November 30, 2007
Secret Agent Elizabeth Visits the Dark Side: Writers Tell All
Where do the words come from? Dirty little secrets, 7th grade enemies, and creative trickery to get through the day. A weekly interview feature by Elizabeth Merrick.
I too wonder: what is this thing where all the writers dream of finally discovering the precise set of habits to deliver creative bliss, productivity, and sanity? (Or at least a finished draft.) I for one have many times bumped into my weird little drive to codify my time & finally discover the mysterious and elusive steps that always work. And then inevitably I buy some kind of planner. Back when I had the mental acuity for it, I would make a lot of lists. And then of course, the book as it wants to be written -- on its own rhythm -- will blow all of that up, either sneakily or with a nice obvious bang. So many of us are time & habit anarchists looking for a wagon that is just enticing enough, and not too cheesy, to hop on: enter the business books that give you those easy three-step stairways to shiny normalcy.
Jana Martin spells it out: heed her advice, writers of the future:
I secretly love books about business. I love books that promise to change a person in 7 or 8 or 4 simple steps. What a concept. How lovely to imagine following such a monastic code.
I love how-to books that have diagrams, but for a while so many novels gimmicked them into the narrative, and I got a bit upset about that. I do not love books in which the female characters seem like cheap foils for the male ones, or where animals die so that profound meaning may percolate like, ahem, fine wine.
Exactly. Put that on an index card, stick it on your monitor, and try to avoid getting suckered by those real estate infomercials tonight when you're working on that revision... oh and boys be careful writing your girls -- run it by your sister, for sure. She'll clear it up fast.
xxooElizabeth.
Elizabeth Merrick's writing classes help women writers stop wanting to hide in the house and paint their toenails over & over & over while watching "The Price Is Right" and drinking 20/20 after they compare their MFA student loans against New Yorker bylines. December 2-day class coming up soon in NYC: info atwww.elizabethsworkshops.com.
Jana Martin is the author of the critically acclaimed Russian Lover and Other Stories. She won a Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers and has been published in such places as the The Mississippi Review online, The New York Times, and the Village Voice. She lives in Stone Ridge, NY and is now working on a novel.
What is the most mortifying, worst thing you've ever written and what led you down that path to ruin? Do you have any rituals you use in an emergency or if you're blocked?
So unsettling the way you've put these two elements in the same sentence! Writing something awful is a great way to become blocked -- with shame. Sometimes "draft" is a polite word for awful. But you have to step over the bodies and ruthlessly aim for the light. If I am really stuck, I go running. Take a shower. The truth hates to be buried. But I never say, I'm blocked. It's bad juju.
Inquiring minds want to know: what are your daily writing habits (and vices)? What appalling tricks do you use to get yourself to be productive, and are there any you have discarded?
Depends on what I'm writing, what phase I'm in. If it?s new but has a shape, and a sort of -- frequency, I write in longhand so I don't go too fast. I tend to type in a mad sprint when I'm composing so I can stay more deliberate in front of a legal pad. (Slowing down lets that invisible undertow start taking shape). But if I'm boring myself, I'll hit the laptop (not literally -- I did that once, a disaster) to let the voice escape and find its own way. That happened with Russian Lover the story: I could hear that main character banging on the door, and finally, let her out.
I learned not to be overly precious from watching Mary Robison work: she revised as well as wrote stories in the living room of her rented house (we were all at Oberlin way back then), with the television blaring, the dog barking, guests chatting away, and the phone ringing. There were stacks of galleys on the couch, mail everywhere... in other words, anything from those tidy Pottery Barn tableaux that are supposed to be ideal settings. There is no ideal setting but gritting your teeth and getting to work. Coffee, of course, will help with that.
Years ago I do admit I had some appalling tricks, like not writing until I thought I'd explode if I didn't. That's the internal combustion theory and mostly it's a lie. It's better to keep rolling whenever you can. In college I ascribed to the sugar as gasoline method, also a lie, since there is nothing kills mental stamina like a sugar crash.
What is it, really, that made you become a writer after all?
Maybe I was built to be a writer. I was a quiet, watchful child. I gave certain relatives the willies. I loved the feeling of books. I was also defiantly independent. I tried to not be a writer for a while, since writing well -- that is to say writing truthfully -- can make me feel like I'm punching myself in the stomach. So it's not an entirely pleasant thing to do. I tried to be a musician, or an editor, or a cook, but in the end what drives me is really inside my head, and I thought about all of those things I did with the distance and quirky take that a writer has. I'm a good bass player though. Or was. I can pick an awful banjo.
How do you feel about writing sex scenes, and how do you handle it?
It depends on the character's sexuality. Writers are often scared of being exposed, and readers sometimes mistake a story for a thinly veiled version of the writer's life. Nothing is more inhibiting than wondering if you're going to get asked the "was that you?" question. With some writers, you don't even have to ask -- Eileen Myles, for instance. But fiction is still fiction. Writers have a right to be entertaining, let our characters get down, and maintain our own privacy, don't we?
Recently someone asked me why I have to have sex in a story. I said, well, I don't have to. But I am fascinated by characters at their wit's end, or in the middle of a mess, and often they are slightly wild and emboldened by their own panic. And sex is a great release. So I got to write it.
What books do you secretly love? And what books do you secretly hate?
I secretly love books about business. I love books that promise to change a person in 7 or 8 or 4 simple steps. What a concept. How lovely to imagine following such a monastic code. I love how-to books that have diagrams, but for a while so many novels gimmicked them into the narrative, and I got a bit upset about that. I do not love books in which the female characters seem like cheap foils for the male ones, or where animals die so that profound meaning may percolate like, ahem, fine wine. I hope I don't do the same on the flip side, where wines die so that animals may live. But that's not such a bad world.
What is the most terrifying task for you -- whether it be a certain kind of scene, character, or subject matter?
Answering questions about writing, but I had to. Really, starting something entirely new, before it even has a shape. Will the embryo live? Is the environment friendly enough for it to grow limbs, lungs and a heart? Or even worse, not having anything to work on at the moment. That is the worst. It's like having to walk to work along the edge of the freeway.
What project has been the biggest struggle for you so far in your career, and how did you resolve your difficulties?
I'm admitting this for the first time ever. I wrote a novel that was ostensibly about life in a hot, restless place among people who were edgy and not very old. And then the main character's mother showed up in the story. I just, one day, wrote her in. But she threw the whole thing up on its ear. She would not leave. I wrestled the plot back as best I could, but the story ran aground on page 245. Terrible. And that mother, she's still there, waiting for me to do the right thing. Because really, her reaction to this so-called hot, restless place -- and to the so-called sensitivities of the people in it, including her own daughter -- remained the most compelling issue for me. It was the truth that refused to stay underground.
What unpleasant truth do you routinely conceal from young, fresh writers eager to make their mark?
The business of being a writer is like the business of anything: you have to make contact with people and be interested in what they're doing, writing, saying, asking. Put yourself in the world. And: sincerity counts. If you can't be a social shark, be a sincere person. I love the expanding universe of litblogs, which have helped breathe new life into independent bookstores and publishing and writing. It's a great thing. And it requires a certain sincerity, a kind of code of honor. Snarking will not help. And: you may not be lucky for years, but one day luck may arrive. I'm presently (see how I keep it in the immediate now?) a fiction writer supported, in a loving way, by an independent press, and it took years. It took the confluence of so many forces. So stay open. Never be embittered by rejection. Find teachers you respect. Work your ass off. And: if you want to be a fiction writer, you have to always function with that in mind. Being a journalist is not being a fiction writer. And being a teacher is not being a fiction writer. You may find that being a gas station attendant works, or being a forest ranger. You may be the kind of person who can jigger your day and your attention span so you can put in 3 hours in the morning and then go practice law. Then, kudos to you. Whatever you do, you need to devote time and brain power. Good luck making a living.
And, finally, if there is one thing you could change about your writing life or career, what would it be?
At this point, I have made so many changes that I feel pretty well there. I did decide to write a potboiler instead of something delicate, but I write the way I write, so it's taking on its own life. But I'd change the entire financial sphere of independent fiction, by suddenly having a ton more money thrown into it, enough to go all around. There would be monthly grants and mail order grocery coupons and endless supplies of sublimely strong coffee. The day would become 27, not 24 hours.
Jonathan Yardley revisits Frederick Lewis Allen's Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s.
Starting last weekend, police at the University of California at Santa Barbara began receiving reports from around campus of a particularly academic form of graffiti — red spray-painted allusions to the work of the postmodern author Thomas Pynchon, whose 1966 novel The Crying of Lot 49 is (in typical fashion) a sprawling admixture of paranoia, counterculture and obscure literary references.
I love Tao Lin. "The Levels of Greatness a Fiction Writer Can Achieve in America"
THREE-FOR-A-DOLLAR FEEDER FISH: Steve Almond
Has been reviewed by the New York Times and published books on corporate presses but one of them was a nonfiction book about candy and he fights back publicly when shit-talked by Gawker by first making sure that everyone knows he does not read Gawker and only found out he got shit-talked because someone else told him. Quit his adjunct teaching job because Condoleezza Rice was invited to speak at his college. Has sex once a month with fans he meets through MySpace. Receives up to three e-mails a day from a mix of MFA students at community colleges, Centipedes in the Darkness wanting blurbs, and 14-year-old girls who have lived their entire lives in gated communities.
November 29, 2007
There are four books of poetry on the Times's list of 100 notable books from 2007: Herbert's collected poems, Walcott's selected poems, the Hass book, and Rae Armantrout's Next Life. Meanwhile, there are at least six debut novels. The poetry editors could at least *try* to find a young poet worth reading.
