fwriction

My week of celebrating Dzanc Books’s Best of the Web 2010 comes to a close, and I’ve saved some amazing pieces to read over this wonderful weekend (if you’re in NYC, head to the Brooklyn Book Festival, too!). Sarah J. Sloat’s “Attending the Tasting” makes me smile. Dan Chaon’s “What Happened To Sheila” makes me cry. Both are fantastic pieces of writing, and for that, you should take note.

(Weekend Bonus!: Michael Czyzniejewski’s “Pregnant With Peanut Butter”)

from “Attending the Tasting” (via The Literary Bohemian):

“Daux Semillon

This white is a saint of long silence, ponderous with quince and lanolin. Uncorked, dollops of fog slip from the bottle, flavors tinging the lips with blonde sugar. Cool at first, but turn the lights down a little: a flame is kindling in the robin’s throat.”

 from “What Happened to Sheila” (via The Rumpus):

“Don’t worry, I’m not dying,” said my wife Sheila.

But she was.

This was about three days before it happened, and she sat up in her hospice bed and gave me one of those complicated looks she had: comforting and teasing and scared and stubborn. She was a master of maneuvering through paragraphs of thoughts with a single expression.

“I’m not,” she said, “dying.”

“Okay,” I said.

I believed her.