A. A. Rubin lurks in the shadows, for it is there that magic can still be found. You may have thought you saw him in the back of the bar, or going into the subway station, but when you looked back, he was gone. His work has appeared recently in journals including Cowboy Jamboree's Jobbers, Kyanite Press, and Pif Magazine. His story "The Substance in The Shadow" has been named a Fiction War finalist, and his story, "White Collar Blues" was nominated for the Carve Magazine/Mild Horse Press online short fiction award. Mr. Rubin holds a BA in Writing/Literature from Columbia University, and an MA in Teaching of English from Teachers College Columbia University. He can be reached on twitter and facebook @thesurrealari
If you missed out on the Backerkit campaign for The Awful Alphabet, by me and Sara McCall Ephron, you’re in luck. The post-campaign preorder store is now open. You can find it here:
You can order the book in a variety of formats, as well as some nice posters and art prints, along with previous publications.
The Awful Alphabet, is a picture book for adults in the tradition of Edward Gorey and Neil Gaiman, but also Go the F*ck to Sleep and All of My Friends are Dead. Adulting is hard. Nourish your inner (emo) child.
My story “Noah’s Great Rainbow” has won the Secant Publishing Best Climate Change Stories Contest, sponsored by Book Bin. The first page prize comes with $1000 grand prize and a commemorative gold medal. I am humbled and honored by the selection. Congrats to all the winners.
See the complete press release below, and look for the winners anthology in September.
“Best Original Climate Change Stories” Will Feature 34 Authors from Nine Countries
The Book Bin in Onley, Virginia, and Secant Publishing in Salisbury, Maryland, are announcing the winning entries in an international contest that will produce a one-volume anthology of new, original short stories on the human impact of climate change.
With recurring themes that include a warming climate, rising seas, and retreating flora and fauna, the 34 winning submissions were drawn from nine countries and ten states. Submissions were accepted from October 15, 2023 to March 1, 2024.
Cash prizes of $1,000, $500, and $250, respectively, will be awarded to A. A. Rubin of East Williston, New York (“Noah’s Great Rainbow,” First Place); K. M. Watson of Sykesville, Maryland (“Desert Fish,” Second Place), and Olaf Lahayne of Vienna, Austria (“Beyond the Timberline,” Third Place). Prizes are sponsored by the Book Bin.
All 34 stories, including the three prize winners, will be published in a book-length anthology to be released in September of this year.
“It was exceptionally difficult to pick just three stories for special recognition when we were presented with so many arresting takes on the climate crisis,” said the judges, Philip Wilson of the Book Bin, Ron Sauder of Secant Publishing, and Karen Gravelle, a widely published Onancock, Virginia author.
“In the end, the top three were chosen for their general excellence in storytelling, imaginative scenarios, and central focus on climate change and its many ramifications in the lives of individuals.”
Common themes in the collection include subtle changes in human psychology, with growing erosion of personal relationships and society at large; the increasing precariousness of childhood and parenthood; changing relations between humans and animals, especially pets; and the gradual erasure of history, whether in the form of low-lying coastal graves or the public architecture of coastal communities.
“Almost all of our stories portray human resilience and tenacity, including in the form of geoengineering,” the judges said. “But all of that resourcefulness is balanced against the exceptional complexity of Planet Earth and our limited ability to anticipate and control the future. In the world of this anthology, humans win some battles, while incurring losses whose magnitude is still to be fully reckoned.”
In announcing the contest, which was promoted nationally and internationally, the judges made it clear that a wide range of genres would be welcome. The resulting collection features themes from social realism to dystopia, social justice to post-apocalypticism, humor to horror.
In addition to the three stories listed above, the winning entries are:
“2100, Remnants of a Thriving World,” B. E. Saunders, Tasmania, Australia.
Today, April 18th, marks the anniversary of the publication of the first Superman story in 1938. It is also, of course, National Poetry Month. As such, here is a poem I wrote which is inspired by The Man of Steel. While it may not be as good as Vadamir Nabokov’s poem about The Man of Tomorrow, I hope you enjoy it anyway.
Raindrops From a Cloudless Sky
When I fly, oh so high, Above the city lights– I sometimes sob, my tears fall down, Through the dark of night.
I cry for those I left behind A planet far away– Who sent me here ‘cross lightyears vast, On that fateful day;
I weep for those I cannot save: The people whom I’ve failed– Whose cries rang pleading in the night, But to no avail;
I think of all the evil here, And know I can’t defeat it– Until the people grow at last, And I am no more needed.
