Let’s Take a Ride
All Along the Pacific with C.B. Calsing
Hello dear reader, dear friends and fans. I know it has been a week since we last got together but I have had some, shall we say, difficult days in the last week or so. However I have been working diligently on your behalf, never the less. This week I want to take a short break from An Honest Lie Volume 2: Delusions of Insignificance to bring you something else we’ve been working on. You can still vote for your favorite author from An Honest Lie Volume 2: Delusions of Insignificance here and you can pick up your copy here.
In An Honest Lie Volume 1: Encouraging the Delinquency of your Inner Child we were treated to a haunting tale called “Gran’s Prophecy“ about horticultural prophecy and the birth of kings. In An Honest Lie Volume 2: Delusions of Insignificance we were treated to a darker story called “Martina Gets the Last Word “ about true love and it’s eternal depths. Both of these great stories were brought to us by one of my new favorite writers C.B. Calsing. Now she returns to us with an anthology of her own called All Along the Pacific. This is a collection of 10 stories set in and around San Louis Obispo. Spanning the years from 1835 until 2005 each story not only carries us into these time periods, but also does a wonderful job of ting the lives, families and cultures of the age together giving us a picture of our American history. But more about that later, first let’s meet Corina B. Calsing.
Hailing originally from San Louis Obispo, California C.B. Calsing now lives in and writes from New Orleans, Louisiana. Her passion for The Big O is only surpassed by her love for writing, cocktails N.O. sports teams’ architecture and really good food, all of which are in grand abundance in her adopted home city. 
Her creative drive was encouraged by parents who were themselves “hard-working free spirits”. “My mother would draw children’s books just for me, and as I got older, the three of us would collaborate on projects: writing, drawing, binding. By second grade I had started writing with a goal for publication,” she told us. By the second grade she’d already established the goal of writing for publication. Her first effort was a musical play about two rival break dancing gangs which she cast with her class mates, none of which auditioned. Maybe that’s what drove her to her current profession, teaching middle school kids the dastardly craft.
Like the rest of us writers she often thinks of her chosen passion as entertaining though others often see it differently.
“Writing was entertainment for me. I did short stories, movie scripts, and novellas. A compulsion, some might say. An addiction others would call it. After all, it does interfere with my relationships and work, sometimes.”
But even so writing is a passion that cannot be ignored. She got lucky following Richard Fords advice in his “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction” when he said, “Marry somebody you love and who thinks you being a writer’s a good idea.” She has a very give and take relationship with her loving husband who supports her efforts, even bringing her dinner to the writing table and accepting responsibility for overlooking editorial mistakes prior to submission. But she gives him credit saying, “I don’t think I’d have accomplished as much as I have in the last decade if he wasn’t with me. A lot of my ideas develop with his input too. We spend a lot of time discussing “what if,” and if I get stuck on an ending, he always has the best solution.”
Her major turning point came in 2004 when she had a bad experience working with an alternative middle school for students that had been expelled from their neighborhood schools. Without the gory details, she quit and found herself with an opportunity to write full time. In that time productivity was an understatement. Corina finished two novellas, both of which are still “in the box” so to speak, and several shorts. Realizing she needed to move forward with her Masters of Fine Arts she applied with the Creative Writing Workshop at the University of New Orleans who accepted her by 2006. This was when she got serious about her writing, more serious than ever before anyway.
“During those workshop classes, I first conceived of the short stories that would eventually make up All Along the Pacific. Part of this came from a general dislike of contemporary, realistic fiction.”
“My writing heroes — Marquez, Steinbeck, Lovecraft, Dick, Gaiman, Mieville (you’ll notice no women there, and probably fault me for it) — didn’t settle for the ordinary, and I couldn’t let myself either,” she said. Corina started with Science Fiction and her advice is: “don’t turn in science fiction if you are not in a science fiction workshop.” Stuff she wrote that got panned in workshop sold to Sci-Fi magazines without any revisions. From there she tried historic fiction which went over better in class but her creative spirit wouldn’t allow her to play I straight. “I kept coming up with strange concepts for historical fiction — pickled heads in jars, midgets on trains, delusional car salesmen — and then I had this pile of stories.”
“After a little thought, I realized, “Why not a collection?” A little tweaking here and there, a few rewrites and some additions… After two years of workshop and revision I had All Along the Pacific,” Calsing told us.
The path we walk from where we begin a project to where they end can sometimes be a dark one. We may not know what comes next we can only light our way one story at a time. C.B. Calsing has illuminated our path with a tale about an outlaw, who is supposed to be dead, viewing his own head at a state fair, and a tale about a Chinese rail worker with much higher ambitions than anyone around him could imagine, and a tale about a common whore who really lives to protect herself and her “adopted” son. Though each of these stories are based in different time periods Corina Calsing has done a fantastic job of submerging us in these individual lives and leading us through time, showing us every step of the way the connections we all have to one another regardless of time and space.
