MY FIRST TIME IN A GROCERY STORE

The Walrus is publishing a story of mine this summer, which was big, unexpected news for me and my cat. They're taking the one (The Eviction Process) that I mentioned in the previous to last entry with the following description:

Gay deadbeats renovating a former hothouse are forced to evict their loser tenants with terrifying results

This means that A) I'll finally be fulfilling my dream of having my work in grocery stores across the country and of course that B) my work will reach a much larger audience than usual. This also means C) that a great many people will be revolted by my revolting story but also maybe that D) People Who I Want To Read My  Work might read my work (ie. book people). It also means that E) I'm getting paid more than I ever have for my work and F) this is a sign that I might be able to one day do this full time. All of this is heartening stuff.

KRIS BERTIN'S FIRING RANGE MAKEOVER

What's unusual about this particular publication is that it was unsolicited, and came as a result of an editor scoping out something I wrote on this very website. This means that G) everything we're told about having a 'Net Presence' is true. However, it also means that having a beautiful, well-designed website with a steady flow of content and a dedicated, engaged author is not. As Good Pal and Author Chris Donahoe noted during our rifle-shooting trip with Naben Ruthnum (click here for photos---the password is 'x'), this place is an ugly disgrace that's long overdue for a makeover. Maybe I'll take this as a sign to do so.

Also, one of my other advertised premises is making it into print with PRISM International. The story is

Google Image Search Result
 for "PRISM MAGAZINE"

closely related to the previous story they published and nominated for the Journey Prize (Is Alive and Can Move), in that it's about the unstable professors who got Buddy the cleaner back on the sauce:

Thrill-seeking literary academics become obsessed with a bizarre and dangerous ritual involving boggle dice, and their suicidal thoughts.

This story will also be out this summer, and in the meantime, I've got work forthcoming with PILOT POCKETBOOK. I'll let all of you know when this happens.

KRIS BERTIN'S FIERCE DEPTH

NEWS ITEM #1: I won the Jack Hodgins' Founders' Award for Fiction a second time for my story Your #1 Killer & Extra Hands, which was published in the Malahat Review. This year the award was chosen by Linda Svendsen (author, teacher and three time O. Henry Award finalist), who had this to say about my story:

NICE LADY SAYS:

'Your #1 Killer & Extra Hands' is a story you read with your heart in your brain, nerves in a knot, gut clenched. Written in first person, present tense, and narrated by a codependent mother unsure of how to deal with her adult son and his mysterious, notorious coping behaviours, the tremendous climactic reversal could shower her with grace or possibly foreshadow inevitable tragedy. In the company of such esteemed Malahat writers as Lisa Moore, Greg Hollingshead, and Bill Gaston, Kris Bertin’s story stands out in voice, characterization, and fierce depth, and richly deserves the Jack Hodgins Founders Award. It is absolutely haunting.” 

(If you haven't read this story, and you'd like to, click here)

NEWS ITEM #1b: The Malahat Review people did what they always do when they give someone a $1000 cheque; they interviewed me. This time, my very good friend Naben Ruthnum was asking the questions, so that's mostly why the interview is longer, meaner, and more upsetting than all the others. For those of you who don't remember, Naben's story Cinema Rex (narrowly) beat my story in the Malahat Review Novella Contest (Summer 179), but somehow this made us friends instead of enemies.

BAR ROOM BUDDIES

Naben (NUH-BEN, not NAY-BEN) Ruthum (RUHTH-NUM not ROOTH-NUM) is exactly the kind of person you'd want to interview you. He's well-read, insightful, and highly versatile in his writing (a man for whom there is no distinction between a short story about lovers smuggling their cuisine to devour in secret during the London Blitz, and a pulp thriller where a former tech CEO is forced by a serial killer to jerk off on a dead body). He's someone who simply loves stories and sees no reason to limit himself or hold back from his audience, someone who can read and be as passionate about a space opera comic book as he is with an Oscar Wilde play. I think this is what makes Naben Ruthnum's work so special, what made him a great interviewer for me personally. So to Naben I say thank you, sir.

Our interview was largely pieced together from hours of sincere conversation (heavily redacted so as to protect our careers) on the internet. So when you read it, you need to imagine ten times the amount of aggression and shit-talk than what's there in order to get the full picture. 

Read it here.