So if you walk ‘neath cloudless skies And feel a drop of rain– It may have come from someone’s eye Who’s neither bird nor plane.
–A. A. Rubin
Processing…
Success! You're on the list.
Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.
The Awful Alphabet, a picture book for adults by me and Sara McCall Ephron, is crowdfunding on Backerkit for just 5 more days. This is your last chance to support the campaign and snag a copy of the book.
As we enter the final days of the campaign, I want to thank everyone who has backed for making it a huge success. It’s because of you that we will not only be able to make the book as we envisioned it, but produce the poster and audiobook as well.
We could also really use your help spreading the word, either by posting on your social or by word of mouth, to help us finish strong. We still have one amazing stretch goal left, a reading-rainbow style animation of the book, and right now, it looks like it’s going to be a stretch to get there, but with your help and support, it’s still possible.
To thank you for your ongoing support, we will have two more raffles this week, one for a copy Holly Knightly’s new book, and one for a package of goodies from The 6 Degrees of Edgar Allan Poe.
So, help us spread the word. Tell your friends abut the campaign. Tell your family. Tell your acquaintances and your enemies. Together, we can help make your life a little less awful.
Today is opening day for most teams in Major League Baseball, so, continuing what has become an annual tradition, I present my Sonnet For Opening Day. Play Ball!
That time of year thou mayst in fans behold That malediction, fever of the spring Surrounded by lingering snow and cold, We dream of pennants and World Series rings. With pride we root our noble heroes on Eating hot dogs, peanuts, and crackerjacks And all our worldly troubles fade, are gone When that first pitch is thrown and bat doth crack But Lo! When April fades to crueler months, We reach the summer of our discontent Like Mighty Casey in the Mudville ninth Our hearts bereft of joy and merriment Yet hope springs eternal for one and all, When that blue-clad umpire calls out, “Play Ball!”
–A. A. Rubin
While the baseball season is just beginning, my Backerkit campaign for The Awful Alphabet is quickly drawing to a close. There are just under to weeks to support the project and secure your copy of the book. Support the campaign here.
Today is #WorldPoetryDay, so here is a poem I wrote a few years back, which was published in The Deronda Review in 2022.
Earth, 2022
Wordsworth! Thou shouldst be living at this hour: The world doth need thee, she is a morass– For lately our discourse has become crass– And neutered is our creative power, We’ve taken Gradgrind’s view of the flower: Made slaves to statistics, money, and math, In schools devoid of art and music class. The child is the father of the man, sour– Your voice taught us the breathings of our hearts, The spontaneous overflow of our soul; The rainbow in the sky that makes us whole; To observe divine nature and create, And elevate ourselves by making art– To leap up again before it’s too late.
—A. A. Rubin
And, if you enjoy my poetry, please consider supporting The Awful Alphabet, which includes my twisted verse and Sara McCall Ephron’s surreal art on Backerkit.
Toward the end of my recent interview with Comic Book School, the host asked me where viewers could find me on social media platforms. I responded, as I always do, that while I may not be on every social media platform, I have the same handle–@TheSurrealAri on every platform where I have a presence. I also mentioned that there seems to be a constant stream of new platforms, so much so that they are rising like hydra’s heads. The phrase has stuck with me, and I feel that it is an apt metaphor for what has been going on over the last year or so, especially since the fracturing of the writing community on Twitter, and the post-babel-like dispersion of that community across the social media landscape. I remember when many creators were coalescing around Hive (remember that one?) before it died and Threads and BlueSky rose in its place. Cut off one, and two more grow in it’s place–just like the mythical hydra!
So, what’s a creator supposed to do in this new and ever-changing landscape? In truth, that is something with which I’m struggling. With so many platforms to deal with–and with people with whom I want to interact on all of them–I feel like I’m not doing a good enough job with my social media presence recently. Staying active on the many platforms has divided the limited time I have to deal with each of them, to the point where I feel like I’m not spending enough time and energy on any individual platform anymore, while simultaneously spending more time on social media as a whole, which cuts into my writing time in a way that is unsustainable and, frankly, unacceptable.