All Along the Pacific is an anthology that is not to be missed and Corina Calsing is a writer that should not be over looked. Stick with us Friends and fans and we, I can promise you, will be bringing you the best of the best. In the end C.B. Calsing remains true to her creative roots and continues to experiment with her work.
“Since I’ve finished workshop, I’ve headed back into the realms of science fiction, and a little horror, but when I plan a big project, it still tends to be historical with a touch of magical realism. The work I’m finally returning to after about a year and a half off is just that — set in the bayou, during the Depression. An English botanist searching for a rare orchid falls into the trap of a backwoods giantess who distills sassafras moonshine and raises Cane Corsos. There are definitely elements of horror in it, but the story is more about mood and setting and detail than anything else.”
Most of the best stories are Corina, most of the best ones are.
Davin Kimble-Jr. Editor
C.B. Calsing was born and grew up in the small Central Coast town of San Luis Obispo, California. As a child, she spent long hours composing stories and plays. Half-way through her junior year in high school, she left to attend Cuesta Community College, where, after a few years of study, she received her associate of arts degree with honors. Following that, she transferred to Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. There, she completed her bachelor of arts in English. She took a year off, traveled to Indonesia and Ireland, and then decided to return to school to become a certified English teacher.
In 2002, fresh out of her studies, Mrs. Calsing and her future husband moved to New Orleans. Mrs. Calsing has worked in the field of education throughout the Greater New Orleans Area for the last eight years. In 2004, she married. Following her evacuation from Hurricane Katrina, Mrs. Calsing returned to New Orleans and began her master of fine arts degree in creative writing, fiction, at the University of New Orleans. She completed that in 2009. Now, she teaches middle school English, edits for a prominent e-book publisher, and writes when there is time.
“To Wade Alone,” a story from her upcoming collection All Along the Pacific, took second place in the On the Premises “First” contest in June 2009. Her work has appeared in college literary journals, guerrilla zines, and on Web sites, such as Crossedgenres.com. Her work also appeared in the anthologies An Honest Lie Volume One: Encouraging the Delinquency of your Inner Child and An Honest Lie Volume Two: Delusions of Insignificance, and Things We Are Not, a collection of queer science fiction.
Her two favorite genres to write are historic and science fiction, probably because both allow her to visit worlds different from her own. Up-to-the-minute information can be found at her blog, cbcalsing.blogspot.com.
Welcome to the World of Rob Rosen
We’ve been together for more than a month now Friends and Fans and the end is drawing near. Only a couple of interviews left to publish and that’s including mine. What goes on in the mind of a Jr. Editor? What do they really think of their fellow writers? How do I get them to fight for my masterpiece? I don’t know the answers to any of those questions. I do know that I aim to please and I have for you this week another rising star. Rob Rosen.
Rob sent us a tale that looks itself in the mirror and says, “Hey there hot stuff.” “The Megalomaniac” is one of those tales that drag you in with a “WHAT?!!” and continues to spin you to the end. Don’t miss out on this story and the other great writers we’ve featured here. Vote for your favorite and pre order your copy now.
After that read this.
Open Heart Publishing: What is An Honest Lie?
Rob Rosen: An honest lie is a deception someone brings about unknowingly. It is not meant to hurt anyone or to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. Wool, after all, can be itchy.
OHP: Why did you decide to submit your work to An Honest Lie?
R.R.: The call for submissions sounded unique and intriguing. Also, I felt I had a good story to tell, and one with an underlying political premise.
OHP: Oh, and it’s a good one too. I know I was guessing until the very end. What was your inspiration for “The Megalomaniac”?
R.R.: My inspiration was politics in general, and politicians especially. Who else tells honest lies on a daily basis (and gets away with it)?
OHP: That’s the truth. Your characters were well written and believable. Where do you usually draw your inspiration from?
R.R.: I draw my inspiration purely from my own imagination, warped though it may be. I see a call for submission and my brain instantly sets to work on crafting a story. Besides my non-fiction, virtually none of my work derives from my own life experiences. It’s more fun to create whole new worlds and people outside my realm of experience, to bring people to life that I’ve never encountered before.
OHP: Why do you feel the need to write?
R.R.: I write because it makes me feel happy to create something out of nothing. I write because there are endless stories in my head that need to get out. I write to connect with the rest of the world, however tangentially.
OHP: Do you have anything interesting in the works you might want our readers to know about?
