Josh Mickelson on When All Our Days Are Numbered

I know I’ve mentioned often Sasha Fletcher’s When All Our Days Are Numbered, but I’ve been holding off reviewing myself on here because I wanted to save some space for my buddy Josh to say a few words on it.

What interests me about Josh’s perspective is that he doesn’t fancy himself a writer. He likes to jot some stuff on occasion, but he doesn’t treat writing as a passion or vocation.

On a recent camping trip with Josh and a dozen other mutual friends, we had a long drive home on which we listened to Matt Bell’s Wolf Parts. Josh’s enthusiasm with that book, and subsequent other small press books and journals I’ve encouraged him to check is the very reason I’m doing Vouched.

There’s a constant refrain that writers these days are simply writing for other writers, especially in the small press community, but Josh is a singular example of that refrain being bullshit, and I’ve heard countless other examples from others.

Thanks for punching this quick review out, Josh.

What happens when our every day lives meld with our dreamscapes? It would be almost as if my vivid imaginations are being poured into a pot with the bills I have to pay or the car insurance I need to renew. Maybe when they are all mixed together we are elevated into this new world. A world where we can build anything we want and be flexible within the constraints of our reality. These freedoms can be both rewarding and frightening when that feeling of disconnect sets in.

This is the feeling I had when reading Sasha Fletcher’s first novel(a) When All our Days Are Numbered Marching Bands Will Fill the Streets & We Will Not Hear Them Because We Will Be Upstairs in the Clouds. He takes risks with both ideas and language itself. I felt as if I was reading a direct transcript of Fletcher’s thought-stream. The book inspired me to be more open to my own imagination and invite the people I love into it.

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Josh Mickelson lives in Denver, where he breathes thin air and is altogether awesome at being awesome.

Tags: Josh Mickelson, sasha fletcher, When All Our Days Are Numbered Marching Bands Will Fill the Streets but We Will Not Hear Them Becuase We Will Be Upstairs in the Clouds