I believe it [Catcher in the Rye] should be taught in high school because these are the issues teens face or will face once they go to college, just as Holden did. Once in college, students will learn how phony the world is, if they haven’t already.
[The following is a comment I made today to a post on Catcher in the Rye made by Colorless Wonderland published four years ago.]
Excellent presentation and discussion! I am going to play the age card here and say that I recently turned 68 (born in 1957, 6 years after Catcher in the Rye was first published). The culture I grew up in was only a few years after the culture shown in Catcher, ergo, not much difference. I disagree with your opinion that Catcher should not be taught in high school. It definitely should be taught in high school, but not for the usual reasons that communities have for banning this book or for the reasons you state.
I believe it [Catcher in the Rye] should be taught in high school because these are the issues teens face or will face once they go to college, just as Holden did. Once in college, students will learn how phony the world is, if they haven’t already.
This is a coming-of-age novel, at a point in which many teens START discovering the phoniness of the world. However (somewhat in agreement with you), high school teachers should not be the ones discussing Catcher with students. Teachers will only teach what the local school board says they should teach or they put their jobs on the line, and a lot of communities still, even in 2025, want to teach the idealized American Dream, which is a textbook example of phoniness.
The people with which students should be discussing Catcher are a) other students or b) their parents (ideally). High school students need to prepare themselves for encountering the phoniness that lies ahead for them and which they will be encountering for the rest of their lives, as I have for 68 years. Of course, many parents will just try to teach the ideal American Dream or sugar-coat the future, but the honest ones, the good parents (or friends) will honestly prepare their children for what lies ahead. So, while the “teachers” may present the local school board’s view of what teens should learn, the student’s friends and family will teach the down-to-earth, worthwhile lessons.
The great thing about literature which is most valuable for the reader is not reading something and then discussing it with the teacher the community hired to teach its values, but discussing the material with classmates, family, and others, i.e. getting a lot of opinions and then having to decide, based on experience, which are the opinions worth considering, which are the most valuable, which are the most truthful and accurate, and deciding what one should take from them to help oneself prepare for the coming future.
I have been feeling the need to resurrect Rural Fiction Magazine. I have been thinking about this a lot and there is something I love about publishing, particularly publishing something that is intended to help people, and RFM is intended to help people relax and avoid stress during these trying times for not only the US but also for nations around the globe.
I have been feeling the need to resurrect Rural Fiction Magazine. I have been thinking about this a lot and there is something I love about publishing, particularly publishing something that is intended to help people, and RFM is intended to help people relax and avoid stress during these trying times for not only the US but also for nations around the globe.
Publishing RFM is something I really love to do.
I will need to find a way to make money from it, and that is not easy for a literary magazine whether just in print or online. But, as I have learned so often in life, I will just have to (as Clint Eastwood said in one of his movies – I forget the name – in it he was a Marine gunnery sergeant invading Grenada in the 80’s. “…Improvise, adapt, and overcome”, which actually is sort of an unspoken principle of the Navy, where I spent my time in the Service. It is a very good principle and is actually reflected back throughout military history as far back as Sun Tzu’s The Art of War in the fifth century B.C.E.
So, I may not resurrect RFM soon; this will require substantial planning, but I think in the long run it will be worthwhile, if not financially, then perhaps spiritually, because it is something my subconscious demands of me.
If my writing seems erratic, itis because I am on my third White Lady (equal parts gin (in this instance Tanqueray), orange liquor (in this instance Cointreau), and freshly squeezed lemon juice.
In any case, please follow the leader’s guidance (unclorius) , and subscribe to our channel and like our videos. When Friend look we are peformane
Stay tuned as this story develops…
I have some ideas to oldearmacy
as to how to bath.
[Addendum: the first few paragraphs above are honest opinion, the ones after the word “gin” — well, what can I say other than White Ladies are really good? Updated December 3, 2025 at 1:20 am (CST) after a couple of gin and tonics.]
At Arkansas Post National Memorial near Gillett, Arkansas, 2020
I was recently interviewed by Duotrope about my work on The Chamber Magazine. That interview is now live. Follow this link to read it.
