Welcome to Whatworld

The Webworld of Writer and Teacher Leslie What

Storytime my life in letters a writer's CV
*Crazy Love* Stories by Leslie What with an introduction by Kate Wilhelm ISBN 978-1-877655-59-3 Wordcraft of Oregon Cover art by Jessica Plattner Cover design by Kristin Summers, redbat design
Here's what people say about my work:
An ace at the new weirdness defined by the anthology Feeling Very Strange (2006), What uses it to be creepy, polemical, and funny, all at once or in various blendings. These 17 stories progress from grim to laugh-out-loud ludicrous without ever derogating their common subject, love, though they do depict it as fairly insane. The opening stories, "Finger Talk" and "Babies," feature women in abusive relationships they don't want to change; that one is trapped in a gorilla suit and the other is, unbeknownst to hubby, carrying sextuplets leavens their dire circumstances some, but enough? "The Cost of Doing Business" is about a professional victim, whose clients must be able to afford her subsequent hospitalizations and quite adequate comfort between jobs. Things lighten up through the predicaments of a man who masturbated for science when 18 and at 49 discovers he has thousands of offspring, a man who realizes that work doesn't proliferate during vacation without cause, a nauseating senior who expects familial love although he intends to live forever, and others, until at last there is the hermit researcher's tale, from which we learn, through a vale of our own tears of laughter, why there are always hermits. Love is why, of course. Crazy! Ray Olson ~ Booklist starred review	"Queen of Gonzo" What (Olympic Games) drags love out of its gooey, schmaltzy rut and takes it for a joyride in this exuberant collection of 17 stories. "Finger Talk" is a poignant take on unwanted pregnancy and cavalier men. "Babies" gives a Kafkaesque touch to a pregnancy that may or may not have been affected by pesticides during the first trimester. "All My Children" asks whether the provider of a sperm sample is legally responsible for the children that come from its use - and if he is, how does he pay for 10,000 college tuition fees? The 1999 Nebula-winning "The Cost of Doing Business" posits possibly the most incredible premise in the book: a love for others that is completely selfless and nonjudgmental. No matter how brief or long, no matter how bizarre, each tale in this collection grabs readers and demands they rethink how they see all the myriad forms of love. *~ Publishers Weekly* starred review
"Crazy Love is crazy good! Leslie What's brain is evidently crowded with strangeness, awfulness, wonderfulness, wildness, madness of all kinds...and love. Lots of love. How lucky we are that her imagination runs deep, runs true, runs onto the page in crazily beautiful stories - and lucky, so very lucky, to be holding those stories right now in our hands." ~ Molly Gloss	"If unbearable guilt makes you wish to suffer vicariously, and professionally, for others; if you suddenly find yourself the father of thousands and thousands of children; if your ambition is to occupy the Chair of Hermit Studies at the University of Oregon, or to be a ghost in a hot-air balloon, or if you have considered wearing a gorilla mask while having an abortion - Crazy Love is your operating manual. These seventeen achingly funny and hilariously sad stories will give you invaluable advice on how to love, how to be crazy, how to be human." ~ Ursula K. Le Guin
"Leslie What finds a surreal joy in the most awful things that can happen." ~ Eileen Gunn	"Classic Leslie What!" ~ William Sullivan
Olympic Games "This is a wonderful novel; it may well become a cult classic." ~ Elizabeth Hand "This very funny fantasy is especially impressive in the way it turns serious and genuinely moving in its final pages." **~ Michael Berry, San Francisco Chronicle**
Why I Wash the Dead "A powerful, lean, direct, taut, sinewy, substantive, holy, prayerful piece of work that matters." ~ Brian Doyle	Post hoc "Surrealism - or perhaps I should callit surreality - of one sort or another is also an element that permeates this collection. It seems sometimes to be a matter of style more than substance, seemingly mismatched images veering close to word salad (and also close to preciosity), but never quite going over the edge. More interesting are those in which the surreal quality is foundational, such as Leslie What's amazing and completely engaging 'Post Hoc,' in which a pregnant woman, trying to mail herself to her lover, winds up living in the post office." ~ Robert M. Tilendis, Rambles.net
Other Stuff "Ov er the past few years I have been watching Leslie What blossom from a nice little comic talent into a great big scary comic talent."~ Damon Knight "Leslie What's stories have the power to strike an emotional chord in me, and whether that chord summons tears or laughter it is deeply satisfying." ~ Kate Wilhelm "Leslie What's Things the Mirror Sees does what speculative fiction ought to do; it provides us with a wonderful piece of alien viewpoint. The true and best piece of speculative fiction is changing the nature or perception by giving us something new or truly marvelous to consider." ~ Don Webb "What do you mean you don't like tongue? You loved tongue. You used to eat it all up. Don't tell stories." ~ Leslie's Mom

Leslie' s writing has been translated into German, Italian, French, Japanese, Russian, Greek, and Klingon.

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A normal family out for a walk. Mask by Leslie What. Knitting by Leslie's mom.

First came love, then came marriage, then came junior in a baby carriage.

Stories were a natural progression.

Updated July 2008 Website gltiches? Please tell the site genie.< /font>

Contents copyright 2002-2008 by Leslie What. All rights reserved, but you can ask.