Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Ross McMeekin
916 Plays5 months ago
Ross McMeekin the author of The Hummingbirds (Skyhorse, 2018.) His short fiction has appeared in literary journals and magazines such as Virginia Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, Redivider, and X-R-A-Y. He has won fellowships from Hugo House and Jack Straw Cultural Center in Seattle. For the last ten years, he has served as editor of the literary journal, Spartan.
McMeekin's Below the Falls is a collection filled with passion, tenderness, love, and peril.
Two climbers in the North Cascades risk their friendship and lives ascending a frozen waterfall. The girlfriend of a famous comedian in Greenwich Village must decide whether she wants to raise a child in the spotlight of fame. A mysterious Bird of Paradise makes daily overtures to an elderly widow in the frigid Midwest. A Texas fracking mogul struggles to find the love his money prevents. The deeply rendered American landscapes of these stories emerge as a vital background for characters faced with conflicts that cannot be easily resolved, illuminating interior worlds filled with contradiction.
You can find him at www.rossmcmeekin.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host, Ken Volante. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer.
Meet the Guest: Ross McMeekin
00:00:16
Speaker
Hey everybody, this is Ken Volante, something rather than nothing, and have a guest, writer Ross McMeekin, and I have recently read the collection Below the Falls. Really enjoyed it, Ross, first of all. Thank you.
The World of Literary Journals
00:00:36
Speaker
I, uh, you do a bunch of things around, uh, writing, but before we jumped on here, I told you I was, I was really interested in, um, that you added a literary journal called Spardom. And I was just, I told you, like, I was just wondering, like, what, what is that? I've read a lot of journals, you know, I've been in academics and I love the, the high thought that's involved with it and kind of being a cutting edge in writing and thought. But you're the editor. like what Tell us about it. Yeah, it's a great world. There's kind of a world of literary journals and indie lit. And and yeah I almost think of it if you're into music like indie labels. Spartans are small. It's me and my buddy. It's a passion project. We've been doing it now for 12 years. we you know And we specialize in really short fiction. 1,000 words or less, 500 words or less, even less than that. And you know it's kind of like,
00:01:33
Speaker
Um, yeah, it's a passion project and we try to just publish what we like and the style is more minimalist. But as far as the bigger, larger world, there's journals that publish long stuff, short stuff, experimental stuff, language driven, um, you know, more surrealist, you know, there's, there's just a whole pocket. There's little pockets of literary journals of people like me who are just you know, like a certain type of writing and want to put it out there and want to provide like a space for people who aren't necessarily writing like for New York publishing and aren't necessarily writing New Yorker stories, you know, and have those big, you know, nothing against those, of course, but like there's there's stories and forms and ways to write them that are maybe not going to fit into the mainstream. And um so literary journals like Spartan um kind of exist in that in between space where we love literature, but we love
00:02:22
Speaker
you know, forms like flash fiction or micro fiction that don't necessarily have as much and of an audience beyond writer, a lot of times beyond writers themselves. And so there's there's ah there's a cool community, you know, not just of writers, you know, and these are, but of editors too, you know, we write and we submit to each other's journals and it's kind of a community sort of type thing. So yeah. yeah Yeah, i yeah ah thanks you know thanks for dropping dropping into that. i um you know One of the cool parts of the show I would say ah recently um is that I've come in contact with a lot of writers. um and And that's been throughout the show ah from the beginning. ah Poets, spoken word, writers, novelists, kind of documentary books,
00:03:09
Speaker
a lot of poets. So it's always been there. um And I've had more
The Appeal of Short Fiction Forms
00:03:14
Speaker
ah lately. And one of the things my brain intellectually, I was trained in philosophy and English lit. So I kind of like, it's all the same for me kind of, like I kind of move like in in in between them. um But it's been really good to kind of like re-engage and in particularly with the shorter a short story and the shorter forms of fiction and ah that that you had mentioned. And I'm quickly learning about it because I've been out of contact with it for a bit. Can you, I wanted to ask you about the the shorter, i um my brain thinks in this these shorter patterns. No, I've, being an English lit major, I've read, you know,
00:03:55
Speaker
ah warren yeah i mean I've read you know the classics and War and Peace and Faulkner and you know massive novels, but the way my brain thinks is much more along the lines of ah these these vignettes. I've always struggled with like kind of permission of writing short things. like I always feel it has to be bigger in my head. Could you dig into a bit to the shorter type of fiction and stuff that's out there that people might not see or ah flash fiction and different type of experimental forms can you talk a little bit about that. Sure yeah I think flash fiction.
