Truth is Stranger than Fiction

There's fiction and there's non-fiction and I find it amusing that some people can't tell the difference.

With my journalistic background, I have a bent for non-fiction; whenever I'm asked why I don't try writing fiction, I claim a lack of imagination.

Fiction writers are a different breed.

Reading at the von Gribley Reading series at Chop Suey Books this afternoon was 'zine writer Eric Nelson.

He recently had his 'zine published as a collection of short stories called The Silk City, on the subject of the everyday lives of the working class in Paterson, NJ.

I had a boyfriend from Paterson once and, come to think of it, he had a lot of great stories about the city's colorful characters, too.

Before reading one of them, he mentioned how frequently he hears comments like, "Boy, I can't believe that really happened to you!" to which he always responds, "It didn't!"

He's one of those talented people who can make stuff up.

Today he read a conversational story called "One Night in a Railyard," to the enjoyment of the small crowd.

Also reading was Rydell Bixby and could there be a better author name than that?

Like so many of the artistic talents in RVA, he left for a while (four years in Chicago) but has returned, perhaps realizing what a great place this town can be.

His reading today was of a story called, "The Boardwalk," an evocative tale of a side show and the people affected by it.

His low-key delivery added an appropriate deadpan quality to the bizarre nature of the story.

Luckily for me, enough offbeat stuff happens to me and is said to me that I don't have to be creative.

I just share the madness; it's so much easier than creating it from whole cloth.

And surprisingly enough, I never get asked if things really happened to me.

Of course, if you spend any time at all with me, you'll bear witness to it and eventually just accept that this is my life.

As a friend once told me, "You must have the strongest pheromones."

Good thing, too, 'cause I couldn't make this shit up.