If you are not familiar with Duotrope, they are a submission engine, i.e. they aid writers in finding magazines, book publishers, and agents to print their stories and poetry. The way they do this is by listing important data on magazines, which their subscribers can search. I have used them for several years and they are a very useful tool in finding publishers. They do charge a nominal fee of about $5/month. What you get out of the website is well worth that $5 many times over. If you are a writer, I recommend them highly. Even if don’t write and only read, they will still be very useful in finding the right magazines for you.
While you are there, check out The Chamber’s listing. It is a good example of how they run their website/database.
At Arkansas Post National Memorial near Gillett, Arkansas, 2020
I was recently interviewed by Duotrope about my work on The Chamber Magazine. That interview is now live. Follow this link to read it.
If you are not familiar with Duotrope, they are a submission engine, i.e. they aid writers in finding magazines, book publishers, and agents to print their stories and poetry. The way they do this is by listing important data on magazines, which their subscribers can search. I have used them for several years and they are a very useful tool in finding publishers. They do charge a nominal fee of about $5/month. What you get out of the website is well worth that $5 many times over. If you are a writer, I recommend them highly. Even if don’t write and only read, they will still be very useful in finding the right magazines for you.
While you are there, check out The Chamber’s listing. It is a good example of how they run their website/database.
Check out The Chamber’s latest YouTube video about the The Chamber’s cover images.
For those of you who don’t go to YouTube or go to it very little, The Chamber Magazine has a nascent presence on YouTube. So far, most of the videos have been test videos that were experiments as I was learning basic video production programs and how to utilize YouTube. Above is my most recent video, which premiered on February 15, 2022. It shows the cover image for each issue of The Chamber in 2021. It’s brief, only a couple of minutes, but it is pleasantly entertaining. Check it out. Stop by The Chamber’s YouTube channel whenever you can. I don’t update it regularly, but I do try to produce artistic videos as best as I can.
While there, check out the playlists I have created. These are various combinations of assorted music to be played in the background while reading or doing housework or chillaxin’ or whenever.
Barnes & Noble has a nice write-up on A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror.
I was surfing the Internet tonight and I was pleasantly surprised to find that Barnes & Noble has done a nice write-up on A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror. They apparently went to a little effort to nicely copy the Overview, Editorial Reviews, and even my bio notes from the information I provided to IngramSpark and format them beautifully. I haven’t garnered any reviews of it on Barnes & Noble yet, so if you have read ATOH, please provide one either on the Barnes & Noble site or somewhere on the Internet. Visit the Barnes & Noble page when you can.
An update on what is happening tonight, March 15, 2022.
Damn. Is it 2022 already? It seems like yesterday was 2002.
In any case, tonight (to paraphrase Howard Hesseman [WKRP in Cincinnati] when he was a guest on the Tonight Show), I have been experimenting in recreational activities of an alcoholic nature. I developed a good Margarita recipe: 2 parts tequila, 2 parts triple sec, 1 part lime juice, 1 part grapefruit juice, and 1 part Sprite. I am calling these the Arkansas Post Margarita. Any, afterwards I did a little ego-surfing and found this (the Phil Slattery mentioned is some guy in Australia whom I do not know):
There is something about this that blows my drunken mind, but I cannot put my finger on it. This is from “The Surgical News” of Nov-Dec 2018. This is from the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.
Now I forget what I was going to confess, unless that it is that I am loaded.
But this little quote makes sense. Only a Slattery would find a connection between wine and hand surgery.
To the best of my knowledge, based on what I have read and seen in documentaries, vampires in traditional folklore are much different from the modern conception of a vampire as an immortal, erotic figure that can come out into the open only at night and that feeds on the blood of the living.
As with lycanthropy, vampirism has a corresponding psychiatric disorder, clinical vampirism, in which a person has an erotic obsession with drinking blood. It is related to Renfield’s Syndrome or Renfield Syndrome, which is an obsession with eating living creatures such as insects. Renfield’s syndrome is named after the character Renfield in Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, who had an obsession with eating insects. However, neitherclinical vampirism nor Renfield’s syndrome is a valid medical diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manualof Mental Disordersproduced by the American Psychiatric Association.