Gary Snyder channels his inner Nike: "read all the major poets in the English language from the Anglo-Saxon and Middle English on - it's not that huge a body of work. Just do it." (Via Largehearted Boy)
Terry Eagleton on William Blake: "Brothels, Blake wrote, are built with bricks of religion. Today, hardly a single Christian politician believes with Blake that any form of Christian faith that is not an affront to the state is worthless." But compare Finlo Rohrer, who notes Blake's "strong Christian beliefs and hard-to-decipher mysticism."
Paul Muldoon believes that "poets are generally trying to make sense. And that's a tall order, particularly in the era of the iPod and cable TV, not to speak of brand-name candy that forces us to think again about what we mean by 'Mars' and 'Milky Way.'"
ChinASCII is a freely downloadable "game written in Java and based on the poetry of Charles Bukowski. . . . Each part of the game would represent what we felt was a vital part of Bukowski's life: his writing, his drinking and his love life." | Watch a video of the game here.
YouTube: Jah Wobble, "Remind me to be nice to myself" | An interview with Amiri Baraka on ideology: part one & part two, and a more recent interview with Amira & Amina Baraka.
Turkey is considering bringing charges against Richard Dawkins for inciting religious hatred. Just wait until they get Christopher Hitchens translated.
With all these grim facts in mind, buying books will evidently (1) raise one's chance for high-wage employment, (2) help keep America's book-printing workers at their jobs, (3) and help American readers stay ahead of China and France, while catching up with the Swedes, Finns, Canadians, and Brits. Readers elsewhere in the world of course have the opposite opportunity, to preserve a lead over the United States or catch up. Hint, hint.
Fuck you, Sweden. We will kick your ass. As soon as I get back from seeing Enchanted. (Thanks to Richard for the link.)
Stuart Kelly responds to criticism about the Costa award shortlist, specifically that it's a list of women writers only this year.
If any aggrieved individuals out there want to set up a prize for the best white, male, heterosexual and rubbish novel, they can go ahead. I'm sure there'd be lots of entries.
The Telegraph profiles James Fenton: poet, adventurer, Imelda-Marcos's-towel owner.
'I made a quite conscious decision not to get stuck in a world where you thought you were really living only if you were being fired at. A lot of people went to the Lebanon or various parts of Africa to try to find that thing that had so entranced them in Vietnam - or Cambodia. I did the opposite.'
The ultimate goal of the Million Book Project is to digitize every book that has ever been published.
It's only 1 percent of the way toward that target -- but that still makes for some impressive numbers.
The project, based at Carnegie Mellon University and working with partners in China, India and Egypt, has now scanned 1.5 million books, which can be viewed for free at the project's Web site, ulib.org.
I should probably at least acknowledge that this exists: New York Times' books of the year.
November 28, 2007
The Guardian digests Mick O'Hare's How to Fossilize Your Hamster and Other Amazing Experiments for the Armchair Scientist.
Dispatch hamster with a shot to the back of the head. Take the corpse to Lyme Regis and bury it. Wait 200,000 years. Look, I'm getting desperate here. Have we got enough for a book yet?
Golden Age Comic Book Stories has a collection of illustrations from Marvel Science Stories. (Link from Journalista.)
SF Gate profiles William Langewiesche, the byline most likely to get me to buy a magazine.
Magazines, in Langewiesche's opinion, are great beasts that have to be fed, constantly. If they're not fed they die, and so they're desperate for material. But they're usually fed poorly. And people who say that the golden age is in the past are simply making excuses for their inability to write or publish high-quality journalism.
"You have this precious, incredibly privileged thing," he said, "which is the reader's attention for a little while. And you can make the slightest misstep and the reader will put you down. People will say that the reader lives in a busy world. But that's not the reason why. The reason is that the writer blows it, and loses the reader's trust."
For those who want to know what kind of items Alfred Kinsey inserted into his urethra for sexual pleasure, Nerve has condensed his life for you.
November 27, 2007
Rachel Aviv investigates the surprisingly interesting origins of the poem "Footprints."
Usually “Footprints” was signed “Author Unknown,” but other times the credit was given to Mary Stevenson, Margaret Fishback Powers, or Carolyn Joyce Carty, who have all registered copyrights for the poem. (Registration does not require proof of originality.) The three versions differ mostly in tense, word order, and line breaks. With no way to prove that the work was actually his, Webb paid $400 to take a polygraph test. Now he routinely sends the results (“No deception indicated”) to those who question his claim.
Chris Morris on Martin Amis:
I'm writing about terrorism and Islam, I keep being distracted by Martin Amis. He prowls the thickets of my research like a demented flasher. Sometimes Christopher Hitchens pops up, too, and flashes along with his friend. They rail against Muslims. They're obviously daft. But people take them seriously.
I was really looking forward to reading Paula Kamen's Finding Iris Chang, her investigation into the writer's suicide. Chang was an amazing writer, and The Rape of Nanking was incredible. I had higher hopes for it than Truth and Beauty as well -- a book that made me just feel gross for reading it -- because I had liked Kamen's All in My Head so much. But by page 100 I was e-mailing friends threats: "If I die mysteriously and before my time and you write a book about all of my lost potential, I will come back from the grave to push you in front of the El." It turns out that any book about one friend airing the dirty laundry of another in the name of "truth" creeps me out.
The thing you need to read today: Chris Adrian's (The Children's Hospital) short story "Promise Breaker."
November 26, 2007
Douglas Wolk looks at Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier.
Years before its publication, Alan Moore described "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier" as "not my best comic ever, not the best comic ever, but the best thing ever. Better than the Roman civilisation, penicillin ... and the human nervous system. Better than creation. Better than the big bang. It's quite good."
Slate has a lovely slideshow of children's book art, focusing on the shift from moralistic tales to more irreverent works.
Translator Esther Allen reports on how a publisher decides whether a book in a foreign language will translate effectively into English.
The advantage of writing in English is obvious: Empires come and go, but the sun never sets on the English language. Access to English is access to power; it speaks louder than any other language in the world, and its juggernaut position as global lingua franca is further consolidated each day. At the same time, harder writers of other languages find it harder and harder to break in. The English book market is the world's largest and most transnational, but the elite group of writers across the globe who can feel sure that their books will be translated into English could all fit around a medium-sized conference table (and a very interesting meeting it would be).
Depending on how your holiday went, this article about the treatment of depression and social anxiety might be right for you. Frederick C. Crews reviews The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Sorrow into a Depressive Disorder, Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness, and Let Them Eat Prozac: The Unhealthy Relationship Between the Pharmaceutical Industry and Depression at the New York Review of Books.
I'm Berkeley Breathed and I'm here to reveal that a lovably pudgy little member of our cartoon world here is actually gay.
Books by Stephen Hawking, Umberto Eco, Haruki Murakami and other star writers past and present have been chosen as the first works to be translated into Arabic, in a major initiative to widen access to foreign literature.
The Abu Dhabi-based project, Kalima ("word" in Arabic), aims to publish 100 books in its first year and 500 titles a year by 2010, it announced yesterday.
You can watch Alan Moore's Simpsons appearance at the Fictions blog.
November 22, 2007
This year, I'm thankful for being told "you know, you're pretty young (36!) for bifocals . . . why don't you just take off your glasses when you use the computer?" Thanks, internets, for making me blind! So, an eye-saving, holiday-shortened edition of links:
Poets.org has a big list of "poems appropriate to Thanksgiving." Somehow they missed Jennifer L. Knox's "The Best Thanksgiving Ever" (scroll down). Probably a great deal hangs here on the meaning of "appropriate." "The Best Thanksgiving Ever" is in A Gringo Like Me, which is now back in print, along with Knox's second collection, Drunk by Noon.
The Bad Poets Society organizes public readings of abysmal poetry. (Via choriamb.)
Finally, in honor of Barry Bonds: Charles Bernstein's "Doping Scandal Rocks Poetry." What will we tell the children?
November 20, 2007
I'm going to leave you two options:
1. James Wood writing a six-page review of the latest translation of War & Peace.
2. Going through Perrault's fairy tales, page by beautiful page.
I myself will be choosing the fairy tales, if only because my friends and I have been gathering strength for the family holidays through the consumption of whiskey. Tolstoy seems a little out of my league today. We'll see you next week.
This week's Guardian Digested Read: The Letters of Noel Coward.
The NEA would like everyone to know (again) that reading is endangered. What shall we do about it?
"We have no recommendations," he said, "but we hope to create a national discussion. We need a new national consensus."
I don't know what that means either.
The Book Design Review picks their favorite book covers of the year, and the list includes two titles by Melville House. Melville House consistently has the best damn book covers in the bookstore.
November 19, 2007
Bookslut's Indie Heartthrob Interview Series
A weekly interview series where someone involved in the small press (be it writer, editor, slush slave, etc.) is thrown into the spotlight, grilled over the state of the indpendants and sundry other items, and quickly made to return from whence they came after having graced us all with their presence.
This week: Rob Spillman
Rob is the editor for Tin House, a quarterly literary magazine run out of Portland. The most recent issue celebrates writing by "Fantastic Women" and includes new stories by Lucy Corin and Kelly Link, among many others.
When did you become involved with Tin House?
I’ve been with the magazine since the beginning. It was founded by myself, Elissa Schappell, and our publisher Win McCormack.
What does Tin House offer that other literary magazines don't?
