The Benefits of Breathing by Christopher Meeks


Publisher: White Whisker Books (May, 2020)
Category: Short Stories, Literary Fiction, Women’s Fiction, Relationships
ISBN: Coming Soon
Tour Date: May-June, 2020
Available in: Print & ebook, 238 Pages

Description Benefits of Breathing by Christopher Meeks

In The Benefits of Breathing, his third collection of short stories, Christopher Meeks dives again into the human condition, particularly within relationships.  As one reader wrote on Amazon, “Some authors need a lot of words to describe their worlds and their people. Christopher Meeks says a lot with a little.” The Los Angeles Times has called his stories “poignant and wise.”

In this volume, “A Dog Story” captures a crumbled marriage and the love of a dog named Scrappy. “Joni Paredes” shows the birth of a new relationship that starts at a daughter’s wedding. “Nestor by the Numbers” follows one man’s often hilarious online dating experiences after he finally accepts his wife is gone. “Jerry with a Twist” shows an actor on an audition while his pregnant girlfriend helps him through a crisis. These and seven other stories will bring you into the special world of Meeks.

As reviewer Grady Harp notes, if you’ve previously “discovered the idiosyncrasies of Meeks’ writing style and content, rest assured that this new collection not only will not disappoint, but also it will provide further proof that we have a superior writer of the genre in our presence.” Try this book. You’ll have a lot to think about.

Advance Praise Benefits of Breathing by Christopher Meeks

“Chris Meeks is a descriptive writer whose style paints a clear picture of everyday real life traumas. This story is about ordinary people and common problems; including how effective communication is so difficult to cultivate, especially when working through an emotional situation like a divorce. The reader can easily sense the strain of the failing relationship.”-T.M.S., Amazon

“Thoroughly enjoyed this short but bittersweet divorce story. It’s impossible to read anything Chris writes and fail to see pieces of yourself in the lines. Hope you keep them coming, Chris!”- Ksinteriors, Amazon

“I’ve read much of Meeks’ work. His attention to detail and ability to show rather than tell is unique and engaging.”-Kevin Gerard, Amazon

“While James Joyce was a trailblazer in the genre of literary fiction, Meeks surpasses him with crisp plainspoken prose abundant with brilliant humor and wit. Chris Meeks is one of those rare prolific and masterful writers whose stories and novels leave his audiences with a sense of satisfaction and enriching views of the human condition and humanity.”- James V Jordan, Amazon

Awards and Recognition for Christopher Meeks

Book of the Year Bronze Award from ForeWord Reviews (2017): ‘The Chords of War’

ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Finalist award (2011)- ‘Love At Absolute Zero’

Three book critics’ Ten Best Books of 2011-‘Love At Absolute Zero’

Three book critics’ Ten Best Books of 2009- ‘The Brightest Moon of the Century’ 

Guest Post Benefits of Breathing by Christopher Meeks

THE ART OF THE SHORT STORY

By Christopher Meeks

One of my favorite short story writers, Lorrie Moore, calls the short story “a noise in the night.” In the introduction to the new, incredibly thick 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories, Moore mentions that the form is “a record of rebellious human consciousness … second to none in power and efficiency.”

When I flash on some of my favorite short stories, such as those by Flannery O’Connor, Jhumpa Lahiri, Tobias Wolff, T.C. Boyle, Lorrie Moore, and many others, their stories beat inside me. I have internalized their tales as an experience. I was there. I was in Vietnam with Tim O’Brien in “The Things They Carried.” I felt the bullet lance through a human brain in Wolff’s “Bullet in the Brain.” I saw a life as if on a movie screen in Delmore Schwartz’s “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities.”

The best stories resound with “This is Life. This is how it works.” We gain a sense of pain and peace, a sense of chaos and clarity. After all, we only have one life to live, and short stories let us live other people’s lives for a little. Perhaps we sense “I better not do that” or “So that’s good to know” as we steer down our path that might lead to two roads diverging in a yellow wood. We know instantly which road to take. After selecting, we do not focus on what if we’d taken the other road because we can only go down one road. Perhaps, though, we saw the other road in a poem or short story.