That said, in legend and mythology and not including those found in literature or in cinema, there are probably thousands of species (for lack of a better term) of vampire. Each culture seems to have had its own variant. In the X-files episode “Bad Blood”, Mulder gives a quick rundown of the many types of vampires in legend and mythology.
Vampires in traditional folklore are much different from the modern conception of a vampire as an immortal, erotic figure that can come out into the open only at night and that feeds on the blood of the living. In bygone days, a vampire was most likely someone cursed, or who had committed a grave sin or crime, who rose from the grave to plague the living, most likely the vampire’s relatives or someone who knew the vampire in life. To keep someone someone with the potential to be a vampire from returning from the dead, various peoples used various preventive measures. One of the most common was to drive a stake through the vampire and into his/her coffin, theoretically pinning them down. Sometimes the body was decapitated or its legs cut off. I don’t recall offhand the use of garlic and crucifixes to repel vampires in legend, but it’s not impossible. To my mind, they are most likely inventions of Hollywood, just as werewolves transforming under a full moon or a silver bullet being necessary to kill them are inventions of Hollywood.
John William Polidori (1795-1821) Date of portrait unknown.
The modern concept of a vampire as a cultured, sexually attractive individual became most popular with Dracula. However, before Dracula (1897) was Carmilla (1872) , by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu and The Vampyre (1819) by John William Polidori. These models probably led to vampires being imagined as attractive, seductive aristocrats in the films of the 1970’s and 1980’s. From there the titillating sexual aspect gained greater importance over time to where it is today, probably more as a way to attract a larger audience or readership than for any other reason.
Illustration from Joseph Sheridan leFanu’s 1872 novella, Carmilla
Vampires have mostly been one-dimensional characters until the last few decades when writers like Anne Rice gave them considerable depth.
I have no real impulse to write anything about vampires. Though I will occasionally watch a movie or read a story involving vampires, they (or at least the modern stereotype) haven’t yet interested me enough to take the time and effort to write about one. If I were to write about one, it would most likely be to resurrect (no pun intended) the original concept of a vampire as a cursed person, most likely a peasant, who rises from the grave to plague the living. There would be a lot of psychological angles to use in forming the backstory of the characters and revealing their depth, the inner workings of their minds and emotions.
Assume the father of a family dies and they, for whatever reason, believe he might rise again as a vampire., but they poo-poo the idea only to have neighbors report than they saw the father walking about the village or killing someone. How would each member of the family feel? Would the mother, who used to quarrel frequently with her husband, readily believe the reports? Would the children be in denial? Maybe vice versa. Who goes out to see if the reports are true? What do they feel? What do they feel on seeing the father? Is it actually him or someone who looks like him? How can they be sure? Does the father attack one of them? How do the rest feel about that? Do they feel the killing or any killing is justified or at random? Maybe the children who are abused by the mother set her up to be killed. Maybe the mother sets up the children or uses them as bait to trap the father. Taking another tack, maybe the mother was so passionately in love with the father that she decides to join him in death. Does she try to bring the children along against their wishes? There is a lot that can be done without resorting to clichés of the supernatural and the erotic to make the story interesting. Everyone these days is writing about super sexy vampires with super powers. It’s take to approach this subject from another angle.
Writing about a serial killer who revels in blood, a realistic vampire rooted in reality, fascinates me considerably. Then I would b able to explore vicariously through a fictional character the psychology of someone like Bela Kiss, the Hungarian serial killer of the early twentieth century; Peter Kuerten, the “Vampire of Duesseldorf”, who terrorized Duesseldorf, Germany in 1929; or Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who is said to have killed hundreds of young girls in central Europe in the early seventeenth century. Some say that Countess Bathory killed the girls to bathe in their blood and thereby remain youthful, but others say that element of the legend wasn’t concocted until decades after her death. In any event, that does make for an interesting psychological aspect in a work of fiction.
Mugshot of Peter Kuerten, April 1931
In fact, I started a story involving Countess Bathory some years ago. I have yet to finish yet, but only because my imagination for magic and the supernatural was weak and hit a bout of writer’s block crossing the cerebral highway. If I sit down and focus, I may be able to come up with some interesting ideas. In fact, this article is helping spur some ideas.
