ENCOUNTERS WITH OLD COYOTE by Laura Koerber

 

ENCOUNTERS WITH OLD COYOTE

Laura Koerber 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

GENRE:  Magical Realism 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

BLURB: 

"One thing about people—they need to tell stories. They can't stop themselves. Stories all the time. That's how they understand things." So said Coyote to Andrea, shortly after she died. Andrea had never believed in any kind of afterlife or gods, so she was surprised to find herself still somewhat alive, floating in the form of a ghost in the soft, dry desert air of Nevada. She was even more surprised to meet a supernatural being with a coyote's face, antlers, and the supplies for making coffee.

 "I don't understand why I'm a ghost," Andrea said. 

Coyote set his coffee cup down on the dirt beside his rock. He glanced at Andrea, grimaced, and said, “Okay, I'll try to explain. Since you humans like stories, I'll try to explain that way. I'll tell you some stories.” 

So come along with Coyote and Andrea as they share stories about life and death, spiders in the bathroom and how Andrea lost her bra at a truck stop, enemy gods and pottery shards, adventures in vomit, what scientists say about dark matter and the fifth force, and other topics both sublime and ridiculous.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

 EXCERPT

“Can dreams come true, Coyote?” His head was bent down, his chin on his chest, his eyes buried in furry wrinkles. “Can dreams be true?”    

She waited. One of his ears flicked a fly away. “I had a dream about you once. It was the scariest dream of my life because it felt absolutely real.” The fly resettled on the tip of his ear. “Are you dreaming?” Andrea asked. Then she sighed and started the story. 

“I woke up a couple mornings ago while I was still alive with this story in my head, as intense as a real experience. It's a story about a strange vacation involving heroic cows, a mysterious coyote man, and a dog.” Andrea glanced at Coyote to see how he'd react, but he was still asleep. 

“After I woke up, I retold the story to myself a couple of times to get it stuck in my short term memory. Then I went down stairs, got some coffee, and typed the whole thing out. Not creative writing. Just a bashed-out narrative rampant with typos. I titled it, “The Dream.” Then I hit “save as” and it vanished.” 

Coyote shifted his position and settled his back against against a rock. He tipped his black cowboy hat over his eyes.

Andrea frowned. Where had the hat come from and how was he wearing it over his antlers? Weird. “Gone,” she said, insistent that he notice her story. “It really was strange. The computer just swallowed it. Or it got sucked up somewhere, retracted by whatever force gave me the story in the first place.” Andrea laughed shortly. “That was a scary thought! Like some force didn't want me to remember the dream. But probably I'd just screwed myself as usual with incompetence. Technophobia strikes again! So I typed the damn thing over again, this time really rushing, just bish, bash, bish, bash. I could feel the intensity of the story fading from my mind as I typed, but nevertheless, I got the whole thing down. 

“I hit save and it vanished again. It really was creepy.” She stopped. Coyote was awake, sort of, and smoking again. “I had this feeling that something was watching me. Scary.” She shuddered, then laughed again. “I didn't believe in ghosts or anything back when this happened, so...maybe something really was watching me and erasing the story?” Coyote grunted noncommittally. 

“So I got kind of freaked out. But I typed the whole thing out again. I'm not going to tell it in first person because I didn't dream it that way. Here goes:” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

AUTHOR Bio and Links: 

I live on a island in the Puget Sound with my husband and my dogs. I am a retired teacher, presently doing in -home care for disabled people while volunteering at a cat rescue 

My degree is in art, and I am a painter, graphic artist, and ceramic sculptor. The writing started about five years ago, a surprise to me and everyone who knows me, since I had never written anything before. To my immense gratitude, my first book received outstanding reviews and made the Kirkus Review list of one hundred best indy books of 2015. 

Since then, I have written ten books. People seem to like them; I get lots of four and five star reviews. My books are a bit unconventional; I mix magical realism with dystopia in many of them. My stories tend to be character-driven and include ghosts and spirits. 

I think I learned to write by reading. I am a voracious omnivore of books. 

Kirkus Review: https://www.kirkusreviews.com 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE 

The author will be awarding a $20 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.

a Rafflecopter giveaway