From Rose Metal Press:
Our Fifth Annual Short Short Chapbook Contest submission period begins October 15 and ends December 1, 2010. Our 2010 judge will be Kim Chinquee, and the winner will have his/her chapbook published in summer 2011, with an introduction by the contest judge. During the submission period, please email your 25–40-page double-spaced manuscript of short short stories under 1000 words to us here with a $10 reading fee via Paypal or check.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
"Mentor" by Tom Grimes
“Writers always look toward the future. In a sense, we have no past, only whatever time we have remaining to write the perfect book to mask our emptiness—or my emptiness, anyway—the book that won’t defeat us, the book we’d like to be remembered by, if we’re remembered at all. And Frank [Conroy] will be remembered; Stop-Time is a singular achievement. A sui generis insanity governs its style and the very act of its creation. ‘I’d write a chapter and then take four months off and fuck around,’ Frank told me, recalling how he wrote his memoir—after he’d accepted the failure of his first novel, a novel about a priest. I haven’t read it, and I won’t; Frank considered the work so weak that a sense of shame, perhaps, attached itself to the manuscript. Yet, he didn’t destroy it. Boxed and marked, it remains in his archive. I can’t ask Frank now why the pages still exist, but I’m a writer and I know why: he wants it to be read so that this life’s work is understood completely.”
~From Mentor, by Tom Grimes
Over the weekend I read Mentor, a memoir by novelist Tom Grimes about his journey as a writer, which took him through the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a close friendship with the famed director, Frank Conroy. It’s an exploration of friendship and the role of the teacher, and a trip through the vagaries of the publishing world that will make any writer groan with frustration and intimate recognition.
The New York Times review suggested* that writing students avoid this book, but I rather think it should be required reading for anyone considering an MFA or who wants to be a writer. Here it is, honestly, the writing life in all its beautiful glory, agony, confusion, and self-doubt.
Read the Washington Post review: “While there have been plenty of books on how to write, or how to get published, or how to promote your work, as well as a number of triumphalist accounts of "making it," this is a story of what it's like to just miss succeeding. It's also a superb reminiscence of the Iowa Writers' Workshop in the late 1980s and of its celebrated director, Frank Conroy, author of the classic memoir "Stop-Time" (1967).”
Tom Grimes’ website.
An excerpt of the book.
Buy the book from Tin House.
*”Don’t give this forthright and bewildered book to the would-be writer in your life. It might make him or her climb a tall tree and leap from it. You don’t need that on your hands. In any case, I suspect many aspiring writers will find it on their own, and read it between the cracks in their fingers.”
~From Mentor, by Tom Grimes
Over the weekend I read Mentor, a memoir by novelist Tom Grimes about his journey as a writer, which took him through the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a close friendship with the famed director, Frank Conroy. It’s an exploration of friendship and the role of the teacher, and a trip through the vagaries of the publishing world that will make any writer groan with frustration and intimate recognition.
The New York Times review suggested* that writing students avoid this book, but I rather think it should be required reading for anyone considering an MFA or who wants to be a writer. Here it is, honestly, the writing life in all its beautiful glory, agony, confusion, and self-doubt.
Read the Washington Post review: “While there have been plenty of books on how to write, or how to get published, or how to promote your work, as well as a number of triumphalist accounts of "making it," this is a story of what it's like to just miss succeeding. It's also a superb reminiscence of the Iowa Writers' Workshop in the late 1980s and of its celebrated director, Frank Conroy, author of the classic memoir "Stop-Time" (1967).”
Tom Grimes’ website.
An excerpt of the book.
Buy the book from Tin House.
*”Don’t give this forthright and bewildered book to the would-be writer in your life. It might make him or her climb a tall tree and leap from it. You don’t need that on your hands. In any case, I suspect many aspiring writers will find it on their own, and read it between the cracks in their fingers.”
Monday, September 13, 2010
Joe Schuster on Writing Deadlines
As a follow-up to Suzanne Strempek Shea’s piece last week about organizing your writing life, Joe Schuster offers this additional suggestion:
“Deadlines always help me finish something, largely because I spent so many years writing for newspapers and magazines--but I find that deadlines from an external source help more than my saying, ‘I will finish thus and such by so and so.’ Years ago, when I was struggling in the early days of the novel I've been working on and I found I couldn't get myself to sit down to write, I confessed to a friend that I never have a problem finishing something if there's an editor waiting and a check in the offing. I said, ‘It's too bad that no one is paying me to write this.’ So it occurred to me that I could make NOT working on it cost me something.
