Thursday, April 11, 2024

Ryan's NY Observer Essays (and a few others)--Republished in Arts & Letters Daily and Elsewhere.



From my Milo essay in the NY Observer: “I support anyone's right to speak and publish. But my own feeling is that Milo was often thin stuff—he was one-dimensional, neglecting to locate any other personality trait that might mitigate his constant judgments about people on the left . . . His rhetoric was absent goodwill that might truly persuade, and therefore he lacked complexity and depth on the stage. In short, too much stupidity issued from his pretty mouth.”

Monday, April 08, 2024

Recommendations from PEN American Justice Writing


PEN managers Robbie and Caits

Robbie Pollock: "Ryan has exhibited a commendable dedication to his role as a prison writing mentor, showcasing a passion for the craft of writing that has positively influenced his mentees. His commitment to providing tailored resources for each individual reflects a genuine interest in fostering creative growth within a challenging environment."

Caits Meissner: "Ryan has leveraged his own life experiences to forge a bridge of connection, building trust in order to model and support each writer in their creative endeavors . . .
    Ryan has also volunteered his skills and talents beyond mentorship, stepping up to edit two long award-winning pieces in our Prison Writing Contest. The editing job was a rush turn around, and Ryan not only asked relevant questions that helped inform the process of our other editors, but submitted the work in fine-tuned form well before deadline."

Selected Reviews, etc., of Horses All Over Hell and Down in the River

Selected interviews and reviews:


Pittsburgh's City Paper "Arts Feature" Interview:
https://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/cp-catches-up-with-newly-arrived-novelist-ryan-blacketter/Content?oid=1851057


Paste Magazine's interview with Ryan Blacketter: "The human story is a fairly dark one with painful and dangerous impulses that we all have. And that's coupled with a fortress-like psychology that most people have, protecting them from the awareness of the fact that they are part of this human experience." https://www.pastemagazine.com/books/drinks-with/drinks-with-author-ryan-blacketter/



Fiction Writers Review: "What makes this novel so warm and heartbreaking despite its gruesome material is that all the characters are driven by their love and concern for each other." Click here to read the entire review: 
https://fictionwritersreview.com/review/down-in-the-river-by-ryan-blacketter/


The Rumpus: "[Down in the River] casts us deep into a haunting, crystalline forest of ice-lit trees, broken streetlamps . . . a place where a kind of inner wilderness has crept back through the city, where the lights of passing trains, the reflections of windows and the 'cry of night birds' appear intermittently like forms of meaningless chaos or secret signs." https://therumpus.net/2014/11/down-in-the-river-by-ryan-blacketter/ 


Praise for Horses All Over Hell (Available at Wipf & Stock).
Horses All Over Hell is a heartbreaking new book from a master of modern American fiction.”
—Ernest Hilbert, author of Last One Out, book critic for Wall Street Journal. Dust jacket blurb.

“The eleven intricately woven short stories of Horses All Over Hell portray a family caught in an ever-deepening spiral of damage and despair while bound together by ties of love in a Western landscape that comes to life on the page. The deep flaws, the beauty, and the bravery of these richly imagined characters will linger with the reader long after the last page.”
—Mary Clearman Blew, author of Jackalope Dreams and Ruby Dreams of Janis Joplin

Saturday, April 06, 2024

Praise for Ryan Blacketter's Fiction Titles.

  

Praise for Horses All Over Hell (Available at Wipf & Stock).
Horses All Over Hell is a heartbreaking new book from a master of modern American fiction.”
—Ernest Hilbert, author of Last One Out, book critic for Wall Street Journal. Dust jacket blurb.

“The eleven intricately woven short stories of Horses All Over Hell portray a family caught in an ever-deepening spiral of damage and despair while bound together by ties of love in a Western landscape that comes to life on the page. The deep flaws, the beauty, and the bravery of these richly imagined characters will linger with the reader long after the last page.”
—Mary Clearman Blew, author of Jackalope Dreams and Ruby Dreams of Janis Joplin

Monday, March 11, 2024

A Christian Leader's Life in Censorship and Porn-Hacking, 1 & 2



A Christian Leader's Life, 2

I mentioned in “A Christian Leader’s Life in Censorship and Porn-Hacking 1” that Gregory Wolfe often engages in censorship. Whether he’s harassing people with porn or hacking publishers that his enemies are sending their manuscripts to--it all comes down to menacing, ego-driven acts of censorship. He might be the only publisher in the U.S. who devotes so much time to the activity. This narcissist must feel that he's honored, despite his very dishonorable and reprobate behaviors, or he will attack you for years.


Deleted Blog Followers

March 11, 2024. Greg deleted all of my blog followers, a few hundred of them, presumably before it went live. I noticed it a few weeks later. Only one follower remains, my ex-wife. 




Relinquishes Google Control Panel 
Then Takes It Back

March 11, 2024. Greg believes he's a master at hiding. He often sneaks about, covering this up, changing that. In my post "A Christian Leader's Life," I stated that Greg had seized my Google control panel. I hadn't been able to access it for years. The information on it is inaccurate and out of date, and it says I write religious fiction. I don't. The day after my post, the control panel was finally restored to me, and I could at last make edits. 

But I knew something was wrong when I tried to edit my page. It gave me one narrow line in which to type edits. The only change it ended up making was a garbled line of nonsense added to the old bio, and it still says I write religious fiction. 

I have no doubt it was another Gregory Wolfe sneak attack. Who else would relinquish my control panel the day after I said Greg still controls it? So many coincidences like that have happened. I'll believe one coincidence, but not fifty. 



Eugene Weekly

March 27, 2024. After I posted "A Christian Leader's Life," the Eugene Weekly editor said she wanted to do an investigative article on Wolfe. When I called days later, I found a generic, robot voicemail and left a brief message. Later in the day it struck me as odd that the voicemail would be generic. He has placed fake voice messages on my phone before. 

I left my house, getting away from Wi-Fi, and called again, down the block. This time there was a real voice thanking the caller for contacting Eugene Weekly, but it was closed so I left no message. 

Greg has intercepted many of my calls, often just to be a creep, but sometimes to keep me from talking to someone he doesn't want me to talk to. 





Changing My Address on My Manuscripts

Wolfe often uses clever tactics when he's censoring, sometimes changing my address at the last second before I submit a manuscript. Thankfully Heresy Press had a bounce-back email saying they received my submission of a manuscript. I downloaded my submission and saw Greg changed my name to the University of Oregon, and put in the address and number of the university as well. Here is the bounce-back email.



Another Interference with a Publisher

June, 2020. Greg has been seeking to cancel my submissions for a long time. In 2020, I submitted a novel to BHC Press, and the editor said there was no record of it. I submitted again. In 2021 I asked for an update, and I'm still waiting! 

As I have mentioned before, submissions that are hacked or interfered with usually receive a very strange response or no response. The publishers I mentioned in my first post include Ooligan Press, Largehearted Boy, Midwest Review, and Hobart, and very strange things happened with each of them. Thus a pattern has emerged--including other patterns regarding hacking--and I no longer say, Gee, I wonder what's going on here.





The Family.

When I published a story at Image in 2006, Greg welcomed me to "the Image family." That was back when Greg was a hero to me. I didn't even mind the radio voice he used back then. Then I saw what happened when you disagreed with the leader of the family.


Removes My Bio from My Manuscripts

April 6, 2024. Greg often makes changes to my essays right before I submit them. In this case, I saw that my bio was removed from the manuscript I submitted. It should have appeared on the following page, but that page was deleted.




Here is a screenshot of that essay, with a bio at the bottom of it. The essay sits on my desktop with the bio on it, but Greg swiped it off at the last second before I submitted it. 





