May 31, 2007
William Meredith died yesterday. Connecticut College, which has his papers, maintains a fine site about his work.
John Slater, poet and Trappist monk, on the "grace of everydayness." (Via choriamb)
"Meanness, the very thing which is unforgivable in human social life, in poetry is thrilling and valuable," wrote Tony Hoagland, in The American Poetry Review in 2003. Hoagland also has two poems in the current issue. (Via the KR blog.) Surely this should be glossed as "meanness towards *me* . . . is unforgivable in human social life." I hope I'm not alone in finding myself often perfectly capable of forgiving meanness towards *others*.
I can't believe I forgot this last week: Acephalous on Ann Althouse, Yeats, and the Sopranos.
Orwell on "Poetry and the Microphone."
Philip Glass will be arranging music for the poems of Leonard Cohen.
To what extent are the writings by Guantanamo detainees poems?.
Is "Poetry from the Indie Music Scene" any good? No: "None of this means anything to readers who are thrilled by the lyrical musings of Dashboard Confessional–type bands, which is what Revolution on Canvas is: a paint-by-numbers guide to sensitivity."
More celebrity poems: Jerry Hall's poetry about Mick Jagger. | Rosie O'Donnell's poems about herself.
A libertarian remembers Rachel Carson's poems.
Basho poems on your Nintendo DS.
May 30, 2007
Also in depressing girl news (sorry, I'm not doing this on purpose): NPR has an excerpt from Teresa Rodriguez's book The Daughters of Juarez.
In case you're feeling too good about your day, you can read Esther Freud's essay about teenage girls being coerced into sex. That should kill any nice thoughts about the world for the next 24 hours.
Surprise, surprise: There is no sex in president hopeful Newt Gingrich's novel.
In the novel, there is not a single sex scene nor -- to remove all heterosexual temptation -- even a single female character. OK, at the very end of the novel, with Battleship Row devastated, a wounded naval officer returns home to his wife: "He was afraid to put his injured arm around her, she was wearing her favorite Sunday dress, ivory colored, close fitting." Those two words -- "close fitting" -- are about as hot and heavy as it gets. The Cub Scout Handbook is a racier document.
Bring me the head of Charlie Brown. (Link from Journalista.)
May 29, 2007
I came so very close to grabbing another DTWOF collection and Nick Bertozzi's The Salon, but you know how rent goes. Just the idea of Gertrude Stein taking on a Ms. Marple role sounds like gold. And a friend recently described The Plain Janes, one of the first releases on DC's new Minx line, as an artsier version of The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants. I think that's just one of those books I'll have to read while hiding in the closet in the kids' department at work.
I did, however, manage to pick up a copy of Stuck in the Middle, a comix anthology edited by Ariel Schrag. These are 17 stories by 17 artists about one of the most trying moments of our lives: middle school. Just read a handful of these stories, and you can feel yourself slipping back into that feeling of isolation. Check out some photos from the release party at Rocketship.
Speaking of book parties, kick off your BEA festivities this Friday night in Dumbo at the small press party. Get to know the people at A Public Space, Akashic Books, Archipelago Books, Bomb Magazine, Cabinet Magazine, Soft Skull Press, and Tin House. Music by The Misshapes. More info at The powerHouse Arena.
Also, via The Beat: Persepolis shares the Jury Prize at Cannes.
And lastly, go read George Saunders's "Puppy" in The New Yorker.
I hope I turn into Barbara Holland at some point in my life. (I'm sure my friends would argue I already have.)
She already wrote her ode to smoking in an earlier book, "Endangered Pleasures," which praised cigarettes, naps, bacon, swearing, loafing and other precious joys. That book, still in print after a dozen years, turned her into a quirky spokeswoman for an older, slower, less driven, more gregarious way of life.
"I'm in favor of a little more sociability, a little more merriment, maybe even a little more singing and dancing," she says. "Jeepers, I'm so old that I remember when we all used to sing all the time."
Really? How old are you?
"None of your [bleep] business," she says.
Sunday was the 100th birthday of Rachel Carson. NPR profiles the impact of Silent Spring on the world. She's still being debated on Capitol Hill. However, it is worth reading her less famous books. Penguin Classics recently released her book Under the Sea-Wind, and hopefully they'll bring her other books under their umbrella.
Forget LA Confidential losing the Best Picture Oscar to Titanic, and Englebert Humperdinck stopping Penny Lane from getting to number one: the worst cultural snub in living memory is that Philip Roth hasn't won the Nobel prize for literature.
I'm sorry, I must have fallen asleep. What were we talking about?
The Los Angeles Times examines the fall out from Perseus's decision to close two imprints it recently acquired: Carroll & Graf and Thunder's Mouth Press. (Bookslut contributor Justin Taylor's The Apocalypse Reader was from Thunder's Mouth Press.)
Want to know why your books aren't successful? Look at your typeface. All the bestselling authors write their books in Courier.
Speaking of Maud, she also answers questions at Gawker about Mark Helprin's wrongheaded opinion piece about copyright.
Helprin wants Times subscribers to get all teary-eyed for the poor authors' progeny screwed by Barnes & Noble, but his public domain example is craftily disingenuous. Think about it: you can pick up a new copy of Huck Finn for ten bucks or seven bucks or three bucks -- or you can read it for free online.
(Most people don't realize this, but the company that challenged the most recent copyright extension all the way to the Supreme Court, and lost, was a nonprofit electronic publisher that posts works in the public domain at no charge to readers.)
You want to talk about corporations riding to riches on the backs of authors and artists? Take a look at the copyright rules and terms for "works made for hire."
Out of curiosity, who owns your Gawker posts? You, or Nick Denton?
Telegraph & Argus reacts to the news of Americans being cast in the roles of the Bronte sisters:
Voiceover (in portentous, growly American accent): "Merrie England in the 19th century. Dinosaurs still roam a land that has only recently been united as one country by King Arthur. Toothless serfs gain their only pleasure from smoking dried mud and watching the plays of William Shakespeare. But in York Shire, three hot babes with all their own teeth are about to loosen old Bill's iron-like grip on the literary habits of the country... and their name is... Bronte!"
(From Maud.)
Not book related, but approximately one-third of my conversations these days eventually get around to bees. And not just because my younger sister has a hive of Africanized bees living on her porch in Texas where no one can exterminate them because whoever tried would die before they could get out of there, so I guess maybe she just shimmies out her bathroom window every morning. I don't know, I'm not visiting her there.
May 25, 2007
Secret Agent Elizabeth Visits the Dark Side: Writers Tell All
Where do the words come from? Secret Agent Elizabeth investigates dirty little secrets, 7th grade enemies, and the creative trickery writers use to get through the day. A weekly interview feature by Elizabeth Merrick.
THIS WEEK: Tracy Quan
Tracy Quan's second novel, Diary of a Married Call Girl, is an irreverent take on infidelity, domesticity and 21st century marriage. Her first novel, Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl, has been optioned by SONY Pictures for a film or TV series to be produced by Darren Star. Tracy lives in New York and blogs at Fifth Estate. Her website is at www.TracyQuan.net.What is it, really, that made you become a writer after all?
A feeling of desperation. Some genes I inherited. And that great leveller, circumstance.
I had been working as a prostitute since my teens and was ready for a new career. I had no formal credentials for another occupation, so I went into writing the same way I went into sex work. To support myself and survive, following my instincts and relying on my natural abilities. Maybe I inherited some skill from my parents -- my mother's a retired editor.
But the real deal is: I simply wasn't shrewd enough to be a kick-ass corporate wife. I was engaged to a wonderful guy who wanted me to go down that road with him, and I came to realize that I would be eaten alive by the other bankers and their wives. Those were my two options: writing or marriage.
You work harder and concentrate your talents better when your options are limited. As soon as you start thinking "I can be anything I want to be," you're in a ridiculous amount of trouble, and you'll be very disappointed. You are so much better off thinking "This is the hand I've been dealt. How do I make it WORK?"
Inquiring minds want to know: what are your daily writing habits (and vices)?
I receive and send way too much email. It's a serious problem which began in childhood. I was a little chatterbox, and I inherited this habit from my father. But I like to think of conversation as a profitable vice. All the best vices *are*. So a letter to my boyfriend might become an op-ed piece. Or something more elaborate. Email's the equivalent of that little notebook we carry around or keep next to the bed. Especially during the cold months, when I rarely leave the house.
What appalling tricks do you use to get yourself to be productive, and are there any you have discarded?
There's this floppy nightgown, bright red and very cozy, which nobody has ever seen me in. There was *another* nightgown, a flannel nightshirt actually. But I've outgrown flannel. It's overrated, and not so good for writing.
