Dennis Vickers
Surprisingly, truth is best told through fiction. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Of course, lies are best told through nonfiction, but I don’t do that. With fiction, the story can be about almost anything so long as it has the stuff of life in it. The stuff of life -- aye, there’s the rub.
Like bears and Sasquatch, Dennis Vickers lives in the north woods. Sometimes he teaches philosophy and creative writing at a tribal college; other times he holds up in a river cottage and writes this stuff. As the previous sentence proves, he knows how to work semicolons and isn’t afraid to use them.
Book-length fiction:
1. Witless: Rural communities clash in 18th Century Wisconsin.
2. Bluehart: Life story of fictional blues accordion player.
3. Second Virtue: Courage -- where it comes from and where it goes.
4. Adam’s Apple: Life story of congressman who fucks his mother. You thought they all did?
5. Passing through Paradise: Narrative collage mixing quest story with love story with satyr play. No salt.
6. Between the Shadow and the Soul: Love and lust, or maybe the other way.
7. Mikawadizi Storms: Open pit mine vs. pristine forest. You decide.
8. Double Exposures: Collection of short stories, some realism, all magical.
9. Only Breath: Ghost story wrapped in a mystery wrapped in waxed paper.
10. Only Words: Lost-love quest story set in neolithic Europe told by the words themselves.
“Truth is a melody composed of lying notes.”
“Karaoke divides humanity into two groups: those who don’t want to sing and shouldn’t be compelled, and those who do and shouldn’t be allowed.”
“When one speaks of sex with midgets, one must speak French.”
“Our stories are phantoms of fleeting moments reflected in mirrors.”
“Our reality may be fabled, but surely will be fleeting, because when the storyteller looks away, the story collapses. In the end, we vanish like mist in the morning sun.”