"I made a deal with him that if I didn't finish 50 pages of the novel in two months, I would donate money to a cause--but realized it couldn't be a cause I supported but one that I didn't like. So I gave him a post-dated check made out to a political party I am not fond of and told him to mail it if I didn't show him the fifty pages by that date. I ended up writing twenty pages the two days before the deadline—and they were surprisingly good and the section has survived a number of revisions—but he never mailed the check.”
(You may remember Joe’s great piece about writers over 40, here.)
“Deadlines always help me finish something, largely because I spent so many years writing for newspapers and magazines--but I find that deadlines from an external source help more than my saying, ‘I will finish thus and such by so and so.’ Years ago, when I was struggling in the early days of the novel I've been working on and I found I couldn't get myself to sit down to write, I confessed to a friend that I never have a problem finishing something if there's an editor waiting and a check in the offing. I said, ‘It's too bad that no one is paying me to write this.’ So it occurred to me that I could make NOT working on it cost me something.
"I made a deal with him that if I didn't finish 50 pages of the novel in two months, I would donate money to a cause--but realized it couldn't be a cause I supported but one that I didn't like. So I gave him a post-dated check made out to a political party I am not fond of and told him to mail it if I didn't show him the fifty pages by that date. I ended up writing twenty pages the two days before the deadline—and they were surprisingly good and the section has survived a number of revisions—but he never mailed the check.”
(You may remember Joe’s great piece about writers over 40, here.)
C.M. Mayo's Free Podcasts
Writer C.M. Mayo is offering many of her talks about writing and her novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, on free podcasts. The links are at the top of her blog— www.madammayo.blogspot.com. Selections include:
--12 Tips to Help You Hang in There and Finish (and Sell) Your Novel
--The Writing Life: A Report from the Field Lit Artlantic panel at the Writer's Center, May 22, 2010
--Library of Congress Lecture by C.M. Mayo, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire
--12 Tips to Help You Hang in There and Finish (and Sell) Your Novel
--The Writing Life: A Report from the Field Lit Artlantic panel at the Writer's Center, May 22, 2010
--Library of Congress Lecture by C.M. Mayo, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Guest in Progress: Suzanne Strempek Shea on Organizing Your Writing Life
Novelist/memoirist Suzanne Strempek Shea is one of the most generous writers I have ever encountered. Her first novel, Selling the Lite of Heaven, was set in the Polish-American community of western Massachusetts and caught readers’ attention for its charm and humor, and its great story [Publisher’s Weekly called it a “read-in-one-sitting novel”]. The Polish-American community was especially supportive—and happy to see their stories come to the page. The book was a best-seller (due in part to Suzanne’s excellent promotional skills, traveling to Polish festivals and community groups). I read the book at the time it came out and adored it.
Fast-forward five years to unknown, nobody Leslie Pietrzyk with her debut novel, Pears on a Willow Tree, also set in the Polish-American community. One of my friends took it upon himself to secretly email Suzanne on my behalf (thank you forever for that, Russell!), and she immediately contacted me with a comprehensive, organized, annotated list of Polish-American contacts: publications, universities, groups, reviewers, clubs…and so my whirlwind of a speaking tour began. It was an immense act of kindness that I have been trying to pay forward ever since.
She’s my role model in how a writer should handle herself in the writing community: with generosity of spirit in all endeavors.
