Post 438: Dayna Ingram (Interview)

This interview took place over instant messenger between myself and the author of Eat Your Heart Out, Dayna Ingram on October 13, 2011.  The interview has been edited for flow, to fix typos and capitalization, and to make us both sound less like prats, but for the most part is intact. Links added by blogger and not necessarily endorsed by Dayna. 

Dayna Ingram grew up in Ohio and has since moved to the Bay Area, where she spends most of her time workin’, schoolin’, and forcin’ her dog to wear sweater vests. For more info on her writing projects, visit thedingram.blogspot.com. Her new novel Eat Your Heart Out will be available from Brazenhead sometime in November.

LibsLIB: It's been about a year since I last interviewed you. What have you been up to since then?
Dayna Ingram: Let's see. I moved to berkeley, I got promoted at work, I wrote some more things....I am one more semester away from graduating....ummm... I discovered Battlestar Gallactica somewhat to my detriment, as I put off a lot of important things to watch it, such as bathing and sleeping.

LibsLIB: Your last novel was self-published, while this one is going through a small press, what have your experiences with that been so far? Do you prefer one over the other at this point or is it too early to tell? 
Dayna: Selling a manuscript is more exciting because it's like, "Hooray! A stranger likes my story and thinks other people will too!" It's nice to have someone in your corner, and Alex Jeffers (the editor/publisher of BrazenHead) has been great. One thing that's the same with both self-publishing and small press publishing (at least in this case) is that there is still no marketing budget. BrazenHead will send out review copies, but that's it. So I'm still grass-rootsing it.
LibsLIB: Do you get to choose who receives review copies, or does Jeffers make that decision?
Dayna: He does it. I could maybe make suggestions. But I can also send copies on my own to places. I'm not entirely sure, to be honest. I don't want to step on any toes, I'm so new at this!
LibsLIB: If there was one person you could make sure read Eat Your Heart Out, who would it be?
Dayna Michelle Rodriguez.I'm going to send her a copy. Maybe her intern/personal assistant will like it, at least

LibsLIB: What exactly is your fascination with Michelle Rodriguez?
Dayna: That is like asking me why I love butter. Butter is delicious. She is fierce. She is a strong, sexy lady. She fought some zombies in a movie one time. And I have a thing for bad girls, you know this.
LibsLIB: You dedicated your novel to her, in your own opinion, flattering or borderline creepy?
Dayna: Haha, I thought it was funny. Who do you think Renni Ramirez is? I'm just solidifying the image for the reader. But it might be a bit creepy.

LibsLIB: Speaking of Renni Ramirez, do you consider this a lesbian novel with zombies, or a zombie novel with lesbians? 
Dayna: A lesbian novel with zombies. There's a lot more focus on the lesbians. If it was a zombie novel with lesbians, I think I would have killed off a lot more characters. For the gore factor.
LibsLIB: You decided to go with the classic slow moving, mindless zombies, is that your ideal zombie, or do you like other zombies as well?
Dayna: That is my ideal zombie, especially if I were running away from one. I like that zombie best because it's super creepy, being stalked by something so slow and smelly. It's also easier to underestimate those types of zombies, and that's when shit starts getting real. I love the zombies in Left 4 Dead (the game) that explode zombie-attracting goo on you, though. That's a pretty cool survival tool for the species. If you can call zombies a species.

LibsLIB: Do you have any favorite zombie movies or books?
Dayna: Yes. My favorite zombie book is Max Brook's World War Z. I think he took a very cool angle on it, oral histories of the Zombie War, that allowed him to explore a lot of different aspects of a zombie outbreak in a realistic way. My favorite zombie movie is Shaun of the Dead, because it managed to make me laugh, make me cry, and creep me out a bit. Not since Steel Magnolias has that happened.

LibsLIB: Do you feel that LGBTQ are underrepresented in the zombie genre? What do you think including them has to offer in terms of storytelling?
Dayna: Yes, I think they're (we're) underrepresented in all literature and media. I recently Googled "lesbian zombie novel" and got only one hit that had anything to do with zombies, the rest was all lesbian vampires. In terms of storytelling, I think it just adds something for a reader to relate to, or just be aware of. "Hey, gay people fight zombies too!" Eat Your Heart Out might have been just as sexy if one of the main characters was a man, but they're women, so, hooray! I would like to plug the website AfterEllen.com right now, which is an entertainment website for and by LGBTQ peoples. A quick search of that site will show anyone just how very little we are represented in the media.

LibsLIB: You have some unusual names in your book (Biff Tipping, Carmelle Souffle), why did you include such unusual names and how did you come up with them ?
Dayna: I must confess that is a result of having written the first draft of this for NaNoWriMo. I didn't have time to second-guess names, and they just sounded good at the time. Biff Tipping sounds like beef tips to me, and he's kinda big and beefy, and Carmelle Souffle is all creamy and delicious. I really like food.

LibsLIB: If you had to pair Eat Your Heart Out with a particular food and/or beverage, what would it be?
Dayna: Chocolate cake that you must eat with your face (no hands).What did you eat while you read it?
LibsLIB: I don't eat much while I read, I think I remember eating black licorice.