R.R.: My third novel, “Hot Lava”, is due out in February, 2011. And, as expected, it’s taking up a great deal of my time. Plus, I’m in the process of writing number four, “Southern Fried”. Though short story writing is what I tend to always be working on.
OHP: Are there any authors, besides yourself, that you enjoy reading?
R.R.: Gore Vidal, Tom Robbins, John Irving, Christopher Moore
OHP: Who would you say is your writing mentor/ hero?
R.R.: Christopher Moore. He’s irreverent and laugh out loud funny, always while spinning an amazing yarn. Plus, he’s sold at every airport around the country, which few writers ever accomplish.
OHP: Do you have a writing nemesis?
R.R.: Time is not always on my side. I have a 9 to 5 job and a busy life outside of work. Meaning, I barely can squeeze in 10 hours of writing a week, if I’m lucky. If I had my druthers, I’d be a full-time writer, but, alas, that doesn’t seem to be in the cards at the moment.
OHP: What do you feel about the following quote “Imagination is more important than knowledge?”
R.R.: One needs to imagine before one can create. An idea needs to form before it can be put down on paper, to be tangible. And I tend to doubt there are any geniuses, any Albert Einsteins out there, who don’t also have a terrific imagination.
OHP: Have you ever contemplated becoming involved in a revolution?
R.R.: I don’t look good in jaunty guerrilla caps, so no. Besides, the pay and the hours are lousy.
OHP: In your opinion, which is the more important discovery of humankind… plumbing or the written word?
R.R.: You need the written word in order to make an invoice for a leaky pipe.
OHP: Most people have two stories for doing anything… a plausible excuse and the real reason, why do you really write?
R.R.: I feel empty when I’m not writing. Writing is the whipped cream, the cherry, and most of the banana on my sundae of life. Life, in other words, seems fairly boring if we’re not creating
something, something new and original, something out of nothing.
Rob Rosen, author of the critically acclaimed novels Sparkle and Divas Las Vegas, lives in San Francisco. He has had short stories featured in numerous magazines, literary websites, and in more than 100 anthologies, most notably in: Short Attention Span Mysteries; Southern Comfort; Hell’s Hangmen: Horror in the Old West; By the Chimney With Care; Strange Stories of Sand and Sea; Damned in Dixie: Southern Horror; Ruins Metropolis; Christmas is Dead; Love is Dead; and Throw Down your Dead: An Anthology of Western Horror Stories. Rob collects statues of Ganesh, the remover of obstacles, hence his complete lack of writer’s block. Please visit him at www.therobrosen.com
Inside the mind of Patrick Scalisi
Things are really humming in the Open Heart Publishing hive right now. The band is up and we are doing the dance let me tell you. We’re coming up on it fast so just a few things before I introduce you to our next author.
Remember you can pre-order your copies of An Honest Lie Volume 2: Delusions of Insignificance in our store and while you’re there you can see what all the hype is about and pick up some of our other books. Also, if you want updates about what’s to come follow us on facebook and twitter @ohpublishing
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And now allow me to introduce you to Patrick Scalisi. Patrick sent us a great tale called “The Registry of Lost Socks.” It’s a thrilling tale of lost and found and they way things get that way in the first place. You will never see lost laundry in the same way again. And now … Patrick Scalisi.
Open Heart Publishing: What do you feel is a delusion of insignificance?
Patrick Scalisi: This is definitely a misguiding phrase. I think most people — myself included — automatically see the word “insignificance” and assume the worst: weakness, a tendency toward introversion, etc. Thinking about the whole phrase, though, I think it takes on a different meaning; I think it means that a person is stronger than he or she may know — but hasn’t realized it yet. This is certainly true of Peggy Hawthorne, the heroine in my story, “The Registry of Lost Socks.”
OHP: What is An Honest Lie?
P.S.: An oxymoron for one — certainly one of the coolest literary devices in the English language. As a definition, I would say that it’s a lie we tell ourselves so often that we come to believe that it’s true. It’s the airs we take on when we’re in the company of others — the armor, the masks. It’s what we are when we’re with everyone but our most trusted loved ones.
OHP:Why do you feel the need to write?
P.S.:For me, there’s something endlessly fulfilling about creating a world from scratch. That would probably explain all the projects I’ve started but never finished. Starting something — be it a writing project or a book or a video game — always delivers the best rush.
OHP:Have you ever contemplated becoming involved in a revolution?
