J.A. Tyler - Member pages, Big Pond Rumour

Fort Collins, Colorado, USA

J.A. Tyler

Experiments in Language

J. A. Tyler is a new American author who has been publishing short fiction for the last two years. A mix of satire and sharply poetic language, his writing is the exploration of strange ideas, fierce themes, and the placement of words. His style includes light humor, as seen in The Stand Up (a Contest Winner here at Big Pond Rumours) as well as violent, pulsing experimentation, found in many of his recently published pieces.

He just completed his first novella entitled Nobody. Begun as a semi-autobiographical work, it became a compilation of hundreds of minute stories working towards the illustration of a life lived. It is, in short, the biographical sketch of a no one, a nothing, a nada. A chapter of this work will appear in Blue Print Review.

J. A. Tyler’s next novel is now in progress. It is the exploration of one hundred episodes of death tied to the same pinpoint moment, melded aggressively and relentlessly into a single second.

While these ideas for fiction come and go, the constants remain: a six-pound dog, a highly supportive and loving wife, and the bubbling smiles of a newborn son.

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Writing Excerpt: from 68, 72, 101:

68:

He had a laundry list of things to do.

Repaint the dresser.

Hang the pictures.

Finish hanging the little star lights.

Fix the one section of curtain that was on backwards.

Clean out that storage closet.

Find room for the stroller in the entryway.

And he wanted to make a lip for the old dresser, make it a safer changing space.

Run by the fire station and have the seat checked.

Maybe make some CDs for the delivery room.

He was as excited as his wife though no one would ever believe it. He was a quiet guy living a very quiet life. But he couldn’t wait for the little girl who was due in the next few weeks. He’d already bought a dozen tiny dresses and one perfectly formed pink hat. And though he didn’t feel super prepared or absolutely safe, he was ready. And he was ecstatic about a changing life. A new existence. A little baby.

They’d just finished packing the bag last night. She’d put in a change of very comfortable clothes, a handful of hair ties to suit whatever mood, and a pair of adorable booties that her mother had knitted. And he’d packed it tight with two t-shirts, one of the little dresses, the warm stretchy cap he’d picked up on Eighty-Sixth Street nine months ago, a deck of cards, a few DVDs, and a picture of the two of them, bundled and shivering on the top of a mountain, moments after the proposal.

And now the bag sat ready, waiting, right by the front door. And his wife was quietly sleeping, curled on the loveseat as meaningless morning TV played in the background.

He had to get the list down. It was all so easily forgotten. There was so much going on, so much going by, that he was effortlessly distracted.

He’d have to get it down. See it in black and white.

He could repaint the dressers tonight. They could sit on the fire escape until he was ready for the second coat. It wouldn’t hurt the paint any. It would be cold but not enough to frost. It’d be fine.

And maybe he’d get the pictures hung too. With that and the lights finished the room wouldn’t look like a spare bedroom anymore.

And she was finishing the thank you notes this afternoon. And she was going to pick up the last of the necessities, things they didn’t want to run out of for a few weeks.

They’d have a new life. They didn’t want the outside world to detract, disrupt, take away.

And even though they hadn’t told anyone yet, they’d picked a name.

They would call her Ella Marie.

Little Ella in a pink dress, matching hat, and warm booties.

Little Ella wrapped in a hospital blanket.

Little Ella changing lives.

So he reached for the sticky notes on the corner of his desk. But his fingers never made it.

Little Ella without a daddy.

Little Ella with a story to tell, reluctantly

Little Ella with a story to tell, again and again.

Little Ella with a changed life.