Well, since you asked. There’s new fiction (“Mark the Sun”) at The Brooklyn Rail plus a, uh, “non”fiction piece at n+1: “Famous Infamous Jews.”
Conor Oberst Sex by Kendra Grant Malone and Tao Lin
Happy Cobra Books just published—moments ago, in fact—a brand new ebook by Kendra Grant Malone and Tao Lin. It’s a story called “Conor Oberst Sex.”
And it’s not just a story. I sent a copy of the story to my friend Michael Sanchez (a musician, comedian, and filmmaker from Chicago, Illinois) and asked him to write some music inspired by the story. He turned in an EP under his band name, The Way It Is. The EP is called Music Is My Boyfriend.
Both the ebook and the music are very good. Please check them out and praise the lovely Kendra Grant Malone, the lovely Tao Lin, and the lovely Michael Sanchez.
Adam Robinson—
But if everyone just reposts (slash-republishes) their stories at Fictionaut, won’t I just go there to read everything?
Creative Writing 101
(for previous installments in this series, click here)
WORK DISCUSSED THIS WEEK: “Ancestral Legacies,” “On the Subject of Fiction Based on Non-Ficton,” and “The Gun Lobby” – all by Jim Shepard.
My goal for this week was to give the class another sense of the scope of writerly possibility. This time, instead of pairing different mediums of writing or organizing some little squad of unrelated writers together around a common theme, I chose to showcase two very different works of fiction by the same writer. “Ancestral Legacies” is historical fiction, and follows two Nazis on a pseudo-scientific mission to Tibet. (Himmler has ordered them to trace the path of a legendary Aryan ur-language; believing Himmler’s claims to be nonsensical, but their own to be legitimate, they’ve taken his funding and are using it to conduct their own research into the existence of the yeti.) “The Gun Lobby” is about a suburban marriage falling apart–the wife has taken the husband hostage in their home.
The biggest surprise came first– large factions of the class didn’t like “Ancestral Legacies.” They thought it moved too slowly, and was “boring.” I couldn’t believe this. Nazis! Tibet! Yeti! And they were “bored…”
Matthew Savoca, EXPLAIN YOURSELF!
Today’s contestant is Matthew Savoca, who’s story “Everybody Painted the Barn that Day,” in Kathryn Regina’s brilliant childhood photo project at Wunderkammer, struck me as the closest thing to Mark Twain I’ve ever read on the Internet, as much for the voice as for the quaint story. Hoping that you’ll still follow the link to Wunderkammer in order to see the picture that Savoca is responding to, I have pasted the story here:
Everybody painted the barn that day. There was Ma, Paw, Timmy, and Mr. Walsh. We’d been planning to paint it for three or four weeks starting in the beginning of April but didn’t actually get started until early May which really messed up my plans because I had decided sometime in February that I was going to leave as soon as Winter broke. I was five years old. Paw couldn’t understand why I was so enthusiastic about getting the painting started, which was because I had decided I’d stay and help so as not to upset Ma. Eventually we did it, over two days – Saturday and Sunday. The picture was taken on Saturday that’s why it doesn’t look like much has been done. I got paint all over my overalls when one of the cans spilled off the ladder Paw was on. It even got in my hair and we spent all night washing and scrubbing it out. Then my overalls were all messed up and Ma got to working on mending an old pair of mine that she’d been meaning to fix up for a long time, so I had to wait even longer before leaving. One thing led right on to another thing happening and I never did run away that summer.
Not much to explain there, Mr. Savoca, but I do want to know: did you run away when you were a boy, and if so, for how long? Matthew Savoca: EXPLAIN YOURSELF! (applause).
(For last week’s edition featuring Peter Berghoef, who lost, click here.)
Sam Pink—
good interview with ben brooks, conducted by j.a. tyler. read it. i almost passed out looking at the picture they used in the middle of the interview.
Roxane Gay—
My copies of Put Your Head in My Lap by Claudia Smith published by Future Tense Books arrived yesterday so I’m going to give a copy away. If you’re interested in receiving a copy of this neat little book, leave a comment with a strange book blurb and I’ll pick a winner at random tomorrow at 5.
If you’ve read the book, what did you think?
Blake Butler—
Rad story “Never, Ever Bring This Up Again” by Nick Ripatrazone takes runner up in the Esquire fiction contest.