Great Reads on Wattpad

I've been spending a lot of time on Wattpad. Yes, I write stuff there, but I read a lot too.

The site is not merely a collection of One Direction wish-fulfillment stories - there is some great literature on there.

Literature? Really?

The Fairy-Feller's Master Stroke, by Robert Dadd

Yes. 

Let's start with the Atty Awards for poetry, sponsored by Margaret Attwood. She's the author of The Handmaid's Tale and a terrific poet in her own right.

The winning collection for the 2012 awards is called The Dictator's Guide to Good Housekeeping. Not only is it a terrific title, the poems are mystifying, deadly, insidious ... I read them several times, wondering, "How did she do that?" It's as though @valeriemw (the poet) was able to pull not  rabbits but tigers - heck, an entire zoo of creatures - out of a hat.

In particular, I was caught by Terza Rima, a piece crafted like a delicate Moebius strip. It starts as something simple and becomes a door to a new concept, done so deftly I can't, after several reading, see how. 

Of course, this collection is pretty well known, since it's the award winner and all. However, there are other writers who are relatively undiscovered and just as talented, in their own ways. 

@ScottWhitaker astonishes me afresh with each posting. First: his poems about Adam and Samantha, a pair of beautiful, sociopathic twins. Filled with horror, the language is still gorgeous. He takes me, with everything he posts, to another world - one where a woman tattoos her body with recipes and remedies,  one about breath, bone, and children on a beach ... They deliver the sense of impending action, great change, with goblin sensibility, much like the inexplicable painting called The Fairy-Feller's Master Stroke, by Robert Dadd (above.)

Whenever I see there's a new Scott bit, I trip over myself to read it.

It's no secret I'm really good friends with Krista. We met on a prompt thread and promptly fell into friend love; it doesn't hurt that she's a terrific writer and a painter of ink. One of my favorite pieces by her is Mauve Wings; Gold Fever is put up as prose but to me it reads like poetry.

And the Unfairytale - this golden bubble is just a picture, a skin of joy, that's all.

And there's more, like this short story by @SeeThomasHowl called Dirty Box of Pandora. I started by snickering, and at the end I got blasted out of my seat and across the room by talent, by writerly courage, and a trip I never saw coming. You definitely need to buckle your seatbelt for that wild ride.

@AlexPaul1 makes me laugh, and his series on Stephen Hawking (What if the speech interpreter got it wrong? What if Stephen wasn't talking about time continuums and the nature of mankind, but Indian takeaway and disco music?) deserves a few readings. Each time I go through it I snortle.

But he has a wistful side, too. I love his Aliens collection, where a pair of aliens talk about earthly things like comets and Adolf Hitler from their own perspective.

The Wood Between the Worlds

And his Spirits collection, which addresses living statues and angels among us.

@sageivans nearly frightens me with her intelligence - she's cool, fun, and spins words like a dj throwing down on Io. I keep returning to her Suicide Lane Cafe collection - it's filled with color, as in this piece. 

If you like more realism with a touch of retro perfectly done, try @sloanranger. She has a weekly serial called My Blue Haven uniting small town vision with China. My favorite of hers is Camptown Lady - it encapsulates a time period perfectly, with enough hot sauce to deliver a serious kick.

And there are more - so many more. I think of reading WP works like being in the Wood Between the Worlds place visited by Polly and Digory in The Magician's Nephew - a silent forest filled with puddles of water. The pools look the same, but when you jump in, you are transported to another world.

Wattpad is like that.