You can see in Suzanne’s bio below that she’s published eight books, which will give you an idea of her range and wide interests; I admire the way she is always sending her work into new ground. I love her writing, and so has every single person to whom I’ve handed a copy of one of her books saying, “You must read this.” And so, now: You must read this, Suzanne’s suggestions for organizing your writing life:
At a recent residency for the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA program, I was asked to be on a panel of writers discussing the habits that made them highly organized. Here’s what I had to contribute to that panel, and I’m shaking my head as I send these to Leslie as it’s been at least several years since she asked me to contribute to her fascinating blog. Well, we can’t always be perfect. But we can try to do our best. And in doing so, here’s perhaps the first rule of being highly organized: deal with what’s at hand. I received that request to be on the panel, so I sat down and wrote the following:
I write five days a week at the least. It’s almost like a job. Except it’s a whole lot of fun and I don’t have an idiot boss to deal with. It’s an 8 to 4 thing with me, with a break for lunch with The Young and the Restless - because no matter how miserable you are, the people in Genoa City always have it worse. I split the pre- and post-Y&R hours into distinct sections, which I’d advise for anyone involved in various types of work. Ages ago I heard one of my literary heroes, Roddy Doyle, describe his workday like that and it’s worked for me. Roddy said he wrote his fiction in the morning and drama in the afternoons. I started my career writing fiction, so I’d write fiction in the morning and then spend the afternoon drumming up things to do with that fiction – finding places to read, signing books, thanking the people who’d already had me read and sign. In the morning I have my best energy, so I used that on my more important work at the time – my fiction. In the afternoon, I tended to the commercial side of my job. Along the way I added freelance and then non-fiction books to the mix. My day now begins with whatever is the most pressing project, or whatever’s posing a difficulty. If you put that off, it either doesn’t get tended to or will be done in a rushed manner. So I split my day, still save the tail end for correspondence and other businessy stuff, maybe down to an hour of that a day now. That’s about seven hours, with several trips downstairs to start the kettle for tea.
I know I’m done because I’m only good for so long. There have been times I couldn’t stop a particular section of writing from happening, or I might return to the computer after dinner in order to meet a deadline, but I’m not so awake in the evening and night, so I do my best work in the energized parts of my day. Others might work by feeling. I just go by the clock.
As for maintaining discipline, 15 years ago I left my newspaper job to write books and articles fulltime at home. I quickly realized that no little elves were going to come along and do the work for me. That if I got up to eat bon bons for two hours, that was two hours lost. The big thing is I love what I do. If I had to sit at my desk and add numbers, which I’m horrible at and hate, I would not have any discipline. But the excitement of getting to tell a story – real or made up – and try to get it into the world, and now that some of my work is out there and to have folks waiting for other work, that’s a great motivator, too. The other is this is my part of the household income now. I got a freelance assignment right before I was leaving for a recent trip. I had no time to prepare, to interview, to write, but I got it all done. Because I needed to pay the mortgage that month. My husband is now between jobs so that’s all the more motivation, and another factor in my really pushing to get book proposals out there, to get queries to magazines and newspapers, to accept assignments even when I’m nearly out the door to do something else.
As for dealing with writer’s block, I would advise being a reporter. When I was in that line of work, I could never tell my editor that I had no muse that day, that I didn’t feel like writing, had no ideas. I had a job to do, stories to find or assignments to go out on. And I did. That just got me into the mode of getting up, sitting down and writing. If I am stuck in a story, I go to a different part of it or work on different character, or set a goal of a certain amount of words before I can go downstairs and have a chocolate left over from Halloween. I’m knocking wood as I write this, but I haven’t had dry periods or gotten stuck, and I really think that’s from having a job in which each and every day I had to sit down and write – even if I were sick, bummed out, distracted, wasn’t crazy about the subject.
Negotiating time with my significant other isn’t difficult because my husband was a reporter for 37 years and he knows it takes time and effort to write. But, aside from that, I’m blessed with being married to someone who thinks what I do is the coolest thing, and has given me every bit of support every day of this adventure. Most of my books actually came from my talking about something and Tommy saying, “You should write about that.” He never gives me a hard time about being busy, or gone, or both. I can’t imagine doing any of this without him.
Generating ideas and momentum also takes me back to what I learned in my reporting days. Sometimes I had assignments. Most time I had to come up with my own story ideas. I always had folders full. I’m usually working way ahead of myself in my mind – maybe I seem to be focused on one project, but have a runway full of others just waiting to take off. Because I work in fiction, non-fiction and journalism, I have files for book ideas, magazine pieces, news stories, and because I work regularly for a few publications, I always have the gears turning in my head and antennae up as to what might be a good story for this publication or that one.
Keep your gears greased, share your home with a loving and understanding being, fill those file folders and sit down and do your work every day, every day, and you can’t miss! ~~Suzanne Strempek Shea
About: Suzanne Strempek Shea is the author of five novels: Selling the Lite of Heaven, Hoopi Shoopi Donna, Lily of the Valley, Around Again, and Becoming Finola, published by Washington Square Press. She has also written three memoirs, Songs From a Lead-lined Room: Notes - High and Low - From My Journey Through Breast Cancer and Radiation; Shelf Life: Romance, Mystery, Drama and Other Page-Turning Adventures From a Year in a Bookstore; and Sundays in America: A Yearlong Road Trip in Search of Christian Faith, all published by Beacon Press.
