Six Pennsylvania authors are featured in the Running Wild Anthology of Stories, Volume 2 — including one Pittsburgh novelist and editor, Susan Helene Gottfried (West of Mars).
Edited by Lisa Diane Kastner (former Pennwriters president and current founder and executive editor of the California-based publisher Running Wild Press), the Running Wild Anthology of Stories is a diverse collection featuring more than 20 short works in genres spanning sci-fi, mystery, women’s fiction, horror, speculative fiction, and fantasy.
After picking up a copy of the anthology, we spoke with Gottfried about the Running Wild Anthology of Stories, her story (“Undaunted”), and her return to writing and publishing!
For those keeping track, the other Pennsylvania-based authors in the collection: Suzanne Grieco Mattaboni, Gemma L. Brook, Laura Nelson Selinsky, Gary Zenker, and Julie Doherty.
What’s the Running Wild Anthology of Stories?
Start-up publisher Running Wild Press has created this second in a series of short story anthologies, the idea and emphasis of which is to cross genres, push boundaries, and highlight some of the best short fiction being written right now. Twenty stories by authors across North America are featured in this new anthology.
Can you tell us a little bit about your story?
My story, “Undaunted” is the story of Carrie and Dante, Dante’s death, and how Carrie finds the answers to some of Dante’s deepest questions in the inspiration for those very questions: the rain.
Is there an interesting story behind the story of “Undaunted”?
Late May or early June of 2017, I was out taking a walk and ran into one of my son’s friends. She told me about the surprising prompt on her AP English 11 final earlier that day, and how she’d handled it. It was a difficult prompt, so after we parted, I decided to challenge my literary chops and see what I could come up with. My first attempt was good, but typical. My second, mixing the prompt with the serious heart issue that afflicts Phil Demmel, one of the guitarists in rock band Machine Head, became “Undaunted.”
So what was the prompt on an AP English 11 final that inspired me and flummoxed my son’s friend?
One word: Puddles.
You mentioned that this marks a return to writing and publishing for you..
My last publication was a self-publication of — oddly enough — another short story, “Broken”. That was back in April of 2011. In August that year, I separated from my husband and had to switch gears from writer to freelance editor, a redirection that has been both a blessing and a balm. I can’t say what prompted me to latch on to the idea of puddles — let alone the dude from Machine Head — and begin some serious writing again, but I can say that “Undaunted” was one of those special stories that poured out of me almost complete and almost in one sitting. When I saw the call for submissions for Running Wild Press and the Anthology of Stories, I decided to submit it and see what would happen.
The interesting piece of all this is that in the six years since I last wrote seriously, I’ve been through a lot. A messy, ugly divorce. A devastating bicycling accident that tried to steal my right eye but miraculously left me with both eye and most of my vision – and the scars of three eye surgeries. My kids have grown up, found their passions, and my oldest is set to leave for college in the fall. All of this has added up to give my writing a new depth and texture — and that’s before I stop to consider what I’ve learned about being a writer by being a working editor. As an editor, my true passion has evolved to be focused on playing with words, sentence structure, and the like, and how those words affect the reader. While I didn’t consciously use any of that as I wrote “Undaunted,” I can see how editing has had a very large impact on my writing. And yes, I about died when I realized there is a slight two-paragraph tense shift in the final version of the story. It’s subtle, but it’s there, proving that even editors need editors and there is no such thing as perfection, although I think “Undaunted” is darn close.
The Running Wild Anthology of Stories, Volume 2 is now available from Running Wild Press. For more from Susan Helene Gottfried, visit her West of Mars.
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