My recommendation to my readers is to find some reliable sources and read up on Bathory (what I am writing here are just notes off the top of my head based on research I did several years ago). The countess becomes more fascinating the more you find out about her actual life. Describing her simply as a psychotic, bloodthirsty villainess is specious. The historical Elizabeth is exceptionally complex. The accepted story is that she bathed in the blood of young girls to preserve her beauty. This facet of Elizabeth’s story is quite likely false. However, if we were to assume it was true, then we have to ask ourselves, why was maintaining her beauty of such importance? Vanity would be the obvious explanation, but why was she vain? Was it a matter of insecurity? Why?
Elizabeth, Countess Bathory (1560-1614) Portrait 1585. a late sixteenth century copy of the only portrait (now lost) known to have been painted of her in her lifetime.
From what I have read, my theory is that she loved her husband passionately and wanted to always be attractive to him. This is not a streak of closet chauvinism in yours truly. In my admittedly spurious readings, history supports this theory.
Alternately, if we decide to avoid this angle of a search for eternal beauty, then why did she torture all those girls? Accounts state that she killed at least eighty and maybe as many as 650. Was it a twisted power trip as with modern serial killers or was it something else? One source I read said that her husband taught her how to torture people. So was this like a hobby they shared? From what I have read, Elizabeth’s rampage against young girls increased after her husband’s death. Apparently, her husband exerted enough control over her (or maybe he had a calming influence) that she was able to control her urges toward violence. That would explain why she threw herself into her macabre pastime after his death.
Maybe her violence was rooted in jealousy. When Elizabeth married her husband, she was about the same age as the girls she would later torture.
Maybe Elizabeth had Intermittent Explosive Disorder, a mental disorder in which a person is susceptible to sporadic urges to violence.
Maybe the sight or taste of blood was erotic to her, for reasons that can only be speculated. This would be clinical vampirism and would put an interesting spin on the currently prevalent image of vampires in pop culture.
As you can see, a historical vampire can be a considerably more intriguing character than someone who is all superpowers and sex.
Anyway, that is my post for now. I have to attend to other matters.
I am testing this to see how effective it might be if I used in marketing channels (keywords, links, etc.) other than the ones I have been using for it.
Here are a few of the book retailers where you can find my works.
Yesterday, I became curious as to what booksellers I could find that carry my works now that I am publishing through IngramSpark. I went to different bookstores online and simply searched for the ISBN of the new edition of A Tale of Hell and Other Works of Horror, after which I searched for “Phil Slattery” to see which of my Amazon books they carry. To my pleasant surprise, I found that most of the major bookstores carry both. I also found out that IngramSpark also distributes through Amazon, because the new edition of A Tale of Hell popped up there in each site for the US and other countries.
In any case, here are the bookstores where you can order each of my works via print-on-demand, i.e. you have to order them from the store. Also, if you are looking specifically for my latest version (i.e. the IngramSpark edition), use its ISBN to ensure you get it and not one of the earlier Amazon editions: 9780578759913. Search the bookstore for “Phil Slattery” to get one of my other works, which are available through Amazon.
Don’t forget to retweet and share this post with your friends.
Bookshop.org
Books A Million
Parnassus Books (Nashville, TN)
Wordsworth Books (LittleRock, Arkansas)
Joseph Beth (Lexington, KY)
The Strand Bookstore (New York City, NY)
Book People (Austin, TX)
Collected Works (Santa Fe, NM)
Elliott Bay Bookstore (Seattle, WA)
Word Bookstores (Brooklyn, NY and Jersey City, NJ)
Blackwells.co.uk
bookdepository.com (UK)
allibris.com (UK)
literatibookstore.com
Also check the Amazon page for each county (e.g. amazon.de, amazon.fr, amazon.uk, etc.
The new cover for “The Scent and Other Stories” as of October 2020
In this collection of short stories, I explore the dark, sometimes violent, sometimes twisted, sometimes touching side of love, the side kept not only from public view, but sometimes from our mates. Set in the modern era, these stories range from regretting losing a lover to forbidden interracial love in the hills of 1970’s Kentucky to a mother’s deathbed confession in present-day New Mexico to debating pursuing a hateful man’s wife to the callous manipulation of a lover in Texas.