KRIS BERTIN STOP KRIS BERTIN NO KRIS BERTIN START KRIS BERTIN GO

I'm through with apologizing for not updating. Here are some things that happened:

1) The Malahat/Fiddlehead East-West thing I was in got reviewed by The Review Review, who said some nice things about my story YOUR #1 KILLER & EXTRA HANDS:

Kris Bertin’s "Your #1 Killer & Extra Hands" wasn’t just an intriguing title but a fascinating story as Bertin provides just enough information to pull the reader along. For the first few pages, it is known that there is a male and female character but it isn’t until the third page that it becomes apparent that the focal point of the story is a tense relationship between a mother and son. The son makes his money by killing rodents and he proceeds to live with but block his mother. Pushing away every ounce of intimacy becomes the focal point of the story. As the story nears the end, Bertin shows through every detail and description the distance in this relationship. “He’s wearing his heavy work coat over a spring jacket over a hooded sweatshirt, layers and layers separating him from me and everyone else, with just the tiniest bit of skin peeking out.”

 For some reason they didn't mention our good pal Chris Donahoe's story, which must mean they hated it, right? I was actually shocked that he wasn't mentioned, because his story was a real home-run, but maybe they left their copy on the bus and it drove away with the last dozen pages unread, face down on one of those cream-coloured plastic seats. Maybe. Donahoe gave a great interview with Our Pal Will Johnson (WJ) about his story 'Test' here.

As an aside, I have to say that meeting up with fellow writers like Donahoe, Will Johnson, Andrew Hood, Trevor Corkum and Naben Ruthnum has been really rewarding, and I'm glad I've met them. Talking to other young writers can make you a little more normal for trying to pursue this utterly stupid career avenue, and a little less alone. These are very talented, very smart people who really care about their work and the craft. Getting to spend time with them is the closest thing to being part of a real community since I stopped giving blood.

2) I'm in these Youtube videos that Exile asked me to make, way back when I was a Vanderbilt nominee person. Two things are happening in them: a) I'm struggling not to use curse words and b) my face is turning redder every nine seconds because I'm in the sweltering shithole of an apartment I tricked fellow writer WJ into subletting from me. I agree with everything I say, more or less, but I was wildly uncomfortable throughout the whole process. Thanks to good pal Barry Seymour for filming my awful red face. The middle one is a reading of my story 'TOM STONE AND CO.', which is coming out in ELQ soon.

4) When I'm not updating this thing, what do you think I'm doing? That's right, I'm writing. It's that time of year again, and I'm sending out the following short stories:

• Gay deadbeats renovating a former hothouse are forced to evict their loser tenants with terrifying results

Like taxes but worse

• Thrill-seeking literary academics become obsessed with a bizarre and dangerous ritual involving boggle dice, and their suicidal thoughts.

• A masochistic suburban prince grooms a neighbourhood scapegoat to be an agent of vengeance against himself.

• A family reunites amidst afather's sixth divorce and a geological catacylsm

There are also stories that are out there, in the ether, being hoarded by petty gatekeepers with MFAs and stupid ironic eyeglasses. Give us a yes or a no, you fucking losers. Send out your rejection letters BEFORE you get started on your poetry. Out there, you'll find:

• The one about a bunch of white kids who eat poison berries and rebel against all authority 

•  The one about the carpenter who cuts a hole into a neighbour's apartment to spite her husband

And lastly, I'm working on the following short stories:

• A comedian gives his final performance, trapped in his home, bloated and dying

• Dog kennel owner/womanizer/former kidnapping victim tries to find happiness 

• A life-sentence inmate tries to/does start up his own podcast

Of course, I am also working on my stupid book, which I hate today but loved yesterday, and my great big stupid collection of short stories is getting traded from publishing house to publishing house like a half-useful Pokemon card. That is all*.  

THE NEXT BIG THING

There's this blogflu going around called THE NEXT BIG THING QUESTIONNAIRE which I guess is like a chain letter for writers where you have to fill it out and get some other people to do it too. If you don't I guess every time you look in the mirror you'll see an old witch behind you but if you turn around he isn't there*.

I was hexed with this particular curse by Cowardly Amanda Leduc** who dogs me at every turn.

HERE IT GOES:

What is your working title of your book?

Ron's Supper Club is my tentative title, which is probably shitty. It's quite literal and sounds like a weird old cookbook or something. Originally it was called His Name Is Cobweb because that was what I had named the short story which ended up turning into this longer one. I once considered calling it A Man's Ambition because that's what novel titles are supposed to sound like, right?

Where did the idea come from for the book?