00:04:34
Speaker
um yeah's been It's been, you know, it's been around because it hasn't, I don't think it got called flash fiction until, um you know, maybe 20 years ago, but people were writing short stories, you know, or it would be Hemingway, another one, but Raymond Carver were writing these stories that were four pages long, you know, forever, you know, so, um but it kind of got got a little definition around it. And I think it being online also began to provide a space because articles got shorter once, you know, once um
00:05:05
Speaker
Everything got got published online, and and fiction was no exception to that. um So I think that that that helped it come about, but also I'm with you where, you know, for me, I mean, in my book, there's a lot of really short stories, some that are just a paragraph long, you know? And it's like, are they stories? Are they flash fiction? Are they prose poetry? There's all these sort of blended lines between them, you know, within the forms. But I think for me, there's something that I'm really drawn to as well, because You know, there are the bigger forms. Like you said, there's the war in peace. There's yeah Anthony Doar, All the Light We Cannot See. These be big sweeping epics, you know. But sometimes, you know, if you've got a crystallized little bit, a paragraph, a couple paragraphs can touch on something that's deep and that's profound. And a story just kind of
00:05:52
Speaker
You know, I love it when flash fiction, when the story just kind of opens up at the end. And then you read it a few more times and you can see the layers of meaning. And, you know, it's a little bit denser. There's a little bit more of this puzzle to it at times, you know, where it's like put together in such a tight way that there's almost, ah yeah I don't know, it just feels thicker in some ways. It's not as sprawling. And and I guess I really like that about the short forms, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Thanks. Thanks thanks for that. i got Like I said, I read um a new collection, Below the Falls. A beautiful cover, everybody, by the way. and You won't be able to see it. This is an audio program, but outside of the content too. What a nice volume. It's nice to have a nice volume, Below the Falls by Ross McMeekin. Ross, tell us about ah the new collection.
Exploring 'Below the Falls'
00:06:43
Speaker
Well, it's it's a collection of stories from, like I said, one paragraph to about 15 pages. um And it was written over a course of 15 years. I started the title story 15 years ago. And some of the stories are, you know you know, at the time of publication were maybe a year old and some of them were much older. and they go through a lot of different variations where some of them are surrealist, some of them are almost fables, some of them are traditional, you know, third person, um short stories like you might see in ah in ah in a collection that was being taught and at school. Like when I was in school, I'm an English Lit major too, you know, so when I was there. and you know
00:07:23
Speaker
We're the best. We're the best. We're the best. English, literature, we're the best. But go ahead. Yeah. And you know, so there's more of the traditional New Yorker stories, you know, and there's a few kind of attempts at that. But but it's just kind of all over the map in terms of stylistically, you know, one of my friends who was in my writing group, Jodi Poloni, who's a writer as well. You know, she she took a look at it and she'd been workshopping these with me over that 15 years. And she she read the whole collection. She's like, man, you're you're all over the math as far as you're writing, you know. And I think the collection that's one of the strengths of the collection, because, you know, you have a link story collection, you know, that's linked with with ke multiple characters that kind of recur or it's got a scene. It's like, you know, um in the in the exact same spot. You know, Weinsburg, Ohio is a classic example of that, where it's around a small town. Oh, yeah. It's a classic. And so weird Anderson.
