March 2011
59 posts
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The new issue of fwriction : review is live and... →
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“Hope but not enthusiasm is the proper state for the writer.”
– James Salter (via theparisreview)
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“The last time I saw Glenn Gould before that was when we were standing together...”
– Jason Lee Norman, “The Goldberg Variations”
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Consider The Lobster, by David Foster Wallace →
Today’s story of the day is snatched from The Essayist, a great resource for wonderful writing. I’ve had lobster on the brain, so this couldn’t come at a more appropriate time. Enjoy DFW’s “Consider the Lobster”; it’s so damn good. (Also, this is DFW’s fifth piece as fwriction’s story of the day, by far the most.)
(via essayist)
David Foster...
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How Do You Write a Great Work of Fiction? →
Jennifer Egan explains the steps, in WSJ’s Speakeasy:
Between each big draft I try to raise each individual part up to a level. It’s not so much about spotting problems as it is confronting, ‘What have I got here and what is it trying to be? How can I bridge that gap?’ It’s taking stock of what’s there and figuring out what needs to be different.
Also, if you’re in NYC, stop by...
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Ernest Hemingway, Yelper. →
From McSweeney’s, courtesy of Deirdre, who rocks.
My favorite, of course:
Pinkberry Category: Ice Cream and Frozen Yogurt ONE STAR
I met a woman who said she had been to Pinkberry. “What the hell is that,” I said, and she laughed but said nothing.
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Harper Perennial's Role in the Current Resurgence... →
Anis Shivani: Interview with Cal Morgan, Editor of Harper Perennial.
Shivani: You have mentioned several short story collections. Are you planning to increase that emphasis?
Morgan: We’re in a desperate, possibly foolish love affair with the short story. Last year we had a campaign called Summer of the Short Story, and we published six new collections along with a series of new...
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The best gift for a writer is a good reader – and... →
Writing for Guardian Books, AL Kennedy shows that even disappointment as a writer can be soothed, by hot cocoa and a trustworthy reader.
I left knowing how to make cocoa – I still use his method – and feeling bruised. But I also knew it was all right. Somehow, it was going to be all right. I would start again, and I would rewrite.
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The Goldberg Variations, by Jason Lee Norman →
This weekend, enjoy the story of the day with some Bach, some Ravel, some Glenn Gould. Jason Lee Norman’s short story, “The Goldberg Variations,” from the new issue of FWR, is an instant classic.
The last time I saw Glenn Gould he was in a field somewhere in southern Ontario, singing to the elephants. It was one of those farms where they take animals from the zoo that have arthritis or circus...
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The new issue of fwriction : review is live! Enjoy... →
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from The Book Bench: Why Is the U.S. Government... →
Jeannie Vanasco, writing for The New Yorker’s Book Bench. This is pretty fascinating:
…the government wants to turn literary criticism into an exact science. D.A.R.P.A. invited interested literary theorists, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, and related “ists” to the Boar’s Head Inn in Charlottesville, Virginia, last month to answer a question...
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Paris Review's James Salter Month →
This past fall at fwriction, we had James Salter Week. Now, Paris Review one-ups us, with James Salter Month. Awesomeface.
What Salter is describing is not quite jealousy; it is awe. Awe can create a sense of obligation. In the presence of that skier you can never be, skiing becomes a devotional act. I imagined that I would never stop, that I could make this my life. I would train, improve,...
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The Rumpus look at Other People We Married →
I heart this collection. You will, too.
These quiet epiphanies in Straub’s stories place her in the company of Beattie and Moore, and the voices she creates are contemporary. When I finished reading this exquisite collection, I flipped back to the beginning of the book and stared at the table of contents. The book was suddenly heavier in my hands—suddenly filled with the weight of all these...
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Five overlooked novels, according to David Foster... →
“Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West” by Cormac McCarthy (1985) Don
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You Were Perfectly Fine, by Dorothy Parker →
This is one of my all-time favorite short stories. I’ve recently reread it, and I thought today was a good time to share it as story of the day.
This short story is available for free around the Web (most notably in its original form in The New Yorker archives), but when I saw that Hobart, another journal I love, had posted it, I chose to link there.
Enjoy some Dorothy Parker on this windy...
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“Wondering leads to an imagining of a landscape from before she had her hands in...”
– Nicholas Mainieri, “Landscapes”
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Auscultation, by Steven Church →
I’ve had nonfiction on the brain this weekend, with Nicholas Mainieri’s “Landscapes” over at fwriction : review, so on this rainy/snowy Monday, I wanted some more strong essay writing.
Enter Steven Church, a rock-star of writers. His piece, “Auscultation,” in The Pedestrian, shows off, really, what good writing should look like.
Make it a nonfwrictional...
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“I looked down the street. No cabs, no plows, just snow piling up. The trees...”