When we started the magazine, most literary magazines had a philosophy that they were like Castor Oil, that they were supposed to be good for you. We wanted to change that. We wanted our writers to have fun, to write about what they were most passionate about. I think this translates to the reader. It was definitely in the air at the time. McSweeney’s started at the exact same time as we did, four blocks away in Brooklyn.
The most recent issue features some pretty fantastic writers: Lydia Millet, Kelly Link, even a feature on the late Angela Carter. What was the reasoning behind this memorable issue, and did you manage to cover all the ground you hoped to cover?
Reading through thousands of stories a year, it is hard not to notice some trends and also gravitate toward and embrace some of these. I’m very down on the perfectly-crafted quiet MFA epiphanies with no noticeable heartbeat. I’m excited about cross-cultural writing, particularly immigrant or second-generation writers, as well as the new voices coming out of urban Africa. Also, cross-genre fiction, typified by the “fantastic women” in our issue. They are pushing the fictional envelope, getting at deeper truths by throwing off the shackles of reality. They also seem to be having more fun while taking risks that their realistic, unimaginative brethren are not attempting.
What can we expect in Tin House's future?
We hope to keep pushing, to keep looking for innovative work, and to publish more books along the way. And to keep having fun doing what we love to do.
Peter Sagal is the host of Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me and the author of The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things and How to Do Them, but he should perhaps be proudest of being the originator of Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights.
Bender said to me, we want to sign you to write something, and we came up with something based on the life story of this fifteen-year-old American girl in the middle of the Cuban Revolution. I wrote a screenplay around that, and by the time I had finished with it, it was in fact well on the way toward being a Dirty Dancing manqué. I finished, they paid me, I went away and it sat on a shelf. I don't think there's a single line of dialogue in the movie that I wrote.
Oh, I knew when I started reading a Meghan O'Rourke essay on feminism, at some point my brain would explode. It was here:
And with Hillary's presidential bid, Condi as secretary of state, and an updated ass-kicking Bionic Woman on the air waves, one cannot say we are experiencing a "silencing of women's voices."
Equality at last!
It's difficult to discuss the NYRB books without gushing. I'm currently making my way through Joyce Cary's First Trilogy, consisting of Herself Surprised, To Be a Pilgrim and The Horse's Mouth. (And I think I'm the only person who has seen the film version of The Horse's Mouth, which is a shame, because I love it dearly. Go Netflix it now.) I wouldn't have known this trilogy even existed without Unabridged Bookstore's NYRB wall.
Matt King gushes over NYRB as well, lusting after curator Edwin Frank's job, drooling over book covers... I am way jealous of his giant box of books from NYRB, though. (Link from Maud.)
From Journalista: Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie's Lost Girls will not be released in France because of a law that prohibits the depiction of minors in pornography.
While I've been wandering around Michigan, my bookmarks have been getting more and more cluttered. Here are three things I don't remember how I found:
1. Joe Sacco is interviewed at Minnesota Public Radio.
2. William Gibson is interviewed at Rolling Stone.
3. VQR has an article about Pakistan you should read, "Waiting for the Worst: Baluchistan 2006" by Nicholas Schmidle.
Kevin Guilfoile writes about the tributes to Ira Levin. It seems no one can mention his passing without bringing up what a bad stylist he was as a writer.
The Guardian: “Ira Levin was no prose stylist, but…”
The New York Times: “Few critics singled out Levin as a stylist. But…”
I won’t claim it’s untrue. I’ll admit I probably can’t pull a sentence from one of Levin’s books and wow you with its innovation. Levin’s best novels are effortless, like perfect golf rounds in which every hole is a two-putt for par. There are many terrific writers who can drop your jaw sentence to sentence, but there are also writers so good that you never notice them at all.
November 17, 2007
Secret Agent Elizabeth Visits the Dark Side: Writers Tell All
Martha Witt, what a smartie. I could probably print this up, tape it to fifteen index cards, hand out to my famously on-point writing students and just skip class for the day:
In Dante's Inferno the entire epic poem leads up to Dante's meeting with Satan, but when he finally gets to the very bottom of Hell, after beautiful, detailed descriptions of that journey, we have a mere glimpse of Lucifer. There are religious as well as technical reasons for what seems like a strange omission, but I find it deeply instructive. Any big, transcendent event, in my experience, is best described by focusing on the details surrounding that event rather than trying to describe the actual event itself.
My students are fun so I would be bummed to send them home, but hypothetically speaking, I could. This lesson is crucial.
I think for writers teaching college, perhaps you could broadcast Martha's concise take on this subject subliminally through your young, eager(ish, which is I hear the best it gets these days) students' myspace? (There's always something flashing weirdly on there anyway, how hard could it be?) Then the "elderly relative in hospital" or the "my high school friend's car accident" short story would have, well, a shot in hell. No?
Well, they do say I dream big. Maybe too big. I am a rebel, Dottie. A loner.
And I say to you, from my rebel-loner perch on the back of some guy's Harley:
Happy Thanksgiving & good luck at the page & wishing you many delicious half-comatose hours in front of the Discovery channel between now and December.----xoxo Elizabeth
Elizabeth Merrick is offering a rare in-person class in NYC two Saturdays in December and January to give you an excuse face your writerly torment head-on this holiday season (well, and to make some collages) instead of indirectly via that previously inevitable self-sabotaging afternoon spent in the checkout line at Old Navy.
Four spaces left: more information at elizabethsworkshops.com.
Martha Witt grew up in Hillsborough North Carolina, the setting of her first novel, Broken as Things Are. Her translations and short stories have appeared in several literary journals and anthologies. She currently lives in New York City with her husband, daughter, and son. Her website is marthawitt.com.
What is it, really, that made you become a writer after all?
My mother. I used to read poetry with my mother when I was little. She loves literature, and I always had the impression that she was more comfortable in the fictional world than in the real one. When I began writing, I felt a closeness with her that I did not feel with anyone else and could not feel in any other way. That is what got me writing and made it a "natural" thing to do. The fact that my reasons for writing are more connected with this deep, personal bond has gotten me over a lot of the humps and bumps of the "writing life."
Inquiring minds want to know: what are your daily writing habits (and vices)? What appalling tricks do you use to get yourself to be productive, and are there any you have discarded?
Well, first of all, I wake up early before my kids or husband are up. I have always felt that writing was more of a bad habit than a profession, and I think doing it while everyone else is unconscious feels "right" to me, as though I won't be discovered. I have difficulties writing later in the day. Coffee is essential, and I allow myself two cups at around 4 or 5 am. After I have gone through those, I feel a bit spent, so really I have a good half an hour when I am "up" and ready to face the page. Then I get the kids to school or babysitting, and then I am back writing from 9 am to 2 pm. If I am in the middle of a project, I have to keep myself from checking e-mail every five minutes or getting out of my chair to clean house or make a phone call. My new trick is to set a daily page limit -- that helps keep me keep motivated.
Oh, I have written a lot of terrible things. I cannot think of the absolute "worst," but a lot of the bad stuff was necessary for getting to the better stuff. I think that if writers get too concerned about writing only "good" lines then they will be easily blocked. It has always seemed to me that there are layers in writing, and you have to write through all the cliches and the regular, unthoughtful language used every day in order to get to the original, fresh writing. In an emergency, I read a lot of poetry and write by hand. Writing by hand helps me to re-connect to my earlier experience of writing, and I also feel less self-conscious about making "mistakes" or "getting it right."
How do you feel about writing sex scenes, and how do you handle it?
Sex, like death or any other big event cannot be written about head on. In Dante's Inferno the entire epic poem leads up to Dante's meeting with Satan, but when he finally gets to the very bottom of Hell, after beautiful, detailed descriptions of that journey, we have a mere glimpse of Lucifer. There are religious as well as technical reasons for what seems like a strange omission, but I find it deeply instructive. Any big, transcendent event, in my experience, is best described by focusing on the details surrounding that event rather than trying to describe the actual event itself.
What books do you secretly love? And what books do you secretly hate?
I am not so secretive about the books I love; in fact, if I love a book, I am pretty out there with it. I am secretive about the fact that I like country music, and perhaps this particular affection has something to do with narrative and my secrecy comes from the fact that I judge it narrative of a lesser quality. I listen to it all the same when I am back "home" in North Carolina.
A book that I hate is Bridges of Madison County. HATED that book. I do not know why my feelings were so strong about that particular narrative, but I could not stop talking about my hate of this book for at least a year after I read it. Not so secretly, though, much to many friends' chagrin.
What is the most terrifying task for you -- whether it be a certain kind of scene, character, or subject matter?
I really resist dealing with logistics -- getting characters where they need to be and filling in the proper amount of information required to get them there. Perhaps that is why my current novel takes place over the space of 24 hours and is set in a single room.
What project has been the biggest struggle for you so far in your career, and how did you resolve your difficulties?
Definitely my first novel, Broken as Things Are, was the biggest struggle for me. Had I not had a lot of support from my agent and from family and friends, and had I not found a great editor to clarify what ten years and dozens of drafts had obscured, I do not know if I would still be writing novels.
What unpleasant truth do you routinely conceal from young, fresh writers eager to make their mark?
Well, first of all, when a novice writer comes to me excited because an agent or someone else in publishing has called his/her work "fabulous" or has raved about it with extreme adjectives, I merely smile and congratulate the person. One hard reality that I learned about early on in my writing career is that compliments are easy to give and receive. People in publishing appreciate how difficult it is to write and how deeply writers desire words of praise. Not to sound too jaded, but writers need to look elsewhere for genuine praise. Until a book is accepted for representation or acquired by an editor, no amount of praise equals a promise of publication or representation.
