I’m delighted to announce that Other Leevilles, a short piece I wrote has just been published by Paper Tape. (How short? Very short, 466 words, takes about three minutes to read.) I’ve been working on a collection of related stories for years, and this is the third story of that collection to be published. (Wonder and There Is Joy Before the Angels of God are the other two.)
When Kristy Harding at Paper Tape discovered I was making A Life’s Work, she asked if she could conduct an interview with me about it. Naturally I said yes. (And yes, I’ll let you know when that’s published.) In my response to her question “What is its [ALW’s] origin story?” I mentioned the origin of Other Leevilles as an example of how I can usually pinpoint the origins of my stories. Here’s that bit.
For example, I can trace the origin of the story Paper Tape published (thank you), Other Leevilles—I was at an artist residency (thank you, Playa Summer Lake), working on this story collection. One day I was in the common room and started flipping through an atlas of the U.S. Then I started looking through the index and I wondered if there were towns in other states with same name as the town I grew up in. Boom! The story was born.
If you read the other two stories you’ll start to get a sense of what I’m trying to do with the collection — explore grief from multiple perspectives and over time. You might also notice that Wonder and this story take place in the fictional town of Leeville; after reading those stories you might be able to spot its real life counterpart on the map. If we know each other from my high school years you’ll recognize the place immediately.
Thanks to Paper Tape and Kristy Harding for helping me start 2014 off on the good foot.
Related:
Outstanding writer, invaluable reader, and dear dear friend Jessica Roth conducted an interview with me about Wonder, the process of writing, the collection, and the relationship between writing and filmmaking.
More writing here.
Bill H.
Great story. You chose your 466 words well. You know, I was always fascinated by the fact that there was an Englewood in Colorado when I was a kid!
David Licata
Thanks, Bill. I’m glad you liked it.
I spent 0-12 years old in Union City, NJ, and I remember I owned a dictionary that contained cities in the U.S. and their populations. I was fascinated by the fact that there was a Union City, CA. I must have been 8 or so. I think it’s part of that awakening that we are individuals and a piece of a much bigger world than we have up until then imagined.
M.E. Hope
Good stuff, David!
David Licata
Thanks, M.E. Coming from you, that means a lot to me.
Christine
Wow, I loved it, David. I so completely related to Stephen sitting on the floor and looking through an atlas and wondering about other places and what they were like there. Very nostalgic for me. I could almost smell the musty atlas.
Then the last paragraph… I was surprised to find it taking me from happy nostalgia to tears in such a short space.
A very touching piece for me, beautifully-written!
Bill H.
I think it’s kind of like when you found out there was someone else in the world outside of your family who has the same name. I’m sure that happens much earlier now than before.