LibsLIB: Are you planning to participate in NaNoWriMo again this year? What will you be writing about and do you have any advice for other NaNoers?
Dayna: Indeed I plan to! I am going to work on a novella called BLAM!, which borrows heavily from Noir traditions and has a little fun with sex and gender. My advice is: don't plan what you are going to write too far ahead of time. Focus on immediacy: What do you want from this immediate scene? What do you want to express here? (Expectations amount to pressure and pressure amounts to not writing!) And don't get discouraged if you are behind by, like, 10,000 words with two days to go. There is this magical potion called 5-hour Energy.... It's also good to have buddies to write with, and encourage each other. But that's true in all things. Also throw in a bunch of crazy extra words and adverbs, you can edit them out later.

LibsLIB: Is there a NaNoWriMo novel you'd like to see someone else write?
Dayna: Zombie Unicorns!!

Post 437: Eat Your Heart Out

Eat Your Heart Out by Dayna Ingram. ISBN: 9781590213339 (Advanced copy - publishes November 2011).

Romance is so hard to write. There seem to be two ways you can really write romantic interactions: completely silly or totally serious. The first one is hard to do without making it too silly, and the second is hard to do without making it too silly AND serious. Without balance, neither one really rings true, but I would venture to say that the ones with a bit of silliness are a little more accurate. Dayna Ingram has managed to find that balance, at least as far as her character Devin is concerned.

So yes, having Devin accidentally break Renni's nose within hours of meeting her is borderline silly, and so is rolling around in the mud in a field of zombies, but hey, there are zombies and how sane do you suppose your romantic responses would be when faced with the living dead? So in this way Devin's response seems far more true to me based on the circumstances than a straight-laced takes-itself-too-seriously romance novel-esque version of the same situation. Having been in situations of mental crises, I can guarantee you that I have not made the greatest choices, which is not to say that the romantic pairing in this novel is a bad choice, but perhaps the timing is not so awesome. But dammit, we're human, we fuck at inopportune moments and get involved with people when we probably shouldn't because sometimes we just have to think with our hormones. And as a result, hilarious things happen.

Flirtations bomb or are a little over the top, there are tentative moments, sometimes there are ass slaps that seem to come from nowhere, and then there's the dumb and slack jawed staring, because that totally happens sometimes. And you know what, it's a hell of a lot more fun, and sometimes even more appealing, than the calling-Heathcliff-from-the-moors kind of "romance."

For one thing, the nervous/giddy nature of initial flirting acts as a kind of boundary testing. Is it okay if I touch this person's arm? Is it okay if I comment on how they look? Someone who is good at gauging another person's response will take the cues and respond accordingly, which eventually increases the level of comfort and leads to further permissions being granted as the couple gets to know each other. Meanwhile the straight-laced romances seem to bypass this or use a sort of kick in the door approach, usually via Stockholm syndrome or one character pretty much forcing another character into a stressful situation in which they bicker with each other until there is that breaking moment where all of a sudden the forced character (usually female, gee...) submits to the one doing the forcing. While it is not (usually) outright rape, it is manipulative as hell and I'll take the sexy playful, overly awkward, and flirtation heavy romance Dayna* has provided over bodice ripping any day.

My review can be found on Goodreads, and I so added that book to the catalog. Because I have magical powers.
LibsNote: Review copy provided by the most awesome person in the world. I mean the author. I mean Dayna Ingram. She is my secret girlfriend. (Well, she would be if I weren't straight. Stupid biology.)
*Also see any of Gail Carriger's novels. I'm sure there are other examples, but I can't think of them off the top of my head. Katniss and Peeta in Hunger Games also come to mind.

Post 335: Dayna Ingram (guest blogger)

Pariah by Bob Fingerman. ISBN: 9780765326270.

There's a moment very early in this book when a certain character is resting peacefully on the window ledge of an apartment building, inconveniently surrounded by zombies. He chats with his wife, he smokes a cigarette. Oh shit he falls out the window! He becomes a victim first of gravity, then of hungry zombie hordes. This guy right here is totally me if I ever find myself in the midst of a Zombocalypse.

I am the poor sucker who will be killed not by zombies but by my own stupidity, or susceptibility to gravity, which is more or less the same thing. I am the idiot who will avoid being bitten for days, maybe even weeks, and then I'll forget to lock up the garage, or I'll scrape my knee on a rusty nail, or I'll run out into the middle of the street trying to save a stray dog. I'll bust the heads of a writhing, unquenchable mass of gooey, drippy dead dudes, only to trip and fall down a well on my way back to safety. I'll shoot my own undead mother in the noggin' and then step on a live wire that's been downed in a shallow puddle on the sidewalk and go to my grave regretting only that I forgot it had rained or that I forgot how electrocution works.

You read me right. In the event of a Zombie Apocalypse, I would not hesitate to shoot the reanimated corpse of my own dear mother. I guess I'm pretty proud of this inner knowledge. Whatever idiotic things I may do in the quest to not be eaten by my former friends, neighbors and countrymen, I will never die due to a misplaced sense of compassion/empathy/sympathy for my zombified loved ones. Because, as the old adage goes, there's no
OH-SHIT-MY-WIFE'S-A-ZOMBIE-I-CAN'T-POSSIBLY-SHOOT-HER-IN-THE-FACE in SURVIVAL.

