“Those Who Were There,” performed for Funny Ha-Ha.
“82 Degrees,” performed for 2nd Story, published in Hypertext Magazine.
“The OMG We’ve Got To Write About This Look,” published in The Nervous Breakdown.
“We Are Fine,” published in Ms.Fit.
“Dragons So Huge,” written and performed with Bobby Biedrzycki for 2nd Story.
“nice,” performed for write club Chicago.
“An Essay About Essays,” performed for The Paper Machete, published in Hypertext Magazine.
“A Room of One’s Own in the Middle of Everything,” published in The Rumpus.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My profound gratitude to the team at Curbside Splendor Publishing, who threw their hearts and brains and muscle behind this book: Victor Giron, Jacob Knabb, Naomi Huffman, Ben Tanzer, and my editor, Leonard Vance, who is brilliant and, above all else, patient. Special thanks to Lauryn Allison for bringing me aboard, and to Alban Fischer, who made this thing so goddamn beautiful.
When I was a kid, my dad told me stories and my mom read books to me. They’ve given me many gifts over the years, but I’m most grateful for those stories and books. If I can be half the parent they are, my son is lucky indeed.
Thank you to the staff, storytellers, and audience of 2nd Story, who’ve inspired and challenged me for over a decade, and to the faculty, staff, and students of the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago, where I learned—and continue to learn—the craft of writing and the art of teaching. Many thanks to the Center For Innovation in Teaching Excellence; the Ragdale Foundation; and Derrick Robles and John Latino at the Bongo Room, whose friendship and business supported me while I figured out what the hell I was doing.
All of this, the working and the writing and the running and the living—It takes a village. Lucky for me, I have one. I have the best one. Thank you, all of you, especially Randy Albers, Dia Penning, Bobby Biedrzycki, Amanda Dimond, Lott Hill, and Jeff Oaks. Again and again, you told me I could do it, and again and again, you told me I could do it better.
My whole heart is for Christopher and Caleb Jobson. In those rare moments when it’s still and quiet, I shut my eyes, and think about how lucky I am, and I can’t even breathe.
MEGAN STIELSTRA is the author of Everyone Remain Calm and the Literary Director of the 2nd Story storytelling series. She’s told stories for all sorts of theaters, festivals, and bars including the Goodman, Steppenwolf, and the Museum of Contemporary Art. Her writing has appeared in The Best American Essays, The Rumpus, The Nervous Breakdown, and elsewhere. She teaches creative writing at Columbia College Chicago.
ALSO FROM CURBSIDE SPLENDOR
THE OLD NEIGHBORHOOD A novel by Bill Hillman
“A raucous but soulful account of growing up on the mean streets of Chicago, and the choices kids are forced to make on a daily basis. This cool, incendiary rites of passage novel is the real deal.”
—Irvine Welsh author of Trainspotting
A bright and sensitive teen, Joe Walsh is the youngest in a big, mixed-race Chicago family. After Joe witnesses his heroin-addicted oldest brother commit a brutal gangland murder, his friends and loved ones systematically drag him deeper into a black pit of violence that reaches a bloody impasse when his eldest sister begins dating a rival gang member.
MEATY Essays by Samantha Irby
“Blunt, sharp and occasionally heartbreaking, Samantha Irby’s Meaty marks the arrival of a truly original voice. You don’t need difficult circumstances to become a great writer, but you need a great writer to capture life’s weird turns with such honesty and wit.”
—John August, acclaimed screenwriter and filmmaker
Samantha Irby explodes onto the page in her debut collection of brand-new essays about being a complete dummy trying to laugh her way through her ridiculous life of failed relationships, taco feasts, bouts with Crohn’s Disease, and more, all told with the same scathing wit and poignant candor long-time readers have come to expect from her notoriously hilarious blog, www.bitchesgottaeat.com.
ZERO FADE A novel by Chris L. Terry
“Kevin Phifer, 13, a black seventh-grader in 1990s Richmond, Va., and hero of this sparkling debut, belongs in the front ranks of fiction’s hormone-addled, angst-ridden adolescents, from Holden Caulfield to the teenage Harry Potter.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Thirteen-year-old Kevin Phifer has a lot to worry about. His father figure, Uncle Paul, is coming out as gay; he can’t leave the house without Tyrell throwing a lit Black ‘n’ Mild at him; Demetric at school has the best last-year-fly-gear and the attention of orange-haired Aisha; his mother Sheila and his nerdy best friend David have both found romance; his big sister Laura won’t talk to him now that she’s in high school; and to top it off, he’s grounded.
LOST IN SPACE by Ben Tanzer
“Ben Tanzer explodes the myths of fatherhood and reassembles the pieces into something altogether more precious and fascinating: the truth...This book is both funny and heartbreaking...Tanzer has a rare talent for making the everyday seem luminous.”
—Jillian Lauren, bestselling author of Pretty
Lost in Space is a sometimes funny, sometimes sad, but always lively essay collection about fathers and sons, and their relationship to not only one another, but pop culture, death, and sex—because sex sells, even if you're otherwise focused on parenting and the generation spanning cultural impact of Star Wars.
CURBSIDE SPLENDOR PUBLISHING
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of short passages quoted in reviews.
Published by Curbside Splendor Publishing, Inc., Chicago, Illinois in 2014.
First Edition
Copyright © 2014 by Megan Stielstra
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014935169
ISBN 978-1-9404300-2-7
Edited by Leonard Vance
Cover photo by Christopher Jobson
Designed by Alban Fischer
Manufactured in the United States of America.
www.curbsidesplendor.com
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