Up in Wyoming, there are still snow drifts, not pollen drifts. Brad Watson teaches creative writing at the University of Wyoming in Laramie and was here just last week reading from his new collection of short stories, Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives.
Brad has been to Lemuria numerous times before, but this was my first time to meet him. Out of the readings so far this year, Brad and Amy Greene have to be some of the best readers. It did not matter if you had a short attention span, I don’t think anybody had trouble listening to Brad read from the title novella.
“Aliens” is about a highschool-age couple who finds out they’re going to have a baby. Worried and scared, they leave their homes to set up their own place. While the young girl is asleep, the young man is visited by a couple who claim to be aliens. They share beers and talk . . . This is as far as Brad would read and this also happened to be the one story I have not read in the collection so far. I am thinking that perhaps these aliens put it all in perspective for this young couple?
After talking with Brad, I think Wyoming must be an extraordinarily thoughtful place to live, but I think Mississippi needs to think again about letting Brad spend all of his time there. The winters are long, a southerner needs the warmth of the South–in all its forms, and most of all, Brad Watson is just too talented of a writer to let go.
Brad Watson’s stories worm their way through you. Watson’s talent is singular, truly awesome; he reminds me of Raymond Carver, Flannery O’Connor, Chris Offutt in his bravery, his unflinching willingness to look at what might set others running. And yet these are not exactly dark stories – that is part of their magic, they are infused with an uncanny beauty in which, even at the most god-awful moments, something is salvaged.”
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