The idea of writing about a fucked-up watering hole came from working at a fucked-up watering hole. I work at a well-known downtown bar, which has undergone numerous transformations from the 30s until now, and now houses all manner of ghosts and dyspeptic ghouls. Like I said, it started as a short story, but that did little justice to the great big worlds and stories that get crammed into any establishment that's been standing for any amount of time.

The idea came to me when I started to realize my place in this great big human wheel of staffmembers and regulars, drinkers, gamblers, deadbeats, musicians and untouchables. We're literally an accidental collective, a makeshift family that just keeps going, recreating itself over and over again in all of these different iterations, powered by base human urges of every kind. It's like in The Shining how you end up in that damn picture, except for real. We're a real-life, living breathing shambling psychodrama. I wanted to write about it the moment I realized my own personal story there was a meaningless mouseturd dwarfed by the great big rolling dungball of history.

What genre does your book fall under?

I think it feels a lot like a post-apocalyptic story, even though it's not at all. I'd go ahead and call it Literary Fiction except that there's a ghost in it that's also a UFO. What does that mean?

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

 It'd be like Dr. Strangelove or one of those Eddie Murphy movies where one guy plays all the parts at once.

So, I guess my one answer is Harry Dean Stanton

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

A man accidentally works at a bar for 27 years before he remembers he was supposed to quit, 27 years ago.
 

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I would like that. 

If not I'll self-publish it all over the wall behind my head for the cops to find if you catch my drift.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

About a year, and that's not even an honest answer because First Draft implies something born whole and ready for tinkering. It's more like I reached a point where I had 80% of the material I needed, only it was assembled in the wrong way so I had to start over again. So I smashed it against a wall like the badly-put-together Lego space shuttle it was and went looking for the instructions because I left them somewhere around here I fucking know I did.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I think it's like if The Sportswriter took place in the joint from The Iceman Cometh (I know it's not a book just relax) and everyone was as fucked up as the guys in The World According to Garp. I'm told my novel has something in common with Patrick DeWitt's Ablutions, but I haven't read that and won't until I'm done so that I don't steal his tall-person ideas (he's tall, right? He looks tall. If he's not tall, tell me and I'll retract everything).

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

My main character was always based on my dear friend Dan (who, if you read this blog, you know is dead now---which adds a whole other layer of terror to this already horrific endeavor). Dan was a career server, the kind of hilarious, charismatic genius that everyone loved and took for granted that he'd be around forever. The story emerged from a very real love for this man and all the other "old timers" who keep working at a job that is maybe beneath them in some ways and perfectly suited for them in others.

RON'S SUPPER CLUB OFFICIAL MASCOT

Like I said before, the setting is everything. The real Ron's Supper Club is a place where anything can happen. I've found a women hiding in plain sight and peeing, a man has tried to exchange bone fragments for beer, and I once caught a severely fucked-up guy licking and fingering the fire alarm like it was a disembodied red vagina growing on the wall. I've seen toilet tanks filled with diarrhea and vomit so that when you flush them there's a murky kaleidoscope of brown and red horror. I regularly kick out young men for breaking into the kitchen to try and wolf down loose meat. I regularly (literally) wrestle with schizophrenics and psychopaths having meltdowns. I have to be vigilant for all manner of madness, seen and unseen, expected, unexpected, and as-of-yet unimagined.

 This is my life. I have too much material.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

There's rats. And fights. And people who hide in the bar until its closed so they can steal alcohol and whole turkeys. 

There's a pair of waitresses that will come to your party if you pay them.

It's a book about a place that's actually crazy. A place filled with crazy people doing crazy things, and how, over time, it all just becomes normal to you:

My second shift, I'm told it’s my job to kick out a woman who’s been taking balls from the table and putting them right into her purse, but it’s also my job to get them back from her. Everyone’s laughing. Outside, three doors down from Ron’s Supper Club, I give her five dollars for each ball, to a grand total of $30, and walk back holding them in my apron like apples from a tree. 

A man called Chip slaps me on the back. They go flying and roll across the bar, under tables and feet and to all corners. No one helps me pick them up.

Sometime in year two, that same woman takes those same balls and I do the same exact thing, except this time, in the quick moment where she counts the blue bills in her hand, I grab my the money back from her and run to the bar. I instruct one of the giants to stop her and he does by holding his arm out straight and clotheslining her as she comes in the door. I deliver the balls to the table safely, gently, this time like a mother eagle with a clutch of eggs. Ron claps me on the back and says I’ve earned his respect.

