Story and photos by Julianne Parker
In a writer’s unpredictable world, little is more discouraging than the inevitable rejection and criticism they are bound to receive. It comes in the form of letters from publishing houses and literary magazines that politely decline the work they have dedicated their lives to—The work that they have passionately fought for, given up more profitable careers for, slept on friends’ couches for, moved back in with their parents for, or created offices at the local coffee shops for. Out of necessity, writers have methods to deal with the reality of rejection. However, a group of fiction writers, who call themselves the Stonecutters Union, choose to do something that most writers do not: they embrace their rejection by celebrating it.
On this night of fiction readings, it’s Stonecutters Union founder Dante Zuniga-West that leads the celebrations. “We have some rejections to celebrate tonight,” he announces at the start of the readings.
He begins to read from the rejection letters written in response to the writers’ work, pausing after each one to raise his glass and toast the discouraging rejection.
“Hear, hear!” the audience cheers in chorus.
“Some say, ‘just stop writing,’” Zuniga-West continues. “But, we don’t,” he adds with a grin and a final raise of his glass.
Celebrating rejection is an important part of Stonecutter’s Union tradition. They never celebrate their acceptances, solely the rejection. “To be an active writer one cannot be discouraged by rejection,” Zuniga-West says. “It takes courage to submit, to be rejected, and keep writing. We all understand that, and the toasts are a nod to that understanding.”
The Stonecutter’s Union is a group of seven passionate writers who put together monthly readings to present their stories to an audience. Their group includes writers Bronwynn Dean; Benjamin Ficklin, senior at UO, and Publisher of Oregon Voice Magazine; Rick Levin, former Eugene Weekly editor; Casper Macer; Patrick Newson, former Eugene Weekly freelancer; Andy Valentine, senior at UO; and Dante Zuniga-West, also a former Eugene Weekly editor who is soon publishing his novel Rumble Young Man Rumble with Black Coffee Press. The group’s main purpose, however, is not solely the showcases of their readings but improving the quality of their fiction stories and the collaborative efforts of the group to improve each other’s work. Reading their stories at tonight’s event is simply a presentation of the work that they’ve done.
“I believe that good stories are meant to be told aloud,” says Zuniga-West, regarding the oral presentations of their work. “That’s the origin of all storytelling.”
It’s not the quiet, intimate setting one might expect for a reading. Many of the meetings, like this one, are held in the Old Whiteaker Firehouse, a once functioning fire station in Eugene’s hip and artsy Whiteaker district now converted into a small venue for community events. A wooden podium stands in front of rows of lined up chairs in the dimly lit garage, complete with a fire pole, dusty rubber boots, wall-mounted ladders, an old wooden piano, and a chainsaw that is precariously dangling directly above an audience member’s heads held by a single rope and carabiner.
The song “The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me)” by Tom Waits blares from the speakers attached to a record player where a member of the writing group is DJing the event. The song is quite fitting for the night: everyone in the audience holds a plastic cup filled with wine or beer, which they’re encouraged to keep drinking at frequent intervals by the writers themselves. The writers forgo the cups altogether and drink straight from tall bottles of wine or whiskey. After the readings, someone clears out the chairs and an impromptu dance party emerges on the floor of the old fire station. This is no intimate candle-lit reading. It’s a full-fledged celebration.
“The intention was never to produce something typical,” says Benjamin M. Ficklin. “We wanted to do something exceptional. That’s where the dancing, the drinking, the DJ, and the eccentric-ness of our stories comes into play.”
Similar to the setting of the reading, the writers of the Stonecutter’s Union are not the stereotypical sullen and despondent authors. Their topics often include promiscuous, provocative, or vulgar details. They curse, they yell, and they animate their characters with distinct voices and accents. Their boisterous voices are accompanied by theatrical hand expressions to help tell their stories. Their writing is smart and showcases much literary talent, but the readings of their work provoke the audience in a way that reading on a page could never accomplish.
Tonight the writers are celebrating group member Patrick Newson who is leaving to travel to New Zealand to work in a winery. The evening’s event is called “The Exile of St. Patrick: A Reading and a Leaving” in honor of not only their comrade, but also the March 17^th holiday that bears the same name. Before each presentation Zuniga-West reads a message each of the writers wrote to Patrick to wish him farewell. The writers take turns publicly castigating and humiliating him, although the jest and close friendships are not lost in translation.
The seven stories read tonight are far from alike. While many of the stories evoke humor, some emphasize moral contradiction, or emphatic irony. Most are detailed stories that elaborate on a short moment of time, with distinct characters, a concise plot and a climatic end. But it is the presence of the writers and their distinct voices bringing the stories to life in the fire station garage that distinguishes the authors the most.
One such story is called “Flat Tire,” written by Andy Valentine. It is a simple story about a couple driving to the alcohol intervention of the boyfriend’s brother, in which the girlfriend is unwillingly being dragged to. A popped tire leads the couple to a garage where they meet two drunken Russians who help the couple change the tire, but get the pair drunk on Russian vodka in the process. Valentine’s dynamic reading evokes choruses of laughter from the audience as he attempts his best Russian accent to voice his drunken characters. The story ends as the couple pulls into the driveway at the brother’s alcohol intervention… drunk.
Though the writers each display a distinct style of writing and presence on stage, they are bound together by a passion for one thing: fictional storytelling.
“With fiction there are no rules,” says Zuniga-West. “There’s only the human experience, the conveyance of that experience, and how you make your reader— or listener— feel.”
