What We Pick Up

<p class=ql-align-justify><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>What We Pick Up</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)> is the gripping debut story collection from Portland author and screenwriter Stacy Brewster recipient of the 2019 Literary Arts Fellowship in Drama. In these eleven tightly-wound stories Brewster turns clichés of boyhood and manhood on their heads revealing the trappings and failures of American masculinity when viewed from any angle especially a queer one.</span></p><p class=ql-align-justify><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>A brash young man recounts the life he shared with an older lover in rural 1930s Oregon... queer teenagers navigate a family vacation on a remote lake... a gay retiree tries to outrun an apocalyptic sandstorm... and an aging alcoholic is transfixed by the return of a long-lost sibling. In the title story-connected to two others in the collection-a sound recordist who survived a violent car crash as a boy and a suicide attempt as a teenager must find his place in the world between his love of film and the perils of Hollywood exploitation.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>With sharp observation cinematic detail and wit Stacy Brewster's </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>What We Pick Up</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)> is intensely satisfying with stories that span vastly different decades and landscapes. Brewster's stories of fathers sons brothers and lovers-gay bi trans queer-all manage to mix dark humor earnest pathos and a quiet reserve of hope to re-vision a different path forward for all of us.</span></p>