I’m told later that he throws a pitcher of ice-water right into her face when she tries to come back in for a third time. I’m rolling up cutlery into napkins out back and hear everyone cheer.

I think that, like my best stuff, it's funny and sad and a mashed-together third emotion that there's not really any name for. If you don't like funny, then it's weird, and if you don't like that stuff, it's at least sad, or something close to it.

If you don't like that then I don't know what else to tell you. Why are you even here? Go away.

Now go to NABEN RUTHNUM or WILL JOHNSON or CHRIS DONAHOE's blogs to see if they filled out the questionnaire too, or if the chain-letter curse is going to render them bewitched and impotent!

Will Johnson

Will Johnson

Chris Donahoe

KRIS BERTIN SEEKS "CONNECTIONS" WINK WINK WINK*

Here are the things I neglected to put here because I'm shitty at website-ing.

27M seeks woman for NSA 420 friendly WIG PLAY

#1 I was interviewed by Megan Power for the Chronicle Herald. She was a tremendously nice person, but I had the feeling that I was doing the interview wrong. I answered questions early, said way too much, and continually turned it into a conversation instead of an interview. Contrarily, I felt like I had trouble articulating myself--not in terms of my answers, but in terms of informing her who I was and what I believed. Not because I'm uncertain of these things, but because it's tremendously difficult to express yourself and make clear all of your contradictions** and biases and half-beliefs. I don't know. In the end an hour-long conversation becomes a tender bundle of lines with a tenuous relation to one another. I'd like to stress that Megan did a great job, and that any limitations are inherent within the medium itself. Except for maybe the title, which at first glance shares kinship with a great many Craigslist ads.

#2 I was also interviewed by one Will Johnson, my #1 fan and interviewer in the fine old tradition of answering a chewed-up wad of questions in my email. We did it for the Malahat Review and The Fiddlehead Magazine's East Coast/West Coast rivalry issue, which my story "YOUR #1 KILLER AND EXTRA HANDS" is featured. Those guys set up a blog for their ambitious and enormous joint issues, where they're posting interviews, articles, podcasts, decoupage, puzzles, and east-coast west coast party game ideas (I think).  You can read the interview here, which was entitled A lot of us leave but lots of us come back, which is, of course, about being addicted to Craigslist hookups.
 

#3 Kris Bertin is a halifax-based writer of short fiction and longer stuff. Recently, his head was surgically attached to the body of a husky seamen, and his abnormal brain was switched out for a slightly less abnormal one. He lives in a haunted house with his girlfriend, a taxidermied ram's head, and three asshole cats.

Click below the break to read a sample of my story. It's in stores now!

CAN'T STOP ME NOW

A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN*

 The JOURNEY PRIZE ANTHOLOGY is out, so you can go get that now. I'm going to remind everyone that I could win $10,000 as a result of this book, mostly because I only get to say that until tomorrow, when the three finalists are announced. I'm preparing myself mentally and physically** for the blow of failure, and am saying things like 'it's an honour just to be in this book', and 'I don't need that money anyway'. I'm also going to remind you that my story is called IS ALIVE AND CAN MOVE and that it's fun, or at least funny, or at least I think so. The book looks like this, and you should buy it.

 

ALSO, the Malahat Review Issue that has my story about killing bugs and gophers to battle depression is coming out soon, and it looks like this:

 

ALSO: I got a new "office"

Not since I was a teenager writing nauseating love stories for some dumb little girl*** have I had anywhere to work that's all my own. I've exclusively worked in libraries and coffee shops, or else at kitchen tables, but nowhere with a door I can shut to keep people away from me. Though I always have had a desk in my bedroom, my bedrooms have never been exclusively mine, and the one time it was, the only desk I could afford was filled with earwigs. Point is, I've moved into my lady's place and have put my desk and enormous steel box of writing and trinkets into a space of my own, and I am relieved.

I won't actually call my spot a room, because it isn't a room. It is, technically speaking, what you'd call a storm porch, a buffer between the inside and the outside---the kind of place where you put on your shoes and drink an extra beer to keep your buzz going while you wait for a cab. And it works. I love it, I am happy inside, and am getting lots of work done (the old fashioned way, with a pen and paper).

ME IN MY NEW OFFICE

*Am I even allowed to use that phrase? I don't think I am.
**This just means eating more canned fish than normal.
***Boy can I carry a grudge.