00:08:21
Speaker
Sherwood Anderson, yeah. Yeah, yeah for sure. Great collection. And you know, so you've got those ones that are tightly linked in that sort of way, and or even like LinkedIn style, you know, and you think about a Raymond Carver collection is gonna, he's got such a distinct style that he brings to all of his stories, you know, but then ah this is kind of, like you know, 15 years, I went through different phases, you know, and I was kind of, I got really into like Ben Laurie, who was writing more of these sort of they almost fables, you know, like, that were almost like at times that you could approach them like children's stories. You know, they felt like that, but then they go in crazy directions, you know, and and all this meaning opens up. so So I went through different phases of what I was writing. I think it all kind of came in there when I was collecting it into a into a thing, into a thing, into a short story collection. yeah yeah right Trying to think about like, how was this thing put together, you know? And i and i um so I decided I knew I wanted that first story to be the,
00:09:20
Speaker
that the title story of the collection. And then I just intuitively kind of went one by one and said, what what feels like the story to come next? you know and And instead of trying to tie it together with theme, with these you know um logical ways. I was like, I'm going to intuitively put this together and kind of see what happens. And so that's what it ended up being. It kind of like veers this way and that, you know, different settings, location styles. And so, yeah, they fit it fit my brain. You know, I mean, I could say that for me individually as a reader, to fit my it it fit my fit my brain.
00:09:57
Speaker
Let's kick around a couple of conceptual, a couple of conceptual ah questions here.
Art as an Expression of Reality
00:10:03
Speaker
um What is art, Ross? What is art? Wow. um I would say it's an expression, um but it's also a recognition. Like for me, I think that art, like it is an expression that kind of comes out of my singular experience as a human being, but it's a recognition also of a reality that's beyond mine, both
00:10:30
Speaker
with other individuals and just with the universe itself, everything that's involved, all the relationships. So I think it's an experience for me, but it's a recognition. And that's as a writer, like, for myself as I'm creating. I feel like there's, those are those two forces where I'm recognizing what outside, what's outside, but I'm expressing what's inside. But um I think art, you know, I don't know if I have any huge philosophical definitions as far as what is, what is art, you know, if I could even encapsulate it. um But it's one of those things, this is gonna sound terrible, but I'm just gonna say it. Like it's subjective, but it's not. It's like, you know it when you see it, but you don't. There's this there's this sense of mystery around it. And I think when it like, when when I see or I read something and it peaks into that sort of mystery of of life and reality, and there's this sense of meaning, even if the meaning isn't like,
00:11:28
Speaker
you know, logical, but there's almost the meaning of the experience. Like you you see something or you read something and there's the experience of meaning, even if you don't know what it means. That experience, I think arts spring ah art brings us into that place um where we're thrust into a reality and maybe we feel it if we don't understand it, but it's there. So I don't know, that's a scrambling way to say it, but that's kind of- Oh, I like, there was there was something even in particular when you said, um You know it when you see it and it's it makes ah always makes me giggle because it's an actual like strong concept that's been used to describe things. There's a famous Supreme Court decision about pornography. and it was you know You know it when you see it was the conclusion.