What is the most mortifying, worst thing you've ever written and what led you down that path to ruin?
This reminds me of a question someone asked about the worst trick I ever turned. I don't think in those terms. There is no best or worst thing I've written or done, or turned, just a body of work or experience that keeps growing.
Sometimes, however, an old messy draft might end up in print, and when that happens, it's excruciating. I've learned to be a Version Hawk. I used to be less vigilant, less assertive about the final edit, because I was afraid my editors would view me as a self-important pest. I got over that.
Do you have any rituals you use in an emergency or if you're blocked?
In emergencies, you abandon precious rituals. That's how the writing gets done. I don't know if I buy this concept of the blocked writer. I know, there are some quite good novels and movies about blocked writers, so the idea's got legs. But, if I'm not writing, I just call that goofing off. Where do we get off saying we're "blocked" when we're not working? When I was a call girl, if I didn't show up for an appointment, would I be able to tell the escort service I was "blocked"? I agree with Colette, who felt she was not so different from a shoemaker.
How do you feel about writing sex scenes, and how do you handle it?
It's important to me that you can read my books while eating. My favorite thing to do is install myself at a cafe with a book or magazine. Order something tasty and nutritious, but not too distracting, something I can eat with one hand. And I would like to get through this meal without going: "Agggghh! Not NOW!"
Recently, I had that experience while eating scrambled eggs and reading The New York Times Home & Garden! That's how infantile our culture is becoming. Even The New York Times tries to grab our attention with a cheap, disgusting reference -- which I won't repeat, in case someone is reading this and eating lunch. It happens to me a lot.
Without trying to change the entire course of cultural history, I have set out to create fiction one can enjoy during a solitary lunch. Surely there's a way to talk about sex or the human body without making people sick? It turns out that other people want what I want, so I try to walk that line.
As a consequence, I've been accused of "glamorizing" sex work -- but I would argue that my approach is genteel, which is very different from glamorizing. Being genteel about sex is quite challenging. It's a constant search for balance. And, just as there is a market for genteel prostitution, there's a modern audience that yearns for genteel writing.
What books do you secretly love?
I used to collect English boarding school stories. There's one, The Leader of the Lower School by Angela Brazil, which I found fascinating. I always wanted to know who the real people were behind these books. Who actually wrote these very formulaic but appealing fictions? It was (and remains) an obsession of mine. I know people who write porn. Or some kind of genre fiction -- romance, mystery, sci-fi. But I don't think I know anyone who has written a boarding school story. There are some big names in the field -- Enid Blyton, for example -- but many of these stories were by journeyman authors who didn't get famous. And I wonder what else they were writing.
And what books do you secretly hate?
Hatred's too strong a word. However, I'm really disappointed with The American Scene, published by Henry James in 1907, because it's so hard to read. I've tried to get through the first chapter, and it's not happening for me. The premise is fascinating. If you love Henry James, you will really be drawn to this book! James comes back to the US after 20 years to do a very lucrative lecture tour. He travels all over the country, speaking to mostly female audiences, writing about Boston, New York, Florida. This is going to be hot stuff! How New York has changed. How the skyline we now take for granted was just beginning to emerge. And what's it like to come "home" when it's no longer your home? Bring on the politically incorrect observations! I just want to know how he saw things, you know? But I never even got to these controversial bits -- I got stuck in Hoboken. He can be such a gripping writer, but this is one of the hardest narratives I never cracked. I know three other James fans who had the same problem.
What is the most terrifying task for you -- whether it be a certain kind of scene, character, or subject matter?
Telling a story from the point of view of a male narrator. That's the downside of being genteel.
Is there some element of your work that you particularly enjoy and that readers or critics seem not to notice so much?
I've paid tribute to Noel Coward, to Catharine MacKinnon's father, even Maureen Dowd. Did people notice?
I'm not sure. I don't believe in banging people over the head with these things.
What project has been the biggest struggle for you so far in your career, and how did you resolve your difficulties?
I was publishing a fiction column in Salon twice a week, and kept it a secret from a lot of people, including my domestic partner. Every day, I lived with this tension. "What if he finds out? What will I say?" It was a struggle to keep it secret, but easier to write under those conditions. Enormously liberating, despite all the tension, and very necessary for my growth as a writer. I was writing about a prostitute who hides her work from the man in her life. But the man in my life knew about sex work, so I had to create another layer of secrecy.The column led to a book project -- my first novel, which begins at the end of the secret Salon series. After the last episode appeared in Salon, when the book was underway, I found a way to tell him.
Describe the arch-nemesis of your youth. How has this person appeared in your writing?
I suppose that would be my mother. We had this terrible conflict about money, a clash of wills. Having financial secrets became the key to my independence during puberty.
My first two books revolve around Nancy's relationship to money. In Married Call Girl, she's keeping all these financial secrets from her husband. Nancy's friend Jasmine is very judgmental about money. She wants to know how much you spent on that handbag. She sees herself as an authority on finance, disparages other prostitutes for being unstable spendthrifts. She also sees herself as the conscience of prostitution, and Nancy sometimes lies to her.
I'd have to say that, if Mother appears in my writing, she's the money. The role money plays in a relationship -- not just how much you have, but what you do with it. How much you tell another person about money, and which aspect you conceal. Some people hide what they earn from a partner, others hide their spending.
What unpleasant truth do you routinely conceal from young, fresh writers eager to make their mark?
An old habit I picked up in my previous line of work: I'm taking the Fifth!
And, finally, if there is one thing you could change about your writing life or career, what would it be?
If I could be one of those early morning monsters who gets all her writing done by noon... I envy those people, but I'm a natural born owl.
May 24, 2007
- Jeffrey Brown's illustration of Russell Edson's "Of Memory and Distance" suits the Connecticut poet's work nicely. You wouldn't necessarily think so based on the introduction, which notes that "Brown’s connection with poetry runs so deep that though his debut, Clumsy (2003), bears the subtitle 'a novel,' he almost dubbed it 'a collection of poems.'" Right then.
- Robert Pinsky leads his "Poet's Choice" column with a claim that I suspect would floor many students: "Poetry appeals to people who get bored easily." On the one hand, I take his point that poetry's effects are economical. But those effects are most visible to patient, skilled, attentive readers--that is, to readers who don't easily bore. (There's more on the alleged efficiency of poetry here.)
- Martìn Espada spoke about "The Republic of Poetry" at Hampshire College's commencement:
The Republic of Poetry is a state of mind. It is a place where creativity meets community, where the imagination serves humanity. The Republic of Poetry is a republic of justice, because the practice of justice is the highest form of human expression.
(Full text of the speech provided by Sarah Browning, co-editor of D.C. Poets Against the War and coordinator of that group.) - On the dated quality of concrete poetry. By contrast, you can find "Italian computer poetry" on YouTube, and E-Poetry 2007 just ended.
- Ken Gordon of QuickMuse speculates on the "stock-marketification of poetry."
- In case "Writing Poetry: A Guide to Making Money Online" doesn't work out, "Ms. Nicole A." also helpfully explains how to "Make More Money Today with Celebrity Poetry." (That's poetry about celebrity, not poems that become celebrated.) Among the tips dispensed: Always know your market! Don't post poems about Kelly Clarkson in a No Doubt forum.
- An update!: Not only is there "Twitter poetry," but now the TwitterPOET promises to read the results in various Boulder-area cafés. (For a more jaundiced view, see Ceri Radford.)
Has 13 years of WWW ruined my brain?
Nathan Englander is interviewed for this Nextbook podcast about his new book The Ministry of Special Cases. (You can also read Bookslut's interview here.)
The plan was, go be on Chicago Tonight, dash into a waiting car, speed to the Hopleaf while scrubbing pancake makeup off of my face, and be there in time to host the reading series. It didn't quite work out that way. There was no car waiting, nor was there a cab for miles. So thank you to Andrea for gracefully stepping in and running things until I showed up at the last minute. I *hear* that the Nick Mamatas, Ron Currie Jr., and Lance Olsen readings were fantastic. I only heard Kelly Link read, however.
Let's hope for better transportation luck in June! We have three events in June:
June 6th
Hopleaf location
Andrew O'Hagan (Be Near Me) and Ander Monson (Neck Deep and Other Predicaments), who will hopefully not be snowed in again. I'll also be interviewing Ander live on stage at Printer's Row... sometime. I have to look at the schedule.