Here are my thoughts about the platforms which I use from my perspective as a writer. If you have any advice or want to share your own perspective, please do so in the comments:
Bluesky: Out of all the platforms, this one feels the most like “old” Twitter, but it is far from an adequate replacement at this point. The mobile app is intuitive and familiar, and it has some nice features, like functioning hashtags, and it doesn’t suppress posts with links. Because it is still small, you can interact with celebrities and people at the top of your field, much like you could in the early days of Twitter. Recently, I have interacted with Neil Gaiman and Keith Busiek, for example. It also has a number of platform-specific writing prompts, which is huge for me, as the daily hashtag games were one of the chief ways I built my community on Twitter. On the other hand, I’m having trouble with interaction and reach. I have relatively few followers, and my reach is not what I need it to be. The size of the platform, and the nature of the algorithm also fills my timeline with posts from Neil Gaiman and John Scalzi to the exclusion of many of the people with whom I would normally be interacting. I love Gaiman and Scalzi, but they’re not supporting my crowdfunding campaign or reading my short stories. Also, I have not figured out how to customize my timeline yet, and I often see too many political posts for my liking (even if the views expressed are closer to my own). Lastly, the timeline doesn’t seem to differentiate between posts and replies, and, thus, much of what shows up when I scroll is out of context and doesn’t make sense.
Threads: Threads, which is Meta’s text based social media app, has certain things going for it: The interface is clean and improving. It is easy to use, which is important as well. I find that it does a good job of having people interact with each other. Posts ger replies more often, and threads grow into the type of discussions that once made the Twitter writing community the place to be. It has the ability to pin a thread, which is nice, and because it is connected to Instagram, it’s easy to cross-post, and to find your people, at least those who are already on Instagram. On the other hand, it is not good for marketing. The algorithm doesn’t seem to give my posts enough reach, and it currently limits a post to one hashtag, which is harms reach compared to other platforms. Also, there are A LOT of people who just trying to grow their platforms. Irrelevant posts like empty questions and chain posts make up way too much of the content on my timeline, and “requests to the algorithm” in which a poster asks the algorithm to connect the poster with like minded people (people who like books, for example, or scifi, or romance) make scrolling seem like reading the personal ads at times. While the community aspect is nice, it is not an adequate replacement either, because of the reach and marketing issues.
Mastodon: One of the early Twitter replacements, which seemed to be gaining a large share of Twitter refugees, Mastodon has, ultimately, been a disappointment to me. The learning curve was too steep for me, both in terms of using the program and in terms of the community expectations. I felt like it was very complicated, as someone who was not tech savvy, and that one would need a comp sci degree to figure it out. I also, felt–as many did–that the existing community was not very welcoming, and, really, holier than though about their expectations. It was not a nice place to be, and I hardly use it anymore.
TikTok: Since I have complaints about many social platforms utility for marketing, I was excited to check out TikTok, which many creators told me was useful for marketing. Ultimately, however, I found it to be a bad fit for my lifestyle. Making videos requires more time than text-based–or even picture-based–posts, and this means that it takes a lot longer to post than it does on other platforms. I do not have the time or bandwidth to produce the type of videos that do well on this platform. It is also a very loud app. Sending a tweet or posting to facebook is silent. You can do it while doing other things without disturbing the other people in the room. You can do it from work; from a restaurant, etc. You can scroll quietly while your kids are watching some inane program on tv. TikTok is really loud. Because it’s video, you need sound on to hear what’s going on, which makes it difficult to use as often, and difficult for me to scroll through while doing other things. While I have struggled with it in the past for the above-mentioned reasons, I might have to figure it out if it really can provide the marketing benefits I need as a creator. That doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.
Instagram: I struggle with this platform for much the same reason I struggle with TikTok. It is visual, which means there’s a production standard that needs to be met in order to post. At least it defaults to silent mode, which makes it more useable for me. I can scroll and post without disturbing everyone in the room, and this makes it easier to multitask as well. I feel like it is better for artists than for writers, because of the visual nature, but I’ve been on it for a long time because I often need to interact with artists for my comics work. I’ve also found that Instagram stories work for marketing. People will see them, and will click on the links.
Facebook: Facebook is making a comeback for me. I’ve been getting more engagement on it than on other platforms recently, despite having relatively small follower count, and it’s been the second biggest driver of both clicks and sales for my Backerkit campaign after email lists. I’m familiar with the platform, and I’ve been using it for a long time. It also supports many kinds of posts, including text only, picture, video, and stories making it the most versatile of the major platforms. It is not, however, without problems. For one, shadow-banning is real. There are months were my stats are all up–posts, content, replies, new followers, engagement per post–and yet my reach plummets. Other creators report the same problem. Another issue is that it suppresses posts that link to sites outside of Facebook, which is a pain when trying to sell anything. While most creators try to get around this by posting the link in the comments, it’s still tedious and time consuming to repost the link every time someone shares your original posts (since comments don’t travel) in each sharer’s comments. They also have opaque content standards, and people get put in “Facebook jail” arbitrarily, without explanation or the possibility of appeal. My own account has been banned from buying ads on multiple occasions, and I still don’t know why.