00:12:16
Speaker
like where we ended up and so it's like actually like a strong legal legal or like conceptual ah thing to have like you know it when you see it and for me it feels like that with art too sometimes it's like when you can't quite explain the rest of it but you're like like like
Art and the Mystery of Definitions
00:12:34
Speaker
That's our man. like Look at that. you know and yeah it's like yeah That's it. right you know like I'm showing you it. and um um I wanted to ask you ah the the the role of art or maybe um what it does for us. I asked this question lately. on
00:12:55
Speaker
in in this day and age, as they would record in 2024, is art have the same role that it has had or is is there something different about what we need from art? I think you know for me, um as I see it, what one of one of the things that I think in my life that I've been going through is going through a period of maybe a decade where I was really interested in defining things, like trying to define, you know, reality, um what something rather than nothing. I'm trying to define something, you know, and I think what Mark does um is
00:13:36
Speaker
It brings us to to things without definition. It brings us to a place that doesn't have a logical sort of rational sort of definition for me. And I think that's huge with our culture right now because I think our culture is obsessed with defining everything. I think there's this sense of we need to some sum it up. You know, we need to take everything and put it into this thing. and We draw it out. That's what it is. And I think when we get to go into someplace undefinable, someplace mysterious, art can take us into that. And it's countercultural in that way, I think. So I think it's needed even more so. And I you know i think perhaps in the past, especially when you get past more, you know when you really get into the distant past,
00:14:20
Speaker
conjecture conjecture for me. It felt like there was, when I read old writing, there was more room for that mystery. There was less that was known. There was less of this overarching idea of definition. And there's more of a greater room for mystery that I think is needed now, but isn't as present. Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah. It's quite, it's quite fair. I ran into the type of thing when I'm interviewing sometimes when I'm engaged in the conversation, I'm drawn right in and I'm like, wait a second, and I gotta, I gotta still run this
Existential Questions: Why Something Rather Than Nothing?
00:14:50
Speaker
interview. No, thanks for your, uh, uh, thanks for, thanks for your thoughts. Uh, really appreciate it. Let's crank out one more of the, the, the big ones since we are on a roll here and then we'll kick around a little bit more about, uh, writing the something rather than nothing, uh, question. Why do you think there's something rather than nothing? Um, I, I,
00:15:14
Speaker
I do think that, and it it's it's one still that intuitive thing that I'm learning to trust more. It's like a feeling thing. It's like a grasping thing out there. um I haven't always thought this. you know um i think well One way to think about it is, so in my I touched on this before, but like in my life, i I grew up in a home That wasn't religious at all and we didn't really think about the some things like that We just wasn't talked about you know, and I just you know when I started getting in my late teens That's that's when I started being really interested in something and I started really going after it and trying to provide provide definitions for it What is this something? What's the nature of a God? What's the nature of the universe? What's the nature of humanity and? um over the last five years or so I've kind of
00:16:03
Speaker
retreated back a little bit from those definitions, and to to allow myself to say there there is something, and I believe that, but i but I'm less willing to define it, if that makes sense. like I'm cool to sit with that lack of definition and say, there is something, I believe that intuitively, you know I couldn't argue for it you know like and be like let me prove to you that there's something but like I feel like there is and what that is is is not quite defined you know not nearly as defined as when I was in my late teens and twenties so yeah yeah yeah oh well
00:16:43
Speaker
Thank you. i it went I think there's something about that too in the kind of going in, there's this instinct of going in and being like, you know, wanting to understand everything. I think when maybe I was younger too, like this drive of like trying to answer these questions. And then for me, even doing this show, um you know, there's an absurdity underneath it for me because like and that like, I'm not like close to the answers. I enjoy the process of trying to get at is the yes yeah it's a prompt you know like it's not like
00:17:18
Speaker
ah despite all my guests and all the wonderful thoughts everything it's not like i have a greater understanding of like the scope of the question but I'm not quite sure. I haven't answered the why's. There's something rather than nothing. than So there's a spoiler, everybody. It keeps on going. Keep fun but ah keep on recording. Yeah, yeah. a standard question, but ah Ross, you mentioned some other um ah short story of writers and and and their
Influences in Short Fiction
00:17:50
Speaker
impact.
00:17:50
Speaker
um What what for you as far as the shorter fiction form which which writers really? Did it for you to kind of? Work in that that that realm Yeah, I think I really fell in love with the short story at the end of high school. I had a great English teacher, like a lot of people talk about that, that English teacher that's like and talks to you, speaks to you, you know. And we read Sonny's Blues by James Baldwin. And then we read Metamorphosis by Kafka, which, though it's an appellate, on the shorter end, it just blew my mind, man.