Winner of the 2000 New England Book Award, which recognizes a literary body of work's contribution to the region, Suzanne began writing fiction in her spare time while working as reporter for the Springfield (Massachusetts) Newspapers and the Providence Journal (Rhode Island). Her freelance work has appeared in Yankee magazine, The Bark magazine, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Organic Style, Golf World and ESPN the Magazine.
A member of the faculty at the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast
MFA program in creative writing and writer-in-residence at Bay Path College
in Longmeadow, Mass., Suzanne lives in Bondsville, Mass., with her husband,
Tommy, a columnist for The Republican newspaper in Springfield, Mass., and
their two dogs, Tiny and Bisquick.
Suzanne's website is www.suzannestrempekshea.com and her blog is
www.bondsvilleliterarysociety.blogspot.com. Her essays regularly are
published on www.obit-mag.com. Tommy's columns are found at www.masslive.com/tomshea/.
Fast-forward five years to unknown, nobody Leslie Pietrzyk with her debut novel, Pears on a Willow Tree, also set in the Polish-American community. One of my friends took it upon himself to secretly email Suzanne on my behalf (thank you forever for that, Russell!), and she immediately contacted me with a comprehensive, organized, annotated list of Polish-American contacts: publications, universities, groups, reviewers, clubs…and so my whirlwind of a speaking tour began. It was an immense act of kindness that I have been trying to pay forward ever since.
She’s my role model in how a writer should handle herself in the writing community: with generosity of spirit in all endeavors.
You can see in Suzanne’s bio below that she’s published eight books, which will give you an idea of her range and wide interests; I admire the way she is always sending her work into new ground. I love her writing, and so has every single person to whom I’ve handed a copy of one of her books saying, “You must read this.” And so, now: You must read this, Suzanne’s suggestions for organizing your writing life:
At a recent residency for the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA program, I was asked to be on a panel of writers discussing the habits that made them highly organized. Here’s what I had to contribute to that panel, and I’m shaking my head as I send these to Leslie as it’s been at least several years since she asked me to contribute to her fascinating blog. Well, we can’t always be perfect. But we can try to do our best. And in doing so, here’s perhaps the first rule of being highly organized: deal with what’s at hand. I received that request to be on the panel, so I sat down and wrote the following:
I write five days a week at the least. It’s almost like a job. Except it’s a whole lot of fun and I don’t have an idiot boss to deal with. It’s an 8 to 4 thing with me, with a break for lunch with The Young and the Restless - because no matter how miserable you are, the people in Genoa City always have it worse. I split the pre- and post-Y&R hours into distinct sections, which I’d advise for anyone involved in various types of work. Ages ago I heard one of my literary heroes, Roddy Doyle, describe his workday like that and it’s worked for me. Roddy said he wrote his fiction in the morning and drama in the afternoons. I started my career writing fiction, so I’d write fiction in the morning and then spend the afternoon drumming up things to do with that fiction – finding places to read, signing books, thanking the people who’d already had me read and sign. In the morning I have my best energy, so I used that on my more important work at the time – my fiction. In the afternoon, I tended to the commercial side of my job. Along the way I added freelance and then non-fiction books to the mix. My day now begins with whatever is the most pressing project, or whatever’s posing a difficulty. If you put that off, it either doesn’t get tended to or will be done in a rushed manner. So I split my day, still save the tail end for correspondence and other businessy stuff, maybe down to an hour of that a day now. That’s about seven hours, with several trips downstairs to start the kettle for tea.
I know I’m done because I’m only good for so long. There have been times I couldn’t stop a particular section of writing from happening, or I might return to the computer after dinner in order to meet a deadline, but I’m not so awake in the evening and night, so I do my best work in the energized parts of my day. Others might work by feeling. I just go by the clock.