And, finally, if there is one thing you could change about your writing life or career, what would it be?
Well, I guess my number one thing to change would be all the anxiety associated with writing. When I am in the middle of writing a book, I feel as though my skin has been peeled back and my nerve endings exposed. I am quick to get irritated with my husband and kids and slow to find solace in anything. When I am not writing, I am a much happier human being, but this is only true because when I am not writing it means I have completed a project or am dealing with the "practical" side of writing. That is a much easier place to be.
November 16, 2007
Shalom Auslander has had some odd people stopping him after his book readings for Foreskin's Lament, wanting to chat.
"And I have to say," she continues.
This is the first bad sign. People who say things they "have" to say usually say those things with their hands pressed firmly over their ears.
"I have to say that I think it's so sad that you say these things about Judaism."
It's still Thursday somewhere, right?
(Note to self: When in doubt, lead with testicles.) Sean Casey on Edward Field's new collection, After the Fall: In the face of tragedy, poet Edward Field never forgets an important truth: all humans have genitals. Indeed, the new poems from his new and selected, After the Fall, dealing as they do with war, terrorism, old age, and George W. Bush, would be all the bleaker were it not for the testicles.
Wave Books now has a Poetry Farm (via choriamb): Our 12-acre (uncertified) organic fruit & vegetable farm is open to poets willing to work for four good hours a day in exchange for room, board, and a new environment in which to write.
Kathleen Rooney on poetry at the movies. In addition to sketches of scores of movies featuring poetry, she's got snippets of poems written by Leonard Nimoy, Ally Sheedy, and Jack Palance. (Alas, no Suzanne Somers!)
Tom Konyves answers 20 questions.
A new translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: I shall give him as a gift this gigantic cleaver / and the axe shall be his to handle how he likes. / I'll kneel, bare my neck and take the first knock. / So who has the gall? The gumption? The guts?
Poetry as treason.
Poems: Lee Upton's "Dyserotica" | Lisa Robertson's "Draft of a Voice-over for Split Screen Video Loop"
November 15, 2007
Today I am at what used to be William James College, although no one here knows for sure which William James it is, and as the mural of the founder looks nothing like The William James, we're guessing it's some other guy. Either way, I actually have The Will to Believe in my bag, so I'm prepared. (There is also a William James who lectures at USC, but I think that is again a different William James, despite James's experiments with the afterlife.)
Take notes for next year: How to Win a National Book Award in Five Easy Steps.
Fiction: Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
Nonfiction: Legacy of Ashes: A History of the CIA by Tim Weiner
Poetry: Time and Materials by Robert Hass
Young Adult: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Javier Marias is on Salon's list of sexiest men living. Why that list exists, I can't figure out. I'm still waiting for the hotel to bring me my coffee. Sexy or not (and yes, thank you) read Marias's A Heart So White.
November 14, 2007
 |
 |
Merkl: I am the author and publisher of the book The Complete DREAM OF THE RAREBIT FIEND by Winsor McCay, (first edition July 2007, exclusively available from www.rarebit-fiend-book.com). It contains, among many other images, reprints of c.500 black & white comic strips originally published in U.S. newspapers from 1904 to 1913.
Anyone who has worked with vintage newspaper comics is confronted with the problem of obtaining good quality copies of the illustrations. Since most of these strips have never been reprinted since their original publication a century ago, only two kinds of picture sources are available: original newspaper tearsheets and microfilm. Hardly any of the original printed newspapers are still in existence. The bound volumes kept by the public libraries were disposed of as they took up too much space and the poor quality paper had become brittle. I was lucky enough to win a large collection of original DREAM OF THE RAREBIT FIEND newspaper clippings on eBay. Other copies from original clippings were contributed by the Cartoon Research Library of the Ohio State University, the only public collection of its kind. Imagery that is no longer accessible in the form of original clippings had to be reproduced from microfilm, which was purchased from various libraries. Additional material was provided by collectors, by online newspaper archives, scanned from original artwork, purchased on eBay, etc.
All comic strips had to be scanned and digitally restored. I purchased a professional scanner with a 16” x 12” scanning surface, enabling me to scan the large comic strips in one piece.
The scans I took from the vintage newspapers and from microfilm were all exhibiting the same problems: black surfaces are not plain black, but have many little white spots in them. And spaces originally intended to be white are not plain white, but have black spots and other “pollutions” in them. So you have to make the black really black and the white really white. There is no software doing this automatically, and you have to do it with your own hands, every strip separately. I was using Adobe Photoshop. In many cases the lettering was so blurry and polluted, I had to carve out every single letter to make the text legible. Or there were folds in the paper, or adhesive tape, or dates written on the strip, or parts missing which I had to replace from other sources, etc. And all the logos had to be replaced. I had two master logos (the strip appeared in two different formats), and replacing the 400 logos alone took me three weeks.
Image restoration is very time-consuming; I invested six restoration hours into every episode. 90% of all work on this book was devoted solely to obtaining and working on the pictures.
An example “before and after restoration” can be found on pages 10/11.
New York Magazine has made their 1969 article "MAILER-BRESLIN: Seriously?" available on their website as a PDF.
Emma Campbell Webster wonders if Jane Austen books encourage women to stay single. For the love of...
Austen always gives her protagonists at least one opportunity to say no to marriage before they finally agree - highlighting the seriousness of the decision - and I found it more and more disconcerting that, when the lead character does take the plunge, her story suddenly ends. It dawned on me that this convention sends readers a dark subliminal message - that marriage equals "The End". Which raises the question "Just what, exactly, is it the end of?" Is it simply the end of the book, or could it signify the end of life worth reading or writing about?...
There are a number of different reasons for the declining marriage rates, but the messages that are constantly sent to women in the guise of so called "romantic fiction" surely aren't helping. When you consider the ubiquity of these messages it is not surprising that many of us have started seeing a wedding as something disturbing, terrifying, as the end of a lifelong quest for adventure, rather than any kind of start.
Someone just took a Womens Studies 101 class, didn't they?
It took me three days to wade through Juliana Spahr and Stephanie Young’s "Numbers Trouble" for a couple reasons. One, I wanted to turn it into a drinking game, but I quickly saw that if I actually did a shot every time they used the phrase "feminist intervention" I would end the day getting my stomach pumped.
Two, they imply Dale Smith is sexist, an accusation that is beyond absurd.
The article is depressing, but not for the reasons the authors may hope. Yes, women are published/anthologized/assigned editor positions less frequently than men. Hell, pick up an issue of Atlantic Monthly or the New Yorker, count bylines and you'll see that. But if you're going to write a 24-page essay about that fact, shouldn't you do something more than, as Josh Gunn comments, "count vaginas"? It's a depressing display. Dale Smith responds to that sexism accusation on his blog.
Thunderant presents "Feminist Bookstore."
Oh, I'm having flashbacks to vegan Thanksgiving potlucks, and trying to order books by male authors from Women & Children First... Oh, my head.
(Link from Paper Cuts.)
I'm getting on another plane today, but those staying in Chicago tonight should consider the Poetry Foundation's event with Eavan Boland. She's profiled at the Poetry Foundation website, and she talks about her new book Domestic Violence, and then spends a lot of time correcting the interviewer.
I wanted the title poem to ask whether the family homes which provided shelter throughout the Troubles in Ireland, including mine, also provided a way of exempting ourselves from imagining what was happening. A private life doesn’t encourage that escape from public events, but it does, on occasion, allow it. At a certain moment it seemed to me that imagining the truth of the wider island we lived in was necessary, certainly for me. It also seemed that retreating from it into a private life would turn a shelter into a cloister. For most people, the truths beyond their safety are difficult ones. And so it was in Ireland at that time, and going further with it was difficult, too. It involved looking at language, at self-deception, and the part both play in the origins of something as chilling as hatred.
Karen Armstrong is interviewed at Talk of the Nation about her new book The Bible: A Biography.
November 13, 2007
Jenny Shank wants you to read Lucia Berlin. As her book Home Sick made me believe I now had to listen to every recommendation my friend (and poetry columnist) Dale Smith gave me, I would like to second.
The Boston Globe has a slideshow about the new Dream of the Rarebit Fiend book compiled by Ulrich Merkl.
This week's Guardian Digested Read: Kate Mosse's Sepulchre.
Meredith's head was a whirl of confusion. The photos, the tarot cards, the Debussy score, the vision of Léonie that kept entering her room: what did they mean?
"Hello," said a voice. "I'm nice-but-dull Hal, your love interest. My father was killed in a mysterious car crash and my evil uncle Julian, who now owns La Domaine de la Cade, is behaving very oddly. Shall we investigate this together?"
The dog had barked at the vicar’s son, who drew a knife and chased it home. The next day the boy fell ill and his father at once suspected the dog’s owner of possessing evil powers. He had Mrs Simons, of Kent, tried for witchcraft, but she escaped death because the jury could not agree on her guilt.
Her case, and others like it, are highlighted in a rare book published in 1584, a copy of which was found recently in the attic of a house in Nottinghamshire. The author, Reginald Scott, an engineer and surveyor who became the MP for New Romney, took a remarkably enlightened view of witchcraft in an era of ignorance and superstition: he argued that it simply didn’t exist.
Hilary Mantel, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Audrey Niffenegger write new fairy tales for the Guardian.
If Finnegans Wake makes you want to ram your head against the wall, Paul Muldoon thinks you should read it out loud. Or have a handsome Irishman come to your apartment and read it to you.
