If you have never read Rebecca before, start here.
As mentioned on a previous episode of the podcast, when Rebecca walks through Volunteer Park, squirrels scurry up her body and fetch peanuts from her hand.
She has written about everything from monster movies to Moby-Dick to the ghost of Alice B. Toklas, who lived in Seattle before meeting Gertrude Stein.
Her books include the nonfiction meditation on art and the seasons, You Tell the Stories You Need to Believe; a book of linked stories in the form of fables, Not Heaven, Somewhere Else; her novel set during the AIDS crisis, The Gifts of the Body, the latter of which we talk about in some detail.
She is also the author of the essay collections American Romances and The End of Youth; the story collection The Terrible Girls; the novel about being at the bedside of a dying mother, Excerpts from a Family Medical Dictionary; and the macabre novel about depression and anxiety, The Dogs.
Rebecca also co-led the FrizzLit Frankenstein book club last fall.
Her most recent publication is a story she wrote about an encounter with a goose — and then published as a zine in a class at Common Area Maintenance down in Belltown.
We talk about “The Goose” zine on this episode of the FrizzLit podcast.
We also listen to two new pieces of music by Adam Haws, created for the FrizzLit writing group Creative Sparks. Haws and Brown both appeared in the Gertrude Stein Salon variety show at the Sorrento two years ago.
Discussed this episode:
Edgar Allan Poe
Hemingway
Gertrude Stein
Melville
Mountain Mondays
Running into a bear on a hike
The film Rustin
The Gifts of the Body by Rebecca Brown
You Tell the Stories You Need to Believe by Rebecca Brown
The Dogs by Rebecca Brown
Good in Bed by Brian Bouldrey
The composer Adam Haws
The FrizzLit writing group Creative Sparks
Episode 8: Rebecca Brown and the Blueberry Bear