X/Twitter: I have not abandoned Twitter (does anybody actually call it X?) completely. I still have, by far, my largest following there, and, more importantly, there are still many writers on there who are pillars of the writing community and with whom I still want to interact. Most of the hashtag prompts still originate from Twitter, and they have been a big part of my practice as well. I have also curated my timeline over the years to the point where it is, by and large, free of the nonsense which dominates much of the platform. But that aid, Twitter has gone downhill. Beyond what may be the worst rebrand in history, my reach has tanked on Twitter, because I refuse to pay for a blue checkmark, and because of this, the platform has cut my reach beyond the writing community. It is now virtually useless marketing-wise (which I’ve heard from other creators as well), and, even though I rarely see it, I feel guilty about using it given the context surrounding the platform.
I used to have three platforms: Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. That was a good amount for me to handle, and to different degrees, I was successful on each of them. Now, I am struggling to keep up. Any advice would be helpful. Please put your advice in the comments.
In the first post I published on this blog, I bemoaned the reductive nature of writing advice. “If you write like everyone else,” I wrote, “your writing will read like everyone else’s.” While I have gotten away from that theme from time-to-time, I try to return to it every now and then as part of my series: Rules: What Rules? which consists of a series of blogs that deal with common pieces of writing advice, and then present a famous work–by a successful author–which breaks those rules. My aim is not to criticize these authors—I enjoy all of them, that is the point. Rather, I present their works as examples of successfully writing, which might cause you to reexamine the writing “rule” critically. I am not advising you to ignore these rules, rather to take control of your own craft, and consider your choices actively. As always, I believe there is more than one path to success, more than one formula for great writing. Consider these posts synecdochally. The specific rule is not the point; it speaks to a general attitude which is prevalent within the contemporary writing community.
In each blog post in this series, I will give a brief summary of the rule, followed by a case study of a successful author, work, or series that breaks that rule. Finally, I will provide some analysis of the rule and the alternative techniques the featured author makes. Since the posts in this series will not necessarily be consecutive blog entries, I will link each piece to previous entries.
“The passive voice is weak.” “Always use the active voice.” “Eliminate ‘was’ from your vocabulary.” If you have taken a creative writing class, read any books or blogs about writing, or attended any writing workshops, you’ve probably heard some version of this advice. The active voice, which gives the subject and the action primacy in the sentence, is clearer, more concise, and according the Strunk and White, who list it as #14 in their elements of composition, “makes for more forcible writing” that is “vigorous” and “bold” in opposition to the passive voice, which is “less direct, less bold, and less concise.” Their views on active and passive voice, like much of their manual, has become gospel in the pedagogy of writing.
And yet…
One of Mark Twain’s most famous quotes: “The report of my death has been grossly exaggerated.” (Often misquoted as “rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated) was written–or more accurately, said–in passive voice.
The acclaimed science fiction novelist Douglas Adams, one of the most beloved and successful writers of all time, begins The Restaurant at the End of Universe like this:
The story so far: In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
That’s two consecutive passive voice sentences (and an “very” to boot).
Franklin Delano Roosevelt began his Pearl Harbor speech by saying:
Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
Like Twain and Adams, FDR used the passive voice.
I think it is safe to say that Mark Twain, Douglas Adams, and FDR are all excellent writers, and that the choices they made in the above examples are highly effective. So, how did they manage to break this so-called writing rule in pieces which have stood the test of time? Read on to find out.
There are a few reasons why a writer would choose to use the passive voice. Two of the more common reasons are to emphasize the object of the sentence, and to create rhythm in their writing.
Let’s take Twain’s example first. Twain uses the passive voice to highlight the irony of statement. He simultaneously de-emphasizes the subject by leaving it out of the sentence, and highlights the object of the sentence both in contrast to the lack of subject and by placing it at the start of the sentence.
By placing the object in the front, “the report of my death” is the first phrase the reader hears. The irony is established at the outset by the contradiction between the phrase “my death” and the fact that the speaker talking about the reports of his own death is very much alive, and is the one who is speaking about it. With this contradiction fresh in the readers’ mind, the end of the phrase just serves to emphasize the irony, to grossly exaggerate it, if you will. If Twain has used the active voice, “the newspapers have grossly exaggerated the report of my death,” the focus would be on the newspapers rather than on the ironic phrase. Thus, Twain’s use of the passive voice, is a deliberate choice meant to highlight the irony of the situation.