I recently read Turn of the Screw out loud to myself, but that was mostly because my back went out and I couldn't get out of bed, except to crawl to my vicodin bottle. You try reading Henry James quietly when hopped up on opiates without getting distracted by, say, your feet. Can't be done!
Children's author R.L. Stine broke his long-held media silence Monday to announce that Slappy, the evil ventriloquist's dummy from the Goosebumps Night Of The Living Dummy trilogy, was a homosexual.
November 12, 2007
Bookslut's Indie Heartthrob Interview Series
A weekly interview series where someone involved in the small press (be it writer, editor, slush slave, etc.) is thrown into the spotlight, grilled over the state of the independents and sundry other items, and quickly made to return from whence they came after having graced us all with their presence.
This week: Karin Taylor
Karin is the Executive Director of The New York Center for Independent Publishing (NYCIP), former known as The Small Press Center. Founded two decades ago, the Center is dedicated to assisting writers and independent presses in gaining recognition as well as propagating freedom of the press. With the upcoming Independent and Small Press Book Fair on the horizon, Taylor set aside her busy schedule in preparation of the fair to talk to Bookslut about her involvement with the Center and its programming.
What is the NYCIP's mission? What does it hope to do with the small press industry?
In a publishing universe dominated by the economic clout of conglomerate publishing, The New York Center for Independent Publishing serves the nation’s most innovative publishers and actively strives to cultivate freedom of the press. The Center works to draw attention to the small press industry in a multitude of ways, including adovocacy and consistent public promotion of independent presses. The NYCIP helps publishers reach a wider audience, by spotlighting their unique books and providing practical assistance, whenever possible.
The Center for Independent Publishing also provides access to education and expertise in the field of independent publishing for indie presses, encouraging excellence in publishing though workshops, lectures, book fairs, exhibits and an extensive reference collection, the majority of the programs are held at the Center.
The NYCIP’s signature annual programs include: the Independent and Small Press Book Fair; National Small Press Month, and its host of reading marathons, lectures, publishing workshops and special writing and publishing events such as: The New York Round Table Writers’ Conference; the series, Emerging Voices: Writers Published by Groundbreaking Independent Presses; and a new initiative SPLAT: The Graphic Novel Symposium which will be held mid-March 2008.
What can the NYCIP offer new writers? How can it help them?
Although the primary mission of the NYCIP is to help small independent presses, the Center offers a number of programs that would also be of interest to new writers. The major program we offer for writers is the annual New York Round Table Writers’ Conference which will be held next on April 11 & 12, 2008. Our conference is very different from most other Writers’ Conference--where the emphasis is often on the craft of writing--our focus is on the business of getting published. Our goals are to: provide writers with a realistic overview of the publishing industry and the publishing process; offer tips on how they can improve their chances of being published; and supply networking opportunities with literary agents and publishers, both large and small.
The Independent and Small Press Book Fair is also a great opportunity for writers to meet independent publishers, research the type of books they offer and of course buy independent press books. There will also be a number of programs of particular interest to authors, An Insider’s Look at Book Publicity, a panel on Writing and Publishing Erotica, How to Catch a Literary Agent’s Eye and a panel of self-publishing, Authorpreneurship, for more information, you may refer to our program schedule.
What tends to happen at the Small Press Fair? What makes it stand apart from other big book fairs, such as BEA?
The Independent and Small Press Book Fair is very different from events like BEA. First off, only independent publishers can take part--a hundred of the country’s top indie presses will be here in person. Also, rather than taking place in a generic convention center, the Fair takes place in a striking landmark building (owned by historic General Society of which we are part of). Admission is also open to everyone, and is not restricted to those in the industry. It is also FREE! (with a $1 dollar suggested contribution). There are also sixteen very diverse public programs that range from a look back to the 80’s (in honor of our 20th Anniversary) with iconic writers Tama Janowitz and Arthur Nersesian to a Literary Trivia Quiz Smackdown with The New York Review of Books and A Public Space.
This is the 20th anniversary of the Bookfair. How has it changed over the years?
Publishers taking part have become more sophisticated in their use of technology and presentation of their books, but the indie community spirit that has always been present is very much alive and well.
What prompted the change of names from the Small Press Center?
It is actually something we have been discussing at the Center since it was founded in 1984, we have always had board members and supporters who felt the word “small” was diminutive. So after many years of discussion we decided that “independent” is a much more inclusive word, and enables the NYCIP to include more programs by the bigger independents such as Grove Atlantic and W.W. Norton.
Name one title you think stood out in the past year. Why this one?
Matthew Sharpe’s Jamestown published by the indie press Soft Skull, an intriguing retelling of the heart of American history--the Jamestown settlement--that also bounces into a sci-fi futuristic tale, punctuated with dark humor. Matthew Sharpe is a hugely original talent and represents one of many excellent new voices that are currently being nurtured by an independent press. [See Bookslut's interview with Sharpe]
I learned from Journalista that Jack Chick has a new comic... about Mormons! Two nice young Mormons in white short sleeve button down shirts visited me recently. I was tempted to invite them in, make them tea, and tell them the good news that you can lead a good, moral life without having to wear magical underpants. (Although who am I to judge? Perhaps it was the underpants that drew them to the religion.) I was too creeped out about them knowing where I live, however, so I missed my opportunity. I hope they're okay, out there in the world. There's a preview of the comic up on the website, or you can buy it for the low, low price of $2.25.
There are a lot of things you could be reading about Norman Mailer today. Some glowing remembrances, some spitting "I always thought he was a motherfucker anyway"s, some in between. Mostly his death just made me want to dig up this picture of him, one of my favorite author photos ever. You can read find a thousand remembrances here.
Chinese author Jiang Rong on Saturday won Asia's first major literary prize, launched by the backers of the world-renowned Booker prize to give a greater global voice to the continent's often unheralded talent.
Jiang, 62, scooped the $10,000 Man Asian Literary Prize and potential international recognition for his novel "Wolf Totem."
George Singleton talks about his new book Work Shirts for Madmen and the influence of Tom Waits over at Largehearted Boy.
November 09, 2007
Secret Agent Elizabeth Visits the Dark Side: Writers Tell All
Where do the words come from? Dirty little secrets, 7th grade enemies, and creative trickery to get through the day. A weekly interview feature by Elizabeth Merrick.
So, Wendy Spero is my kind of girl:
“I am still desperately searching for rituals that might help in an emergency blockage. My friend recently recommended exercising, especially running. I once tried to go for a jog but got stung by a creepy bug on the way home and then felt too drained to type. Getting stoned with friends during a blockage has proven to be very helpful.”
That is pretty much scripture for girl writers, no? I know that she wouldn’t really want to be away from her own writing so long, BUT, I kind of dream that someone someday puts Wendy in charge of the women’s magazines for a few months. Because these are the kind of tips we could use a few more of, in every department.
Could we not easily replace Suze Orman’s yelling at you with a monthly column called: “Avoiding Creepy Bugs”?
And anyone who's attended her share of BEA panels, book parties, or high school English classes knows that the literary realm is perhaps the FIRST place to start thinking about Creepy Bug Avoidance. Yet the ramifications are global. I can see it: women of America, armed with checklists, unable even to remember what the words "pink collar ghetto" mean, suddenly refusing to feel guilty about our $4 lattes or $20 lip gloss when we run across the numbers for the annual revenue of the porn industry never mind sub-woofers.
Non-creepy-bug: I tried it for a day and found this criterion useful across the board, whether it’s picking a boyfriend or picking a president or picking a narrator when you’re writing fiction. Get my drift? If it feels like a creepy bug, it’s a sign to change direction.
xxooElizabeth.
Elizabeth Merrick's writing classes help women writers stop wanting to hide in the house and paint their toenails over & over & over while watching "The Price Is Right" and drinking 20/20 after they compare their MFA student loans against New Yorker bylines. December 2-day class coming up soon in NYC: info atwww.elizabethsworkshops.com.
Wendy Spero is an actress, comedian, and writer. Her most recent one woman show, "Who's Your Daddy?" was produced at Edinburgh Fringe Festival after a year-long run at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in NYC. She recently co-wrote a pilot for HBO, and her book, Microthrills: True Stories from a life of Small Highs, became an LA Times Bestseller. Her website is www.wendyspero.com.
How do you feel about writing sex scenes, and how do you handle it?
I've never written fiction, so I've never really written a "sex scene" exactly, but I have written about my sex life. Well, mainly about my sexual experience growing up. My mother was a sex-therapist, so I've got a lot of strange, juicy tales about her giving me sex manuals and explaining how to give the perfect handjob. When writing sex stories, it's been helpful for me to remember to be completely honest. And to change the names and descriptions of ex-boyfriends.
Is there some element of your work that you particularly enjoy and that readers or critics seem not to notice so much?Tangents. I love going on tangents. I once went on a long tangent about the fact that teachers always seem to resemble the subjects they teach. In seventh grade my Latin teacher truly looked like Caesar and my science teacher looked a little like a nucleus of a cell. I wondered if teachers' facial features make them naturally disposed to specialize in certain subjects or if it's the other way around. Anyway, my editor friend usually suggests I remove these kinds of tangents in my writing. She says that they "ruin the flow of the story." It's a bummer. So it's not so much that readers or critics don't notice or appreciate my tangents, it's that they are usually edited out before the final draft. I hope that still counts as an answer to the question.
Inquiring minds want to know: what are your daily writing habits (and vices)? What appalling tricks do you use to get yourself to be productive, and are there any you have discarded?