Comments on stories contained in The Scent and Other Stories include:
The Scent
“This story has a lovely dreamy quality whilst being unsettling too. It lingers on half processed emotional experiences and leaves the reader asking ‘what if’ and ‘if only’ – feelings that are familiar for so many people.”
“You wrote about something we can all relate to – how, out of the blue, the scent of something evokes a memory of something long past; and the emotions we felt at the time! A clever story …”
“This descriptive piece about remembrance, the thought of what might have been, is a common sad thread that will resonate with those have experienced the pain of that one love lost. Slattery’s use of scent was exquisite as we feel Quinn’s pain and hope that he finds his peace, at last.”
Decision
“Fantastic writing – I held my breath for most of the story. The descriptions of the countryside and the people were beautiful and the tension compelling. This could possibly be the start of a novel or a suite of stories. Thank you very much and good luck with your writing in the future”
“Suspenseful and engaging. The dialogue and descriptions kept pace with the action. Well done.”
A Good Man
“Lots of detail examining an old question of how do you judge a person’s life. It left me wondering.”
“Great job capturing the social climate of the sixties. Good choice for how to present the story – deathbed “confession” by the mother. I enjoyed it.”
The Slightest of Indiscretions
“Excellent writing brings this poignant story to life and makes the reader work to understand more of what might be. Very many thanks for a satisfying, emotionally intelligent read…”
The new cover for “The Scent and Other Stories” as of October 2020
In this collection of short stories, I explore the dark, sometimes violent, sometimes twisted, sometimes touching side of love, the side kept not only from public view, but sometimes from our mates. Set in the modern era, these stories range from regretting losing a lover to forbidden interracial love in the hills of 1970’s Kentucky to a mother’s deathbed confession in present-day New Mexico to debating pursuing a hateful man’s wife to the callous manipulation of a lover in Texas.
Comments on stories contained in The Scent and Other Stories include:
The Scent
“This story has a lovely dreamy quality whilst being unsettling too. It lingers on half processed emotional experiences and leaves the reader asking ‘what if’ and ‘if only’ – feelings that are familiar for so many people.”
“You wrote about something we can all relate to – how, out of the blue, the scent of something evokes a memory of something long past; and the emotions we felt at the time! A clever story …”
“This descriptive piece about remembrance, the thought of what might have been, is a common sad thread that will resonate with those have experienced the pain of that one love lost. Slattery’s use of scent was exquisite as we feel Quinn’s pain and hope that he finds his peace, at last.”
Decision
“Fantastic writing – I held my breath for most of the story. The descriptions of the countryside and the people were beautiful and the tension compelling. This could possibly be the start of a novel or a suite of stories. Thank you very much and good luck with your writing in the future”
“Suspenseful and engaging. The dialogue and descriptions kept pace with the action. Well done.”
A Good Man
“Lots of detail examining an old question of how do you judge a person’s life. It left me wondering.”
“Great job capturing the social climate of the sixties. Good choice for how to present the story – deathbed “confession” by the mother. I enjoyed it.”
The Slightest of Indiscretions
“Excellent writing brings this poignant story to life and makes the reader work to understand more of what might be. Very many thanks for a satisfying, emotionally intelligent read…”
Logan Rickover, owner of a hardware store in a small town in Kentucky, has lucid dreams of life as an astronaut that intrude upon his life at any moment. Which of his lives is real? The quiet paradise of Danville or the terrifying jungle world of Stheno D?
This novelette is a terrific read for those who have only a quick break to take a breather and escape to another reality. In this sci-fi thriller, I endeavor to blur the boundaries between alien-induced hallucinations, the brutal reality of the present, and memories of an idyllic past.
Ron Baker calls it “Nightmare Planet”, gives it five stars, and comments: “This short has exactly what I like in science fiction: planet exploration and bizarre otherworldly aliens, in this case insectoid. The horrendous purpose the aliens have for the hapless astronauts who make planetfall to find the numerous previous missing exploration teams is grisly. I love the mystery of the planet and the authors device of alternating from the aliens bizarre perspective then switching to the astronauts point of view.”