Remember that, loved ones. If the Zombocalypse comes, maybe don't beep me.

Dayna Ingram is a writer and student living in the Bay Area. She received her BA in Creative Writing from Antioch College in 2008, and is currently working on her MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. She works at Half Price Books, where she buys more books than she can reasonably hope to read in a lifetime.  She is also the author of Sleep Like This.

Dayna's review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: guest blogger did not disclose where she got the book from. Also, I am not a good candidate for saving your or my own ass during the Zombocalypse either. I'm both slow and callous.

Post 284: Dayna Ingram (guest blogger)

Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell.  ISBN: 9780316057554.

I love when books get adapted into movies, because usually I have never heard of the book being adapted, and I am excited to read it more than I am excited to see the movie. I've discovered wonderful stories this way (White Oleander; Girl, Interrupted), and so I was super excited to read Winter's Bone after I saw a trailer for the independent film. The book is very atmospheric, and sort of noir-ish in its plot, but the characterization of Ree Dolly is what really pulled me through it. She is a literary heroine in the style of Clarice Starling: all vulnerability hidden under a necessarily tough exterior (a little girl trying to survive in a man's world), and her stoicism is quite touching. The complexity of her character is only deepened by her sexual relationship with her best friend Gail.

While this relationship is never made explicit, it is completely there, and very important in how Ree deals with her lot in life. The non-exploitative, nicely subtle way Woodrell handles this relationship is very welcome, allowing the reader to infer its significance and use their own imagination to read between the lines. It's tragic but it's not sensational or overtly sentimental, and of course Ree bares the burden of her desire, like she does all her other unfulfilled desires, with stoic grace. So this relationship surprised me, and made me really excited to see how the movie handled this aspect of the novel. And, of course, the movie completely dropped the entire thing.

Okay, I understand that the film was playing more with the atmosphere of the setting and doing some tonal things and wasn't really focused on character-building as much as the novel was. (In fact, the movie was under whelming and entirely confusing; if I hadn't read the novel beforehand, I don't think I would have understood the plot at all.) They set up the friendship between Ree and Gail but it was never as deep as it was in the novel (even disregarding the sexual nature of the relationship, it was still a very intimate and important friendship that the film ignored). Maybe the relationship is only important to me because, as a gay lady, I yearn for more complex representations of sexual identity and especially women just in general in my books and movies. But I don't think I am alone in seeing this. It's something that I would expect certain readers to go ahead and ignore if it bucked up against their narrow worldviews or fragile identities, but for the screenwriters to ignore it completely? It's almost as outrageous as the Fried Green Tomatoes adaptation, which excised the much more explicit lesbian identity of Idgie Threadgoode entirely from the story.

Listen, I know movies are shorter and therefore must cut certain aspects of stories for purposes of length, but that is not what I see happening here when important aspects of a character are completely shut down. I see screenwriters or producers or studio execs getting scared that they'll offend some throwback sensibility of their oh-so naïve audience by presenting them with “alternative lifestyles,” so rather than develop a complex, whole, individual character, they whittle the character down to their most acceptable/relatable traits (woman-precocious-just-needs-a-good-man; woman-young-headstrong-just-needs-a-good-man).

I'd like to think, in 2011, we've progressed beyond this simplification. I'd like to think, if I want to see lesbians or non-heterosexual ladies on my screen, I don't have to go out and specifically rent a Lesbian Movie (I've seen them all, anyway). I'd like to know what Woodrell thinks about this. I'd like to think I am not the only one who is ranting about this.

Dayna's review can be found on Goodreads.

Dayna Ingram is a writer and student living in the Bay Area. She received her BA in Creative Writing from Antioch College in 2008, and is currently working on her MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. She works at Half Price Books, where she buys more books than she can reasonably hope to read in a lifetime.  She is also the author of Sleep Like This.

Day 224: Dayna Ingram (author and guest blogger)

Everyone remembers their first carefree year of college. The girls! The boys! The parties! The hot profs! The coke binges! The police investigating the sudden disappearance of your charismatic roommate! Man, I had some hot profs. (Scott Warren. Mrrrreow!) Surprisingly, though, what really sticks with me – aside from the rap sheet – are the friendships I made with the investigating officers and – if you can believe it – the prosecuting attorney. I know, right! What a star-crossed pair we made, facing off behind our polished wooden tables, distanced from each other by a list of circumstantial evidence that concerned me less than trying to read the words beneath her words – the delicious subtext.

Actual words: “At this time, the prosecution would like to submit a cache of receipts obtained by the suspect two days prior to the night in question.”

Subtext: “I’d really like to discover more about the personal tastes of the cute young woman on the wrong side of the courtroom, but professional etiquette prevents me from asking directly. Perhaps I can glean something from these receipts.”

“Exhibit A, an itemized sales slip from Ace Hardware: 500 feet nylon rope, two five foot spades, six rolls duct tape, two gallons lighter fluid, one hammer, one sixteen inch decorative lawn gnome.”

“A decorative lawn gnome! How delightful! She’s spontaneous, charming, doesn’t take life too seriously. How refreshing!”

“Exhibit B, from Wal-Mart: One gallon Clorox bleach, one pair rubber gloves, various scrub brushes, one set matching bed linens, one pack gum.”

“So considerate! Clean sheets and Winterfresh gum! She knows how to treat a lady right!”

Our dalliances carried on like this for several weeks until I was convinced we were dating. I couldn’t wait to tell all my friends about us, but my lawyer advised me to not speak about the trial to anyone until it was over. The forced secrecy of our forbidden love only fanned the flames of our passion.

Finally, because no body was ever recovered, the jury decided they couldn’t be certain, beyond a reasonable doubt, that my former roommate was even really dead, so they had to acquit. On my way out of the courtroom, I paused to watch my gorgeous prosecutor graciously shake hands with my lawyer. When he moved on, I presented my hand to her, and she just stared at it, overcome with
emotion.

“I know, sweetheart,” I whispered, closing my eyes to hide the tears. “I know.”

Our physical relationship was all too brief, beginning and culminating in one single, loving slap across my right cheek. I touched her warm palm print on my skin as I watched her march out of the courtroom – and my heart – forever.

Years later I found out she got disbarred for planting evidence, and subsequently developed an addiction to diet pills and gambling on underground ferret races. Dodged a bullet there.

ANNOUNCEMENT!  If you liked this post, you may be interested in reading her book Sleep Like This.  Dayna Ingram is having a contest for her book over at Goodreads.  Just sign up for an account (if you don't have one already) and enter here.  Quick! It ends November 12!  


Dayna Ingram is a writer and student living in the Bay Area. She received her BA in Creative Writing from Antioch College in 2008, and is currently working on her MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. She works at Half Price Books, where she buys more books than she can reasonably hope to read in a lifetime.  She is also the author of Sleep Like This.  To the best of my knowledge she has never murdered nor been on trial for murdering her room mate...or has she?

Day 223: Dayna Ingram (Interview)

This interview took place over instant messenger between myself and the author of Sleep Like This, Dayna Ingram on October 22, 2010.  The interview has been edited for flow and to fix typos, but for the most part is intact.

Dayna Ingram is a writer and student living in the Bay Area. She received her BA in Creative Writing from Antioch College in 2008, and is currently working on her MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. She works at Half Price Books, where she buys more books than she can reasonably hope to read in a lifetime.  She is also the author of Sleep Like This.



LibsLIB: So, you recently decided to self-publish your first novel Sleep Like This. Why did you decide to self-publish instead of going through traditional publishing, and what has your experience with self-publishing been?
Dayna Ingram: I went with self-publishing as a sort of experiment just to see what it was like and how much marketing I could do on my own. No one really tells you when you first set out to study creative writing that the hardest part isn't actually the writing of a story, it's the publishing. It's a whole other ball game that I wanted to skip this first time out, because it intimidates the crap out of me.

I'm still in the early stages with self-publishing, but I have mixed feelings about it just because it is super hard to get over the stigma that a self-published book isn't "good enough" to have been published through conventional channels. So sometimes I am afraid to tell people about the book because I worry they'll reject it based solely on that.

LibsLIB: If that's the case why did you decide to publish under your real name instead of a pen name?
Dayna: Hm. I don't really care for pen names. I mean, I still wrote the story, and I'm still proud of the work, I don't want to erase myself from it. I guess it's my own preconceptions of self-publishing I have to force myself to confront before I can confront anyone else on theirs, and attaching my name will push me into that action. Hopefully.  I guess I don't understand pen names, really. It's almost like tacking on "anonymous". If you don't want to be associated with what you wrote, why put it out there in the first place?

Plus it's really cool to see your name printed on the cover/spine of a book.

LibsLIB: Do you think you would enjoy working with a publishing house to see your name printed on a book, or did you think you prefer the amount of control you have by self-publishing your work?
Dayna: I think I would like to work with a publishing house someday. Work with an agent or an editor, or a team, something like that. People scare me though, especially professional people, so once I stop hiding behind my fear, I can attempt the conventional publishing route. Once I have my MFA I might feel more confident.

I really like writing, and I really want people to read my work, but going through the hoops of getting an agent and pitching your stuff to a publishing house, it's more businessy and feels like a lot of bullshit because it's all about money. I don't really care about money at this point, I just want people to read my work. Sleep Like This would've been free but CreateSpace won't let me do that. But the ebook probably will be free.

LibsLIB: You completed Sleep Like This as your senior project at Antioch College, where you also involved a science student to help you with the forensics, can you tell the readers of Libs LIB a little bit about that experience and how you set it up?
Dayna: Sure. Jessica Davis was doing her senior project where she wanted to solve a crime scene so she came to me with the idea to have me write a novel revolving around this murder that she would solve.  So I started writing this story that I envisioned as a short story (because it'd be less work for me!), and I would just ask Jessica questions like, how does fingerprinting work? What about gun powder residue? DNA? What are some conceivable poisons? But I couldn't get too detailed because I was trying to set this crime scene up for her to solve, and I wanted to outsmart her a little bit. But of course I didn't.

I remember also the day I had to set up the crime scene for Jess. It was the morning after a huge college party and we were both hung over, as was my friend Brittany who was enlisted to play the dead body.  And it took FOREVER. We had to wait around while Jess combed the scene, which was some empty room in the science building, and Brittany just had to lay there for awhile. And I learned it takes something like 50 strands of hair or something ridiculous like that to get DNA from it. 

Sleep Like This really began evolving into a novel during NaNoWriMo, which was the only year I ever won that thing (2006, I think). And originally Jessica was actually a character in it, solving the case and everything. And there was a different killer, it was really different.

LibsLIB: Do you think the experience with Jessica Davis made Sleep Like This more accurate or gave you an insight you might not have had otherwise?
Dayna: Well, without her the story never would've been written. But as far as forensically accurate, I think she was working within a school budget/school facilities, so she was more limited to what she could do with certain evidence. So I had to research outside of that to really try to understand what procedures would be used.  So I watched a lot of Law and Order: SVU.
LibsLIB: I believe you mentioned you were working on a second novel, what will that one be about?
Dayna: Yes, it's called All Good Children, and it is basically an exploration of family life within a dystopian future in which humans have a natural predator. Well, I guess not natural. Paranatural?  I'm really into it, and the first draft is almost done, but I always find it harder to write something the more deeply I'm involved with the story and the characters. It's like I've set this bar and I am afraid I can't reach it, even though I know I can because I'm the one who set it. So I sometimes sabotage myself. But it's coming along.  One of my professors called it "literary sci-fi", which felt pretty good.
LibsLIB: Do you think you're drawn more to sci-fi, or do you just write what you're interested in at the time, can we expect a lot of different genre writing from you?
Dayna: I hope you can expect a lot of different genre writing. I like elements of sci-fi and fantasy because they allow me to put my characters into these extreme situations and see what develops. I'm most interested in the psychology of my characters, so sometimes throwing like giant man-eating spiders at them is interesting, and sometimes having them not be able to find a parking space at a BART station is more interesting. It depends on the character.

LibsLIB: So, what's with your fascination with Buffy the Vampire Slayer anyway?
Dayna: Haha! This is my favorite thing ever to talk about.  It's just the best writing for a television show I've ever encountered, even with all the hokie demon stuff.  It was always about relationships and personal issues and never about demon slaying, even though it was set in that world. It was richer than that. It transcended its genre.  Plus Faith is hot.
LibsLIB: I always found the "supporting characters" to actually be more interesting than the lead characters (i.e. Buffy and Angel), who was your favorite character and why?
Dayna: Faith, because she had the classic redemption story. She was the bad girl you just want to hold while she eventually cries because no one's that tough.  Spike also had a redemption story, and I'd say his character was the most complex throughout the series. He's a close second for my favorite.  I only really like Buffy in relation to the other characters, if that makes sense. Like, I only cared about her because of how she affected her friends and how they all cared about her.  But her superiority/inferiority complex got tired after a while.  Even though it was called "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" it was always an ensemble show, which was great. 
LibsLIBS: I was not a big fan of Buffy herself, it was almost as if the show didn't have her it might have been better except everyone in Sunnydale would be un/dead.
Dayna: Yeah, they'd all be slaves to the Master, but Willow would be all vampy hot, so it's a trade-off.
LibsLIBS: You portray lesbian relationships in Sleep Like This, do you think Whedon did an accurate or reasonable job with Willow's sexuality give you have more experience as a lesbian?
Dayna: I think he did a good job, because it was kind of gradual. Willow met someone she connected with who happened to be female and she went for it. She still had feelings for her once boyfriend, Oz, but she recognized and embraced this newness in her sexuality. (which J-Dub did hint at in earlier seasons with her vampire-self). And Tara turned out to be the love of her life, and after that relationship ended, Willow got into another relationship with a woman. So it was never about this one-shot sweeps month deal. It was the natural progression of a character.  Now, where J-Dub [Joss Whedon] dropped the ball was Buffy's lesbian experience in the comic books, which doesn't fit her character's progression at all, at least to me.
LibsLIB: It felt like in Sleep Like This you used a lot of experiences that actually happened at Antioch, the stuff with The Couple, the experimenting and uncertainty of new sexual experiences, and even some of the tragedies that happened. How much did Antioch influence your writing of this particular novel and do you think it will continue to influence you?
Dayna: It influenced this novel almost 100%. Antioch was an engrossing place and I wrote most of the novel there, so it was my whole world and it became the whole world in the novel, I think. But I think at least some the experiences I wrote about are universal to the first-year college experience anywhere; they're just amped up on a smaller campus in a small town.  My Antioch experience has greatly influenced my worldview, so of course that carries over to my writing. I am much more aware of how I portray women and people of color, and issues of identity and sexuality, which seem to be themes in most of my work.
LibsLIB: Okay, I think we're nearing the end of the interview because I believe you have a date with a raquetball court. Is there a character or story element you would like me to write a Rupert story about?
Dayna: Hm. You should do an Alice in Wonderland story, where Rupert follows a plain old turtle down a hole into our world, where he's excited to encounter all these really dull things, and then he gets tranquilized and taken to a government facility where they do experiments on him and sell his body to a corporation that uses his image to sell hamburgers.
LibsLIB: Hah, done.

Dayna: Ooh, can I say one more thing about the novel?
LibsLIB: Yes, you can say many more things.
Dayna: Not to sound exploit-y, but the sex scene in the car, my professor at the time told our workshop class that it made her want to be a lesbian. I'm just saying.
LibsLIB: I can believe it, it was a pretty hot scene. Was it perhaps based on personal experience? 
Dayna: No comment.
LibsLIB: You saucy wench.
Dayna: Can I write a fake blog post for you about how the book reminds me of the one time I accidentally murdered my classmate?**
LibsLIB: hahaha, yes.  Danny wants to know why you would want to write about that (but is amused).
Dayna: Because it's highly relatable, who hasn't accidentally murdered someone in this day and age? I mean, come on, it's 2010.
LibsLIB: Danny also wants you to know that he's gay for you, and yes he has seen the YouTube Video.
Dayna: I am blushing. My finest moment! I love that little movie. If it is my only legacy, I will be happy with that.

ANNOUNCEMENT!  If you liked this post, you may be interested in reading the book yourself.  Dayna Ingram is having a contest for her book over at Goodreads.  Just sign up for an account (if you don't have one already) and enter here.  Quick! It ends November 12! 

**Look for this post tomorrow!

Day 222: Sleep Like This

Sleep Like This by Dayna Ingram.  ISBN: 9781449918972.

Have you ever had friend who wanted you to read her writing and you were terrified to read it because you were afraid you would hate it?  I have.  Dayna is one of my guest bloggers and a friend from Antioch College.  We were not what I would call close, but I always admired her ability to produce weird and amazing conversation and her general upbeat attitude.  I don't think I ever saw her go through the usual angst of college co-eds.  This is not to say she was or is bubbly, she is just one of those people that it makes you feel good to be around.

Part of the reason I may have enjoyed this book so much is that I know Dayna personally.  And I also know the setting she based the novel on, so all of the drama involved in the book was familiar.  There is no drama like the drama that comes about at a small liberal arts college with a mostly queer/gender queer population.  Everybody knows every god damned body, and I mean that in multiple contexts, positions, and combinations.  It wasn't so much that everyone slept with everyone at the college, but there were definitel "hubs" of sexual activity and it created some particularly interesting discussions about trying to figure out who slept with who and games of 6 degrees were usually only challenging if you started off with some who only slept with townies or people from other schools or from co-op jobs.

I very much identified with Regina Scott in Dayna's novel.  She was dealing with some very difficult issues her first year at college, which is itself often trying.  Scott was dealing with how to have a relationship with someone who is not ready for one, and I have most certainly been there.

When I entered college I made the big mistake of keeping my boyfriend from high school (who was in Mississppi).  It was easy for us to have a relationship when we could see each other often, but as soon as I moved to college he seemed to lose interest in communicating with me.  This was a big problem for me since that was pretty much the only thing our relationship was based on once I moved.  Because this was my first "adult" relationship, I did not handle things as well as I should have and things ended much later than they should have and in a way I am not proud of.  This would have been fine if my partner was about the same age as me, but because he was 29 (to my 18) I think we were both expecting more from each other in terms of maturity and "doing the right thing."

It is hard to come to the conclusion that you are the only one who has your best interests in mind.  As much as I wanted to stay with my boyfriend and have a life with him, I was only 18 and he should have let me go, especially if he had no interest in actually putting the time and work into a relationship with me.  I cannot tell you the amount of angst the relationship itself put me through, and the covery period was extended because of all the issues surrounding my inexperience with Just Dating and deteriorating health of My First Relationship.

Post originally written October 21, 2010 so I could catch up on my own reading, writing, or sleeping.

ANNOUNCEMENT!  If you liked this post, you may be interested in reading the book yourself.  Dayna Ingram is having a contest for her book over at Goodreads.  Just sign up for an account (if you don't have one already, and enter here.  Quick! It ends November 12!

Day 89: Dayna Ingram (guest blogger)

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami.  ISBN 9781421527727.

I loves me some dystopian future novels (favorites include such classics as Lord of the Flies, The Hand Maid's Tale, 1984, Brave New World, and a slew of short stories). I’m sure if I researched enough I could find out where it all started…was it only after the real-life horrors of the World Wars? Or is that only when it began in earnest in the United States? Because of course, given the imperialist nature of all ruling countries, such real-life human atrocities (genocides, slavery, eugenics, labor camps, public executions, wars, etc.) have been going on for hundreds of years all over the world. People read these novels today and they’re like, “oh, it’s sci-fi,” but it’s only written that way because otherwise you wouldn’t read it. Why would you want to read about awful things that really happened? That would complicate your life. By "your," I mean mine.

Right now I’m writing a novel that has a lot of the same themes I’m finding in Battle Royale, themes that I’m sure are wholly unsurprising for the genre. When chipped away, it all comes down to the sharp counterpoint of humanity’s depths of depravity versus its saving graces. What are these and how do they balance each other? What are the things we’re willing to sacrifice our lives, or our souls for? What is integrity, what is humanity, what makes us good or bad or cruel or kind? And who are we, really? That’s the essential question, one seemingly only answerable by tossing someone into an extreme situation (I.e. forced to kill your friends on an island as part of a government-sanctioned game that has no discernible purpose) and observing their reaction. How can we judge these people? It’s tough stuff, best saved for fiction, so keep your history books and television news screens out of my face!

I don’t really know what I’m talking about. What day is today? Why am I only wearing one sock? Did I take too much cough medicine? I need to lie down. I think I’m allergic to my dog.

What was I saying? Yes, so something that interests me about this book is how absolutely certain death is for this group of 42 students; yet each of them, in their own way, takes that death into their own hands, or at least tries to. I mean, they only have 24 hours and then they know, one way or another, they’re gonna bite it. It’s so profound to me that they press on. It’s so much like life, because we all have expiration dates; theirs are simply condensed. We all find ways to escape thinking about death, burying our heads in the sand of religion or some faith in something outside ourselves and our world, or in material distractions or hedonistic luxuries, or in humanitarian or activist efforts. I’m not saying these things aren’t worthwhile, but they’re all essentially the same thing because life is all essentially the same thing: trying to keep living. One o’ them big timey philosophers talked about Being-toward-Death and living an authentic life, and how you had to acknowledge death before you could be authentic.* (Maybe, I don’t know, I only took one class.) There’s a fine line between acknowledging something and dwelling on it, and somewhere in between there, we have to keep on kickin’.

That’s why we have fiction. That’s why we have fantasy, superheroes, immortality, Heaven, Hell, toothpaste and spaghetti. Oh crap I got mucus on the keyboard. I’m sorry let me just get that uhetroihweotioqe;totnewe;g there we go, all wiped off.  

Dayna Ingram is a writer and student living in the Bay Area. She received her BA in Creative Writing from Antioch College in 2008, and is currently working on her MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. She works at Half Price Books, where she buys more books than she can reasonably hope to read in a lifetime.  She occasionally writes blog posts while deathly ill and kind of loopy.

*It's Heidegger, for those of you who are interested.

**This is a reserve blog so that the author can do other things, like have a life.  It originally written May 19, 2010

Day 38: Dayna Ingram (guest blogger)

Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born by Stephen King, Peter David, Robin Furth, and Jason Lee (Illustrator).  ISBN: 9780785121442.

Having been sick this passed weekend, I was not up for reading anything that had more paragraphs than pictures or more figurative language than thought balloons, so I figured a graphic novel was my best bet. I saved the Dark Tower comics for when I finished the epic seven-tome series, because I assumed - especially with a title like Gunslinger Born - that the comics would not follow the books’ chronology. Before I digress into bigger-picture stuff, I just have to criticize this book a bit, because it’s only fair to those who may really be looking forward to it, or, worse, planning to skip the two thousand or so pages of the novels and only catch the story in graphic novel form.

Number one, way too much narration! Who the heck is the narrator? Shut up already! Number two, even though Roland’s origin is technically “the beginning,” our introduction to his story shouldn’t start here because it’s harder to care about Roland the Boy before we’ve known Roland the Man. Number three, the artist can’t or won’t draw backgrounds. I feel like I’m looking at stills from a no-budget play. Lastly, you definitely won’t understand the richness of the world or the characters if you read this first (or only). It definitely feels like they wrote it knowing only die-hard Tower fans would pick it up.

What was I saying about the big picture? Oh yes. So this book is rated for mature audiences because of cartoon breasts and many, many, many innuendos and allusions to women being raped/used and men attacking things with their penises. . . I mean guns . . . No, wait, I mean penises. An actual quote: “…to be truly a man, one must learn to wield all weapons of manhood, including the weapon that God gives men at birth.”

I understand all the male characters in this book are juiced up on testosterone and the women - even the ones intended to be strong - are little more than sex objects (or at the very least, have no real agency without the love of a good man behind them - even Eddie and Susannah fall into this), but I don’t think it’s far off base to wonder if real-life dudes really think about their penises this way. Certainly, men see women as something to be conquered. Our very language is built upon this concept, for example, the Random House Dictionary definition of “deflower” is “to deprive (a woman) of virginity; to despoil of beauty, freshness, sanctity, etc.”  And how does one usually go about conquering something? Oh, yes. With weapons. Weaponized penises. Penisized weapons? (Is this blog rated PG?* I want to draw a picture of this. No? Okay…)

As not only a woman, but also a lesbian, I can’t very well make the blanket statement that “men are more obsessed with their own penises than any woman ever will be,” but, come on, men are more obsessed with their own penises more than any woman ever will be. On the flip side, I am quite fond and protective of my vagina. (Weaponized vagina? Can I draw that? Please?) I like my vagina more than I like anyone else’s vagina (but I am single right now). Still, I don’t want to conquer other vaginas with my vagina, and if I were straight, I don’t think I’d want to conquer penises either. But maybe that’s what men are afraid of (vagina dentata, anyone?), so rather than admit to being able to be conquered, they go on the offensive and play the aggressor.

I don’t know. I just want to draw an epic battle of weaponized genitals. (Please?)

Dayna Ingram is a writer and student living in the Bay Area. She received her BA in Creative Writing from Antioch College in 2008, and is currently working on her MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. She works at Half Price Books, where she buys more books than she can reasonably hope to read in a lifetime.


*For those of you wondering, no this blog is not rated PG.  I did mark it has having "adult themes."  I don't care if you read it and you're underaged, but you should at least know what you're getting into.

