

‘Oh, well…such a lovely girl. She’s been back in town recently, you see, pregnant, and she needed our help. Her mother, poor thing, has been dead these many years. She was just a girl when it happened. Becka, I mean. And she’s been estranged from her father…oh, for ages. She had no one she could turn to. You should have seen her, poor thing…’

Gerda said, ‘Is this leading somewhere, Momma?’

‘Leading somewhere?’

‘Yes. Like, what you and Dad mean by sending me a birth announcement? Or, like, who this Rebecca person is…?’

‘Dear, I’m talking about Rebecca. Becka is Rebecca, dear. We’ve adopted Becka! You have a sister now, dear, just like you’ve said you’ve always wanted.’

‘You what? You adopted Rebecca…?’

‘You’re shouting, dear,’ her mother said. ‘There’s no need to shout.’

Are you a little confused about what these characters might do? So are we. That’s why we love wicked Wes’s story so much! Here’s what we thought, and feel free to join the fracas: Continue reading →

4 Comments

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Tagged as Adoption, Blaxploitation, Chaos Theory, The Tenderloin District, Venus Palermo, VHS

by Dogpatch Writers Collective | June 12, 2014 · 5:00 pm

“Charity’s Discovery” – a Biscuit story by David Marx

Hello from the Dogpatch. In the style of Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio, comes Biscuit, a collection in process by Dogpatch Founder David Marx. For this “dogfight” round, we read and commented on “Charity’s Discovery,” a story from the collection in which the lead character crosses from girlhood to womanhood and hopefulness to bitterness. Below is a bit of the story along with our remarks to David. Feel free to chime in!

~~~

We’re also very pleased to announce that another of David’s Biscuit stories, “Merle, Molly and the Cast-Iron Frying Pan” is forthcoming in The Saint Ann’s Review.

~~~

—From “Charity’s Discovery”:

She had gone to the restroom and while she was away, Ed Billick put a tack on her chair. When Charity sat on the tack, she let out a little scream. Ed’s desk was next to Charity’s making his guilt obvious. Now the teacher, Gladys Horton, was preparing to punish him. Miss Horton walked slowly to Ed’s desk and as she did, Charity saw the look on her face; it belonged on the face of an executioner about to administer justice and eager to do the task.

“Honestly, it didn’t hurt at all,” Charity said, hoping to prevent Miss Horton from taking drastic action.

The teacher stared back at Charity and said, “If we don’t punish them when they’re young, they will surely grow up to be criminals.”

Jilanne: The Writer’s Shadow

Jilanne’s comments:

It’s been awhile since I’ve had the pleasure of reading one of David’s stories in this collection.

Here we are in a small town called Biscuit where Charity, a young woman virtually chained to her mother (Faith), ends up a thwarted spinster. In this story, David is doing something immensely difficult, distilling 40+ years of this woman’s life into a single chapter. And for the most part, David’s effort is successful. His black humor marks every page even while we’re watching the train wreck that is this woman’s life. But as with all good stories, Charity is just as much a victim of her own reluctance to fight her mother and change the status quo as she is a victim of her mother’s cruelty. Bravo!

Here’s what I think needs work: Right now, there are a few places where I think the telling vs. showing are flipped. A couple of key scenes need to be fleshed out instead of racing by with exposition. And similarly, when you’ve got a great scene, don’t prep us with how this is going to change her life, include the scene that changed her life, and then tell us that it did indeed change her life. It’s a great scene. Trust us to get it.

I want to see the conflict build between Charity and her mother so that when we get to the end, it’s earned. Right now, we don’t get to see how Faith squelches every romantic interest Charity has ever had until after the “big one.” I need to see these thwarted attempts beforehand and watch Charity turn into a pressure cooker. Continue reading →

2 Comments

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Tagged as dogfight, Ohio, Story Critique, Winesburg

by Dogpatch Writers Collective | January 2, 2014 · 5:00 pm

Dogfight: “Dearest” by Laurel Leigh

Hello from the Dogpatch, and welcome to the dogfight! Based on a childhood experience, Laurel Leigh wrote an early version of this story as a pre-MFA student taking creative writing classes at U.C. Berkeley Extension in 1999. That first version was one of few student stories selected for an SF Bay Area reading night. Being the type of writer who can let stories sit for a very long while, it’s been through numerous revisions over the years and the plot now continues where the actual events ended. A previous version titled “The Raffle” was selected for both the Squaw Valley Writers Workshop and Tin House Writers Workshops. Laurel plans to include this story in her collection in process, Gracie and Them, and meanwhile may submit it separately.