Zuniga-West hopes that his writing can help people connect to a different type of human experience than they are typically accustomed to. As he puts it, the members of the Stonecutter’s Union are “writers trying to transcend themselves by conveying thoughts and feelings through their readers.”
Some common questions audience members ask at the end of the show are: how much of each story was inspired from the writer’s own life? Where does inspiration come from? How do writers channel their personal experiences into their storylines and characters?
“I can’t sit here and tell you which parts of those stories are real and which parts aren’t,” says Zuniga-West. “That’s the point of fiction. It’s what makes it alluring, provocative, and fun.”
Inspiration may come from experience or anticipated experience. Newson explains that for him, inspiration comes just as much from his own past as it does his potential future. “I love to tell stories about things I’m going to do or have done,” he says. “It doesn’t matter if it actually happened.”
“I’ve never watched someone read their own work aloud,” says audience member Allegra Norton during the intermission. “It’s like you’re reading from their diary or something. It’s so personal.” The immediate and ongoing silence that replaces the once rowdy room the moment the author takes the podium is a clear indication that the rest of the audience feels the same way. It’s vulnerable. It’s authentic. It’s captivating. One may feel tense at the start of a reading, twisting their hands and holding their breath in anticipation. There is a genuine yearning to understand the story, along with hope that the writer will not fail and that the audience will respond positively. It is easy to feel sympathy or apprehension for the poor and vulnerable writer who stands alone in front of friends and strangers. It’s silent for a brief moment. Then the audience roars with laughter, applause, or cheers. A sigh of relief is expelled, signaling a ‘good for you’ thought towards the writer.
There is a great difference between writing for the page and writing to be read orally, Zuniga-West explains and for these writers this is an aspect of their stories that requires much practice and experience to perfect.
“When you’re writing to read [aloud] you have the benefit of your charisma, the benefit of your presence, the benefit of your personality,” says Zuniga-West. “But when you’re writing on the page, you have to make that shine through with nothing but language, and that’s hard to do.”
Each of the writers uses their time on stage to tell their stories in a more dramatic and entertaining way than one may have interpreted the story by simply reading it alone. Few readers, however, have as much stage presence as Ficklin, who takes to the stage to read his story, “Captive,” with a bottle of whiskey and a shot glass in hand. Periodically throughout the story he pauses, slowly pours himself a shot and downs it in one fluid swallow before continuing.
“There’s a certain amount of charisma, a certain amount of knowing your audience and of knowing theatrics,” says Ficklin after the readings. “I can take a shot when I want people to think. I’m going to stop here and let people think about what I just said. With reading [on the page], you don’t have that luxury.”
Engaging with the audience and using both their immediate reactions during the readings and listening to their feedback after is something of great value to the authors, Ficklin explains. The audience also gains a lot from watching the writers tell their stories.
“All of their readings are great and each one is as good if not better than the ones before,” says audience member Pierce Kennedy, who is a regular attendee at the Stonecutter’s Union’s readings. Kennedy hopes to one day write and read for a fiction group similar to the Stonecutter’s Union. “They’re an inspiration for any kind of writing I do,” he says.
The engagement of the audience during the readings is impressive. The moment a writer takes the podium the room goes silent. Everyone is waiting. Everyone is listening. Although for many, it isn’t the stories themselves that are the most memorable parts of the readings, but rather the emotions the stories evoke. When asked later, several audience members cannot recall what each story was about, but the stories that were the most memorable to them were the ones that made them feel something.
Zuniga-West is well aware of how important it is to write to evoke emotion from an audience. He explains that people “remember feelings” and that one of his favorite authors, Edgar Allan Poe, was the master of knowing that it is not so much about what you say, but about how you make the reader or listener feel. This, he says, is especially important when reading aloud.
Zuniga-West’s own story, “Constructive Criticism” was written after receiving a particularly memorable critique from a reader that went:
“Hey Dante, why don’t you stop writing about fighting people? It’s getting old. Stop using so many obscure details, fighting just isn’t that interesting.”
In response to this letter, he wrote a story within a story. The inner story is called “Nightcap” and is the story of a girlfriend tending to her boyfriend’s injuries after her ex-boyfriend beat him up. Zuniga-West abruptly pauses that storyline to interject a second narrative which consists of an analytical break down to explain his own thought process while writing; thus the outer story, “Constructive Criticism.”
His personal dialog explaining his concerns for how the reader is suppose to be interpreting each part of the story generates huge waves of laughter from the audience members.
“In the end I’m afraid I’ve used too many obscure details. Maybe the fighting stuff is getting old. Maybe I’m too old to be doing this. Maybe I could use some [criticism],” he concludes in a direct response to his critic. He pauses for a moment and stares at his audience and collects his papers from the podium. “Fuck you,” he spits into the mic, sending the audience in a roar of laughter and cheers.
This group of individuals is dedicated to the craft of writing, and they plan to continue sharing their work with the community. Their next reading will be held on May 18^th, in the Old Whiteaker Firehouse on the group’s one-year anniversary. Anyone attending a Stonecutter’s Union reading will leave with a night full of celebration, storytelling, and likely a hangover. All things you should not miss out on.
As for receiving criticism and rejection, the members of the Stonecutter’s Union have made one thing clear tonight—they certainly know how to embrace the negative, spit it back out, and end the night with a party. Perhaps their unique method of cherishing criticism and toasting rejection together is the best way any writer can move past negative feedback and focus on what is important: the stories. “We’d be writing, submitting, and getting rejected anyways,” says Zuniga-West. “But we happen to be doing it together.”

Gallery • 2 Photos

Celebrating Rejection: A Story of the Stonecutters Union