I write this as the globe is hunkered down to avoid the coronavirus. It’s a time where many people feel isolated as if in a dome on the planet Tralfamador (to bring up an image from Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five.) You need to get out, so perhaps you take a walk. Maybe you even have a dog that forces you to get out and walk. If you see someone on a sidewalk, you step into the street, facemasks affixed. We wonder where we are walking.

Our attention spans have been zapped like invaders from Mars. Perhaps they were first shortened by our smart phones. When the phone rings, we answer, forgetting what we’re doing. The phones, too, can take us away from people in the name of connection. It wasn’t long ago when I was at a restaurant with friends (remember restaurants? Remember friends?) and everyone at our table was tapping away on his or her phone, including me.

Maybe in this lock-down time, we’ll ponder our lives a little more. Thus, the short story may be the perfect form to help you focus before the laser rays of distraction pull you down. A good short story lets you reflect in this reflective time.

All of the above is to say that’s what can be great about the short story, However, I find it impossible to tell myself to write something great, something that people will find and celebrate, something that might make it a century from now into The Next 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories. You cannot sit down and consciously write art.

What I do, inspired by the best short stories, is tell the truth as I’ve heard, witnessed, or experienced. I don’t write memoir because, to paraphrase Tim O’Brien in one of his stories in the volume The Things They Carried, fiction lets you cut out the chaff of life and reach the kernels most cleanly. Fiction for me isn’t made up. It’s distilled.

An initial draft of a story might be written in one passionate blast, but then it has to sit a while. I have to step away for days, weeks, months, or even years, so that I can read my own story freshly, as if I weren’t the writer. I can then feel what I can cut out or need to add. In the end, a story feels just right. I often like to leave the reader with an image.

My new short story collection, The Benefits of Breathing, came from story drafts old and new. Many of these have been previously published in literary journals. I crafted the book with a sense of what Bruce Springsteen does in creating an album. Some stories don’t fit. I took out three. Then, with editor Carol Fuchs, I worked on the order. Order is everything. Juxtaposition is a force of nature.

One story, “A Warm Front Appears to Be Moving from California and Deep into Minnesota,” I first wrote over thirty years ago. I’d rewritten it maybe every ten years, discovering it more, adding layers. It still wasn’t right until the editor said she loved it but maybe the ending wasn’t quite right. I told myself I could be like God and change my protagonist’s life. Soon, I had a whole new ending. The editor, Carol, loved it so much, she thought it should end the volume.

The title for the book came to me on the edges of a dream as I was waking up. We all know to breathe is to live. What else is living? That’s the essence of my book. I realized the title also needed to be the title for the story inspired by my father’s last months.

As I walk with my dog, a little spaniel, in a mile circle that connects to my house, she walks parallel with me. Sometimes, she just glances up with what seems to be a smile. That’s what it’s like to have a reader of your short stories. In a mile walk, we’re together in a silent connection.

About Christopher Meeks

Award winning author, Christopher Meeks has five novels and two collections of short fiction published. The Benefits of Breathing’ is his third collection of short stories.

He has had stories published in several literary journals, and they have been included in the collections “Months and Seasons” and “The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea.” Mr. Meeks has had three full-length plays mounted in Los Angeles, and one, “Who Lives?” had been nominated for five Ovation Awards, Los Angeles’ top theatre prize.

Mr. Meeks teaches English and fiction writing at Santa Monica College, and Children’s Literature at the Art Center College of Design. He lives in Pasadena, CA.

Website at: www.chrismeeks.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Christopher-Meeks-212382392140974/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christopher.meeks1
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MeeksChris

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Giveaway Benefits of Breathing by Christopher Meeks

This giveaway is for the winner’s choice of print or ebook however, print is open to Canada and the U.S. only and ebook is available worldwide. There will be 3 winners. This giveaway ends June 27, 2020,midnight pacific time. Entries are accepted via Rafflecopter only.

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