Day 37: Dayna Ingram (guest blogger)

Naked Moon by Domenic Stansberry.  ISBN: 9780312364540.

Working at the bookstore, I always see these people coming in and buying stacks and stacks of clearance mystery/thriller paperbacks, and I envy them. Those books look so fun, and gosh it must be nice to have the time to read so many each week, which I assume they do as they are in here often enough for me to know them by name.  Granted, I also buy stacks and stacks of books that I’ve yet to read, but they’re mostly Joyce Carol Oates novels or short story collections I intend to someday not only read but learn from. To me, a one-dollar paperback mystery novel is not anything I can learn from; it’s sheer leisure-reading, which I just don’t have time for these days.

That’s why I was excited to be assigned Stansberry’s Naked Moon this week in the Writers on Writing class I’m TA-ing. Not only is it a mystery novel, it’s a noir, which apparently has its own set of traditions (some might say “clichés”). This particular story (the fourth and final in the series) takes place in North Beach, San Francisco's predominantly Italian-American neighborhood, and focuses on ex-cop Dante Mancuso (a very noir-ish name) as he struggles to escape the shadowy underground agency he used to be part of.

Sometimes I like stories that are predictable. I like to take a break from endless character development and fancy prose stylin’s and get lost in a twisty plot and hardboiled, bare-knuckled dialogue. I remember reading my dad’s Spencer novels (R.I.P. Robert B. Parker) when I was a kid and marveling that entire pages would shoot by in streams of tagless back-and-forth, one-liner dialogue that often made absolutely no sense to my young brain. I remember needing to get my parents to sign some form at the library granting me permission to read “adult” books, like Parker or Stephen King, because I was under thirteen. The first novel I read (Goosebumps and Fear Street books aside) was Dean Koontz’s Intensity, and I remember being just so absolutely riveted. Recently I reread it and realized just how extremely lacking it is in literary grace, but there is no denying that the concept - the plot and character ideas - was captivatingly original.

I can’t say I had a lot of fun with Naked Moon, though. The dialogue wasn’t as snappy as, evidently, I prefer my mystery parlance to be. It was cool to read about a semi-fictionalized San Francisco that I’m still taking baby steps in exploring, and it was clear that the history of the city is very important and inspiring to the author. Stansberry did win an Edgar Award, so he’s doing something right for fans of the genre. As part of the class, I also got to meet him and hear him talk about the traditions of the genre and the blurred lines of genre fiction and literary fiction. I am encouraged by this idea of blended genres; my writing seems to be edging more and more into realms of this so-called magical realism with elements of horror and I’d like to think there is some space out there in the publishing universe in which it can fit. Time will tell.


Dayna Ingram is a writer and student living in the Bay Area. She received her BA in Creative Writing from Antioch College in 2008, and is currently working on her MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. She works at Half Price Books, where she buys more books than she can reasonably hope to read in a lifetime.

Day 36: Dayna Ingram (guest blogger)

White Oleander by Janet Fitch.  ISBN 978-0316284950.

The thing I love about book-into-movie adaptations is that, without them, I never would have read this book. I remember seeing all the pretty people in the trailer for this movie in 1999, and thinking, “Maybe I should read the book first.” And I’m grateful I did, because the movie is forgettable, but the book….oh, the book.

I reread it about once a year. Once, I went through and read it with pencil in hand and made a bunch of comments in the margins simply exclaiming over the lyrical prose or depths of complexity in this passage or that. And I never write in my books, even when I’m reading something for class (that’s what post-its are for). It’s the first book I recommend to anyone who asks, and it’s the last book I’ll ever lend out to anyone again after my original copy was never returned (even though you can buy them for a dollar on clearance at Half Priced Books, but that’s not the point!).

Five years later, when I was 19 and on my first co-op in a new city surrounded by new people and new experiences, I decided to get a tattoo. This tattoo would not only mark this particularly exciting time in my life but also hold great and potent meaning for all of time. I decided on an oleander, orange flames licking up from its center. Because goddamn that book has just burrowed into one of my heart valves and pitched camp. I really don’t know what it is; yes Fitch’s prose is beautiful, her characters are strong and flawed and ugly and gorgeously dispossessed, but that’s not just it either. Maybe it’s because, at 14, when I was swimming in a sea of Stephen King and Dean Koontz-infested literary waters, and my school was having us read such classic, award-winning tales as Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack, and maybe feeling a little dispossessed myself, I grabbed a hold of this emotionally raw, character-rich life-raft and just let it needed it to take me someplace else.

White Oleander didn’t inspire me to want to be a writer.  Heck, I’d already written one staggeringly insightful, Goosebumps-esque novel entitled My Bro is a Psycho, but the reaction it incited in me sparked my aspirations to someday,  maybe, if I’m lucky and good enough, write something that will incite the same sort of reaction in someone else.

This is really a thank-you letter to Janet Fitch. But, then again, I thank her with every word I lay down on the page. Or, at least, I hope I do.


Dayna Ingram is a writer and student living in the Bay Area. She received her BA in Creative Writing from Antioch College in 2008, and is currently working on her MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. She works at Half Price Books, where she buys more books than she can reasonably hope to read in a lifetime.