00:18:25
Speaker
um And then going into college, I i started getting into Flannery O'Connor, reading her stuff. started to get I mentioned Raymond Carver, who's, you know, Pacific Northwest, you know. And so I felt like that connection. and and But really it was, you know, going going to grad school and starting to read. um Read writers like Amy Hempel, if you know. She writes very short stuff short stuff as well. And part of it's the time that I was in grad school was, you know, read her. Alice Monroe is another example. You know, she just passed away, which is just tragic. but She's an unbelievable short story writer. yeah Rick Bass, Montana writer. You know, I'd love to write about the outdoors. So, you know, if someone like Rick Bass can do that, like no one else. And then, you know, coming into the literary, you know, the kind of literary community, indie lit community, I started to get into flash fiction writers like Tommy Dean is one of those guys who's putting out great books.
00:19:20
Speaker
Amy Barnes as well, Flash Fiction writer. Both of those folks I came to because they submitted to Spartan, my literary journal. And I was like, Oh man, I like the podcast. Like you learn. Yeah. So it's so that that's kind of the, you know, now I get, I get a chance to, to see a lot of writing, you know, in Jules Archer, you know, people submit stuff to Spartan. I was just getting introduced to these great writers who do short stuff. So, Um, so yeah, it's been, it's been fun to kind of see that just kind of over the years, kind of get introduced to more and more writers and, you know, be able to read them in a bigger, bigger context, you know, to see what people are doing within that greater short story context.
00:20:07
Speaker
I really like that. I wanted to ask you, kind of it's a it's an indulgent question for me, but I've had a ah propensity ah to write and I love writing and what I would say, I always want, I hope to develop to be able to to to write more on deliberately, whether it's short stories or or longer form myself. And I do a ton of shorter writing and advocacy in my my work as a labor representative like during the day. And you know I know I'm a really good writer. you know like i mean People tell me that all the time as far as conveying, arguing, persuasion, things like that.
00:20:49
Speaker
yeah And so I know I've developed that and and honed that in that type of argument um But I have difficulty having done that for most of those productive hours for me my brain to switch to again, right But in a completely different different way Do you have like an idea like I says a bit self-indulgent, but I mean do you have an idea when when folks? do expend a lot of energy and thought and in structured writing but kind of want to open it up a bit more and not just fit into those muscles that are back in the day job totally totally yeah no i think yeah for me for me it's
00:21:36
Speaker
I think like there's like i for better or for worse, I write usually from two to five in the morning. And that's kind of like not the best time to get up and do stuff but its or anything. It's the best time to sleep. But the um ah finding that so that space, you know like it's the quiet the the quiet space where there's just um you you can disengage is not the word, but you there's space to do it. And that's for two to five in the morning, if you can find, for me, you know find a time that you're basically able to push that sort of stuff away and turn on this imaginary thing. you know And for me, all
00:22:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So like from two to five in the morning, I have no responsibilities, you know? And so for me, that's when I can kind of go into the places that that have less to do with my to-do list, less to do with the stuff I got to do. And like you said, the writing that I just, by nature of you know what I have to do is just there. you know I just have to versus like this place that's going, i'm gonna I'm going to explore the outer reaches of imagination as best I can. you know Even if it's only one inch into that outer range, I'm going to go there. yes yeah
00:22:51
Speaker
no it's it's that that's That's helpful and I know a lot of it. ah You know, I think it's funny because I've had conversations with folks ah about writing or maybe even on the show And sometimes like I actively forget the amount, you know that I do that's very, you know Developed in artful and tactical and that type of thing because it's like That parts not automatic you always have to think but it's it's become I've developed some really good habits of being able to analyze in that way and then on the other side of my brain is like
00:23:27
Speaker
What does that planet billions of years away from here in this science fiction story look like when you approach
The Pacific Northwest's Impact on Writing
00:23:34
Speaker
it? you know yeah totally you don't like it it like that's way out there. You want to go there. You want to go there in writing. You're in the Pacific Northwest. yeah um i'm I'm an East Coast ah person. I grew up in Rhode Island. It's kind of an industrial city, Pawtucket, Rhode Island, but I went to the school at the University of Rhode Island on on the ocean.