June 11th
Bridges, Burning: The Death of Newspaper Review Sections and the Future of Independent Publishing
Stop Smiling Storefront, 1371 North Milwaukee Avenue
The recent closing of several newspaper book review sections has been decried by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) and numerous cultural commentators, including many of the major players in New York’s biggest publishing houses. They see the trend as the end of literary criticism, and a serious blow to the business of book publishing in America.
But not everyone agrees with this perspective. Join Jessa Crispin, an NBCC board member and the founder of Bookslut.com, the nation’s most visited book blog, as she discusses the issues with Dennis Johnson of Melville House, this year’s Association of American Publishers “indy book publisher of the year.” (That's what the press release says. Mostly I'll be trying not to sound dumb next to Dennis.)
June 27, A Night of Comics
Stop Smiling Storefront, 1371 North Milwaukee Avenue
Nick Bertozzi (The Salon), Paul Hornschemeier (Three Paradoxes), and Austin Grossman (Soon I Will Be Invincible)
Comics! Superheroes! Powerpoint Presentations! You'd be crazy not to come.
Wow. Just looking at my June schedule makes me need a nap.
May 23, 2007
NPR's Morning Edition talks to Khaled Hosseini about his follow-up to The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns. They also have an excerpt from the book available.
Think what you will about Christopher Hitchens (I certainly do), but his Vanity Fair article about Londonistan is worth reading. He talks to London authors from Muslim backgrounds about the problem of British Muslim radicals.
"They remind me of the 60s revolutionaries in some ways," said Hanif Kureishi as we sat in one of London's finest Indian restaurants. "A lot of romantic talk, but a hard-core faction who will actually volunteer to go to training camps." Making a rather sharp distinction between the new young fundamentalists and the 1960s rebels, he added that he had never met a jihadist who wasn't militantly anti-Semitic. Monica Ali, whose lovely novel also emphasizes the generational divide and captures the Third World–type pseudo-revolutionary rhetoric, independently told me the same thing. She had seen British television cave in to extremists who did not want her book made into a film, and who threatened trouble if the cameras were brought to the East End, but this did not alarm her as much as "the way that hatred of the Jews has become absolutely standard, all across the community."
Tonight Chicagoans have two options to enjoy their Booksluttiness. They can either sit on their couch and watch me talk nonsense about summer reading on Chicago Tonight, my face probably orange as a pumpkin as the make up lady there doesn't seem to know what to do with my incredibly pale skin (eh), or they can head over to the Hopleaf for some air conditioning, beer, and readings (the recommended option). Tonight Kelly Link, Lance Olsen, Nick Mamatas, and Ron Currie, Jr. will be reading from their dark and surreal books. Go to the Readings page for more information.
Yesterday was Hergé's -- the creator of Tintin -- 100th birthday. Time Magazine takes a look at Steven Spielberg's and Peter Jackson's plans to adapt the stories into films. Also, the big story about Hergé making the rounds is that he may have died of AIDS.
Ian Traynor defends Ryszard Kapuscinski after the announcement that Kapuscinski worked with the Polish communist secret police.
I've gotten so bored with this Feminine Mistake thing. Bennetts can't seem to be able to justify her book when someone mentions the statistics that "opting out" is not an increasing problem, she just argues her statistics are the right ones. Whatever. But the phone calls on this interview she gave at WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show scare the hell out of me. But oh my god, Bennetts comes off so damn surly and unlikeable, so I can't be bothered to feel sorry for her. It's too early in the morning for me to side with anyone.
May 22, 2007
The first time I read William Langewiesche, I was incredibly broke and picked up a copy of Atlantic Monthly at the bookstore. The cover story was an article on the crash of EgyptAir 990. I couldn't afford to buy the magazine, but after three paragraphs, I could not stop reading it, either. This particular bookstore is bitchy about customers reading magazines, so I had to keep relocating throughout the store to avoid the glares of the workers. I couldn't even stop reading it while I looked for a new place to sit, and ended up with a giant bruise on my hip from a table that came out of nowhere. Since then, anything he writes I will read. The Atomic Bazaar is no different. I looked forward to its release like some people look forward to Harry Potter. And it doesn't hurt that Jonathan Raban, who wrote one of my favorite novels this year thus far -- Surveillance -- loves him, too.
One need read only the first three pages of “The Atomic Bazaar” to be reminded of William Langewiesche’s formidable talent as a journalist whose cool, precise and economical reporting is harnessed to an invigorating moral and intellectual perspective on the world he describes.
Another book they'll have to put me in a Clockwork Orange chair to get me to read: Falling Man by Don DeLillo. Thank you, Guardian, for justifying my judgmental reaction.
"The child is a blessing."
"What did I want?"
"Nobody talks like this. So why are we having this absurd conversation?"
"Because we're in an important post 9/11 literary event."
Iran sent a letter of protest to the Cannes film festival over the screening of Persepolis. (Link from Journalista.)
"This year the Cannes Film Festival, in an unconventional and unsuitable act, has chosen a movie about Iran that has presented an unrealistic face of the achievements and results of the glorious Islamic Revolution in some of its parts," the letter read.
Chicago might not have foie gras, but damn it, we have Hot Dougs. Even fancy pants three star chefs with new books out fall in love here.
I went to Chicago, and I went to Alinea. The boy there [chef Grant Achatz] has got extraordinary technical ability. This boy, I believe, can win three stars in the Michelin guide. But do I want to sit in that environment, where I'm dictated to? No...
But when I was in Chicago, I also went to Hot Doug's, and it's amazing. Even that one, it isn't just hot dogs. They are hot dogs with a difference.
The celebrated Polish writer and reporter, Ryszard Kapuscinski, today became the latest public figure to be "outed" as a "communist spy" in Poland.
Newsweek Poland put the late writer, reckoned to be the greatest east European journalist of his generation, on the cover of this week's issue, unveiling details of his communist-era secret police file and claiming that his global travels in the 1960s and 70s were due to a bargain he struck with the communist regime to collaborate with the secret police.
May 21, 2007
The 15-year old version of me -- the one who painted her nails white with magenta tips, just like Molly did -- is excited for a possible movie version of Neuromancer. The 28-year old version of me remembers that I once tried to reread Neuromancer but it felt so outdated I gave up before my heart broke. But long live my inner 15-year-old.
Big, big news for independent publishing: as of June 30th, Soft Skull Press will be acquired by Winton Shoemaker Co., LLC. These are the guys that acquired Counterpoint from Perseus Books earlier this month. Soft Skull will continue as an imprint for Counterpoint.
I'm having two polar reactions here. When I first read Richard Nash's statement over at the Soft Skull blog, I think my heart might have fallen into my stomach, despite that being anatomically impossible. Soft Skull was where I started out. I interned there for a year while I was an undergrad, and that's where I really got exposed to the small press for the first time. Probably the first thing I picked up was a galley of The Haunted Hillbilly by Derek McCormack. It was weird. God, it was weird. But I couldn't put it down. It was like translating sequential narrative into prose, something I don't think I could quite conceptualize at the time, but I was absolutely, positively in love.
From there, I watched the release of so many key books: Wayne Koestenbaum's Moira Orfei in Aigues-Mortes, Lydia Millet's Oh Pure and Radiant Heart, Megan Kelso's comix anthology Scheherazade, and David Ohle's The Age of Sinatra. I loved the environment. I loved my coworkers. It was the morning commute that didn't make me want to gouge my eyes out every day.
But is Soft Skull really lost? I know, it is hard not to be all elegiac, but that's what I'm trying to rationalize here. Richard said something on his blog that sort of illuminated a dark scenario:
As our wonderful author Sparrow said when he heard the news: "Soft Skull is dead. Long live Soft Skull." Soft Skull continues as an imprint. Soft Skull is not no longer independent. Had I won the lottery and bought Counterpoint from Perseus, instead of Charlie Winton buying Counterpoint and then Soft Skull, we would not have ceased to be independent.
So here's where the opposite reaction comes in. Financially, Soft Skull has not been in the best shape it could have been in for a while. PGW's bankruptcy was foreboding and scary. Hell, most of the books I have to send back at my job are now being sent to this vague "PGW Transition Vendor." If that's not scary and foreboding, then I don't know what is anymore (it really isn't helping right now that I just sat through Rosemary's Baby, is it?). But if this means that, as an imprint, Soft Skull will be more financially stable an institution, then it can't all be bad, right? We're just going to have to wait and see what happens in the coming months after June 30th.
And by the way, as announced by Richard, almost everything at the Soft Skull store is going to be 40% off before the move. If you want your books ass-cheap, then this is probably the time to get them.
On a much less apocalyptic note, the trailer and several excerpts from the Persepolis film are floating about on YouTube. You can catch the trailer here, and other clips here, here and here. Hopefully, you've either read the books or can understand French. Either one helps, really.