The photo above is of the rumbling north-flowing Red River, seen where it divides Moorhead MN and Fargo ND, a key location in the story now called “Dearest.” This newest title was suggested by Wes during our meeting, and we think it will remain the title. Dogpatch Writers Collective occasionally posts these excerpts of our group critiques of work in progress, and we’d love to know what you think about the excerpt or what we had to say about it. (photo credit: The Red River: Fargo-Moorhead Convention and Visitors Bureau)

Excerpt from “Dearest” (formerly “The Raffle”)

When I’m even with Snee’s front door he walks out of it. I stare at him and forget to pedal. Maybe it’s a rock or that old pothole again, but something bounces into my worn-out chain and it snaps. I go over the handlebars in a kind of somersault, shut my eyes, bounce into the street. When I look again, Snee is staring down at me.

He’s the blondest man I’ve ever seen. When he reaches toward me his thin wrist sticks out from his striped shirt. I’ve only seen cufflinks in the Sears-Roebuck catalog, never anyone wearing them. The ones on Snee’s shirt look like clock faces. I’m wishing so hard I’d talked my daddy into letting me keep a dog and that dog was biting Snee on the leg. Then he’s so close, his hand on my shoulder, and I know he’s going to kill me and I should pray. The only prayer I can think of isn’t a prayer. It’s the recipe for butternut pie.

From Jilanne:
Well Laurel, You’ve got yourself quite a lovely, devastating story here! It has evolved so much since the group first read it. I love how you’ve eliminated an unnecessary character and dialogue, both distractions from the critical components of the story. The result is a much more concentrated or condensed, however you want to view it, version, one that’s driven by voice and tension. The voice of the little girl reminds me of the young female narrator in Ellen Foster, a slim novel written by Kaye Gibbons, a southern writer. She’s both funny and heartbreaking.

I have three suggestions for WWMIBFM (what would make it better for me).

1) I need just one more brush stroke to anchor me in time. I want to know how much time is passing between the loss of the money and the festival, and the confrontation with Snee and his being “dealt with” by the town. Otherwise, I find myself distracted from the story by having to guess. Continue reading →

5 Comments

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Tagged as Fargo, Minnesota, short stories, The Red River, wind, writing critique

by Dogpatch Writers Collective | July 2, 2013 · 9:07 pm

Dogfight: “The Hippocratic Oath” by Jilanne Hoffmann

Hello from the Dogpatch, and welcome to the dogfight! Here’s a selection from a short story by our own Jilanne Hoffmann, followed by critical yips and yaps. Dogpatch Writers Collective occasionally posts these excerpts of our group critiques of work in progress, and we’d love to know what you think about the excerpt or what we had to say about it.

And, woofs to Jill, who is soon headed to show this story at the prestigious Community of Writers at Squaw Valley!

By the age of eight, I’d seen my share of farm animals give birth and die: chickens, cows, sheep and even a horse. In one memorable birth, Dad had reached in to a cow and tied a rope around the leg of her stuck calf. Then he heaved mightily, pulling the entire heifer out. She and the mother both survived. But when it doesn’t work out and they die, they go silent and still, as if the air in their lungs were the only thing that distinguishes them from stuffed animals with glass eyes.

I knew that this ewe could die, and it was OK since she wasn’t one of our pets; she didn’t have a name. I think its one of the many ways children who are raised on livestock farms learn to cope with the death that surrounds them. If each one were a tragedy, a pet dog or cat, we would have been emotionally paralyzed from early on. As it is, this kind of emotional distance is itself a form of paralysis, one that leaves a certain aspect of the soul a little unreachable but safe. A human survival trait that allows us to function in the face of tragedy. And if we aren’t vigilant, it is a trait that also allows us to kill.

—from “The Hippocratic Oath” Continue reading →

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Tagged as animal birthing, caesarean, Hippocratic Oath, Squaw Valley Writers, story workshop

by Dogpatch Writers Collective | April 11, 2013 · 4:06 pm

Dogfight: “A Work in Progress” by Wes Pierce

Hello from the Dogpatch, and welcome to the dogfight! Here’s a selection from a short story by Wes Pierce, followed by critical comments. Dogpatch Writers Collective occasionally posts these excerpts of our group critiques of work in progress, and we’d love to know what you think about the excerpt or what we had to say about it.

This story isn’t titled yet. Wes called it “A Work in Progress.” To give you some context, a feckless ranger is assigned to lead a busload of work-release inmates to build fire breaks during the Great Western Fires:

This was when Shoehorn took over. Never in my life had I seen a man handle an instrument the way Shoehorn did an ax, nor take such joy in physical mastery over an object. He would set his initial cut on a downward slope, one clear ringing thwak! burying the head of the ax right up to the handle. With a booted foot he pushed to dislodge the ax-head from the tree; then another thwak! at an upward angle, lower down from the first and right up to the handle again. Finally a third and a fourth stroke to the topmost angle — then a fifth and sixth, maybe a seventh, to the bottommost — and out plopped a hunk of tree the size and shape of a large slice of watermelon. He would do the same to the other side of the trunk, lower down: seldom more than two or three dozen strokes total and the heart of the tree lay exposed and vulnerable. You almost could have pushed the tree down with a good shove of your boot.