00:24:08
Speaker
um I've always been impacted by the place that that I live. I lived in the Midwest in Wisconsin. and I've been in the Pacific Northwest for about 13 years. and um This place really has an impact. like the place For me, it has a real impact on me as far as ah the environment, stretches of raininess on the west part of the Cascades. It has a feel and a mood. in a culture and all that unto itself. That's for me, I was wondering. um
00:24:44
Speaker
For you, does does have those same kind of carry over impacts? Because i maybe I was feeling some of that within yours, but I don't want to read too much into it either. Yeah, no, it definitely does. I mean, I've lived in the Pacific Northwest. I spent four years in like the Los Angeles area. But other than that, I've been in the Seattle area. ah My entire life born and raised there. um And it it does. I think it's just it feels like it's captured me in a way. It's interesting because it's I think. I I grew up in the city like in Seattle proper, so I didn't grow up, you know, there weren't trees around like the stereotypical like this lush forest and this trees and all that sort of stuff. You know, I was in the city and and yeah but then I I was introduced by my mother.
00:25:33
Speaker
Um, she took me up. I still remember there's this Alpine Lake, um, that was up I 90, you know, and you could just hike. It was like five miles up, but you couldn't drive there. And when I was like 13 years old, she took me there and you know, this was before Instagram. This is like, if you, you didn't have a picture of an Alpine Lake unless you had a book, you know, or a magazine or something. And she took her to this Alpine Lake and it absolutely blew my mind, changed my life, you know, where, uh, I became a city boy, but it's like that's where I wanted to go. And I feel like I've told the line between that being a city guy born and raised, but like I wanted, you know, we've moved out of the city and it's like I want to be in places that are more, for lack of a better word, wild populated by trees and populated by that sense of landscape, that sense of grandeur. Also for me, you know, living in the trees right now, it's like there's this sense, especially come fall,
00:26:29
Speaker
Things get darker. There's this sense of sadness. It's raining all the time. There's a little bit of melancholy that, you know, honestly suits me, you know, and I feel like comes out in the collection as well. That's kind of, you know, my a place for me. And I think that the Pacific Northwest has that has that sort of feel to it. You know, that that L.A. had a very different feel to it, you know, um whereas the Pacific Northwest has this vibe that I think is captured even by the color tones. You know, you've just got the the greens, you know, you cut coming over from from I-90 from Eastern Washington, which is much more, you know, the police, it's much more planes, it's much more, you know, yeah rocky outcrops. It's not. Then you you come up to come up I-90 and you start hitting the mountains and you get into the pines and then you get into the evergreens. And there's just this whole other color palette that just kind of, you know,
00:27:24
Speaker
You almost have to take a deep breath. at but Like ah Wizard of Oz, like it goes to color and it's like, whoa, yeah of course, not during the fall to winter to spring, but you know, that I ah loved your description there not to just jump in, um you know, ah but the, you know, the color palette and um and and thanks for answering that question because it's it's an it's an odd question, but I think um ah you when you think about place and impact and i I can be sensitive to my environments and like I was really feeling what you were talking about because I grew up in, you know, my old manufacturing city out in Rhode Island mill mill town. And, um but I'm out here now and it's some
00:28:13
Speaker
It's different lands. It's different. Everything's different out here. And I'm just saying it just it is it doesn't feel the same for me in my sensitivity. But in a very um in a way where I come from outside our eyes, with outside our eyes a little bit, and I have the same experiences, folks, when you're talking about, you know, a bit of the melancholic or the the comfort in that, you know, what's in a certain sense going to be cloudy and sometimes the sun will pop out. But It's a comfort as well. It's not just a like a Santa, not getting into like clinical or anything like that, but it's ah it's a comfort to folks of um ah reliability or something or alan yeah around that time or maybe resting if if you have the opportunity to rest some more the natural calendar. um
00:29:05
Speaker
Yeah, ah it's a feeling it's a vibe and it's real and I'm still figuring it out. It is, you know, ah from where I'm from, they call it Oregon. But when I first got to Oregon in in and being out in Eastern Oregon, you see some of the same topographies, of course, up north in Eastern Washington, the Western Washington is described. I was like, when I got to Eastern Oregon, like I'm from Rhode Island, I'm like, What? This is Oregon? i'd like I was so confused. like I had no context to understand that this was Oregon. It was two-thirds of Oregon in the land. and you know um High desert, yeah the topographies, the isolation um in sparsely populated counties. And I'm like,
00:29:55