Lastly, and how can I resist, Dykes to Watch Out For episode #508 is up. Graduation, finances and infidelity, once again ringing true for all.
World Hum speaks to the publisher of the Rough Travel Guides, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.
Edgar Allan Poe has a lot to answer for. It was Poe, after all, who self-published his first book of poems, thus giving hope to rhymesters everywhere who have found themselves dissed, ignored and inadvertently humiliated by mainstream publishers. Poe is the name often dropped by disgruntled poets whose dens are wallpapered with rejection slips ("Dear Sir or Madam: While your epic poem cycle on the history of the world's oceans is fascinating, we regret to say t it does not meet our needs at the present time.")
So glad to see Chicago Tribune's book section's move to Saturday has upped the quality of their writing so.
On July 17 Royal Mail will issue a series of seven stamps depicting the colourful covers of each of the books in JK Rowling's series. The commemorative designs will be released to coincide with the July 21 launch of the last of the Harry Potter books, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Salon talks to Rebecca Mead about her book One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding.
It's the infantilization that one sees at Disney that's interesting to me -- the way in which grown women are sold the same princess fantasy that Disney so profitably peddles to little girls, as if one never grows out of wanting to dress up in tulle and wave a magic wand. The whole place treats adults as overgrown children. When you're in the Magic Kingdom, there are 100 places to buy ice cream, but you can't get a drink anywhere.
It's strange to me how much I'm enjoying Waugh's Fathers and Sons, all the while wanting to punch the author in the face whenever he makes cracks about the poor or rants about the Scottish. I learned the term Scotophobia (not the fear of darkness definition) a while back, but thought it only pertained to politics. Didn't know there were actual people afraid of the Scottish in the world. And yet, I couldn't tear myself away from Fathers and Sons yesterday. It's sort of an unpleasant feeling.
May 18, 2007
Secret Agent Elizabeth Visits the Dark Side: Writers Tell All
Where do the words come from? Secret Agent Elizabeth investigates dirty little secrets, 7th grade enemies, and the creative trickery writers use to get through the day. A weekly interview feature by Elizabeth Merrick.
THIS WEEK: Michael McColly
Michael McColly’s new blend of memoir and reportage, The After-Death Room: Journey Into Spiritual Activism (Soft Skull Press), chronicles his travels into the AIDS pandemic from the South Side of Chicago to South Africa to South Asia. He teaches at Northwestern and Columbia College in Chicago. His journalism and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Ascent, The Sun, Salon, and elsewhere.
What project has been the biggest struggle for you so far in your career, and how did you resolve your difficulties?
Sure, the book that I just wrote, the After-Death Room about Global AIDS activism. A book that everyone says and continues to say is so important but then can’t find the time or guts to support or promote. I set up my own college reading tour and got my friends to help me do much of the promotion. And of course like everyone, I went into debt.
What is it, really, that made you become a writer after all?
I wrote a lot of letters when I was in the Peace Corps. I had no idea what else to do all day and I wanted to prove to everyone that I was not really escaping from myself but trying to do good. I wrote to anyone and everyone who answered back. I wrote a lot to my grandmother who wrote sometimes two letters a week, often repeating the same things she said as senility had set in as she was dying of cancer. Describing Senegalese life and culture in detail to her and others, that was my start.
Inquiring minds want to know: what are your daily writing habits (and vices)?
I write best in the morning into late afternoons. I write best after doing my yoga practice or swimming, even if it’s late at night. I love writing in coffee shops. Chocolate. Coffee. And I’m still looking for a full time teaching gig so I’ll stop there.
What appalling tricks do you use to get yourself to be productive, and are there any you have discarded?
Showers. Head stands. I no longer smoke or drink or try to work when tired.
What is the most mortifying, worst thing you've ever written and what led you down that path to ruin?
A poem about the Shakers. A play loosely based on James Dean and my closet bisexuality at the time. Well, I guess they were both about the same thing. A lot of letters to the editor. A novel about a guy who fakes his suicide. All awful.
Do you have any rituals you use in an emergency or if you're blocked?
Fortunately, I’ve never been blocked. I’m a coach’s son. I grit it out. Listen to African music. Rip things up. But I keep at it until some comes.
How do you feel about writing sex scenes, and how do you handle it?
Head on. Always suggest more than you describe. The set up is crucial. Just like in real sex -- the foreplay is everything. The atmosphere can reveal a lot of the sensuality. No adjectives or adverbs. Describe from body’s point of view.
What books do you secretly love?
Theological books. Christian and Eastern mysticism. Political history. Modernist poets that nobody wants to read anymore.
And what books do you secretly hate?
I’m not a real big fan of Genre Fiction, particularly Gay fiction.
What is the most terrifying task for you -- whether it be a certain kind of scene, character, or subject matter?
I’m a nonfiction writer. Facts and stats are always painful but necessary.
Is there some element of your work that you particularly enjoy and that readers or critics seem not to notice so much?
Yeah, the leg work and travel to get a good story. The hanging out with people to just get a few quotes or just the context and texture of people and their lives. People have no idea how much work it takes to write good reportage -- or how much money.
Describe the arch-nemesis of your youth. How has this person appeared in your writing?
My nemesis of my youth was my faux straight self and I put him on trial in my memoir.
What unpleasant truth do you routinely conceal from young, fresh writers eager to make their mark?
I don’t conceal anything. I’m a writing teacher. And I feel compelled to tell them the truth about the publishing world and life as a writer every chance I get. No romance. Work. Work. Work. Little money. Loneliness. Depression. I emphasize that they must develop discipline and maintain their health at all costs because it's crucial for their stamina. I teach yoga in my classes and meditation as tools to stay in their bodies and stay focused on developing their creative intelligence despite a world that often works against them. I tell them to take risks and pull out all the stops.
And, finally, if there is one thing you could change about your writing life or career, what would it be?
I would have taken seriously the idea of the professional writer, worked as a journalist. I would have definitely written about my sexual life earlier and got it out of my system. Go after the ghosts as quickly and as honestly as you can. Clear them out.
Something else I can't understand, this time because I never learned Latin: Nicholaus Copernicus's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, fully scanned and available online, page by page. Not that I would understand it if I did read Latin. (Link from Seed.)
Editor & Publisher has a round up of how editorial cartoonists responded to Jerry Falwell's death.
This week is LA Weekly's spring books issue, "The Bookish Set." This time they mostly profile independent booksellers.
These people are clever, wise, savvy, and by turns funny and tragic. Despondent at times about the future of their industry yet determined to see it through in some as-yet-unknown fashion, they and their workplaces are gloriously idiosyncratic in a culture veering precariously toward sameness.
Miranda July is interviewed about her new short story collection No One Belongs Here More Than You.
May 17, 2007
Exams are this week, with grades due next. That means a quick roundup of interesting links, with more interesting content next week:
- Connecticut College hosts a Contemporary American Poetry Archive, featuring plaintext files of out-of-print books. (Denise Duhamel's The Woman with Two Vaginas: Poetry based on Eskimo mythology is definitely worth a read, as are many other collections reprinted here.)
- If this is ever published, I hope Jessa doesn't make me review it: Former British Prime Minister John Major writes "a lot of poetry--not for publication but privately. I find it very cathartic to pick up a pen and to write."
- Cecil Day-Lewis: irresistible to women.
- Carolyn Forché goes to Utah.
- Everyone has linked to some version of this AP story on UPenn's PennSound program, which offers "more than 10,000 digital recordings" of poets, "focus[ing] on historical avant-garde and innovative contemporary poetry."
- I have a face made for blogging in text only, and so will be running as fast as my stubby legs will go away from The Continental Review, which "aims to be: (1) A forum for video readings of new poetry (2) A forum for video reviews of new poetry (3) A forum for video interviews on poetics." (Via dumbfoundry)
- George Murray is interviewed at Northern Poetry Review.
You can watch William Langewiesche's interview about his book The Atomic Bazaar at the Colbert Report online.
I've been reading a streak of memoirs lately, which is odd for me. First it was Darcey Steinke's Easter Everywhere. It sags in the middle but is interesting enough to make up for it. I immediately picked up 8 by Amy Fusselman, which is not a traditional memoir so much as a skate around Fusselman's thought processes. Luckily, Fusselman is so charming this never gets annoying, and the book can be read in one gulp. Last night I opened up Alexander Waugh's "autobiography of a family," Fathers and Sons, to the family tree and made a snappy judgment. The final branch of the tree lists the author's children, and they are named thusly: Mary Waugh, Sally Waugh, and Auberon Augustus Ichabod Waugh "Bron." I could picture the whole book just from this, a book infused with an affected old-fashioned Britishness with a stench of patriarchal self-importance. I chastised myself, thinking it's a book about fathers and sons, surely it's not the book I think it is. I'm only a third of the way through, but it does seem to be the book I pictured. The stories of his family are interesting enough that it doesn't matter I kind of hate the author's voice.