You can also order the paperback Alien Embrace through many bookstores as it is print on demand. Ask your local bookstore to order it or to carry it.
Logan Rickover, owner of a hardware store in a small town in Kentucky, has lucid dreams of life as an astronaut that intrude upon his life at any moment. Which of his lives is real? The quiet paradise of Danville or the terrifying jungle world of Stheno D?
This novelette is a terrific read for those who have only a quick break to take a breather and escape to another reality. In this sci-fi thriller, I endeavor to blur the boundaries between alien-induced hallucinations, the brutal reality of the present, and memories of an idyllic past.
Ron Baker calls it “Nightmare Planet”, gives it five stars, and comments: “This short has exactly what I like in science fiction: planet exploration and bizarre otherworldly aliens, in this case insectoid. The horrendous purpose the aliens have for the hapless astronauts who make planetfall to find the numerous previous missing exploration teams is grisly. I love the mystery of the planet and the authors device of alternating from the aliens bizarre perspective then switching to the astronauts point of view.”
The new cover for Nocturne as of November 15, 2019.
You can also order the beautiful paperback Nocturne… (with a different cover) through many bookstores as it is print on demand. Ask your local bookstore to order it or to carry it.
Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover is a collection of my poetry written from the mid-80’s to mid-90s, a turbulent, fluid time in my life in many ways, but especially romantically. I have taken many of the poems written during those years and compiled them into a dark narrative capturing the emotional turmoil of a narrator who descends from romantic love for a woman into a lonely world of alcohol and night clubs, where his only love is the night that envelopes him psychologically, emotionally, and physically. It is about 110 print pages in length and lavishly illustrated with photos I found in the public domain (no, those are not photos of me or of my former paramours).
I have tried to make this a wonderful experience for the reader, exploring the bliss of love to the depths of despair and then to resignation to one’s fate in an existential crisis.
Don’t forget to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads or other social media!
While there, you might want to check out my other work on relationships: The Scent and Other Stories. In this collection of short stories, I explore the dark, sometimes violent, sometimes twisted, sometimes touching side of love, the side kept not only from public view, but sometimes from our mates. Set in the modern era, these stories range from regretting losing a lover to forbidden interracial love in the hills of 1970’s Kentucky to a mother’s deathbed confession in present-day New Mexico to debating pursuing a hateful man’s wife to the callous manipulation of a lover in Texas.
Two reviews have warm praise for Nocturne…:
J. Muckley calls it “Beautiful, Sad, Authentic and Vulnerable Look at Love and Loss” and gives it five stars, saying:
Nocturne: Poems of Love, Distance, and the Night, a callous and disinterested lover by Phil Slattery is a deep and raw “picture” of experiencing love and lovers of varying type, capturing the moments of ecstasy and pain in a most beautiful way.
Slattery speaks with one voice as his words and pictures depict the full range of human love and loss that both tempts the soul to engage and urges the heart to resist. His opening quote by Augustine of Hippo captures this work perfectly: “I was not yet in love, yet I loved to love…I sought what I might love, in love with loving.” –Augustine of Hippo
The poems are mostly untitled and written in free verse form. The reader meanders through the past relationships as they ebb and flow through varying stages. The introduction poem tells of the types of poem you will soon encounter:
nights of love
full of life and laughter
as empty as an empty
bottle
The poem closes:
Bring me to that ultimate pleasure
in your all-consuming eyes.
Let us become one
and share the horrors of this
world
All in all, Nocturne, is a beautiful but sad read that speaks to the reality of love and holds nothing back. It engages the mind and the heart longing for lasting, meaningful love that always seems just outside of its reach.
P.S. Winn calls it “Great Poems with Pictures”, gives it four stars, and says:
I like this author’s poems which have a great feel to them. The book is about love but a lot more is included inside the pages. I like the photos the author included to enhance the poetry. A few of the poems held descriptive words about nature and I enjoyed the way the picture author paints in the readers mind is also displayed in the photographs that correspond with the words.
Alien Embrace is included in my collection 
Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher 