Joy Williams is a writer admired by great writers. Lanky as a teenager yet she was here in the heydays. The love of her life was Rust Hills, the famous New Yorker editor. Theirs was a great romance. They were a couple everybody wanted at their dinner table and cocktail parties. As much as everybody else loved them, they loved each other.

Key West has long attracted writers, that is known. Some left but many stayed and now in their Decembers they waste contentedly in the heat. Sometimes wading ponderously in their swimming pools. Dining at each others houses. The group dwindles, inexorably. Musical chairs with coffins.

It is 2016 and Joy Williams who winters here is still raring to go. She was on stage in her jeans and cowboy boots tight black turtleneck and a silver necklace for the Literary Seminar and I saw her in the same outfit at dinner parties, which to me means one of two things 1 she’s not much into clothes 2 she never went home in between my sightings of her. And always wearing an enormous pair of very black sunglasses. Indoors outdoors day or night they are on.

William Wright is another of the eminent writers who has been here through the decades though summering in Bucks County. Bill has seen it all. So I asked him recently ‘what’s behind Joy Williams’ sunglasses, Bill please tell me? ‘And Bill, who was at that instant munching on a sticky bun paused, allowing crumbs to gather inarticulately in his beard, and said in his low gruff voice, ‘the most beautiful eyes in the world.’

Still holding the sticky bun with both hands it was evident his mind had traveled to another time all together, his face glowed from the memories.

‘I’ve seen Joy Williams in a bikini and I can tell you every piece of clothing she puts on is a crime! Concealing the greatest living work of art, she is perfection itself, a real beauty.’

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KRALJEVSKA DINASTIJA – Povratak kući porodice Karađorđević

At one Seminar the writers on stage discussed how they came upon their ideas to write about vampires. And how they mined from the depths of their popular cultural experiences. Childhoods of cartoons, comic books and soda pop tops. Certain writers meet a market called Young Adult, YA. Implicit is the suggestion that vampires and the like are for kids.

Vampires are for real.

Remember Eleonora, the vampire princess from those Balkan mountaintops, the one who drank the milk of lady-wolves to guarantee a male heir. Despite the longed for son, Eleonora lived her life in pain. She had no friends, only money and servants and her social engagements were visits with doctors.

She traveled to Vienna to die amongst even more expensive doctors. Forensics were performed as a matter of purging the devil. In those days a princess’s corpse would never be subjected to the vulgar intrusion of an autopsy but such was the dread of her evil.

‘I like the taste of skin’, says my friend Darko, a young slim Serbian with black hair, he speaks sheepishly, ‘is that so strange? Am I strange? When she said I can’t bite her,’ he stopped talking and raised his index finger which he allowed to bend and point to the ground, he looked at me and said, ‘my, you know’, and he raised his eyebrows and looked sad, ‘does that make me strange?’

Smelling of sugar, a couple of teens, scooping mouthfuls of Key Lime pie off paper plates, he says to her, ‘we are like Grandma and Grandpa.’ And surely they do look like Grandma and Grandpa who are walking just behind them with the t-shirts to prove it. Four Midwesterners looking like a fleet of Smart cars and spooning up pie.

The wolves they bite, watch out.

… also at…   HuffingtonPost.com/christina-oxenberg

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KRALJEVSKA DINASTIJA – Povratak kući porodice Karađorđević

Only in Key West, at the Annual Literary Seminar, will you find as many luminaries in the audience as those illuminating the stage.

The theme of this year’s Seminar is the examination of the short story. The authors invited to speak were not exclusively short story writers. But all had engaged in the art form.

Every year, one way or another I sneak in (tickets are hard to come by) as there’s always someone I want to know a little better. This year it is Tom McGuane.

I’ve been reading McGuane since the eighties. Obviously he’s been writing longer than that but he came into my life in the eighties. And from the first book of his that I read I was inspired, I was in awe, and I would be a lifelong fan. To me he is one of the greats.

It is always a worry of mine to meet the creator of any creation that I admire. Too often have I been disillusioned by the maker and thus lost interest in his craft. So it was with some trepidation that I went to hear the man speak.

By now I’ve heard him speak three times. Each time trying to absorb and remember every word he uttered, from lengthy wonderful anecdotes to witty one liners. The other panelists mostly sat tightly wrapped and bolt upright in their chairs. Meanwhile McGuane slouched comfortably with his long legs crossed at his blue and yellow sneakers. And while the other panelists were eloquent, quick thinking, clever and often funny, not one looked relaxed. While everyone was great in their own way it is impossible not to choose a favorite. McGuane, despite being partially deaf, was easily and by far the coolest and most fascinating.

He told one story about writing a first draft of what he thought would be a novel and how after some editing it was barely a seven page short story and then after further editing it was nothing but a wad of papers thrown in the trash. And looking back on that exercise he says it’s possible that somewhere in there was a decent short story. He says he does not go back and read his printed works because there would always be something he would want to change.

He also sensitively thought to reference the late very brilliant author Robert Stone, his friend of many years. McGuane said that according to Robert Stone, ‘If you think there’s something wrong with your story, there probably is’.

Tantalizingly, McGuane suggested that Ninety-two in the Shade and Panama (both written in the 70’s during his decade-long sojourn in Key West) are really two-thirds of a trilogy, and that he tinkers with the possibility that one day he might return to Key West and write that last book. We can only hope to get so lucky.

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KRALJEVSKA DINASTIJA – Povratak kući porodice Karađorđević

It was a full moon and it was his birthday and he had to go out. Later, on his way home he met a dusty cat. He stopped and the cat stepped gingerly over. They mewled to each other. He took one step toward his home and the cat cotillioned around his ankles at every footstep so that he had to stop and then sidestep the cat so as not to trip over it. Such is the feline-lupine seduction.

We mortals work tirelessly for science and answers on a cosmic scale from macro to micro. And then old wives tales nip us on the neck and superstitions draw blood.

The cat followed him home and he provided a bowl of water and crumbles of Manchego.

The cat positioned itself by the open French doors with its tail across the threshold. Sphinx-like and licking a white bib under the moonlight-silver streaking through the Banyan trees.

He took to his armchair with a book and tumbled into a story, effortlessly falling through the cosmic tear of fiction.

When, awakening, he was not sure of anything except a pain at his neck. Like a bruise but from the inside. He went to the mirror to examine and saw it was a bruise on the outside, in fact it was a bite mark. A human bite mark. He flipped on the overhead light. Closer still to the mirror what had looked like teeth indentation spelled out ‘Volim te’, Serbian for ‘I love you’.

The truth of course was the bite occurred long ago. Vampire DNA. Born that way. Even if the dusty cat had nibbled at his neck while he slept. Was the dormant trait ignited by the cat’s nip?

When he landed at Miami International he was forced to sign his name to questions such as if he had more than $10,000 in cash? Fruit, flowers or seeds amongst his possessions? Had he visited a cattle farm or touched a person stricken with ebola? But nowhere was he asked about proximity to vampires. Meanwhile he had the love bite to prove it and it ached.

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KRALJEVSKA DINASTIJA – Povratak kući porodice Karađorđević

Honeysuckle looks like a model, gorgeous sexy willowy blonde, oh and brilliant and compassionate. 

Joe worked for greedy money hungry gamblers. He ran around the track one thousand times at least. He cried in his sleep.

A young black man, high cheekbones and kind eyes, slack jeans and a red and white bandana around his neck, gangster-style suggested in his low rider gait.

Three lives with no reason to overlap, nearly impossible odds for these three souls to cross paths.

Honeysuckle not from here, Joe also from somewhere else running that track and the young strolling gentleman quite possibly the only native.

But for now, for work, here was working for Honeysuckle, and Joe was her newly rescued retired greyhound.

And for right now Joe needed to pee. Honeysuckle harnessed her charge humanely and off they went for a walk. Joe was sporting his black winter coat, super chic. Honeysuckle matched him.

Coming toward them was the young gentleman. Slouchy stroll. Honeysuckle and Joe proceeded, looking like a page out of Vogue.

They’re lives would intertwine,  kismet happening.

The gentleman’s focus was inward. Those kind eyes occupied with something, maybe the music from his headphones.

Until one step closer to Honeysuckle and Joe.  And then he noticed them.

She felt it, Joe was alert.

The gentleman without breaking his stride raised those eyes, focusing.

All three of them passed. Electric. The gentleman’s eyes were trained on Joe. “Hey Homes,” he casually said to the hound.

The moment was instantly over and forever after Joe was known as Homes.

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KRALJEVSKA DINASTIJA – Povratak kući porodice Karađorđević

In Serbia I frequently hear people say they would never live anywhere but here, “This is my home,” they say.

I envy them their certainty. Yet I can’t fathom feeling connected in such a way, and now that noontimes look like dusk and after a year of wide-eyed awe, it might be time to go.

In the mountains grandmother’s keep their homes with broom strokes, gathering dust and leaves and dirt and swishing it all back outside in easy agile moves, movements of a lifetime. A young boy, brought up in the big city, he visits his grandmother in the mountains. He remembers she always only wore black clothes and once or twice a year she washed her ankle-length silvery-white hair. He remembers watching her on the stoop of her kitchen back door, and wielding a horse whip. Slashing the length of leather round and round gathering momentum and at the last minute the last inch of the whip caught the neck of a chicken, coiling quick as a python and decapitating the unlucky bird. Dinner.

A year ago I came to Serbia and felt something of a link. Never before have I felt as if I belonged anywhere because I haven’t, I’m a mutt, a wanderer. I’m only half Serbian and only half crazy. I put down no roots because there’s no soil beneath my feet, only air. Drifts upon which to float my magic carpet and carry on with my adventures.

July 2014 I came to Serbia to attend a party. And I’m still here. Now, nearing the dawn of my departure I’m hosting my own party and everyone is invited.

If you are in Belgrade please join me at SKC on December 10th at 6pm to celebrate the publication of my book. Our Crown Prince, amongst others, will say a few words.

And then I’ll be on my way, thank you Serbia for an amazing year.

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KRALJEVSKA DINASTIJA – Povratak kući porodice Karađorđević

Every few months I gather my change and take it to the nearest Serbian Orthodox Church. On a bench sat a beseeching drunk, his cracked hand outstretched. He smiled at me, soullessly, like a dying lame wolf. I almost handed him some coins except I didn’t and instead continued by the iron gates, and along a flagstone path to the round topped doors. I entered the church and paused and made the sign of the cross. But I had a mission and after a polite tarry on I went back out to find a cramped shop where I bought a dozen narrow tallow tapers. I paid with some of the coins.

In the candle area one by one I lit my tapers off the flames of others, once lit I stuck them in beds of pebbles to keep them righted, driving them in I murmured prayers of thanks for my beautiful life, my family, my friends and my enemies.

Leaving, I was looking for that old hobo, I still had all sorts of coins, I was considering giving them to him when I walked by a boy, dark and narrow, still and quiet; I scarcely noticed him.

Back on the boulevard, with the tram rushing at me I found the man was gone. I turned slowly and focussed on the boy. I retraced my steps towards him, I approached forthright looking him in the eye, ‘Zdravo’, I said. He mumbled and stared at the damp ground, and then I opened the coin purse and tumbled the coins out, on the low rock wall.

I watched the young boy’s squid ink eyes widen in astonishment, curiously looking at me, as if trying to understand what was I doing? And then I smiled at him, dipped my head in acknowledgement, and walked away.

I heard tell of a tale of a child, aged five, a girl, was standing beside a grown man when he made the reckless move of stooping. His flat ass, in gray slacks, directly in front of the little girl’s face. She lunged and sank in her baby teeth.

Immediately the child began to scream and shriek. The grown man stood up and swiveled around. The girl had her small hands clamped to her mouth. Blood bubbled through her chubby fingers. The child’s face was a mess of tears and blood and when she grimaced there was a red raw hole in place of her front teeth.

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KRALJEVSKA DINASTIJA – Povratak kući porodice Karađorđević

I coulda been in Venice! I had an invitation to a ball at a 14th Century palazzo. Of course I accepted, with enthusiasm. I assured the host I would show up but covertly I had my doubts. I am a terrible flake. I tried to picture myself attending, hoping to manifest by visualization. I saw a dress of dark velvet and introducing myself as the Serbian vampire Princess.

The horrible truth is for a fortnight I’ve been intending on crossing the street to the tailor at the corner to ask him to sew a button on my jacket. To be fair this is a wide street with tracks for electric trams and broad trees whose boughs bend over the boulevard, but I am too lazy. Thus the jacket hangs limp by the front door and I splay supine on the sofa and dream of how things might have been.