Darcey Steinke talks about her longing for God in the Boston Review. Amy Fusselman was the first author I ever interviewed, and she was about the loveliest person I had ever met. She in no way made fun of me for my dorky questions or my nervous fidgeting. And Alexander Waugh talks to the Telegraph about his very famous family.
I need to read more Patricia Highsmith.
Well, Christopher Hitchens has found a lucky marketing angle for his new book God is Not Great: He's making the rounds to discuss the death of Jerry Falwell. Today he's at Slate.
There is no vileness that cannot be freely uttered by a man whose name is prefaced with the word Reverend. Try this: Call a TV station and tell them that you know the Antichrist is already on earth and is an adult Jewish male. See how far you get. Then try the same thing and add that you are the Rev. Jim-Bob Vermin. "Why, Reverend, come right on the show!" What a fool Don Imus was. If he had paid the paltry few bucks to make himself a certified clergyman, he could be jeering and sneering to the present hour.
A dejected group of library supporters were stunned Tuesday night by the overwhelming defeat of a levy that would have reopened all 15 branches in Jackson County.
"That's a tragedy," said Medford resident Malcolm MacNair.
The property tax levy, which would have raised $8.3 million annually, received 31,876 no votes and 21,906 yes votes as of 11 p.m., a 59.3 percent to 40.7 percent split.
Jim Crace has the unfortunate timing of releasing The Pesthouse -- a book about a journey set in a postapocalyptic landscape -- on the heels of The Road. Although, there is one obvious selling point: if you like your postapocalypse with some women, go with the Crace. Crace talks to the Philadelphia Inquirer about the book and that other book.
May 16, 2007
This article on the new atheists is too long, but it does make one very interesting point:
Christopher Hitchens's new book, God Is Not Great, is another example of atheism as an empty vessel, one he manages to fill with an intellectual justification for George W. Bush's "war on terror." Hitchens, of course, is the former left-wing journalist who astounded friends, colleagues and readers alike by coming out in support of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Since then, with everyone from Richard Perle to Peter Beinart busily backpedaling as the dimensions of the disaster have grown more and more glaring, Hitchens has dug in his heels. Like John McCain strolling through the Baghdad markets, he is more defiant of reality than ever, more insistent, as he put it in a March 26 article in the Australian, that the occupation has made the world a better and safer place. In God Is Not Great, he has something unpleasant to say about nearly every believer under the sun -- except one.
May 15, 2007
Bonus! Secret Agent Elizabeth Visits the Dark Side: Writers Tell All
Where do the words come from? Secret Agent Elizabeth investigates dirty little secrets, 7th grade enemies, and the creative trickery writers use to get through the day. A weekly interview feature by Elizabeth Merrick.
THIS WEEK: Darcey Steinke
Darcey Steinke's new book Easter Everywhere is just out from Bloomsbury. She has published five books. Many of her novels have been translated into other languages. Currently she lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her partner Mike Hudson and her daughter Abbie Hornburg. Darcey reads tonight at 7pm in New York at the Grace Reading Series with Rachel Kramer Bussel at Solas.
How do you feel about writing sex scenes, and how do you handle it?
I have always been fascinated with sex scenes in novels. When I was little one of the first adult books I got my hands on, it was in my Dad's night table, was Looking for Mr. Goodbar. I was maybe 13 when I read it and it has, oddly enough, been a strong influence. I really think you can't control what influences you. You can go around saying like a lot of male writers do -- "Oh I was influenced by Joyce and Stein" -- but really you may be more influenced by comic books or the Star Wars movies. So anyway, when I started to write I was drawn to writing about sex. I wanted to write well about sex, in a literary sense. I feel people bring their humanity to bed with them and so its key to detailed there intimate lives.
What is it, really, that made you become a writer after all?
My stutter. I had a bad stutter when I was growing up. It made it awkward to talk and hard to communicate sometimes. I really wanted to be elegant in the way I spoke, my father was a minister and my family was an articulate one. So I started to write from a young age, just trying to get some grace on the page.
Inquiring minds want to know: what are your daily writing habits (and vices)?
I have a daughter so I write when I get back from taking her to school. That is around 9. I try to work from 9 to 2 everyday. Not all of that is writing on my novel, some might be reading things for my books or writing in my journal.
What appalling tricks do you use to get yourself to be productive, and are there any you have discarded?
For me its all about time. I have to not have lunch dates and not make plans for myself. I need to leave time open, so even if I am not writing I can feel bad that I am not writing. If I fill up the time, with chores and lunches and other stuff nothing ever gets done.
What is the most mortifying, worst thing you've ever written and what led you down that path to ruin?
When I was younger in graduate school I wrote a story about a family that takes in a homeless person. I have always thought that good works are the most important and courageous thing a person can commit to. But the story was terrible and really, really sentimental, it was impossible to make it work narratively. I have learned -- I hope -- what makes a good story and what you just can't work with. A lot of stories I hear, about poor kids who work hard and make a life for themselves or stories of gay couples who had to fight to be together, these move me so much. But not all the things that I am moved by can I make fiction out of. This has been a hard lesson.
Do you have any rituals you use in an emergency or if you're blocked?
I will go to my journal. I will just like go to a cafe and have a glass of red wine. I try to take the pressure off myself. I will sit there and sip my wine and think "this is no big deal, I am just writing in my journal, no reason to get all worked up" and in that way I can break back into my work if I am stuck.
What books do you secretly love?
Secretly? I guess DeSade maybe. I find him crazy and terrible but just like very freeing as well. I always teach his novel, Justine. I also read young adult novels sometimes. My daughter will tell me about a book that was good and I will read those so we can talk about them. I am a big fan of a book called Shoe Shine Girl and also one by Eleanor Estes called The Hundred Dresses. That's an odd pairing, DeSade and young adult stuff, but there you go!
And what books do you secretly hate?
Oh its hard for me to name names here. As I know even a terrible book is hard to write. And taste is a personal thing. Also the books I hate I don't read all of, I will stand in a book store and read the first 50 pages enough to know they are sentimental and offer cheap redemption, they are fake in some way. Some of the so called literary books that reach best seller status, not to name any names, drive me sort of crazy. Books that pretend to be literary but are really not much different in message then a Nora Roberts novel.
What is the most terrifying task for you -- whether it be a certain kind of scene, character, or subject matter?
I think dialogue is hard for me to write. I feel its very important to fiction but I worry I don't always have a good ear for it.
Is there some element of your work that you particularly enjoy and that readers or critics seem not to notice so much?
I love to write detail. I find it like a zen pursuit, sort of trying to detail some thing really closely and give it a feel that is maybe original and sort of otherly.
What project has been the biggest struggle for you so far in your career, and how did you resolve your difficulties?
The book I am back on now The Great Disappointment, has been a big old mother, hard to handle. It's a historical novel about the beginnings of the 7th Day Adventist Church. The founder William Miller is my relative. I started it nearly ten years ago and am back to it now. I was not ready for it before I think. I needed to mature some as a person and a writer and I hope now I will be woman enough to master it!
Describe the arch-nemesis of your youth. How has this person appeared in your writing?
There was a girl named Georgenia, that was the other best friend of my best friend Mandy Messner. She seemed to me a perfect little girl, with ringlets and always in clean pink dresses. When she had a play date with Mandy, I would stand at the edge of her yard and stare at Mandy's bedroom window. I was so jealous. I did write about her in my new book Easter Everywhere.
What unpleasant truth do you routinely conceal from young, fresh writers eager to make their mark?
I try to stress how hard it is, but I also don't go too into all that. I think when you teach somebody you need to mostly encourage them. I worry about the ones who think its a big snap and all they have to do is write their novels and then they can just like sail into the literary world. It's very hard and you have to really engage, with your work and your self. There is a lot you give up as a writer, there is not too much money in it for most of us, and you have to be a hermit of sorts as well. But there is joy, too and so much contentment when a book comes out. I feel very blessed to be able to write. It's a wonder to me still, this writing life...
And, finally, if there is one thing you could change about your writing life or career, what would it be?
You know as corny as this sounds. I am pretty happy with my life. I love my work, I have a cute little house in Brooklyn, a great partner and an amazing daughter. I love my students, I have had some wonderful ones at both The New School and Columbia and I feel lucky to get to help them. I could say I'd like a country house upstate or to have another baby, take trips to France and all that would be true but in another way I am deeply contented, I work in a medium that can touch people directly and profoundly and every day I am grateful for that.