As for maintaining discipline, 15 years ago I left my newspaper job to write books and articles fulltime at home. I quickly realized that no little elves were going to come along and do the work for me. That if I got up to eat bon bons for two hours, that was two hours lost. The big thing is I love what I do. If I had to sit at my desk and add numbers, which I’m horrible at and hate, I would not have any discipline. But the excitement of getting to tell a story – real or made up – and try to get it into the world, and now that some of my work is out there and to have folks waiting for other work, that’s a great motivator, too. The other is this is my part of the household income now. I got a freelance assignment right before I was leaving for a recent trip. I had no time to prepare, to interview, to write, but I got it all done. Because I needed to pay the mortgage that month. My husband is now between jobs so that’s all the more motivation, and another factor in my really pushing to get book proposals out there, to get queries to magazines and newspapers, to accept assignments even when I’m nearly out the door to do something else.
As for dealing with writer’s block, I would advise being a reporter. When I was in that line of work, I could never tell my editor that I had no muse that day, that I didn’t feel like writing, had no ideas. I had a job to do, stories to find or assignments to go out on. And I did. That just got me into the mode of getting up, sitting down and writing. If I am stuck in a story, I go to a different part of it or work on different character, or set a goal of a certain amount of words before I can go downstairs and have a chocolate left over from Halloween. I’m knocking wood as I write this, but I haven’t had dry periods or gotten stuck, and I really think that’s from having a job in which each and every day I had to sit down and write – even if I were sick, bummed out, distracted, wasn’t crazy about the subject.
Negotiating time with my significant other isn’t difficult because my husband was a reporter for 37 years and he knows it takes time and effort to write. But, aside from that, I’m blessed with being married to someone who thinks what I do is the coolest thing, and has given me every bit of support every day of this adventure. Most of my books actually came from my talking about something and Tommy saying, “You should write about that.” He never gives me a hard time about being busy, or gone, or both. I can’t imagine doing any of this without him.
Generating ideas and momentum also takes me back to what I learned in my reporting days. Sometimes I had assignments. Most time I had to come up with my own story ideas. I always had folders full. I’m usually working way ahead of myself in my mind – maybe I seem to be focused on one project, but have a runway full of others just waiting to take off. Because I work in fiction, non-fiction and journalism, I have files for book ideas, magazine pieces, news stories, and because I work regularly for a few publications, I always have the gears turning in my head and antennae up as to what might be a good story for this publication or that one.
Keep your gears greased, share your home with a loving and understanding being, fill those file folders and sit down and do your work every day, every day, and you can’t miss! ~~Suzanne Strempek Shea
About: Suzanne Strempek Shea is the author of five novels: Selling the Lite of Heaven, Hoopi Shoopi Donna, Lily of the Valley, Around Again, and Becoming Finola, published by Washington Square Press. She has also written three memoirs, Songs From a Lead-lined Room: Notes - High and Low - From My Journey Through Breast Cancer and Radiation; Shelf Life: Romance, Mystery, Drama and Other Page-Turning Adventures From a Year in a Bookstore; and Sundays in America: A Yearlong Road Trip in Search of Christian Faith, all published by Beacon Press.
Winner of the 2000 New England Book Award, which recognizes a literary body of work's contribution to the region, Suzanne began writing fiction in her spare time while working as reporter for the Springfield (Massachusetts) Newspapers and the Providence Journal (Rhode Island). Her freelance work has appeared in Yankee magazine, The Bark magazine, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Organic Style, Golf World and ESPN the Magazine.
A member of the faculty at the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast
MFA program in creative writing and writer-in-residence at Bay Path College
in Longmeadow, Mass., Suzanne lives in Bondsville, Mass., with her husband,
Tommy, a columnist for The Republican newspaper in Springfield, Mass., and
their two dogs, Tiny and Bisquick.
Suzanne's website is www.suzannestrempekshea.com and her blog is
www.bondsvilleliterarysociety.blogspot.com. Her essays regularly are
published on www.obit-mag.com. Tommy's columns are found at www.masslive.com/tomshea/.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Dates of Note: Reading, Writing, & Rewards
September 16:
Sam Kean, one of my former workshop students, will be reading from his new, New York Times best-selling book The Disappearing Spoon on September 16, at Georgetown University at 6 p.m., at the Georgetown University Bookstore. The book is about the Periodic Table of the Elements, so I’m certainly unable to claim I taught him anything he knows, but it is always nice to see a former student do so well!
