Nick Antosca
http://brothercyst.blogspot.com/
Nick Antosca is the author of two novels: Fires (2006, Impetus Press) and Midnight Picnic (2009, Word Riot Press). Antosca was born in Louisiana and currently lives in New York City.
WRITER’S EMBARRASSMENT
mortification
One time I saw the film director Paul Thomas Anderson give a talk to a small group of college students. A burly male student made the mistake of asking a question that went something like, “My problem is that I feel embarrassed to show my work to people. Do you have that problem?”
Nick Antosca—
I saw Tony O’Neill read from Sick City a few weeks ago when he was in town and heard him tell stories afterward. Even more edifying, however, is this Jim Ruland interview for Fanzine where they drive east on Sunset Boulevard and O’Neill reminisces about the stuff he sees.
10
Nick Antosca—
I just got the first library card I’ve had in years. For most of my adult life I’ve bought rather than borrowed the vast majority of books I read. New or used, whatever. Now I’m recovering that thrill I used to experience as a middle-schooler browsing the library’s website, putting stacks of books on hold. It’s pleasing, no?
Nick Antosca—
Profile of Eugene Marten in the NY Observer. Damn, nice. I like that picture. I want my skull to look like that when I’m 50.
Nick Antosca—
Wow… an old audio interview with Vincent Gallo, which is mesmerizing in its relentless mad-dog shit-talking. Gallo shoots venom at Spike Jonze, Sofia Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola, Jason Schwartzman… I guess he really doesn’t like that family? Other topics include Mickey Rourke’s face, alleged incest in the Roberts family, Abel Ferrara’s crack addiction, Eric Roberts’s face, Kirsten Dunst being fired from one of his movies, and why he hates giving credits in movies. (via Jeff Wells)
HOW MUCH DO YOU CARE?
just hanging out in here. admire me. or not, i don't care.
How important to you is it to get your writing published? We’re probably all familiar to some degree with the feeling of “flow”, that creative euphoria you experience when immersed in creation, and we’re also probably acquainted with the intense (and rare) sense of personal satisfaction that comes from having created something that resembles (or even exceeds) something we conceptualized before we sat down to create it. And then, of course, there’s that very different experience: the clotted/congested sensation of ushering it into the understandably indifferent world that reacts with form rejections or silence. So do you care? Or to phrase it differently: Would you still write if there were no chance of getting your work published?
THE FACEBOOK MOVIE
I actually think this looks great.
Nick Antosca—
A movie called Predators came out this weekend, involving a species of vicious aliens who drop a bunch of humans onto a “game preserve” jungle planet to hunt them. On the same day, I published a story called “Predator Bait,” involving shlubby men who try to hook up with young girls on the internet. I now realize both pieces could be improved by combining them, so that Adrien Brody and Laurence Fishbourne et al have to survive on a hostile jungle planet while fleeing shlubby men who want to molest them.
Nick Antosca—
Just listened to Samuel “Chip” Delaney (of Hogg and Dhalgren) read a long, amiable, detail-rich story about a fellow who likes eat his own excrement and semen. Feel sort of fatalistic, for some reason.
Nick Antosca—
Peter Straub, a few minutes ago (paraphrased from memory): “Literary writers working with a surreal or supernatural concept tend to be content to just describe it in detail. A genre writer is more likely to feel compelled to turn it into a story, which may succeed brilliantly or fail miserably, but has more potential to be a satisfactory turn.”