Social Media Censorship

Greg enjoys censoring social media. Social media interference is harder to talk about, but I believe it happens. Sometimes he'll let a post go without limiting its reach, and I'll get twenty-five to thirty likes or more. But other times the posts are heavily limited, and usually those times are when he's hacking me elsewhere. One month, after the Poets & Writers post that discusses me, I received five likes for every single post--for the whole month! That's not going to happen without assistance. I believe he wanted me to see he was doing it.
 
After I posted "A Christian Leader's Life," I got about two likes for most of my posts. By the way, my audience enjoys my posts about Greg. They weren't spooked about my blog post about him. 

He usually allows at least one like for a restricted post, as if to show that it's not completely censored. 

I believe the following post was restricted because I reference his psyops campaign of making rhythmic sounds on my computer. If this psyops contention sounds crazy, I can tell you that Greg is a manic practitioner of psychological harassment, and feeding people noises has been used by the CIA, the US Army, and hackers to break people down. From the beginning, in 2015, Greg made my computer hiss like a Ford Fiesta racing a train every night, when Becca and I watched movies on it. Now he has escalated to a more deviant and damaging sound.

My audience would have known this post was a reference to him. 



Almost none of my posts about religion have gotten through either. Greg doesn't want any negative comparisons. I made the following post with respect for Christians at large. But I have learned that evil Christian leaders who abuse their power are very real. Again, only one like--a restricted post.



Places Face on My Blog as Warning

Greg placed his face on my blog for weeks after I posted "A Christian Leader's Life." My blog has always used the picture on the top post for the site picture, no matter how popular a post below it might be. This Moses pic was on my blog for two weeks.




Deletes My Son's Phone Contact 

Greg deleted my son from my phone contact. Since he is very focused on him and his photos, I wasn't exactly surprised. His name begins with H. The term monster is thrown around. I use it with careful consideration--and daily observation--regarding Greg.



And Greg sometimes deletes certain texts I send to my son. I have already mentioned his creepy Digital Touch fakery. Below is a picture I sent on Easter, but he never received it, nor the words that went along with it. Greg probably dislikes it that I have a close relationship with my son.



When I applied to Portland State, Greg raised my firing notice to my high Google page, though that notice had been long gone for years. Suddenly my firing was popping up elsewhere too. It was even front an center on the display for my interview with Pittsburg City Paper. The intro to the article has been rewritten, nine years after it was published.


In his murky manner, Greg has revealed a disdain for black people, as I have mentioned. In this case, he placed this woman's video on my Google pages as a bullying move, just as he changed the dating website when I dated a black woman in Atlanta. In this case I believe he wanted to say, you can share your page with a black, though Google wouldn't catalog her name in this way. I'm proud to share my page with April. 

In all the videos I've seen of Greg, he only talks to white audiences. He has a history of blowing dog whistles about blacks.




April 2024. I had to leave Facebook when Greg found he needed to communicate with me often. I know Greg is talking to me on Facebook when meaningful memes keep popping up at the top of my feed. They are memes that none of my friends have liked, and I haven't liked, and there's no reason why I would keep seeing them over and over--once or twice maybe, but not again and again.





A serious study of Gregory Wolfe would make an interesting story. In my book "God's Hacker," his character is in the background, off camera, out of reach. Greg indeed has a mental illness. So do I, but we engage in very different activities. I've seen him go for weeks on manic rides. He does a lot of terrible, even criminal things, but seems to pretend those things don't happen, or he denies them when he has to. 

Like many malignant narcissists, he's charismatic and intelligent, and therefore he can seem trustworthy and inspiring at face value almost right away. 

I believe he learned hacking to protect his brand, and fell in love with the power of it. He's extremely talented as a hacker. He's sharpened his skills on a lot of enemies before me. Now he can't stop. He uses hacking like a video game, and it was addictive because the avatars were actual people, and the stakes--harming those who had slighted him--were high, and it was delicious. 