Like Twain, FDR chooses to highlight the object over the subject in his famous speech. By using the passive voice, he places the emphasis on America rather than on Japan. Facing resistance to entering WWII, he highlights the fact that America was attacked rather than the fact that Japan was the country that attacked it. This serves two main purposes rhetorically. First it emphasizes that the isolationists who were against America joining the war were wrong. America is not safer not entering the war. America was attacked anyway. Lives were still lost. It would be better to (ironically) take the active position and enter the war. Secondly, it allows FDR to go after the Nazis as well as the Germans in his response. Yes, America was attacked by the Japanese, but who attacked them first is only part of the problem. The Germans would do the same thing, if given the chance. America was attacked. America needs to enter the war. To do this effectively, America needs to enter the war on both fronts. The passive voice, by emphasizing the object and deemphasizing the subject , makes the phrase more effective rhetorically.
Douglas Adams’ use the passive voice is a little different because it is the start of a novel. Fiction stories often start with sentences featuring delayed subjects. The traditional “once upon a time, there lived a ___” is probably the most famous example, but there are others as well. Tolkien’s “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit,” is another example. Neither Tolkien’s nor the traditional fairy tale are technically passive voice, but they do delay the subject to the end of the clause, which makes them syntactically similar to passive construction. In these cases–whether they are written in passive voice or not–the delayed subject draws the reader into the story. The familiar “once upon a time” is a portal into a the fantasy ream. It tells the reader what kind of story to expect, and similar phrases exist across cultures in folk and fairy stories because the technique is effective. Tolkien’s opening also establishes a poetic rhythm. The phrases which delay the subject scan (in a HOLE in the GROUND) which helps establish a rhythm to the prose as well.
The passive voice can be used to affect either of these purposes as well. It is the most common way to delay a subject, and sprinkling in a few passive voice sentences can slow down the rhythm of a story, vary the syntax, and make the writing more interesting.
It is certainly possible that Adams had this in mind when writing the opening to The Restaurant at the End of Universe. There is, however, a thematic reason Adams would use the passive voice here as well. The first of the consecutive passive sentences, “In the beginning, the universe was created,” alludes to the biblical creation story. The first line of the bible reads: In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth.” Adams expects his reader to associate the phrase “In the beginning” with the biblical verse. This allusion naturally sparks a comparison between the two lines. What is the difference? The notable absence of God. Whereas, the biblical universe is the creation of order out of chaos, as spoken into existence by the divine voice, Adams universe is one of randomness and absurdity. There is no order. There is no one in charge. Throughout the series, the reader meets authority figures, including the creator, but each is absent the power and the will to order the nascent chaos on the universe. Thus, by eliminating God from the traditional creation story, Adams establishes the theme right from the outset of the story.
In this case, the passive construction is the most effective way Adams could make this particular point. The passive construction here, much like in the Twain example, allows for the elimination of the subject entirely. In the beginning, the universe was created. By whom? We don’t know. To paraphrase one of Adams’ more famous passages, God disappears in a puff of grammar.
While the passive voice is not something that should be used exclusively, or even for the majority of your sentences, the examples above show how it can be an effective tool in your writing which should not be discarded out of hand. It can be used to highlight the object of a sentence or eliminate the subject entirely when rhetorically appropriate, to delay the subject for effect, or to establish a poet and comforting rhythm which might be appropriate to the story you are trying to tell. The reports of its death have, indeed, been grossly exaggerated.
The Monster in the Window, written by me and illustrated by Richard Pace, will be published in Ahoy Comic’sProject Cryptid #7. It’s a parallel universe story involving bigfoot, a surreal mirror, and a family camping trip which is reminiscent of the ones I used to go on with my father when I was a child. I’m really proud of this story, and I hope you check it out.
Thank you so much for to Sarah Star Litt for inviting me to participate in the project. I first found out about Ahoy Comics through an interview that Comic Book School founder Buddy Scalera did with Tom Peyer and Jamal Igle. They mentioned that Ahoy accepts prose submissions, and after hearing Peyer reference the bible, Jack Kerouac, and Satire, I thought it would be likely market for my stories. I submitted one, and Litt, one of the editors for Ahoy, bought it. She later bought a second story, and then invited me to pitch a comics story for the Cryptid anthology series.
The issue, which also features a story by Joe Illidge,Jamal Igle, and Juan Castro, is in shops on March 20th. Order your at your #localcomicshop today.
A. A. Rubin 