P.S.:There’s a Billy Joel song called “Angry Young Man” that really sums up how I felt in adolescence. I was going to fight every battle I could: ageism, freedom of speech, censorship, the right of 16-year-old teens to see R-rated movies without a parent or guardian. I’d like to think I’ve mellowed a bit (“I believe I’ve passed the age of consciousness and righteous rage,” as the song says), but I’m still concerned with freedom-of-speech issues and censorship. These are two things worth revolting for.
OHP:Do you think writers should call Ernest Hemmingway, Papa?
P.S.:The man had such a patriarchal beard! But I think there are other, more important writers that might deserve that particular term of endearment. Speculative fiction — which are the genres I’m most interested in — owe a lot to Poe and his contemporaries. Plus, there are the true greats to consider: the Beowulf author, Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare. Hemmingway is one of the pantheon, certainly. I’d be proud to call him cousin, or even teacher.
OHP:I agree completely. But I too am a fan of Speculative Fiction. Why did you decide to submit your work to An Honest Lie?
P.S.:I was not familiar with An Honest Lie or Open Heart Publishing until the publication was featured on Duotrope Digest. The theme of the anthology intrigued me, but I wasn’t sure if “The Registry of Lost Socks” would fit. I was actually on the verge of not submitting until I read the description to my girlfriend, and she convinced me to try. “Socks,” at that point, had been rejected from about 18 markets.
OHP: We thought it was a great read, creative and original. Besides writing, what other sorts of deviant behavior do you happen to enjoy?
P.S.:I’ve always been a real movie buff. I worked for Blockbuster Inc. for six years while in high school and college, which afforded me five free rentals a week. After I resigned, not having those free rentals was like trying to quit a meth habit. I also like to visit historical sites and museums, and I like to get outdoors to hike when I can. I recently discovered an activity called Letterboxing, which involves searching for stamps in waterproof boxes that have been hidden in public places. You keep a log of the ones you’ve found, but you also get to discover some neat places that you may have passed a hundred times but never explored.
OHP:Do atheists pray?
P.S.:Prayer by definition indicates an entreaty to a higher power. Most atheists would vehemently deny belief in any kind of god, but I suspect they have just transplanted a traditional deity for one of modernity: technology, science, communications, etc. The idea of praying to the God of Genetics or the Heavenly Host of the Internet is intriguing — very cyberpunk, very William Gibson/Neil Gaiman.
OHP:Besides short stories what other writing endeavors are you currently engaged in?
P.S.: My biggest writing project right now is a Weird Western collection of five short stories and one novella. The stories take place in a traditional Western milieu where cars have replaced horses. Right now I’m procrastinating working on it in order to do this interview. I’m on the third draft and would like for the collection to be complete in the next few months so I can begin searching for a literary agent. Besides that, I have another short story — a ghost story — that I’m trying to publish and an idea for a sci-fi/cyberpunk story knocking around in my head.
OHP:Are there any authors, besides yourself, that you enjoy reading?
P.S.: The first “big boy” author that I read was Terry Brooks, and he’ll always have a special place in my heart. The Sword of Shannara was a very formative novel for me, especially when I discovered the back-story behind how Brooks struggled to get it published. Since then, I’ve really come to like (in no particular order): J.R.R. Tolkien, William Gibson, Ian Fleming, Stephen King, D.M. Cornish, Jonathan Stroud, Frank Herbert, C.S. Lewis, Alan Moore, Terry Pratchett, Patrick Rothfuss, J.K. Rowling and dozens of others.
OHP:Who would you say is your writing mentor/hero?
P.S.: Definitely Stephen King. I’ve been writing since childhood, but never with much conviction or with any clear idea of what I wanted to do with my work. I told myself that I was going to be a famous author someday, but never made any strides to even become published. Around 2007, I read King’s On Writing, which is both a very clever autobiography and a writing manual. That book really opened my eyes. I realized that if I wanted to become a writer, I really needed to take it more seriously. I started writing short fiction and published my first story titled “Warded” in Twisted Dreams magazine in the summer of 2008.
OHP:Do you have a writing nemesis?
P.S.: I have an absolute loathing hatred for James Frey. What he did with A Million Little Pieces was such a blatant breach of the covenant between writer and reader that to me it counts among the capital sins of writing. If I had my way, the man would never be allowed to publish again. Yet people continue to defend him and his work, and he keeps getting publishing deals while so many up-and-coming writers continue to struggle. Yeah, I’m a little bitter about the whole thing — even though it happened like a million years ago.
OHP: What do you feel about the following quote “Imagination is more important than knowledge?”
P.S.: The two should never compete with one another; they go hand-in-hand. Often the best ideas come from a bit of knowledge gleamed: some new scientific discovery, an obscure bit of history, etc. Knowledge and imagination are the yin and yang of the creative process.
OHP: Where do you believe humanity is headed as a whole?
