DESTINATION Desegregation. Author B.J. Hollars spoke at UW-Eau Claire on March 28 about his other new book, Opening the Doors: The Desegregation of the University of Alabama and the Fight for Civil Rights in Tuscaloosa.

While reading B.J. Hollars’ new short story collection, Sightings, I imagined a tug-o-war between John Hughes and Ray Bradbury.

Hollars’ coming-of-age tales resonate with the heartbreak and humor of Hughes films like The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles; they also crackle with fantastical elements that made Ray Bradbury a literary legend.

In a recent interview with Hollars at the Menomonie Street Dairy Queen, I asked Hollars what he thought of the dual comparison.

The fast-talking, quick-witted Hollars pumped his fist at the Bradbury connection … and laughed at the John Hughes reference. Hollars, 28, actually experienced those iconic ’80s flicks as oldies.

“Dawson’s Creek was big when I was growing up,” the UW-Eau Claire creative writing professor said. Oddly, that show served as reverse-inspiration to Hollars – a template of what not to write.

“I never wanted to write the coming-of-age stories where people fall in love under the bleachers of the baseball stadium,” he said. “That’s been done.”

Instead, each fictional story in Sightings, while grounded in Midwestern-based realism, is a little bit weird, peculiar, or unconventional. In one story, Hollars places a Sasquatch on a high school basketball team. In another, a family takes in dysfunctional relatives: clowns that won’t break character. Sometimes the oddities are more subtle, such as the story with a Civil War re-enactor, unable to let go of the past.

“I guess you could say these stories are the B-sides of growing up … stories that sort of make you remember what’s been lingering in the back of your head.” – writer B.J. Hollars on his new short story collection, Sightings

“I guess you could say these stories are the B-sides of growing up … stories that sort of make you remember what’s been lingering in the back of your head,” Hollars said.

That B-side, eccentric, urban-legend feel initially drew Hollars, as a teenager growing up in Indiana, to the Bradbury books. It’s what made him want to be an author.

“I had a group of friends, and everyone sort of had a role,” Hollars said. “There was the athlete, and there was the cool guy. My role was sort of the recorder. I was writing these things down that we did so we could laugh at them years down the road.”

“I remember this time, my friends were playing beer pong in a basement, and I was there…and I was sitting there writing a story about some guys playing beer pong in a basement (laughter). Then my friend’s mom came down the stairs and busted everyone, and so I was writing that into the story as it was happening (more laughter).”

Combining his love of Bradbury and his love of writing, Hollars, then a high school senior, entered a topical essay contest: Write about your favorite American. Hollars wrote about Bradbury. He won. Someone sent the essay to Bradbury. From his home in California, Bradbury phoned Hollars. Hollars, in shock, lied and said he would be in California in the near future. Bradbury told him to stop by for a visit.

So Hollars crossed the country, solo, to visit his hero.

“That was my own coming-of-age moment,” Hollars said. “That was the first time in my life navigating the world on my own.”

A friendship formed between the two and lasted the rest of Bradbury’s life. Hollars has a picture to back up this story, and he also keeps a message from Bradbury on his cell phone. He enthusiastically played it for me – right there in Dairy Queen – like I was the first person to ever ask to hear it. Hollars mouthed the words and laughed as I heard Ray Bradbury through the cellphone speakerphone: “B.J., Ray Bradbury here. Call me back! Ray Bradbury. Call me! I love you!”

Bradbury passed away last year. The last thing he told Hollars on their final visit was, “Live forever.”

That’s what the stories in Sightings give Hollars, and in turn, his readers: a chance to recapture forgotten fleeting moments from adolescence.

“Everyone wants to put one more second back on the play clock … one chance to get it all back,” Hollars said. “Once you leave, you can’t go back. These stories are a way to get back there. I’m writing my way back to that place.”

And that’s how sightings become the stories that live forever.  

Hollars will be reading from his work in the Volume One Gallery on Thursday, April 18, at 6:30pm. His other books include Thirteen Loops: Race, Violence and the Last Lynching in America and Opening the Doors: The Desegregation of the University of Alabama and the Fight for Civil Rights in Tuscaloosa. All are available at The Local Store at Volume One World Headqarters.