Shoehorn was taking down trees twice as fast as any of the rest of us. He was like a machine. Looking again at those arms of his — it seemed now to me that they ended in massive knuckled appendages, hard and shiny from usage, like hooves — made me think of the hydraulic machinery in those old black-and-white movies based in newspaper offices, with their shots of the giant presses churning out the next day’s breaking news in those swirling montages.

And so while the rest of us dug trenches or paired off and went to work with the whipsaws, Shoehorn struck out on his own, taking down the smaller and medium-sized trees in a more or less straight line several hundred feet ahead of us. Since there wasn’t always enough equipment to go around now, there were times when each of us got to rest; which was fine, I guess. But I didn’t feel much like sitting back and watching, for it always had been my unhappy lot in life to sit by and look on, with envy or disbelief, at those guys who knew how to accomplish things with their hands. On a branch above me a squirrel watched too, a small pine cone paused ruminatively before its mouth, while all around us men busily went about their business. Just about my whole life it seemed I had been unwilling poster child for the inadequacies of a Liberal Arts education. I could only stand aside as other guys fixed their own cars, or impressed the girls in our dorm by rewiring a broken washing machine so those luscious young honeys could wash their delicately-soiled underthings, while I watched my t-shirts and jeans and white cotton briefs roll and tumble impotently in a dryer nearby. Continue reading →

3 Comments

Filed under Craft, Dogfight

Tagged as Firefighting, forest fires, group writing critique, Symbolism

by Dogpatch Writers Collective | February 8, 2013 · 9:44 pm

Group Writing Critique: “Holiday Parade” by Lisa Lynne Lewis

Welcome to the dogfight! Dogpatch Writers Collective occasionally posts excerpts of our group critiques of work in progress, and your comments are welcomed! For this round we requested a story from Southern California–based writer Lisa Lynne Lewis (see her bio below). We very much enjoyed reading “Holiday Parade” and give our thanks to Lisa for being part of this forum. This was a particularly interesting endeavor for us, as we all had a slightly different takeaway from the story, which made for a thoughtful as well as enjoyable discussion. You can find more of Lisa’s work at Literary Mama.

From “Holiday Parade”

Emily held her pink-mittened hands over her ears. “Why do they have to do that? It’s so loud!”

Debra looked at her daughter, hands still over her ears, her light-brown hair spilling over the fake fur hood of her silver parka. She’d seemed pretty unconcerned about the lockdown when Debra had picked her up after school on Monday. “It was gross when they made the boys pee in the trashcan,” she confided in Debra. “Mitchell and Ben really had to go, but the teacher wouldn’t let them out to go to the boy’s bathroom.”

“That is kind of gross,” Debra agreed.

“But it was in the corner and she put the flip chart in front of it so we couldn’t see,” Emily added. “So it was OK.”

Comments from the Dogpatch:

Thanks for the story, Lisa! Here are my thoughts: This piece is about being safe in the world and the folly of thinking we can be “safe” anywhere. This delusion is and should be owned solely by children. Being a parent, I identify with this theme as my son gets older and loses his innocence. And I see this in action when parents move out of the city to the “safe” suburbs or small town rural areas. It’s a timely topic, given the recent massacre on the East Coast. Continue reading →

3 Comments

Filed under Craft, Dogfight

Tagged as group writing critique, Lewis Buzbee, Lisa Lynne Lewis, Literary Mama, lockdown, Modern Love Rejects, Sophie's Choice

by Dogpatch Writers Collective | November 18, 2012 · 9:20 am

Group Writing Critique: BABY KILLER by Laurel Leigh

It’s dogfight time. Laurel Leigh’s BABY KILLER is a memoir about a splintered family grappling with questions about a young man’s guilt or innocence. Getting ready to revise the full manuscript, Laurel has asked us to examine the opening—here’s an excerpt. Dogpatch Writers Collective occasionally posts these excerpts of our group critiques of work in progress, and your comments are welcomed.

From Baby Killer

: Anthony Shaw Arrest Picture

Nursey tells me everything she’s learned: Baby Alex had been beaten before. He visibly showed signs of abuse according to the emergency-room doctors. It’s unclear how Alison was or wasn’t involved in abusing him. On the evening of his death, the baby woke up and threw up and peed on Anthony. Nursey isn’t sure whether the vomit provoked the crucial beating or whether it was an aftermath. Anthony and Alison took the baby to the hospital hours later when they realized something was wrong with him.

“An investigator called me,” Nursey tells me.

“You talked to an investigator?”

“She wanted to know what people, you know in the family, had said about Anthony. I told her, ‘I’ll help you but I don’t know everything.’ So I guess I’m working for the prosecution if anything, nailing the coffin in the head.”

At another time my sister’s off way of describing things would make me smile and want to hug her.

Read a longer excerpt at: http://www.laurelleighwriter.com/publications/baby-killer/

Comments from the Dogpatch: Continue reading →