Topic: March 2005
If you're in the San Francisco area, you'll not want to miss Margin contributor Jan Steckel's featured performance at the Stories by the Lake Prose Open Mic in Oakland on Saturday, March 19 from 2 to 4 in the afternoon. Dr. Steckel, an Oakland writer, bisexual activist and former pediatrician, has published over fifty short stories, poems and nonfiction pieces in periodicals and anthologies. The event is free to the public; open mic signups begin at 1:45.
Magical realism in theater gets a nice boost in Portland, ME with the current production of Quiara Alegria Hudes' Yemaya's Belly. And article in MaineToday.com describes the play as "set in the Caribbean?about a young boy from a backwater island village, who dreams of living in America. Using storytelling techniques she learned from her own family, Hudes weaves magical realism and realistic events together to tell the story of the boy's journey." The play has attracted a steady following since its debut on March 1; it runs through March 20.
The film, Millions, is making the rounds with what some have characterized a "buoyant sense of magical realism." The film is directed by Danny Boyle of Trainspotting andShallow Grave fame. Boyle appears to have one-upped himself with this softer, more family-friendly film. Jack Mathews of the New York Daily News describes Millions as a "warmly fanciful movie" which features the saints Clare, Francis, Joseph, Nicholas and Peter, as well as the ghost of the boys' dead mother. Mathews writes: "Boyle has a child's exuberance about him that explains the gentle wit, magical realism and easy sentimentality" of his latest work. The film was widely released in the US on March 11.
Literary favorite Kelly Cherry returns to the limelight with her story, "As It Is in Heaven," in which the protagonist, forced to leave life in Madison, WI to tend an ailing mother, suddenly discovers her late father in the kitchen eating ice cream. The story's ending has been described as "stunning, incredibly moving" and a "flight into magical realism." The story recently appeared in the newly released anthology, Barnstorm, published by Terrace Books, an imprint of the University of Wisconsin Press.