Features Overview

Introduction

Under the Belly of the Beast and The After School

Cori Bratby-Rudd’s forthcoming book, Under the Belly of the Beast, will be the first tangible work produced by The After School, a monthly work space and test platform for writers who are self-identified queers and people of color. Our goal is to develop writing that subverts or repurposes how literature is made and read.

As much as we hope that literature influences culture, literature itself is influenced strongly by culture that reinforces ideas of what legitimate literature is, how it should be produced, and what forms it should take. For example, novels are expected to be written by single authors. And, at least in this country, a “real” novel is expected to be published in complete form. However, writing a novel under these conditions requires a sizeable investment of time and resources before it is published, if ever. Those who lack access to either will find novel writing difficult to impossible.

However, must a novel be written by one person, and all at once? If we let ourselves either pool our resources or allow ourselves the chance to publish as we go, this can open novel creation to entire populations of new writers.

What if a busy mother could publish a novel in installments, at each stage gaining affirmation and notoriety from readers? Might that allow her a chance to not only write, but to live the life of a writer? The After School is a test lab for the creation of serializations, group projects, shared mythos, as well as a re-examination of forms such as cookbooks and instruction manuals, that have often been overlooked as literature.

Cori’s book, Under the Belly of the Beast, explores group authorship, as well as another form of resource allocation—the loan club. Used by immigrants who had been excluded from conventional banks, loan clubs worked by creating a pool of shared money. Contributors would take turns using the money to invest in their businesses, then pay the money back, just as they had put it in. With Under the Belly of the Beast, each author has agreed to contribute to Cori’s project, with the understanding that when they have a future project that requires an investment of creativity, Cori, and the rest of us, will contribute to their project, as well.

This book shall be published by our new Dissonance Press, that shares the mission of The After School, by publishing modes of writing that creatively respond to expectations, limitations, and exclusions of the literary machine.

The After School is a test platform, a place for proofs-of-concept, examinations, and work-throughs. However, this preview of Cori’s Under the Belly of the Beast fills me with so much excitement at what happens when we open a life of writing to those who may never be able to take a sabbatical, attend an MFA program, or take a couple of years to go floating on Walden Pond.

Under the Belly of the Beast will feature work from queer writers, writers of color, poets, dramatists, novelists--all of whom wanted to take part in Cori’s vision. Each has responded with work that is undeniably personal, yet achingly collaborative, creating a conflicted, nuanced, and powerful examination of what is Beautiful and Beastly, Loved and Despised, Cursed, and Saved.

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Ryka Aoki