October 2011
38 posts
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“I realized then that she was watching something. Something vast and black was...”
– Jack Bootle, “Starlings”
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"Totem" by Eamon Grennan - Happy Halloween!
All Souls’ over, the roast seeds eaten, I set
on a backporch post our sculpted pumpkin
under the weather, warm still for November.
Night and day it gapes in at us
through the kitchen window, going soft
in the head. Sleepwalker-slow, a black rash of ants
harrows this hollow globe, munching
the pale peach flesh, sucking its seasoned
last juices dry. In a week,...
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“Charlotte” by Bradley Warshauer : Specter... →
fwriction favorite Bradley Warshauer has new fiction at Specter Literary Magazine. Give yourself a treat: read it.
What she sees here is her first memory: a white blanket draped over the world, the way the falling snowflakes outside the train emerge from the fog and strike the window and turn to water droplets and become thin, twisting streams that slide horizontally across the glass, leaving...
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fwriction : review: "Starlings," by Jack Bootle →
fwrictionreview:
“I’m so sorry,” said my mother, as Mrs. Norton opened her front door. “I’m so sorry, I had no idea you were at home.”
Mrs. Norton was wearing a dressing gown. She smiled and winced at us in the morning sunlight.
“I’m so sorry to disturb you. You see, I thought you worked during the week.”
…
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Enjoy the new issue of fwriction : review—Jack Bootle’s “Starlings”—on your mobile device!
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“I write because I’m perfectly useless at everything else. Seriously. You should...”
– J.E. Reich, “Why Do You Write?” as asked by Fiction Addiction
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When Zombies Attack! - Colson Whitehead and Alex... →
As the Halloween season is upon us, I found myself quite taken with this article over at Grantland, by Colson Whitehead, author of the new novel Zone One. Enjoy.
Why’d I pick downtown Manhattan? Partially because if you get caught down there after 9 p.m., you’re in a desolate, depopulated landscape. The streets are still, the buildings lifeless. The apocalypse is here, unfurling its...
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“They are quick, these creatures, darting along the bottom, away from my efforts...”
– Barry Basden, “We Continue to Evolve”
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fwriction : review: "We Continue to Evolve," by... →
fwrictionreview:
Since the drought, turkey vultures have begun riding afternoon thermals into town, gliding in on their enormous wings to survey heatstruck pets in parched backyards. The mimosa is oozing sap. Wasps of all kinds—red, black, striped—gather there to fuss and worry the dove from her nest.
Bonus: Listen to Barry Basden’s song choice for the Waffle-Rocking Playlist!
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“With smaller victories, lesser joys, Mike chose easier prey.”
– Mensah Demary, “The Games We Play”
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How to Write an Important Novel
“But can you?”
“Can I what?”
“Write an important novel.”
“Of course I can. All you have to do is cut out the plot and shove in plenty of misery.”
- P.G. Wodehouse, Ice in the Bedroom
(via wwnorton)
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Best of the Net 2011 Nominations
fwriction : review has nominated the writing listed below for the Best of the Net 2011 anthology, chosen and published by Sundress Publications. Poetry Editor Laura Brown and I love every piece published in fwriction : review, and each holds a special place for me both as a writer and editor. I want to nominate everyone, dammit!
Here are the waffliest of the Waffle-Rockers. Thank you...
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“‘You look like an upstanding fella and I think you’ll appreciate my...”
– Mensah Demary, “The Games We Play”
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fwriction : review: The Games We Play, by Mensah... →
fwrictionreview:
Mike looked up from his glass of water, watched Elle ride the cold winds into the bar, and motioned to the bartender for a refill, a replacement. Confident that she’d meet him, Mike arrived thirty minutes late and sipped water to preserve his lucidity.
Bonus: Listen to Mensah Demary’s song choice for the Waffle-Rocking Playlist here!
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Stories of the Day: Two Great Reads, Not to be...
On this fine Monday, here are two Stories of the Day that will stick with you. Share with lovers of good writing.
“I Am Speaking the Language” by Ashley Bethard (in Used Furniture Review)
But pay attention so that you might read this: the drops of sweat sketch delicate ellipses across our skin. Our long streaks of moisture the unfinished em-dashes that finish themselves after...
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Story of the Day from fwrictin : review - Closet... →
fwrictionreview:
Tarzan was in my closet.
I didn’t know if he was the real Tarzan, but he looked the part. Leopard skins over taut muscles, a square jaw, miraculously white skin. How he ended up in Toms River, New Jersey was anyone’s guess.
Also, take a moment and listen to James Valvis’s Waffle-Rocking Playlist pick for his story, “Closet Tarzan,” here.
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“The significance of baseball, more than other sports, lies in the very nature of...”
– Don DeLillo, as interviewed by Rafe Bartholomew in Grantland
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“He has nothing to do but look out the window.”
– Matthew Boyd, “Treasure”
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“We know their faces by now; greet them like friends. Good evening. No thank you,...”
– I Eat My Pigeon, “Blue Roses”
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A Conversation: Jeffrey Eugenides and Colm Toibin →
A wonderful conversation between Jeffrey Eugenides and Colm Toibin in today’s Opinion section of The New York Times. Love.
“Reality.” “Truth.” “Human consciousness.” Lovely words. At the end of his career, Henry James wrote a story, “The Jolly Corner,” in which he offered an interesting metaphor for what fiction writers do with these terms. In the story, there is a room in New York — a...
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