| Christopher and Isabella At times your curious caution recalls Queen Isabella Or perhaps I am reminded of the braves who hid along the eastern shore, sullen and suspicious, fingering their impotent spears, watching white men from the cloud-kissed canoe dream 6/22/04 David Clark Bradford Austin TX Austin Texas is home to two other professional writers' workshops (with published authors attending as teachers and/or students): Tryptophan and the ArmadilloCon Workshop. The first is actually an adjunct of Turkey City. writers such as Rick Klaw, Don Webb, and Lewis Shiner Several writers (chiefly Allen Varney and David Bradford) felt that the Turkey Citys were too far apart so they started a new workshop. This one is smaller and less of an "event" than its more established cousin, but it maintains a similar quality while meeting six times a year. DCB [email protected] If you are David Bradford, click here to edit your information. David Bradford Will you be attending the reunion? No Personal Information: Are you married? Yes hobbies? woodworking, writing, liberating cool retro stuff from garage sales |
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| Why this website? Because I have nothing better to do. Because I can't let it go. Because I can't forget. In my life, I've done a few things of which I'm proud--I won my school Spelling Bee three years in a row when I was in Junior High, I guess that's one. I've comforted a few people when they were hurting, listened to people when they were lonely, bought lunches and given rides to people who needed them... Occasionally (not often enough) I've stood up for my ideals. And once, just once, I sat with a gun to my head and refused to do what I was told. That took nerve, though I didn't think of it that way at the time. And though in the end, he got what he wanted. I gave in. It took only one punch, and not even a hard one at that. I'm not proud of this website or of the story it tells. It isn't a good story and I'm not a good person. Rather, I'm--like everyone else I know--trying very hard to be good. Whatever that means. You know, your therapist tells you one thing, kind friends tell you another, reason puts the fragments together, or as much as they can be put together... but what it comes down to, always, are the memories of voices, faces, and eyes. The look of anger shading into insanity. The scent of tears. An absent-minded stare on his face as he pounds himself into you. The smell of sex, and of another woman's house. An aching want, a hunger in the mouth and the chest, a feeling of being unmoored and lost. And power... the heady feeling of being able to destroy the world as you know it and the knowledge that you are ultimately powerless. What it comes down to is, I'm angry. I can't forgive. I can't accept that something terrible happened--something I walked up and asked for--and move on. Not while it's a secret. He asked for my discretion, knowing I hadn't the sense or the guts to do anything else, and I granted it... and now my silence eats at me every day. No one knows what he did and no one wants to know, but it's killing me. Or at least sometimes I wish it would. So on one level, I built this website with the craven hope that someone will see it and know who and what I'm talking about. And sometimes I hope he'll see it. I want him to read it and know how I feel... or at least to be embarrassed that the bits of him I know, the nasty, cruel, false bits, the ones I was (un)worthy enough to see are on semi-public display. I want to hurt him. There. I'm also a writer, at least sometimes. And I can't help creating a story. And I'm a person still trying to figure out what the fuck happened to her. But mostly, I hurt and I want to hurt in return. That's the part that sickens me. But not enough to put this away... which sickens me a little more. Are you still reading this? Do you want to know more? Then come inside, look around. It's an ongoing thing, so expect changes--hopefully improvements--over the next few months. And of course, if you have any suggestions, feel free to send them to me through the "comments" link on the front page. I think you'll see that I take "direction" very well. With much affection, Isabella |