Speaker
Oh, I see everything I need to see on the TV about the Pacific Northwest. Fascinating. It was blown away when I experienced that. yeah Yeah, it really is. it's it's yeah i mean it's interesting yeah People don't know about it because Pacific Northwest, you think like like we talked about you think evergreens rain clouds rivers you know that sort of thing you go to you go to the police and it's like you're on a different planet i love the police the sweeping you know hills and um just different again different color palette it doesn't you if you took a picture no one's going to be like oh yeah just northwest you know yeah that's right
00:30:35
Speaker
yeah It's a quite an enjoyable a piece of it and you know and one of the things and final point about kind of place and thinking about it ah with the ocean out east the the ocean I get used to and swim in the Atlantic Ocean got used to what an ocean to me was was the Atlantic Ocean you could swim in it for certain months as warmer than this Pacific Ocean when I got out here. I'm like ready to jump in the water. I'm like, hey, water, you can swim. And people are like, no, no, no, no, you're too far north. And I'm like, what? Water, swim. And they're like, no, you have to go much further into California.
00:31:18
Speaker
women in in the water so it's like a whole different relationship and I was struck by the the ruggedness of some of how the forest ends and then it's just the ocean right there that you'll see along 101 going along the Oregon and Washington coast where for me being a flat lander in the ocean stayed out east everything just kind of morphs into okay now here's the ocean we're out here on the coast it's like forest done ocean and it's like very very powerful and to be respected the waters and the land it's ah the opposite it feels to me and and and rugged and enjoyable enjoyable but very very distinct and different for me yeah no i agree i mean we go
00:32:12
Speaker
ah My family goes down to the ah the Oregon coast ah once a year, and it's totally like that, you know, in the sense of, and also up in the Olympic Peninsula, I don't know if you've been up there, where you're at, these windblown trees are just kind of like scraggly up on a cliff that's going down. The waves are just crashing into it. You know, there's great white sharks down there, you know, that you know that this, you know, you're putting when you put on your wetsuit, you know, It's like you've got a hood, you've got booties, and you're still freezing. you know it's It's just a much more ah severe, maybe, it would be a word. It feels like it's ah it's a severe right representation of of the ocean and kind of the wild parts of it. so
00:32:54
Speaker
That's that that feels right. And um also too, i you know, I respected the ocean out and and the Atlantic, but it's a whole different piece out here when you're around the Pacific Ocean, at least on the Oregon coast of safety, ah not turning your back to the ocean, having in front of you, keeping an eye on things, riptides. undertow matters where you are what you call them but yeah all those type of things where um I was quickly anointed with that and it's just a respect it's a respect and it's a powerful powerful force and I think folks out here not to be too you know cautious about everything but it's good to be safe and those rugged environments taught me really quickly to be like respect all of this around here because
00:33:39
Speaker
Yeah, height height and
Where to Find Ross's Work
00:33:41
Speaker
conditions. And so i I do love it out here. And they and and and thanks for us for indulging me. I'm always trying to dig in more to ah ah to to understand. Hey, ah Ross, I wanted to um make sure we get this in here about we're um where we can get your your books, where we find you the journal, how do folks interact with what you do and create in the journal? Sure. Yeah, the journals, ah SpartanLit dot.com. And you can see all of we've got all the issues that
00:34:17
Speaker
back till, you know, 2011, I think it was 2012. So that's easy to find. ah My writing, I've got my website, RossMcMeekin.com, and I've got some links to short stories that I've written. But, you gonna you know, as far as the book goes, um it's it's available um at bookstores, it's available on online retailers. You know, if it's if it's not, they have it in some bookstores around here in, you know, the Seattle area. But yeah even if you go to a bookstore and you're around the country, it's, you could say, hey, can I,
00:34:50
Speaker
Check this out and they'll be able to order it for you. So there's there's definitely ways to get it, which is awesome. and Or you can get it straight through the publisher as well. So that's kind of how you can do that. Find find the stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And 30 West Publishing. in yeah And like I said, um ah you know, a book is is is a total thing if you have it in the physical form. But um really, really in enjoyed your writing and um And in this volume as a whole, and part of the part that you were just speaking about that I liked was how it moved about. It fit my brain, like I said early on, as far as like um moving through it. But also, um beautiful cover art, a nice volume thing. So when you're a book lover, it's important to mention those details below the falls by ah Ross McMeekin.