About the book: “The Periodic Table is one of our crowning scientific achievements, but it’s also a treasure trove of passion, adventure, betrayal, and obsession. The fascinating tales in The Disappearing Spoon follow carbon, neon, silicon, gold, and every single element on the table as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, conflict, the arts, medicine, and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them.”
Review from the New York Times
Sam Kean’s website, including an excerpt of the book
October 1:
This is the deadline for applying for the Converse College Low-Residency MFA Program if you wish to enter the program in January. I teach there, so of course I have some self-interest, but let me also note some recent news from my distinguished colleagues:
Fiction writer Marlin Barton has a story in the forthcoming edition of Best American Short Stories; poet Sarah Kennedy’s book Home Remedies is a finalist for the Library of Virginia Award; and Dan Wakefield’s memoir New York in the Fifties is one of my favorite books about, well, New York, and has been listed here as one of the books to read if you’re interested in delving deeper into the “Mad Men” era and what preceded it.
All this and more await you at Converse—including the world famous Beacon Drive-In! Application details are here.
December 1:
This is the deadline for applying to the Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award, administered by McSweeney’s, and given to a young woman writer in honor of fiction writer Amanda Davis. I knew her only barely at Bread Loaf, but Amanda Davis was a gorgeous force of nature and this award is an apt tribute to her memory. Application details are here.
Sam Kean, one of my former workshop students, will be reading from his new, New York Times best-selling book The Disappearing Spoon on September 16, at Georgetown University at 6 p.m., at the Georgetown University Bookstore. The book is about the Periodic Table of the Elements, so I’m certainly unable to claim I taught him anything he knows, but it is always nice to see a former student do so well!
About the book: “The Periodic Table is one of our crowning scientific achievements, but it’s also a treasure trove of passion, adventure, betrayal, and obsession. The fascinating tales in The Disappearing Spoon follow carbon, neon, silicon, gold, and every single element on the table as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, conflict, the arts, medicine, and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them.”
Review from the New York Times
Sam Kean’s website, including an excerpt of the book
October 1:
This is the deadline for applying for the Converse College Low-Residency MFA Program if you wish to enter the program in January. I teach there, so of course I have some self-interest, but let me also note some recent news from my distinguished colleagues:
Fiction writer Marlin Barton has a story in the forthcoming edition of Best American Short Stories; poet Sarah Kennedy’s book Home Remedies is a finalist for the Library of Virginia Award; and Dan Wakefield’s memoir New York in the Fifties is one of my favorite books about, well, New York, and has been listed here as one of the books to read if you’re interested in delving deeper into the “Mad Men” era and what preceded it.
All this and more await you at Converse—including the world famous Beacon Drive-In! Application details are here.
December 1:
This is the deadline for applying to the Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award, administered by McSweeney’s, and given to a young woman writer in honor of fiction writer Amanda Davis. I knew her only barely at Bread Loaf, but Amanda Davis was a gorgeous force of nature and this award is an apt tribute to her memory. Application details are here.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Link Corral: Franzen in DC, Gatz in NYC & More
A few items of note—writing-related and not—to ease us into the abruptly energetic environment of autumn:
--Finally a use for the Kindle et al: I was fortunate enough to stay for a long weekend at The Breakers, a historic resort in Palm Beach, Florida, and fortunate enough to see all the hurricanes sidle by at a distance. However, they sent quite a bit of wind our way—25 mph, which doesn’t sound like much unless you’re trying to sit at a beach or pool. Still, guests were intrepid and kept at it, trying to read books and magazines in the gale. Happiest readers I saw? Those reading their Kindles. No page-flapping there.
--A new food discovery: Avocado “fries.” Wedges of avocados dredged in a cornmeal batter and deep-fried, served with a light cilantro-jalapeno-mayonnaise...creamiest, richest avocados ever! “Resort” doesn’t have to mean spa food! Also, why don’t more restaurants offer freshly baked chocolate chip cookies for dessert? So easy and yummy!
--Franzen frenzy: I’m not going into all that now, but I will note that Jonathan Franzen is coming to DC to read in the PEN/Faulkner reading series (2/18/11), and if you are dying to see him read, you might want to get your tickets now. There are a lot of other great writers coming this year, so do check out the site here.
