Meeting Sherman Alexie and Sandra Cisneros

So this year I got to meet both Sherman Alexie and Sandra Cisneros, two of my favorite authors, and I can say that I was not the least bit disappointed with either of my heroes. I was introduced to Cisneros as a kid and I was introduced to Alexie as a teenager and I remember having an immediate reaction to both authors. Because of my heritage, I felt an immediate reaction to her stories and the language she used; I could see shadows and reflections of my own Mexican family within her stories and even though I am a guy, I had the same kind of visceral memories of toys and going to thrift stores and owning second hand things. I was a wealthy kid though, because I only remember going to those places with my grandfather who was a bit eccentric. Alexie's stories though, resonate with me because of the strained relationship I have with my own father. My father was a drunk, and though my parents are still married after all this time, there were really bad times. The times right after my older brother died after driving drunk was really hard and stressful for our family, as it sent my father on a self hating path for showing my brother the drink, and he blamed himself for a long time afterwords. Because of Alexie's and Cisneros' influence on me inspired me to write, meeting them was a dream come true. I am not sure I agree with Alexie's pessimistic view that our generation of writers are "fuc**d" but I appreciate that pessimistic attitude. I hope they continue writing stories for a while to come. 

Lovecraftian

The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind.

-H.P. Lovecraft

As a writer, I find myself drawn to things that are highly supernatural. For instance I am currently working on a piece about a death entity, trying to flip the concept on it's proverbial head, and my plan for a novel involves unicorns and such things. I have always been drawn to these aspects in literature, and I am not all together certain why. There are two stories by Lovecraft that I have read and I love; The Dunwich Horror and The Re-Animator has certain aesthetic merit and great ideas. While I am not particularly found of the Lovecraft's ideas on sex, race; a certain part of me likes inherited guilt and fell that Lovecraft is somewhat vilified in that sentiment, and another part of me is really disgusted at that sentiment and my own understanding of it, what really captures my imagination and admiration is the idea of humanity responsible for its own downfall and our inability to change it. This misanthropic take on humanity is what drives me to read Lovecraft. Humanity depicted as unable to defend ourselves from circumstances far from our control is astounding, so much so, that I am contemplating taking a whirl writing a story adopting elements of Lovecraft. The great cosmic threats like black holes, solar flares, gigantic meteors, because of our understanding of how they work, but our inability to technologically protect ourselves from such large scale threats, are echoed through Lovecraft's Great Old Ones, even if they are "gods."
The Lovecraft quote I chose for this post, sums up nicely his idea. We are so consumed by our own menial lives, we never take time to notice things. It is so nicely pessimistic and simplistic that I cannot help feeling in awe of it's dead author. The true genius of Lovecraft was his ability to write about humanities inadequacies.