The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing, and Listening in 2023, pt. 30: Couri Johnson

 

The Pleasures of Reading, Viewing, and Listening in 2023

by Couri Johnson 

 

It’s been interesting rediscovering reading for pleasure on the other side of the Ph.D. I think in some ways, I’m still relearning how to let a story be a story rather than always dissecting it to prove a point or to provide workshop feedback. Not that those acts aren’t also, in their own way, enjoyable. But sometimes, it’s good just to experience a thing.

 

To help with this rehabilitation, I gave myself a homework assignment to read or re-read all of Haruki Murakami’s work from beginning to end. I love his short stories – Desire is a short one that’s great to start off with if you’re unfamiliar with his work. The stories are concise, mysterious, and often pack a heavy emotional blow for their small size. From the novels I’ve worked through of his so far this year, the finale to his rat-series, Dance, Dance, Dance, has been a standout. The interactions between the 30-something narrator in contrast to a teenage girl underscore the different alienations and growing pains that come with each era of life.

 

Another great pleasure of mine has been sitting down with Kym Cunningham’s poetry. Her collection New Mythologies is right up my alley. She blends horror and fairytale into a lovely and disruptive talk about the female body throughout the collection, through poems about girls with skin made of teeth or stone. I’m lucky to be wrapping up the year with her new collection, The Dis/sonance, where Cunningham is being further disruptive (in such a fun way!) with the relationship between words and identity, and how she places words on the page.

 I’ve also been sitting with Christopher Barzak’s Monstrous Alterations, which has been one of my absolute favorites of the year. Perhaps I’m biased for having studied under Barzak, and because he, too, rewrites the Twelve Dancing Princesses in this collection, which is one of my favorite stories to play with. I love retellings – especially those that breathe a new emotional life into the stories, and Barzak does just that. His end lines are the kind that stick with you, and I find myself returning to them over and over again. 

 

 Couri Johnson is a recovering ex-pat living in Youngstown, Ohio. She's a graduate of the North Eastern Ohio Master of Fine Arts and holds a Ph.D. in creative writing from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Previously, she bounced around the States and Japan as an English teacher, but has since settled back in the North to spend time with her cats writing strange fairy tales. Her first short story collection, I'll Tell You a Love Story, is available through Bridge Eight Press, and her novel-in-stories, The Girl Who through Gateway Press. Aqueduct Press will be publishing Feraltales in 2024 as a volume in the Conversation Pieces series.