When I'm writing I feel like I'm in fifth grade and a really, really important book report is due, and I don't know where to begin. I always have a pit in my stomach. So sometimes before sitting down to write I force myself to read a few pages of some form of a Self Help-y type book. Sometimes I'll play a song from a musical like Into the Woods or Chicago and try to sing along, to get more energized. Eventually I'll sit with my laptop in a large blue chair and try to breathe. I'm easily distracted by e-mails, so I'll always move to the couch, where I can't pick up a wireless signal. I was most productive one week a few months ago when I got my hands on a small supply of Ritalin. But by the end of the seventh day my heart was pounding too fast, so that trick was quickly discarded.
What is it, really, that made you become a writer after all?
It might be Steven Spielberg's ET: Extra Terrestrial. I was around eight years old when this movie came out. I remember being deeply traumatized by the fact that for the majority of the movie, Elliot, the kid, was all alone in his knowledge of the alien. Yes, he chose to keep the alien a secret and yes, ET happened to be harmless and very nice. But all I could think about was how Elliot was forced to analyze ET’s existence by himself. So I started to worry -- not that I’d see an actual alien, but that an alien might appear in my room one night, hang with me for a little while, maybe play a couple rounds of Uno, and then disappear before anyone else could see it. The sighting/interaction would be too much to process alone. Before long, my worst fear in life became the possibility that I’d befriend an alien who’d refuse to meet anyone. And I spent the next five years wishing that every thought I had and every experience I had could be shared with someone else. When I started writing, I no longer felt alone with my own thoughts I felt as if I was re-experiencing my life with the reader. I've always felt that experiences are often better once they're shared.
What is the most mortifying, worst thing you've ever written and what led you down that path to ruin? Do you have any rituals you use in an emergency or if you're blocked?
A few years ago my friend called me and asked if I could very quickly write a short essay for a casual project he was doing about Bar Mitzvah ceremonies. I was working as a highly incompetent administrative assistant at the time and made the mistake of writing this essay during my dayjob hours, while finishing my boss's expense report. I knew the piece might be crappy, but I ran out of time and just sent it to my friend, hoping no one would ever really read it. I eventually forgot about it. And then a year later a writer I know was like, "Hey, I know your name. I just read your piece in a Bar Mitzvah book." And then the book was literally everywhere, even in that clothing store American Apparel. I still can't shop at that store because it reminds me of that incredibly crappy piece I wrote.
I am still desperately searching for rituals that might help in an emergency blockage. My friend recently recommended exercising, especially running. I once tried to go for a jog but got stung by a creepy bug on the way home and then felt too drained to type. Getting stoned with friends during a blockage has proven to be very helpful.
What books do you secretly love? And what books do you secretly hate?
I secretly love The Firm. Well, not so secretly. I talk about my love for The Firm quite openly. It was a good movie, too. I secretly hate all the books I had to read in high school, like Tess of The D'urbervilles. And even the best ones like Lord of the Flies. It's just because I associate these books with that crippling book report anxiety I mentioned in question #2. I grew up fearing reading and writing because I was a highly neurotic child who had a few very scary English teachers.
What is the most terrifying task for you -- whether it be a certain kind of scene, character, or subject matter?
I've yet to write fiction. Writing solely from my imagination still feels too terrifying. Answering questionnares like this one is also a bit terrifying. I love answering questions, but I'm too panicky about the tone of my answers. It feels like I'm writing an important e-mail that could easily get misinterpreted. I can't help but wish we were talking in person.
Describe the arch-nemesis of your youth. How has this person appeared in your writing?
I had an arch-nemisis in 6th grade. Let's call her "Pam." She was a horrid bitch who joined our class out of nowhere and then told everyone to stop talking to me and my friend Emily. Writing about Pam and her evil ways in my memoir was one the most cathartic experiences of all time. Somehow putting the whole saga down on paper made me feel like I'd finally overcome it. Or maybe I just found insanely great pleasure in fantasizing about Pam reading about herself in my book. Actually, I think there is a fairly large chance that Pam has read my book, or at least knows she's in it. My dentist's daughter -- who also went to school with us -- is still her best friend. My dentist told me he mentioned the book to Pam, and suggested she buy it. Sadly, hearing this was more exciting than reading my first good review.
What project has been the biggest struggle for you so far in your career, and how did you resolve your difficulties?
Writing my book was quite a struggle for me. It was too overwhelming. I could never just relax and trust that I'd get it done. Instead I worried everyday that it was a total embarassment. Reading Anne Lamont's Bird by Bird SAVED me. She got me take some deep breaths and try to enjoy the process of writing again. I also started taking Ambien, which allowed me to stop obsessing all night every night about all the flaws in the manuscript.
iWhat unpleasant truth do you routinely conceal from young, fresh writers eager to make their mark?
One unpleasant truth I've learned about writing is that the process never ends. There is never a moment when you feel you've officially "made your mark." It's exciting to have a piece you've written published, but the excitement only lasts for a few weeks, and then you start worrying about your next project. When my book came out, I remember thinking, "Please, oh please, let me just get one good review, and then I'll be happy." After I got one good review, I thought, "Please, oh please, let me me just get TWO good reviews. One is unsettling. Two will be enough." I was never satisfied. At the risk of sounding cheesy, the pleasure of it all really truly came from the writing itself -- in those rare moments when I actually felt like an artist. Not from publication or from the reviews.
And, finally, if there is one thing you could change about your writing life or career, what would it be?
That I could stop doubting myself every time I start a new project. That I could stop feeling so debilitated by fear every darn time. Arg.
Every reader has an author whom they believe to be undervalued. Sometimes, as with mine, Alasdair Gray, they're not even obscure. They might indeed have won prizes (Gray has scooped the Guardian Fiction Prize and the Whitbread Novel Award, among others) and a trove of excellent notices from reviewers, yet still be considered as lacking the wider celebrity that, in an ideal world, would reward their talent.
New York Magazine has excerpts from Jason's I Killed Adolf Hitler.
November 08, 2007
Solving imaginary problems: A New York judge has defined poetry. According to U.S. Judge John Keenan, "A poem sometimes possesses rhyme or meter, though this is not necessary . . . A poem is typically free from the usual rules of grammar, punctuation and capitalization."
Studying real problems: Juliana Spahr & Stephanie Young's much-discussed "Numbers Trouble" (in the Chicago Review) measures the diversity of poets represented in poetry magazines. (The link also aggregates many responses, all of which are more interesting than anything I could say.)
Tao Lin has interviewed Chelsey Minnis: "I know it’s very pessimistic but I assume that when people are googling your name it’s because they never liked you and they want to make fun of you by seeing what misguided things you’ve been doing to try to promote yourself."
Sucking on Words: Kenneth Goldsmith, a short film on UbuWeb. (Via Al Filreis.) And given the column, how could I fail to link to "Kenneth Goldsmith Sings Sigmund Freud"?
The most recent edition of From the Fishouse includes several poems by Joshua Kryah (including a bit from his verse drama, Closen), whose Glean I reviewed in July. There's lots more: Reginald Harris, Aracelis Girmay, and many others.
Fail Better has new poems by Nicole Walker, including "I am not that kind of doctor": "You can keep your Staph / to yourself. I can help you / only with your pronouns."
In an essay on documentary poetry, which includes short takes on Reznikoff, Levertov, Forché, and others, Philip Metres compares Walt Whitman to . . . Flava Flav: "when Flav compares the loss of limbs to 'compilation,' for instance, he uses the metaphors of the music industry to lay bare the brute economics of emergency medical treatment. I can’t help but think of Whitman’s 'Song of Myself' . . ."
If Rives owned the Internet, you could probably watch Greek statues recite Homer.
Today I'm packing a bag of comfort reading -- W. Somerset Maugham, Isak Dinesen, fairy tales -- and heading off. So try back tomorrow.
November 07, 2007
The cover for Susan Tyler Hitchcock's Frankenstein: A Cultural History does something remarkable: it gives you all the information you need about the book without a title, author, or a full word in printed text at all. I talked to Hitchcock about the choosing of the images for the cover, why the inside of the book is in black & white with so much potential for the contents to be as beautiful as the wrapping, and how copyright laws can entangle a book's development.
They had honed in on the 9-image plan and turned to me for info on the sources and copyright status of several of those images. They collected the three from the Universal films (upper center, left center, and center), but I had collected the others, and they had to clear rights for use on the cover.
The work that had to go on then, which I helped with, was a delicate balance of aesthetics, cost, copyright availability, and content. At one point, we were worried that we might have to drop the image on the upper right -- which I considered essential, because it's the one place where anything like type naming the book appears. It's from a World War II cheap edition published for soldiers in the trenches, and it almost certainly is a black and white copy of an existing jacket design for the novel (which I've never seen in the original). All my research had told me that the WW2 Armed Services editions, because they were nonprofit publications, were in the public domain, and I helped them confirm that by sharing my research sources. The image in the lower right changed from the galley stage to the final book, as you can see if you compare various versions shown online. The cartoon guy was dropped: He was from a 1965 Dell Comic that Random House gave me permission to use inside the book but that they were hesitant to give permission for to show on the cover. Needing something for that space, Evan and Francine came up with the current-day mask, which really lends a three-dimensionality to the design.
I knew that some people would be curious to know just where each of the images came from, and so I pushed for a lengthy cover design caption that named date and source, and provided a bit of a teaser as to the contents inside -- just what a book jacket is supposed to do. The spine is pretty amazing, too, and I think Evan got the type from a 1931 Universal movie poster. Although an author never wants her book spine out in the stores, this spine does the most any could to jump out at you.