– “What About Sushi?” from Wufniks
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Checking In With TrainWrite →
trainwrite:
Fictionaut’s Nicolle Elizabeth checked in with me earlier this week to see how things are chugging along:
Q (Nicolle Elizabeth): Hi Karen! Just popping in to see how the new TrainWrite group here at Fictionaut is going. How is it going, any good workshopping, discussions, story sharing?
A (Karen Eileen Sikola): Hi, Nicolle! Thanks for checking in. It’s been great seeing ...
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Landscapes, by Nicholas Mainieri →
Nick Mainieri is no stranger to fwriction—he’s even been the story of the day writer here on the blog. Now, his nonfiction essay, “Landscapes,” has been published by fwriction : review, and I couldn’t be more excited.
Please enjoy the new issue of fwriction : review, spread the love, and submit!
from “Landscapes”:
Through the phone, with a...
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Happy St. Patrick's Day! The new issue of... →
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“I thought I might stay for their dinner, wait for Martha to almost finish, rush...”
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100 Things About a Novel →
From Alexander Chee’s Koreanish, such a brilliant list:
4. Sometimes I have written them on subways, missing stops, like people do when reading.
5. It begins for me usually with the implications of a situation. A person who is like this in a place that is like this, an integer set into the heart of an equation and new values, everywhere.
6. The person and situation arrive together,...
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“I can’t imagine writing, without irony, about people who are happy all the time.”
– Ann Beattie, in the new issue of The Paris Review (via theparisreview)
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That Small Small Inch, by Tania Hershman →
I love this flash fiction piece from Tania Hershman, in the current online issue of PANK. Check it out, as well as the rest of the issue. So good.
You thought it was the oddest setting. You thought it was the strangest place to meet: a phone box. I said, I am very fond of this one. You looked at me like that again. Don’t look at me like that, I said back to you, my nose an inch from yours inside...
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The 10 best American poems →
Thanks to Guardian Books for this.
I particularly love Robert Lowell’s “Memories of West Street and Lepke”:
Only teaching on Tuesdays, book-worming
in pajamas fresh from the washer each morning,
I hog a whole house on Boston's
"hardly passionate Marlborough Street,"
where even the man
scavenging filth in the back alley trash cans,
has two children, a beach wagon, a...
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“It was nothing like that. Nothing at all.”
– Gordon Lish, during an unforgettable evening at KGB Bar
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“Manhattan smelled different from Brooklyn. So much combined here, restaurants on...”
– from “Somehow There Was More Here”
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The Education of the President’s Dog Quincy, by... →
Tony Luebbert is already a member of the story of the day club, and I’m excited to have him back! His short story, “The Education of the President’s Dog Quincy,” is lighting up fwriction : review this week. Luebbert is a unique voice, one I feel grateful to have come across. Enjoy the adventures of the first President astronaut!
Citing needs of companionship, both...
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Milan Kundera joins La Pléiade →
On March 24, Czech-born French writer Milan Kundera will become just the twelfth writer to have his collected works published in the prestigious Bibliothèque de La Pléiade edition during his lifetime. Published by Gallimard, the initial volume will include Kundera’s novels originally written in Czech, which form the bulk of his work.
Having left communist Czechoslovakia in 1975 Kundera was...
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Cathy Day’s Principles of Literary Citizenship →
This is just what I needed this morning. Thank you, Cathy Day: “Learn your craft, yes. But also, work to create a world in which literature can thrive and is valued.”
Lately, I’ve started thinking that maybe the reason I teach creative writing isn’t just to create writers, but also to create a populace that cares about reading. There are many ways to lead a literary life, and I try...
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“I was home, the sort of home that you know like the back of your hand and yet...”
– Casey Lefante, “Love Letter”
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Stories of the Day: Happy Mardi Gras!
In celebration of Mardi Gras (and my sadness at this being just another Tuesday in New York City), I’m reposting some of my favorite New Orleans-themed pieces of writing as a collective story of the day. I hope you enjoy. A happy Mardi Gras to you and yours, and Laissez les bons temps rouler!
“Is it a Novel, Yet?” - a nonfiction essay
“Killer Heart” - a short...
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Open City's Closing: 20 years, 30 Issues and 'Life... →
Thomas Beller, writing in The Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy, on the heartbreaking closing of Open City:
I had written an editor’s note for issue one, and I wrote another for issue ten, trying to juggle grief and a wish to not be funereal, to honor Bingham by going forward. It was a ridiculous wish but that was how I felt. We ran a gloomy photograph by Ken Schles, who did our first two...
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A teachable moment →
via soupsoup:
I typed up a few words at Reuters.com about how we undervalue our teachers.
“The teachers in Wisconsin are a microcosm of the misguided efforts to make America more fiscally responsible. How can anyone say with a straight face that we need to get these minuscule teacher’s salaries in line when we dump trillions of dollars into failing banks, essentially tossing out the...