Studs Terkel speaks to In These Times about his 95th birthday and his new memoir Touch and Go.
So one day there's this one couple, they ignore me completely. So my ego is hurt. And I say, "The bus is late." And I say, to make conversation, "Labor Day's coming up." And the man just turns and looks at me -- Brooks Brothers, under his arm, the latest Wall Street Journal. And she's a beauty. Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale's. She's got Vanity Fair in her hand. And he turns, looks at me, and says, "We despise unions." And then he turns away.
And I said, "You what?" And the bus hasn't come yet. "Do you know that in 1886, '87, four guys got hanged? How many hours a day do you work?"
He says, "Eight," reflexively. I said, "How come you don't work 18 hours a day? Four guys got hanged for you. Did you know that?"
They think I'm crazy. They're scared. (Laughs.)
Now I've got him pinned against the mailbox. He can't get away.
Richard Flanagan talks to the Toronto Star about his new novel The Unknown Terrorist.
Speak French? (Why does this keep coming up?) Then you can watch this Marjane Satrapi television interview.
Joshua Ferris's Then We Came to the End got a lot of love when it came out. New York Times, Washington Post, lots of Internet attention... But the sales have been Good, not Great. The New York Sun tries to figure out what this says about the campaign to save the book review. (I personally didn't read the book because it's about office culture. I've worked in corporate office culture maybe a total of three months in my life, spending most of my days in nonprofits. Even the thought of a cubicle makes me break out in hives. Not that I only want to read books that speak to My Life, but something about the book said Inside Joke. I do not know why I keep randomly capitalizing things today. I will try to stop.)
I'll concede the point that book review sections don't deserve to be whacked. But why doesn't discourse result in sales? If Mr. Ford is right, then shouldn't smart, alert readers have been lining up to buy the Ferris novel? Something doesn't compute.
Today marks the release of William Langewiesche's The Atomic Bazaar. I love William Langewiesche. He's on NPR, talking about how you can make an atomic weapon. Intrigue! Smuggling! Bribing! You can just listen to his tales of moving across the border between Turkey and Iran, all while safely drinking your cup of tea in your living room.
According to Salon, Lewis Wolpert, author of Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast, is kind of like Richard Dawkins, but with less self-righteous aftertaste.
Our brains are absolutely hard-wired for causal belief. And I think they're a bit soft-wired for religious and mystical belief. Those people who had religious beliefs did better than those who did not, and they were selected for. They were less anxious. They also had someone to pray to. In general, religious people are somewhat healthier than people who don't have religious beliefs.
May 14, 2007
I’m about to print my fiction thesis, bind it, hand it in, and never look back. Well, perhaps I shouldn’t say never... Anyway, before I get into a brawl with other students for a spot at the printing station, I’d better get down to business.
Salon.com joins the save-our-book-reviews campaign: David Kipen, ex-book critic, examines differing strategies in the fight to save our jobs:
Still, as important as the crisis in American book reviewing is, the underlying crisis in reading is practically sawing the country in half. Forget red states and blue states. The implications of a republic where half reads and the other doesn't -- not can't, just doesn't -- are simply horrifying.
And while you’re at it, Critical Mass has a plan on how to get involved. I’m sure it’s been mentioned before, but it’s just something worth mentioning again.
And now a bit of reporting that just puts that last bit into even more jeopardy: every week I’m convinced that The New York Times is becoming more and more irrelevant. Deborah Solomon’s interview with Pulitzer prize-winning poet Natasha Trethewey further proves it:
Since this interview will be published on Mother’s Day, I should probably ask you if you celebrated it as a child. Oh, yes. It was a day like a birthday, almost.
I think Solomon deserves a prize for this one. It’s almost as bad as the old “If you could be any flavor muffin, which one would you be?”
Nicholas Sumida has adapted Madame Butterfly into a short comic. With mermaids.
Camus Beat You to It: Over at Fresh Yarn, Susan Henderson reveals what just about every writer already knows—we’re all neurotic bastards.
Just write anything. Write about an author who is feverishly writing in secret, but wants the story to be flawless, so has only created, after much pain, a single opening sentence. Wait. Camus beat you to it. He also managed to set that crazed and brilliant writer in the center of a plague while your narrator is just sitting in front of a keyboard with The Magic School Bus TV show playing in the background. Fuck Camus. Fuck today.
Via McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Statler and Waldorf Get Evicted From Their Retirement Home
Finally, over at SMITH magazine, the third chapter of Josh Neufeld’s webcomic A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge is now online.
Just when I thought there was no good news today:
Crime writer Ian Rankin is turning his hand to comic books.
The Edinburgh author is to fulfil a childhood ambition by writing a graphic novel based on the adventures of John Constantine, a supernatural sleuth who investigates the paranormal.
Tony Millionaire and his strip Maakies are profiled in the New York Times. You can watch the pilot of his Adult Swim show "The Drinky Crow Show" online.
Tom Bissell talks about his upcoming book about the relics of the apostles at Catholic.org. (Link from Maud.)
"You'd think having an apostle in your church would automatically equal a stream of pilgrims. But some of these places are really woebegone. Some have very active cults, and some have not much really going on," he said.
Travis Nichols writes about the detrimental effect the Perseus Books Group could have on the distribution of poetry books.
May 11, 2007
Secret Agent Elizabeth Visits the Dark Side: Writers Tell All
Where do the words come from? Secret Agent Elizabeth investigates dirty little secrets, 7th grade enemies, and the creative trickery writers use to get through the day. A weekly interview feature by Elizabeth Merrick.
THIS WEEK: Rachel Kramer Bussel
Rachel Kramer Bussel (www.rachelkramerbussel.com) has edited over a dozen erotica anthologies, most recently He's on Top: Erotic Stories of Male Dominance and Female Submission and She's on Top: Erotic Stories of Female Dominance and Male Submissions. She serves as Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations, hosts In The Flesh Erotic Reading Series, wrote the Lusty Lady column in The Village Voice and co-authors the blog Cupcakes Take the Cake. She is reading with Darcey Steinke (Easter Everywhere) at my Grace Reading Series in New York this coming Tuesday-May 15-at 7pm at Solas, 232 E. 9th St.
What is the most mortifying, worst thing you've ever written and what led you down that path to ruin?
There are lots of contenders for this one, but probably a piece I wrote for local lesbian mag GO NYC about plastic surgery options for women. I had to interview this surgeon who made it all sound perfectly normal and reasonable that women would just be getting these elective "procedures" that kept making me want to throw up. I'm not anti-plastic surgery in every case but I know I certainly have better things to do with my money and it just seemed wrong on several levels for a lesbian magazine to do this(and I wasn't even getting paid! So what led me down that path? Um, the inability to say no and the thinking that if I can do that, I can do anything. Am I forgiven?
What is it, really, that made you become a writer after all?
I don't know that I "became" one so much as I always felt like one. My mom has a "book" I wrote when I was about eight; all I really remember of that was that it was about red wine vinegar salad dressing. But maybe book doesn't need to be in quotes because it is a bound volume. I have to say, I always got off on seeing my name in print and in high school wrote numerous letters to the editor. I thought it was so cool that people actually paid attention to my words. And I've just kept on writing ever since.
Inquiring minds want to know: what are your daily writing habits (and vices)?
I don't really have any specific habits except, um, not writing. One really bad vice is that late at night I'll be lying in bed and have all these ideas floating around and instead of getting up and typing them or even summarizing them, I assume I'll remember. Because of course I remember ever thought I've ever had as I'm falling asleep! Not so much. So that's not so good. I read Getting Things Done along with every other nerdy type and have tried to at least carry a notebook around to jot things down, but I don't get to it as often as I should. I do make it a goal to complete at least one task per day, like do a book review or submit a pitch or finish reading stories for an anthology. Something that I can say to myself "you completed this." But other than that I don't have a specific routine.
Once in a while, I'm filled with ideas and just type as fast as my fingers can manage but most of the time I have to really sit there and waste a few hours before the real writing starts. Another bad habit is that I get up to 90% of the way done with something, and then I get bored and put it away, and have to really struggle to return to it. My mind is always racing on to new things, so, for instance, right now while I have an anthology to proofread before submitting it to my publisher and another I'm putting the finishing touches on, I'm also in the process of pitching two more. Sometimes the brainstorming stage is what I like the best.
What appalling tricks do you use to get yourself to be productive, and are there any you have discarded?