P.S.: That’s a pretty loaded question. In a nutshell, the whole thing is very strange. Every day, you read about terrible things happening all over the world: rape, murder, genocide, war, environmental disasters, and so on. But then you hear about some guy who stopped to help a woman whose car had broken down on a remote road; or a doctor who perfected bionic legs for a cat; or a celebrity who did something for charity quietly with a real motivation to help his or her fellow man and not as a publicity stunt. For all the bad things that are happening, good things are happening, too. The universe is constantly trying to keep itself in balance.
OHP: Where do you draw your inspiration from?
P.S.: The very best inspiration comes from asking “What if?” questions — and again this may have been something I gleaned from Stephen King’s On Writing that I found true in my own creative process. For instance, what if my laundry room was populated by sentient appliances that occasionally stole my garments? Most of my story ideas come from learning or reading about something and then asking a “What if?” question.
OHP: In your opinion, which is the more important discovery of humankind: plumbing or the written word?
P.S.: The written word, without a doubt, followed closely by the printing press. You know, I recently read an article about a British survey that ranked the iPhone as number eight among the greatest inventions of all time. The iPhone?! Do these people realize that without the written word, without the printing press, there would be no iPhone? And if we have to read a book (or use our cell phones) while visiting the outhouse, then so be it.
OHP: According to Anatole France “To die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture.” In your opinion what do you believe is worth dying for? What do you believe is worth living for?
P.S.: I guess the best answer to this question is that individuality is worth dying for. You could say that justice, the arts, principles — that these things are worth dying for. But all of these concepts are really subjective. Are individual. My idea of justice may differ from yours, and so on. I do, however, believe that creativity is worth living for. Whether it’s the visual arts or music or the written word — when you find something that speaks to you, you know you have on some level touched the rest of humanity. And maybe even the divine.
OHP: Mark Twain once said, “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” What do you believe he meant by that?
P.S.: Every bit of stimuli that we encounter each day is an opportunity to spark our imagination. Artists get their ideas from everywhere, often from the most mundane everyday things. Our eyes — and indeed all of our senses — work hand-in-hand to make us the creative people we are.
OHP: Most people have two stories for doing anything: a plausible excuse and the real reason. Why do you really write?
P.S.: As Indiana Jones once said, “Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory.”
OHP: Amen brother, Amen.
Davin Kimble – Jr. Editor
Patrick Scalisi is a magazine editor and aspiring author from Connecticut. His writing career began when he started composing stories about his favorite video games and movies on his mother’s word processor. Since 2008, he has published fiction in several outlets, including The Willows, Twisted Dreams and Space Westerns. He is also working on completing a novella. When he’s not writing, Pat enjoys watching way too many movies than are good for him, reading more books than he has shelves for and listening to music (his tastes range from classical to classic and modern rock). Visit him online at www.patrickscalisi.com
And the Winner is…
Greetings all,
Well it is that time of year again… for the first time ever!
An Honest Lie Volume 1 has brought us a lot of wonderful authors who in turn created a great number of amazingly well written stories, and I for one am very proud of every last one of them and proud to have published each of them in turn.
Below are a few comments from our readers just so you can see what has been said about volume one.
An Honest Lie Vol 1 has to be the best anthology I have read all year, and I read a lot of short fiction anthologies.
If I had to pick one author to vote for out of this volume, I wish I could have picked all 17 authors.
Each story was better than the one before, and yet somehow each was amazing in its own unique way.
If Volume 1 was this good, I can’t wait to see what Volume 2 brings
Dear Open Heart Publishing… Holy F’ng sh!t!!! This was the best book I have read in years. Your authors deserve awards … I wish I had them to give, all I can do is buy another 2 books and I am glad I can do so easily.
Before I go too far and jump ahead to our winner I wanted to personally thank each of you for your participation in the inaugural edition of An Honest Lie. Without your unique voice we wouldn’t have made such an amazing book, nor had a standard to follow as we move forward with Volume 2: Delusions of Insignificance to be published this year and also to begin preparation for Volume 3: Justifiable Hypocrisy.
So without much further adieu, it is my pleasure to announce the winner of An Honest Lie Vol. 1: Encouraging the Delinquency of Your Inner Child is….
Eric Trant,author of “The Apple Tree”
Congratulations Eric, we at Open Heart Publishing are very excited about the opportunity of publishing your next book and we look forward to encouraging your growth as an author.
Have a wonderful day,
Debrin Case
Publisher: Open Heart Publishing
If you want to purchase AHL Vol 1, or to preorder your copy of An Honest Lie Vol. 2: Delusions of Insignificance, just click the logo below.