--For poets and writers with—ahem—titling issues: Here’s an excellent interview with poet Anna Leahy who discusses the process of putting together her first poetry collection, Constituents of Matter: “I had sent out an earlier version of the manuscript for a couple of years. That manuscript had been a finalist, but I took it out of circulation for more than a year, during which I had an especially intense summer of revision. I came up with the new title, Constituents of Matter, which led to a re-seeing. The Wick Poetry Prize was in the first batch of a half-dozen competitions to which I sent Constituents of Matter. So, it seemed to take ages to find a publisher, but it actually was picked up quickly once I had figured out how to think about the concept of book.” Read the rest here.
--Admit it…you’re curious: The Public Theatre in NYC is presenting GATZ, an enactment of The Great Gatsby, which takes about six and a half hours. Here’s the info from the website:
“One morning in the low-rent office of a mysterious small business, an employee finds a copy of The Great Gatsby in the clutter of his desk. He starts to read it out loud, and doesn’t stop. At first his coworkers hardly notice. But after a series of strange coincidences, it’s no longer clear whether he’s reading the book or the book is transforming him.
“One of the most exciting and improbable accomplishments in theater in recent years” (The New York Times), GATZ is a theatrical and literary tour de force, not a retelling of the Gatsby story but an enactment of the novel itself. Over the course of 6 1/2 hours, Fitzgerald’s American masterpiece is delivered word for word, startlingly brought to life by a low-rent office staff in the midst of their inscrutable business operations. The cast of 13 actors includes Scott Shepherd (The Wooster Group’s Hamlet).
"GATZ will be presented as a marathon theatrical event, with two intermissions and a dinner break, four times per week: September 26 – November 14, 2010"
Promise you’ll tell me if you go!
--Finally a use for the Kindle et al: I was fortunate enough to stay for a long weekend at The Breakers, a historic resort in Palm Beach, Florida, and fortunate enough to see all the hurricanes sidle by at a distance. However, they sent quite a bit of wind our way—25 mph, which doesn’t sound like much unless you’re trying to sit at a beach or pool. Still, guests were intrepid and kept at it, trying to read books and magazines in the gale. Happiest readers I saw? Those reading their Kindles. No page-flapping there.
--A new food discovery: Avocado “fries.” Wedges of avocados dredged in a cornmeal batter and deep-fried, served with a light cilantro-jalapeno-mayonnaise...creamiest, richest avocados ever! “Resort” doesn’t have to mean spa food! Also, why don’t more restaurants offer freshly baked chocolate chip cookies for dessert? So easy and yummy!
--Franzen frenzy: I’m not going into all that now, but I will note that Jonathan Franzen is coming to DC to read in the PEN/Faulkner reading series (2/18/11), and if you are dying to see him read, you might want to get your tickets now. There are a lot of other great writers coming this year, so do check out the site here.
--For poets and writers with—ahem—titling issues: Here’s an excellent interview with poet Anna Leahy who discusses the process of putting together her first poetry collection, Constituents of Matter: “I had sent out an earlier version of the manuscript for a couple of years. That manuscript had been a finalist, but I took it out of circulation for more than a year, during which I had an especially intense summer of revision. I came up with the new title, Constituents of Matter, which led to a re-seeing. The Wick Poetry Prize was in the first batch of a half-dozen competitions to which I sent Constituents of Matter. So, it seemed to take ages to find a publisher, but it actually was picked up quickly once I had figured out how to think about the concept of book.” Read the rest here.
--Admit it…you’re curious: The Public Theatre in NYC is presenting GATZ, an enactment of The Great Gatsby, which takes about six and a half hours. Here’s the info from the website:
“One morning in the low-rent office of a mysterious small business, an employee finds a copy of The Great Gatsby in the clutter of his desk. He starts to read it out loud, and doesn’t stop. At first his coworkers hardly notice. But after a series of strange coincidences, it’s no longer clear whether he’s reading the book or the book is transforming him.
“One of the most exciting and improbable accomplishments in theater in recent years” (The New York Times), GATZ is a theatrical and literary tour de force, not a retelling of the Gatsby story but an enactment of the novel itself. Over the course of 6 1/2 hours, Fitzgerald’s American masterpiece is delivered word for word, startlingly brought to life by a low-rent office staff in the midst of their inscrutable business operations. The cast of 13 actors includes Scott Shepherd (The Wooster Group’s Hamlet).
"GATZ will be presented as a marathon theatrical event, with two intermissions and a dinner break, four times per week: September 26 – November 14, 2010"
Promise you’ll tell me if you go!
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