Award-winning author shares innovative fiction reading Thursday
An alternate-reality version of Ernest Hemingway offered commentary on our commercial culture through author Steve Tomasula Thursday night in the Charles V. Park Library Baber room.
Members of the Central Michigan University community joined the award-winning author as he read a selection from his new short-story collection, Once Human: Stories.
Tomasula read his novella Farewell to Kilimanjaro, a tribute to Ernest Hemingway, who inspired him to seek out surreal fictional stories. The title itself is a mashup of Hemingway's Farewell to Arms (1929) and Snows of Kilimanjaro (1936) and details an ealternate reality in which Hemingway did not commit suicide in 1961.
The passage described Hemingway's fictional experience in a retirement home, after the world had changed and left him, and his sentimental values, behind. Tomasula juxtaposed Hemingway's surreal, introspective style with the hard-hitting reality of the modern age to tell an alternate story of the end of his life.
"There's a lot of literary references, but don't worry," Tomasula said. "There won't be a test at the end."
Tomasula has been hailed as an innovator of modern fiction due to his incorporation of multimedia into his prose writing.
Toc, a digital text written by Tomasula in 2009, combines the storytelling mediums of video games, movies, multimedia, art, fairy tales, and more to engage readers.
"Years down the road, when readers consider the most influential writers of now, Steve will be on the list," said Department of English faculty Matthew Roberson. "He's one of the few successful writers who is breaking the boundaries of the book."
Tomasula's short story collection was a mostly-traditional work, yet brought the subject of literature in the modern era to readers in an unorthodox way.
Tomasula's visceral style relieved the pressure of writer's block from an attending student. Lake Orion senior Jonathan Forrest, a creative writing major and aspiring comic book writer, found that listening to Tomasula's style "turned the valve" and relieved his stress.
"It's like a conduit for getting inspiration and other types of ideas for writing," he said. "I was in the worst stage of writer's block. It was like this creative constipation I was dealing with."
Novi senior John Bachor found that Tomasula's story connected with reality despite its surreal nature.
"There was a lot of the real world living in it," Bachor said. "It's inspirational."