What images were particularly inspirational to you while you were writing?
 |
 |
I was blown away by the woodcuts created by Lynd Ward for a beautiful edition of the novel in the wake of the 1931 Karloff-Whale Universal picture. Three different deluxe editions of the novel came out in 1931-32 in the United States, all three illustrated by up-and-coming artists. To me, Ward's are the most haunting and evocative, piercing down deep into the soul of the monster, combining animal and angel in the imagery.
The other one that really clinched it for me was one in a 2004 MAD Magazine, drawing by Kevin Pope and writing by Desmond Devlin. I'll attach that one, too (scan's a little screwjawed -- sorry). This cartoon really says it all: that there is a distinct look and attitude that we all associate with the monster . . . and it's a look and attitude that comes from the horror flicks and not from the novel at all. (This one may be trickier for permissions for use online -- I don't know what you're doing along those lines and leave it in your hands. I paid for it for use inside my book, as I did for the Ward image. The MAD Mag was of course a corporate deal, the Ward piece I interacted with an heir.)
BTW, the designer of the book cut off the caption for the Mad Magazine cartoon -- and we lost a lot that way.
What made W.W. Norton decide to print the book in black & white versus color?
I miss the livid green and blood red and morbid black. You have to fill in the colors with your imagination. When I crafted my book proposal, my agent informed me that no way would a standard NY publisher consider a full-color treatment -- production and printing is just too expensive, and not the forte of a publisher like Norton, with a long tradition in text-heavy books. Thank goodness the cover design made up for lost color inside.
Now as it happens, I work as a book editor for National Geographic, where most of our books are color through and through, but that's a commitment to a different sort of book, sold in a different way.
My fantasy is that the book will do so well that I (like Dava Sobel with Longitude) will be invited to create a special deluxe fully illustrated edition, and I can use all the spectacular images, and more, in full color.
Or maybe I'll create a sequel, a study of Frankenstein imagery, and take it to a different publisher ....
It's not a puppy, and it has nothing to do with literature, but MUSICAL TESLA COILS. When you grow up with a mad scientist as a father, these things get you excited.
I own two copies of Alasdair Gray's Poor Things: the UK edition, which is quite beautiful in a bizarre way, and the Dalkey Archive Press reprint which, sorry guys, is borderline hideous. So then it's a little strange that this old Dalkey interview with Gray goes into how most publishers let him control his own design work. (I should probably go ahead and pitch this Dalkey version. Or wrap it in paper.)
My first book, Lanark, was published by Canongate, a small Edinburgh publishing house who gladly allowed me to design it. They would have had to pay someone else to do it had they not. The publishers (not me!) received a Scottish Arts Council design award for the best designed book of 1981. Unlikely Stories, Mostly, more copiously illustrated, won another design award, and had my own spoof review printed on the cover, which the Penguin paperback version was careful to copy. British publishers know it is financially sensible to make my books look the way I want them to because many readers and critics like them that way. George MacBeth thought Something Leather an unsuccessful novel but said it looked beautiful.
From God to abortion! It's one of those days. I'll link to a picture of a puppy later.
The New York Times talks to Dr. Susan Wicklund, an abortion doctor and author of the new book This Common Secret. Wicklund wonders why if 40% of women of childbearing age have abortions, no one ever talks about them. The silence does not help de-polarize the issue.
One of these people might be a woman she recognized as one of the protesters who regularly appeared, shouting, outside a clinic where she worked. Only now the woman was in the waiting room, desperate to end an unwanted pregnancy. Dr. Wicklund performed the procedure.
Haven't read Wicklund's book, but Leslie Cannold wrote about this as well in her book The Abortion Myth, one of the best books on the subject I have ever read. And as I spent a few years as an abortion counselor, I have a large pool to choose from. (Read my interview with Cannold here.)
Mark Oppenheimer writes about the manipulation of Antony Flew. Flew was one of the first atheist rockstars, with books like God & Philosophy and How to Think Straight. When HarperCollins announced it would be publishing a new title by Flew (co-written) called There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, it shook some people up. Oppenheimer profiles Flew and how he came to change his fundamental beliefs at the end of his career.
But is Flew’s conversion what it seems to be? Depending on whom you ask, Antony Flew is either a true convert whose lifelong intellectual searchings finally brought him to God or a senescent scholar possibly being exploited by his associates. The version you prefer will depend on how you interpret a story that began 20 years ago, when some evangelical Christians found an atheist who, they thought, might be persuaded to join their side. In the intellectual tug of war that ensued, Flew himself — a continent away, his memory failing, without an Internet connection — had no idea how fiercely he was being fought over or how many of his acquaintances were calling or writing him just to shore up their cases.
November 06, 2007
You can read chapter one of Ha Jin's new novel A Free Life on NPR's website.
Minutes after opening statements began this afternoon in the trial of Rome comic book store owner Gordon Clifford Lee, Judge Larry Salmon has declared a mistrial.
Kenneth C. Edelin has written a book about his overturned manslaughter conviction called Broken Justice. In the '70s, Edelin performed a difficult second trimester abortion and was charged -- and convicted -- with manslaughter for it. The Boston Globe profiles Edelin and the case.
The only thing wrong with the Absolute Sandman Volume 2 that I can tell is that I can't read it in the bath. It's cold, my apartment's heat is shoddy, so I spend the winter mostly in the bathtub, smoking cigars and reading. If I pretend I'm doing this in Russia, it's slightly less sad. But I actually have to read Absolute Sandman while dressed. I suppose if I were more mechanically inclined I could devise a system of pulleys that could suspend the book over the tub, but I'm not. One fair warning, though: don't fall asleep with Absolute Sandman on your lap, or when you wake you might require amputation of some gangrenous toes. The fucker is heavy.
November 05, 2007
Bookslut's Indie Heartthrob Interview Series
A weekly interview series where someone involved in the small press (be it writer, editor, slush slave, etc.) is thrown into the spotlight, grilled over the state of the independents and sundry other items, and quickly made to return from whence they came after having graced us all with their presence.
This week: Jill Schoolman
Jill Schoolman is the founder and editor of Archipelago Books, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to publishing international works translated into English. According to an NEA study, less than one percent of what is published in the United States comes from outside our walls. Schoolman tells Bookslut how over the years Archipelago has tried to combat the statistic with a catalogue spanning the globe as well as what's in store for the press in 2008.
Archipelago totes a mission to spread multiculturalism and multilingualism throughout the United States. Do you think the press has achieved some change over the years?
I feel that we are a part of a new wave of growing interest in international literature. There are a handful of kindred spirits with similar hopes and goals, several of which started up around the same time as we did: Words Without Borders, Absinthe, Open Letter (a newborn non-profit house based in Rochester devoted to innovative international writing [see the interview with previous Heartthrob E. J. Van Lanen]), the PEN World Voices Festival, the Columbia Center for Translation. The list goes on. Publications such as Bookforum and the New England Review, as well as blogs such as yours, are vital to helping spread excitement as well. We're not alone in our mission to help readers in this country discover what the rest of the world is writing and thinking about. Although it's difficult to gauge or observe change in the American consciousness, my gut feeling is that there are a lot of people out there who care about vital literature from around the world. As Michael Palmer said recently, "We'll attend to the impossible as best we can. The company is good."
How did Archipelago start, and when did you become involved?
I founded the press four years ago. At this point we have 32 titles in print.
A non-profit like Archipelago must rely on outside support in order to keep growing. What kinds of organizations is the press working with, and how are they each contributing?
Yes, we rely on a support network made up of private foundations (including Lannan Foundation), governmental organizations (including the NEA and the New York State Council for the Arts), and a growing community of individual contributors. Without this committed circle of support, the press could not survive.
Which title from the catalogue would you call your favorite and why?
I'm not supposed to have favorites, it's a bit like asking a mother who her favorite child is. There are a few, however, that I find myself putting into people's hands more often than others (that you can't shut me up about). Among those I'd include Elias Khoury's "Gate of the Sun," Miljenko Jergovic's "Sarajevo Marlboro," Büchner's "Lenz" (whose translation by Richard Sieburth is a work of art in itself), Miltos Sachtouris' "Poems (1945-1971)," Novalis' "The Novices of Sais," and our forthcoming Julio Cortázar "Autonauts of the Cosmoroute." They are all utterly inventive books in both language and spirit. Each of these works--although profoundly distinct from one another-- are passionate cries for human dignity. Their voices grow out of the ground where poetry meets prose... they are pure acts of love.
What are some future titles we can look forward to?
I'm extremely excited about quite a few of our forthcoming books: Elias Khoury's "Yalo"--a heart-wrenching coming-of-age story of a young man who grew up on the streets of Beirut during the Lebansese civil war, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar's "A Mind at Peace"--the novel that Pamuk calls "the most beautiful book about Istanbul ever written," Dominique Fabre's "The Waitress Was New"--an immensely moving glimpse into the inner terrain of a veteran Parisian waiter, Hugo Claus' "Wonder," Pierre Michon's "Lives Under Glass"... I could go on if you let me.
Marjane Satrapi talks about the making of the Persepolis movie at the Telegraph.
"For the first six months, I felt like killing everybody at the studio every day. In front of them I was, like, 'Hello, how are you doing?' and as soon as they were gone it was, 'Die, die, die!'?"
The new Atlantic is embracing anti-content: graphs, lists, and empty headlines.