00:35:44
Speaker
Ross, it's been it's been a great pleasure to to be able to to talk to you about writing the Pacific Northwest, um some some of the big questions. I had one more question, just maybe a little bit more indulgent too before ah letting you go. um You mentioned some author's names you know as we were were were talking. um On the Pacific Northwest ah tip, um could you maybe mention an author or two that you know you really find to be important or incisive from the Pacific Northwest that you you've interacted with, ah an author or two? Yeah, I'd say a a couple authors I really did. One is Peter Mountford. He's a Seattle author, um and I um was able to
00:36:33
Speaker
to work with him a little bit, and he he writes fantastic work, and he's ah he's a local guy that's definitely work worth checking out. um i think another I know what I'm saying. i I'm a kind of a Raymond Carver fanatic, so I'll say, check out some of Raymond Carver's work. He's a Pacific Northwest guy born in Yakima. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. So um there's there's a couple authors. Another guy, Robert P. K., he's lesser known. He's published, in a but you can look him up. Robert P. period K., he's published a lot of stuff in literary journals. um Hasn't published a book. I'm trying to get him to to like publish a book. He's not interested. He's one of those type of writers. He just wants to write. He's not a book. He's sending his stuff out, you know? But you can get here his stuff online. And he's he's much more almost on the science fiction sort of vibe, but it's Pacific Northwest.
00:37:31
Speaker
yeah so he's and rob ha is worth jumping out I tell you, one of the most amazing parts in the Pacific Northwest, I'm a comic book guy, graphic novelist arts, and I could not believe the amount of illustrators i mean its you know in Portland, in Seattle. Wow! Culturally um artists and writers and I'm an East Coast guy i was far away. I didn't it I never knew and I'm always just like amazed in just like the talent and things that I really like to in writing like I said, you know comics graphic novels just
00:38:10
Speaker
um just really, really enjoy that. And thanks for mentioning those authors and folks will put some links to ah to those and exploring a little bit more some of the great art produced out of Pacific Northwest. Ross, thanks so much for coming on to the show and in in chat and knife. I appreciate your exploring all these areas ah with me and in in for your writing, which I highly recommend to listeners. Great. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Great to great to talk with you. I appreciate you having me on. Yeah. Have a great day. You too.
00:38:58
Speaker
This is something rather than nothing.
Closing and Call to Action
00:39:08
Speaker
and listeners to stay connected with us in our guests visit something rather than nothing comm join our mailing list for exclusive updates and access to guest created art if you enjoyed this episode or any episode please like subscribe leave a review on your podcast platform people really read that shit Your support helps us reach more listeners and spread our community across the planet. This is a global show and we like to give a shout out to our many listeners across the world, including many listeners in Canada, Spain, Germany, UK, Argentina, Brazil, India, Thailand, and so many more places. Be sure to follow us on Instagram.
00:39:52
Speaker
at something rather than nothing podcasts for behind the scenes content. And the best way to help the show is to tell your friends about us. If you love it, they'll love it too. Tell your friends who love it. We love you. This is something rather than nothing podcast.