Well, I wish I could say I've discarded some in favor of others that work, but I haven't. I will do almost anything to get out of being productive. Number one is read: read blogs, read the news, read books. I'll literally have two books next to me and my computer, then scramble around and find a new one that I absolutely positively must start right this very second, thinking that it will grant me a bit of escapism. Also, eating pretty much whatever's in my path. Only after I've done these things and much time has passed and it's getting into panic time do I feel compelled to actually get my ass in gear and write. Waiting until (and often after) the very last minute is a comforting kind of terror, one I'm used to and I often have trouble just sitting down to write when I know something will be (gasp!) early. Early is not really a word that's in my vocabulary when it comes to writing (or meeting people, for that matter).
Do you have any rituals you use in an emergency or if you're blocked?
Sometimes I just open up about 10 word documents with all sorts of things I have to write, from essays to interview questions to fiction, and jump around from one to the other until I find one that's comfortable. A lot of the time there is something right at the forefront of my brain and instead of writing it, I write whatever I'm "supposed" to be writing, and meanwhile those thoughts or images or words nag at me and distract me from whatever I'm doing until I pay them some attention.
Sometimes I sit with the laptop on my lap and literally close my eyes and just write. I do my best to forget about what day it is, what time it is, what's due (or overdue), and just write something. Often I'll wind up starting a story, but starting in the middle or the end, and going backwards. Or I just make stuff up and hope that by letting my fingers have free reign, they'll send a signal to my brain that it should be working.
How do you feel about writing sex scenes, and how do you handle it?
I love writing sex scenes, which is good because erotica is pretty much my bread and butter. That's always come pretty easily to me, and I try to use as natural language as possible, meaning the words I would say to a lover or if I were telling a story. I do my best to build up the anticipation and tension, because that's what really makes a sex scene work, not the dirty words. I started out by writing true or mostly true stories, and that worked for me because I knew no one could say "But nobody would really do that." My new favorite trick is taking a scene I'm writing and then trying to write it from the other person's or character's point of view. It can be really hot and can change things around so much. I like writing sex scenes from a male point of view and it always surprises me (though it shouldn't) how much nastier I can be "as" a guy.
What books do you secretly love?
I don't know how much of a secret this is but I really love YA novels. Maybe it's the legacy of all those Sweet Valley High books but I can't get enough of Gossip Girl and its ilk. I think it's in part because I'm often so tired that I just want to read something relatively easy and juicy. But I also have seen that just like in any genre, there's the more formulaic stuff and the really interesting stuff, but I am not going to say I like one better than the other, because they each serve their purpose. Also diet books. I like to read them while I'm mindlessly snacking. And lastly, mommy and daddy books. If there's a parenting memoir out there, chances are I've read it or it's on my Amazon wishlist. Operating Instructions, Mommies Who Drink, Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay, Knocked Up, Daddy Needs a Drink, I'm on them. But the one I'm most looking forward to is 25-year-old blogger (http://girlsgonechild.blogspot.com) Rebecca Woolf's Rock the Cradle, which is coming out in January. She's a huge inspiration to me in large part because she's writing about parenting, but not only about parenting. Her story and her words extend beyond the confines of her main topic so even I, a non-parent, can relate. It may be billed as a "momoir" (a term I'm coming to hate more and more), but she got written up in Time for posting about her baby barfing on Moby CDs, so I think that right there tells you it's not gonna be typical anything.
And what books do you secretly hate?
This is probably a bit blasphemous but . . . sexual how-to books. I get sent them by the truckload, it seems, and while I do love reading about sex, especially first person accounts, there's something off-putting to me, especially when I'm single, which is almost always, about reading a book on how to have a threesome. Oh, I'll read it, and it'll either seem so ridiculous and obvious, and/or just make me wish I had someone to put it into practice with. There are some out there that I think are fabulous, by people like Tristan Taormino, Violet Blue, Ducky Doolittle, Barbara Carrellas, and others, but there are just so many books that really don't need to exist. I think there are some sexual how-to books that make sense but many more that don't (how many books do we need about how to have a hookup?). And we certainly don't necessarily need copycat clones of all of them. That being said (here's the part where I go all politician on you), I won't rule out ever writing one of my own, especially for big bucks, and I understand why people write them, but I really want to try to put useful sex writing out there, not just the same old, same old.
What is the most terrifying task for you(whether it be a certain kind of scene, character, or subject matter?
Writing a novel has been pretty damn terrifying. I'm finishing up my first one, Everything But..., now, and the whole process has been terrifying and challenging and really almost nothing like writing short fiction at all. I'm good at ideas but sometimes the follow-through is tougher. I am alternately excited and petrified of my novel. The most difficult part is translating the images in my head into words on a page. All too often they don't match up and it's so aggravating, in a way, worse than having no images in your head at all.
Is there some element of your work that you particularly enjoy and that readers or critics seem not to notice so much?
I really love doing Q&A interviews. To me, when I read a good book, it makes me want to talk to the author, also known as pestering them with everything their book didn't tell me. I think a good book should've leave you with closure, but questions, and getting to interview writers and artists about the behind-the-scenes of their lives and work is both fascinating and inspiring to me. It reminds me of why I love reading in the first place. I love the sex writing and editing that I've done but I love the interviews just as much.
What project has been the biggest struggle for you so far in your career, and how did you resolve your difficulties?
Getting let go from my Village Voice column has been a struggle not just because I miss the platform, and the money, but it was a real blow to my self-esteem and my faith in my writing ability. It was hard not to see it as someone saying, "Your writing sucks, these people's writing is much better." It was a struggle not to be bitter about it, especially when I had all these other people telling me they wanted to keep reading the column. I tried and am still trying to see it as an opportunity. I still want to write about sex and dating and would happily go back to writing that column, or a similar one, in a heartbeat, but I also want to write about books and babies and pop culture.
Describe the arch-nemesis of your youth. How has this person appeared in your writing?
My arch-nemesis wasn't a person, but a cough. I had this hacking cough in junior high that I couldn't get rid of and I became known, pretty much, as the girl with the cough. I always felt like it just marked me even after it went away. Then there was one girl who at some point, maybe in sixth grade, just decided she didn't like me. I don't think there was every really a reason, and another friend passed this information on. For a people pleaser like me this was pretty crushing. I rarely think about her but that feeling of wanting to do whatever I can to have people like me has stayed with me and the protagonist in my novel, Grace, also has to struggle with knowing that whatever she does, sexually and otherwise, someone's going to wind up hating her for it. I guess that's a good lesson, though one I still haven't really learned. I probably have a thinner skin than I did in junior high.
What unpleasant truth do you routinely conceal from young, fresh writers eager to make their mark?
I don't really talk about money. People seem to have this notion that if you write a lot, or edit a bunch of books, you are also pulling in large amounts of cash, and that's not true. I have a full-time job, in publishing, and I work my ass off, a lot of the time for free or very little, and feel like I still barely make ends meet between rent and student loans and just life expenses. And sometimes that gets me really down but then I realize that I still would rather be doing the free writing than not doing it. But in an ideal world, I'd get paid for all of it.
And, finally, if there is one thing you could change about your writing life or career, what would it be?
That I would not be saddled with student loans (lesson to writers: don't go to law school unless you are sure you want to be a lawyer!).
May 10, 2007
Next week, Eliza Griswold's Wideawake Field will become the first debut collection of poems published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in nearly ten years. Currently a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard, Griswold has published articles in The New Republic, Harper's, and The New York Times Magazine. It's no surprise, then, that the poems in Wideawake Field range from wry observations about relationships to encounters with Kabul prostitutes and child soldiers. Griswold seems more interested in preserving the complex of feelings and thoughts associated with a scene than in anatomizing it, and as a result the poems are sharply observed, accessible, and largely meditative in tone.
We spoke by phone on 6 May.
JBJ: I wanted to start by saying that I saw the piece last week in The New Republic, about the Bagram Theater Internment Facility, which is of course scary beyond all imagining. It made me want to ask about the exigencies or motivations behind this collection of poems, which both are and are not "war poems."
EG: I don't think of them as such, because I just write about what I see and experience, and this period of my life has reflected that. I think some of the moral issues and experiential issues that come up during that period has a lot to do with what the poems are about.
JBJ: The title of "Wideawake Field," before you read the poem, suggests it might be about our indifference to foreign affairs--our tendency to be willing to send planes anywhere without really thinking about what's going to happen on the other end--but actually the poem turns out to be about our relationship to a creator. And you've endorsed elsewhere the idea that poetry creates a ceremonial space to reach God. All of which is just to ask you to comment on that idea in relation to your poems.