November 02, 2007
The Guardian First Book award short list:
A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam
Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran
God's Architect by Rosemary Hill
Children of the Revolution by Dinaw Mengestu (Called The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears in the US)
What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn
Secret Agent Elizabeth Visits the Dark Side: Writers Tell All
Where do the words come from? Dirty little secrets, 7th grade enemies, and the creative trickery to get through the day. A weekly interview feature from Elizabeth Merrick.
Laird Hunt has a lot to say about writing in bursts. It’s something most writers do, yet it seems there nevertheless remains an uber-Virgo in our heads telling us that we should probably figure out a way to systematize the writing time neatly between meditation and cardio, at precisely 7:30 am, for the rest of our lives, except Saturdays when we’re allowed to do yoga instead of cardio. Don’t act like this doesn’t run through your head in some form or another: the writing just never seems to FIT that neatly with the other demands of life. These kinds of systems, of course, rarely work, and if you’re one of the few who is able to pull it off, I have a bit of information for you: your friends hate you. The moral of the story is: love your bursts, and if you need another booster, Laird provides a fabulously specific way to get the ball rolling when you sit down to the desk:
My oldest and truest trick is to read a few lines by a writer I love, perhaps a work that feels tonally aligned with what I´m writing, and ride the resultant combo of exhilaration and despair down to my doom.
Elizabeth's new writing class, Psychic Revision, starts this week by phone & online -- audio with Elizabeth explaining each week available at: elizabethsworkshops.com.
Laird Hunt is a graduate of The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. His novels include The Impossibly and The Exquisite. www.lairdhunt.net
How do you feel about writing sex scenes, and how do you handle it?
I read a ton of horror during a certain period -- perhaps as an extension of my obsession with Watership Down (in which, after all, there is an awful lot of killing) -- and sex was almost always part of the equation. Generally, the sex scenes were grotesquely overwrought: a ton of puffing and panting and -- the worst -- un-ironic throbbing. This probably scarred me a little, and the sex in my novels tends to occur in the context of mystery, with the shades drawn and the lights dimmed and the language turned down. Understatement, I suppose, would be the short answer to this.
Inquiring minds want to know: what are your daily writing habits (and vices)? What appalling tricks do you use to get yourself to be productive, and are there any you have discarded?
For a long time I was just too busy (working at the United Nations) and things were too unpredictable for me to have a regular writing practice, which I had attempted to cultivate up until I took that job. This meant that while I could hit things here and there (I did a fair amount of work on short things on the bus and subway), and do some editing, I couldn´t generate much unless I had time off, so most of my first three novels got written in a hodge-podge series of pretty ferocious bursts. My work life is very different now, and ostensibly at least I have a lot more time to write, but I´m still generating in bursts, as if, suddenly, my writing life depended on it. My oldest and truest trick is to read a few lines by a writer I love, perhaps a work that feels tonally aligned with what I´m writing, and ride the resultant combo of exhilaration and despair down to my doom.
What is it, really, that made you become a writer after all?
Watership Down by Richard Adams. I read it 10 times in elementary school and junior high and started a sequel called Woundwort´s Revenge. That didn´t go anywhere, but the seed got planted. "There´s a dog loose in the woods!" And in my head.
What is the most mortifying, worst thing you've ever written and what led you down that path to ruin? Do you have any rituals you use in an emergency or if you're blocked?
Everything at one time or another while I´ve worked/am working on it is the worst thing I´ve ever written. There´s that scene in the Hitchhiker´s Guide to the Galaxy (or one of the spinoffs?) where the torture of showing someone just how utterly insignificant he/she is in the cosmic scheme of things gets exercised. That speaks to how crummy I can get to feeling about what I´m doing. At the same time I suffer from chronic doses of that tyrannical prehension, described by Blanchot, which makes my hand keep scraping away at the paper or keyboard no matter what. This may be why I developed the practice of working multiple projects at once. The spectacularly awful one could then be abandoned in favor of a relatively fresh one, and there would likely be a third to go to when the second one revealed its true nature, shortly after which the first one might have stopped seeming like quite such a disaster. I was at one time working on Indiana, Indiana, The Impossibly, The Exquisite and The Paris Stories more or less simultaneously. I have four books live now too.
What books do you secretly love? And what books do you secretly hate?
I´m not sure that there are any books that I love that I keep secret. And I think I´ll keep the ones I secretly hate a secret.
What is the most terrifying task for you -- whether it be a certain kind of scene, character, or subject matter?
Shaping. I´ve got this mass of stuff, a pile of narrative lines lying on the table in front of me, some of them shooting off ugly- looking sparks, and a book needs to happen. My projects can stay in this state for a long time before I´ve worked up the strength to wrestle with them.
What project has been the biggest struggle for you so far in your career, and how did you resolve your difficulties?
They´ve all felt difficult. And I´m not just trying to squirm out of the question. What I finally realized, when I was in the above-eluded to position of having four unfinished books on my hard drive, was that time was my friend -- time was going to help me solve the problems they each had, time was going to make me smarter, tougher, more foolhardy, more up to the challenges. There were instances when I didn´t know how to deal with a problem I had diagnosed for two years -- but then all of a sudden there it was. One example of this was the issue of names in The Exquisite. For years the character named Cornelius was called George. A nice enough name (no offense to all the George´s out there), but there was not a good deal of value added in applying it to this particular, pretty two-dimensional individual. When I changed his name, his personality lit up like a torch and his onstage time probably tripled as a result.
What unpleasant truth do you routinely conceal from young, fresh writers eager to make their mark?
That if one publishes books one has to go out and give readings that no one comes to. The positive spin in such cases is that the bookstore owner will, out of pity or something, hand sell your books to their customers. I do not believe this. I believe that every time they pass the stack of your books that they ordered for the de facto non-event they shake their head in dismay and let the dust gather and gather until the whole mess has been obscured then mostly forgotten then thrown in the recycle bin.
And, finally, if there is one thing you could change about your writing life or career, what would it be?
I would have started writing in French, while I was living there and my French was still strong enough. It would have been nice to write twisty books in French. One grows weary of being an "experimental" writer, rather than just a writer. In France I might have had a shot at that.
November 01, 2007
Two great tastes that taste great together: Joel Turnipseed, author of Baghdad Express, is guest-blogging at kottke.org, and today he's interviewed VQR editor Ted Genoways. Previously this week, he posted interviews with Douglas Wolk and Jessica Hagy. (Joel's home blog is Hotel Zero.)
Over at PopMatters, I have an review+interview up today with Michel Faber about his new collection of short stories, Vanilla Bright Like Eminem. We talk about fantasy, happiness, and more: Stories that rely for their effect on “common knowledge” about pop culture references become unreadable very fast. There is no way anyone’s going to be reading Nick Hornby or Tony Parsons novels 25 years from now.
This is a little older, but Martha Kapos has a nifty essay in the most recent Poetry London about Freud and poetry, noting that poets play fort-da "in the little theatre of each sentence."
Via Andrew Sullivan, Adam Kirsch appreciates W. H. Auden's "Under Which Lyre," in which Auden "set out his prescient vision of the challenges facing postwar America in general, and the postwar university in particular": "Thou shalt not do as the dean pleases, / Thou shalt not write thy doctor’s thesis / On education".
Reginald Shepherd pays homage to Jon Anderson.
Richard King asks whether we know Percy Shelley "as much for his torrid love life as . . . for his poem 'Adonais.'" (Via Silliman's blog.) On a recent exam, I had a student dismiss him as a "Liberal Loser who couldn't support Mary"--maybe that's a 3rd option?
Finally, possibly the greatest Waste Land parody of this, or any other age: "The LOLcats Waste Land," by Corprew Reed (via choriamb):
1. IM IN UR WASTELAND BURYING UR DEAD
april hates u, makes lilacs, u no can has. (1)
april in ur memoriez, making ur desire.
spring rain in ur dull rootzes.
. . .
Sosotris Cat has smartz, (43)
can see bukkit,
dead sailorz in bukkit,
hooked on fonicians.
. . .
teh day is done,
teh crowd is throbbing.
tiresias iz teh hermafrodite!
tiresias sees:
teh sailor sails home
teh typist makes tea
teh house agent feelz typists
teh house agent can has nookiez
teh typist no has sensation
putting teh needle on record
omg hole in the wall
tiresias in teh thebes (grecian), speeking to deaders, sees on in!
. . .
teh metaphorz are thick and fast, (395)
no can has literal translationz.
ganga cat is watching ur fourth wall.
It's definitely worth a visit.
There are such things as magazine covers of the year awards. And there are subcategories. Texas Monthly won "cover line of the year award" (a conspiracy by certificate printers, I imagine) for the line "If You Don’t Buy This Magazine, Dick Cheney Will Shoot You in the Face." Okay, I'm wrong. That does deserve an award.
Speaking of Texas, I'm fasting today so I can eat six meals a day while I'm down there for the Texas Book Festival. I'm speaking on a panel or something, but really I'll be sneaking bites of my Whataburger underneath the table. To be washed down by an Eazy Cheezy sandwich from Cafe Behindthetraintracks or whatever it's called. (Please tell me that place is still open. I have dreams about that sandwich, with its orange chipotle mayonnaise goodness.) Oh Austin, with your facial piercing and Central Market glory, I've missed you.
Veronica Gonzalez, author of Twin Time, or How Death Befell Me is at Largehearted Boy's Book Notes.
Joshua Glenn has solved a mystery plaguing dozens of people for a hundred years. What is the vulgar, unnamed object in Henry James's The Ambassadors? Now we can all sleep soundly.
