You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed,

or you are the only animal, who can think, who can reason, who can read.

Hi, this is Michael Silverblad, and welcome to Bookworm. Today, my guest is C.E. Poverman,

known as Buzz Poverman, whose book of short stories, Skin, has just been published by the Ontario

Press. He's the author as well of several novels, My Father in Dreams, Solomon's daughter,

Susan, and an earlier book of short stories called The Black Velvet Girl.

Well, I wanted to, I guess let's begin by asking how these stories came to the Ontario

press.

I think that's sort of an interesting background.

That is an interesting story. I had several stories that had sent to my agent, and he'd

circulated them, and they had come back, and he'd said, please send them out on your own, send them out to reviews.

And so I thought, okay, and I went to the writer's market on a cold day in January,

as cold as it gets in Tucson, which is maybe 45.

And, you know, I went through the writer's market, and just as I was closing the book, I'd spotted the Ontario review and saw that

it was edited by Joyce Carleton's and Raymond Smith.

And one of the things people said to me is your stories are so intense, your stories are so

dark and with the idea that they're too intense or too dark. of the things people said to me is your stories are so intense, your stories are so dark,

and with the idea that they're too intense or too dark, and I thought, as I saw Joyce's name,

I thought, well, her stories are certainly intense and dark, and I thought, maybe I can send

a story to her. I did that that i i just you know i'd

never had any contact with her and um you know she wrote me back a very nice letter and and

...