ArtFire

Working retail is a rite of passage, and mine included being robbed at gunpoint in a bookstore, of all places. I mean, who robs a bookstore?! It's a strangely entertaining story. Also included in this 20-page zine are thoughts about the terror of non-linear narrative, naughty bookstore customers, and criminals who worked for the bookstore. Rubber stamp images punctuate the action.

I've tried to write about this event in my life several times, and was never quite satisfied with it, especially since I have an issue with the new book category "fictionalized autobiography." As in, this isn't quite true, but it sounds better/more dramatic/will get me on Oprah this way. Well, I finally let go of the idea that I was going to remember everything perfectly, or that there even was such a thing (looking at a thing changes where it is--quantum physics), and just wrote it how I wanted to, and had a lot of fun with it.

One of my friends who had the shotgun pointed at him the whole time guiltily admitted that he actually enjoyed reading my story of the event, that it was "strangely entertaining." I found that to be high praise!

paper, ink, staples, brain