EG: I don't think I'm alone--I know I'm not alone in this view, which is millennia old. There's an idea by Mircea Eliade, about hierophanic space, where the sacred and the mundane meet. And I think if you look at the Scottish border ballads onward, or pre- written poetry, people were trying to invoke a space that is otherworldy or special. That's what writing poems needs to be--if they're not two things at once, there's no point.
JBJ: The poems in the collection about American-style relationships seem to be vaguely bemused, not just that we fail to connect with others, but also at our failure to realize that we're not connecting.
EG: Yes, sadly that has seemed to be a pattern with me. (Laughs.) Relationships are tough. I think we do our best, and frequently fall short. Until we don't anymore, hopefully.
[Silly interlude omitted wherein I observe the resemblance between these lines:
The tent is gone.
It takes you days to notice.
and this joke, perhaps the funniest joke of all time. Alas, I tell it badly.]
JBJ: I also wanted to ask about the way you sequence the collection. Every time I've gone through it, it's been somewhat shocking to turn from "Epithalamion," where "everything is fake / except the rock," and which voices the ambivalence one has about an ex's new relationship, to "Clean," where "husbands are burning their wives."
EG: The poems are almost in the order in which they were written, chronologically. The idea is to trace the development of a young woman's life. I didn't write them with that in mind, but I thought that most basic of arcs would probably make the most sense.
JBJ: You also seem to like short poems. I wanted to ask both about the preference for short poems, and also about the way the poems imply a larger narrative or structure.
EG: I write them usually in a single burst, although obviously they go through many drafts after that. I just prefer to read--actually, I wonder if that's really true: I don't know that I prefer to read short poems. That happens to be how this collection went. The shortness allowed me enough unselfconsciousness in them, in many cases, that served the poem themselves and let me get out of my own way. But I don't know that it's more than that, and in the future I certainly hope to write longer poems.
JBJ: [Cut here is a long set-up, about a slight difference between the way Griswold reads the poem "Tigers" here and the way it's printed here (and in Wideawake Field): there's another, slightly different version, which she mentions below, that appeared in the New Yorker and which is online here.] I wanted to ask a practical question about performing your poems, rather than your compositional practice.
EG: ["Tigers" is about how] I try to stay as matter-of-fact as I can about existence. I mean, I know them by heart, not because of anything besides the fact that they are intimate to me. I know that I've done that, and also in "Tigers" there's a line where, instead of "We cling to a vine / at the cliff's edge," I'll say "We hang from a vine / at the cliff's edge." I don't know--I guess it's just what seems right to me in the moment.
JBJ: My last question is about your nonfiction book, The Tenth Parallel, and your plans for this new project.
EG: I am finishing up here at Harvard--I'm actually walking through a street festival in Harvard Square right now, and I'm working on a project called The Tenth Parallel, and it is an examination of the line of latitude ten degrees north of the equator, really the region between that line and the equator itself from west Africa through southeast Asia, which has historically marked the southern reach of Islam. In Africa, that line divides 400 million Muslims who live to its north and about 470 million Christians who live to its south, thanks to the global growth of evangelical Christianity. What I'm looking at are the tensions in the developing world, and the points of communication and how pulling them apart can debunk some of the monolithic and sensationalist language about the relationship between the two great faiths.
I'm not sure how I missed this, but it's essential reading for someone like me, who when in Ireland made sure she was back home at 5:30 every day for the farm report. Okay, that's like maybe three people in the world. But Michael Pollan explains how the current farm bill legislation is contributing to the worsening health of our nation and the financial devastation of family farms.
Lucille Clifton can't remember sending one of her poems to Poetry magazine, but she has received the ultimate acceptance from its publisher. Chicago's Poetry Foundation has named Clifton the winner of this year's $100,000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.
I’m thinking of having a contents page where all the chapters are listed just as ‘the next episode,’ with the page number. Can you imagine anything so deliciously useless?
Jody MacGregor interviews Eddie Campbell. (Link from the Comics Reporter, I think.)
Tao Lin is profiled at Time Out New York. He is reading at the Bookslut Reading Series tonight in Chicago. So come see for yourself.
May 09, 2007
Any day I get to mention Jarvis Cocker on my blog is a good day. Jarvis talks to artist Harland Miller about his fake paperbacks. Gordon Burns describes the cover art for the book "I'm So Fucking Hard" by Ernest Hemingway.
Miller has painted a portrait of Hemingway as part of a series of pictures based on the black-and-white mugshots of writers from the covers of their books; it's Hemingway in his "Papa" role, all rugged fisherman's sweater and macho bonhomie, in the famous shot by Karsh of Ottawa. But I'm So Fucking Hard, in common with all of Harland Miller's best-known work, has no image other than the title and the familiar furniture of old Penguin paperbacks: the stylised cloud-shape at the top, the plucky penguin at the bottom, and the broad bands of white and belisha orange.
Elizabeth Kiem showed up on J.P. Donleavy's (The Ginger Man) doorstep and reports what happened next.
Liza Mundy, author of Everything Conceivable, is interviewed at Salon about the unexpected consequences of IVF technology.
In the here and now, IVF science is driving up rates of infant mortality and prematurity, and all the complications that ensue. In fact, it's important to keep in mind that in some ways, IVF science is driving evolution backward rather than forward. While assisted reproduction may someday lead to a master race of genetically designed humans -- the future always looks like Uma Thurman, doesn't it? -- in the here and now what it's doing, often, is creating babies who are at a disadvantage, rather than unfairly enhanced.
When I saw The Painted Veil, I went off on a week-long rant to anyone nearby about how the changes made to the story from book to film sum up all that is wrong with the world in general. (Overblown, yes, but this is what happens when you drink before you sit down to e-mail.) I love W. Somerset Maugham. I have a picture of him hanging on my wall. (Wow, I just did a random Google search and found his astrological chart... anybody read French?) Finally I found someone who had also read the book and seen the film and we spent a car ride with over the top hand gestures and raised voices, expressing our outrage that the film turned Kitty from a woman on a spiritual quest to a woman who just needed to fall in love.
When people think of Maugham, for some reason they think of bloodless affairs, Masterpiece Theater-ish displays of colonialism and repressed sexuality. But the scene in The Painted Veil where Kitty falls back into her lover, hating herself for her weakness or when she confesses to her husband that she is pregnant and does not know who the father is, or the scene where Kitty's husband confronts her:
"I had no illusions about you. I knew you were silly and frivolous and empty-headed. But I loved you. I knew that your aims and ideals were vulgar and commonplace. But I loved you. I knew that you were second-rate. But I loved you. It's comic when I think how hard I tried to be amused by the things that amused you and how anxious I was to hide from you that I wasn't ignorant and vulgar and scandal-mongering and stupid. I knew how frightened you were of intelligence and I did everything I could to make you think me as big a fool as the rest of the men you knew."
Maugham's books are not bloodless. There's also Cakes and Ale, which saved me from requiring a lobotomy after a nasty disillusionment with publishing.
We know of course that women are habitually constipated, but to represent them in fiction as being altogether devoid of a back passage seems to me really an excess of chivalry. I am surprised they care to see themselves thus limned.
So the Guardian also wonders why Maugham has fallen out of favor. They call for a revival of Maugham's work.
Dennis Loy Johnson, he of Melville House Publishing and the much mourned Mobylives.com, is interviewed at EconoCulture. He speaks some hard truths about independent publishing.
So what happened is you had [with the bankruptcy of PGW] some of the leading leftist presses in the country not getting any money at a time when their biggest bills were coming in. How long can anyone survive that? And remember, these are in most cases individually owned companies. It's not some faceless corporate accounts receivable office that gets the call when a payment is late. It's Richard Nash himself getting screamed at. It's Richard himself going into hock. We're all in hock to begin with. What if you find yourself, oh, I don't know, another few hundred thousand dollars in debt? That makes for some dark and scary fucking nights. These publishers were being threatened personally.
May 08, 2007
This week's Guardian Digested Read: Engleby by Sebastian Faulks.
I won a prize to come to my college, but I have no memory of it. My memory's odd like that. I'm big on detail, but there are holes in the fabric. You know what that means? Of course you do. It's only page two and already I'm signalling that I'm using one of the laziest and most devalued devices of modern literature: the unreliable narrator.
The Comics Reporter has an interview with Jim Ottaviani, Janine Johnston and Dylan Meconis, whose new book Wire Mothers is favorably reviewed in this month's Bookslut. I haven't read the comic, but Deborah Blum's nonfiction book about the same experiments -- baby monkeys put in cages with "mothers" made out of wire to study the effects of love -- called Love at Goon Park is genius.