He is profoundly lost and his ship is listing. Christian Humanism is no longer included in his operating procedures. Maybe it never was. He won't change because he can't. Change implies recognition and remorse, and his illness prevents that recognition. 

I'm not going to pray for the worst kind of evil I have ever seen in my life, though others might. But I do hope to outlive him, or see him get old and tired out soon. A tired, old Gregory Wolfe, living with the memories of a strong career, but no longer burning to cause pain--that's about the best I can hope for.


Final Questions

I had a positive reception for "A Christian Leader's Life." Though I lack an IP address, I raised many questions that point to my hacker. I placed those on my initial post, but it was two weeks after I posted it, so I want to include them here again. 

I wanted to address any who might believe I have no evidence, simply because I lack an IP or a photograph of my hacker caught in the act. As Judge Charles Carlson told me at the hearing, I have evidence that would be persuasive in civil court, and my assertions raise many questions that point directly to Gregory Wolfe.

For instance, who placed Greg's picture on my blog for two weeks, a threatening gesture, after my post went live? Only my hacker would place his image on my blog.

Who removed the many followers of this blog before I posted "A Christian Leader's Life"? 
Some other nemesis?


Who took the post about Gregory Wolfe offline, so that it didn't interact with the internet and rise on Google? Who else would want to hide it?

Who deleted the emails from my hacker to me and then restored some of them but not all? Who else had a motive?

Who deleted my email containing the porn descriptions that my hacker used to cover my Google pages, the email I had sent to the scholars? Who else would want to?

Who edited "A Christian Leader's Life" a few times after it went live, to convey a frivolous and unedited and sometimes confusing vibe so that I had to keeping rewriting it?

Who replaced the screenshot of the fake email that contained the iPhone memory?

Who deleted the photo I took of my son sitting in front of his computer? It was wallpapered with my book cover art that my hacker had helped create. My hacker had the motive.

Who is so focused on my son that he has to keep sending me his pictures to convey a threat? Who else deletes his texts? Some other random hacker?

Who demeaned, repeatedly, working class people in fake blogs and on my blog, just as he demeaned the working class background of one of the women who fired him?

Who placed Springfield police reports and a “we found Ryan” notice on Google the same day I visited the police about my hacker?

Who else would spoof my police report about my hacker, placing my landlord’s name and email and phone on the report?

What else would be interested in my communication about my hacker to the police?

If it was a different hacker, he must have been very sympathetic to Gregory Wolfe and spent a lot of time covering for him and concealing his crimes.

___________________________________

A Christian Leader's Life, 1

This post went live March 11, 2024 in a prominent position on my blog, and stayed up for four weeks. When 500-plus people had seen it, I removed his name and photos and placed this post on "older posts." 

March 28, 2024: My hacker placed his own picture on my blog where it stayed for two weeks. This action was a gift as it shined a light on the very face of tyranny. 

March 17, 2024. All of my 290 followers of this blog were deleted, presumably before my post went live. Only one follower remains.

Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Ryan's Fiction Workshop Course Descriptions



Amy Hempel

High-Risk Fiction: A Writing Workshop
This class encourages fiction that, like all good writing, takes emotional risks. This riskiness sets literature apart from the dishonesty of bad books, TV, and movies. Workshop is not confession, but in the privacy of their writing rooms students might begin to tell personal stories that perhaps they have only told about other people.

"Tell everything on yourself," Raymond Carver urged. Virginia Woolf would have agreed: "If you do not tell the truth about yourself, you cannot tell it about other people." Yet we will never assume anything in a story actually happened to the writer. Rigorous storytelling, of course, evolves into fiction, blurring and even obliterating its source material.

We will read published stories as models. Amy Hempel writes of a woman who abandons a close friend dying of cancer, and confronts the aftermath of her choice. Thom Jones explores one soldier’s psychological territory of war, aggression, and epileptic torment, in which “illness” provokes dark illuminations of self and humanity.