What’s in your moat?

castlepiecesforthelefthand

The worst one can usually expect from heading back home is an awkward encounter with an ex-girlfriend (“You look…great! No, you look great!) or reverting back to your 15-year-old self in the presence of your still-overbearing mother (“I can’t believe you put mayo on my sandwich, ma. Do you even know me? I’ll be in my room.”). The protagonist in J. Robert Lennon’s forthcoming novel Castle, though, has a far bigger, weirder and more sinister homecoming that involves bear traps, suspiciously altered documents and a fight to the death. I emailed a little with Lennon about his novel, as well as the book of short stories (Pieces for the Left Hand) that is being released the same day (March 31) and his one-man band, The Inverse Room. READ MORE >

Author Spotlight / 9 Comments
March 13th, 2009 / 11:33 am

“Parker’s Back” by Flannery O’Connor

(New! Femme Friday: Every Friday I’ll write a review, post an interview, or discuss in some way, a female writer or editor that rocks my world. I’ll alternate between Indie scene people and more well known or established women, living and dead. Next friday, look out for a review of Jackie Corley’s book, The Suburban Swindle (from So New Media, click here so you can buy it and read it before my review). And- Spoiler Alert! “Parker’s Back” is discussed in full here.)

 

“And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and lo, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed.” Exodus 3, 2

 

In the short story “Parker’s Back” by Flannery O’Connor, as in all of her work, there is an absence of overt moralizing and yet nearly every moment of the story, every action depicted, expresses the human soul’s struggle against, and toward, the power of God. O’Connor is radical in her de-emphasis on belief: many of her truly saved characters and prophets don’t properly believe in God, but it is God that takes them anyway. O’Connor’s vision of God is more or less that God is something that happens to us.

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I Like __ A Lot / 25 Comments
March 13th, 2009 / 10:53 am

The Scowl is good bloggish

scowlIn this interview at The Scowl, Jonathan Messinger is well-spoken about Paper Egg books — the subscription imprint from those pros at Featherproof. It’s sensible stuff; by using a subscription model, they know how to set their expectations and can take bigger risks with the work they publish. And that’s better for everybody in the world.

I like The Scowl a lot. It’s hipper’n me.

I Like __ A Lot & Presses / 14 Comments
March 13th, 2009 / 9:52 am

Mr. Quickly: The Greatest Amazon Reviewer of all Time

Once, when I was desperately trying not to work on a novel, I spent a great deal of time on Amazon reading fake reviews. I discovered Mr. Quickly. I contacted him, asking him to work with me on a book of a collection of Amazon Reviews to be entitled, Fake Amazon Reviews. It would be a little “gift” book, something you pick up on your way out of the bookstore, a little slip of a book, right near the checkout. I think I insulted him by assuming his reviews were “fake”. Sigh. Mr. Quickly, if you are out there? I love you. Here are some of his great reviews:

 

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Random / 35 Comments
March 12th, 2009 / 9:50 pm

Haut or Not: Alexis Orgera

books2

Lewis Lapham, of Harper’s fame, started a new quarterly focusing in depth on ‘timeless’ humanist qualms such as war, love, nature, etc., and I’m happy to see this on her shelf. The thinness of that Moby Dick spine looks like some abridged version, but I’m hoping knot (get it? fuck). Joyce and Beckett sit well next to each other like Exile and Absence out for a date. I can only imagine the library late fees out on Paradise Lost — the Fall of man at 20 cents a day. Alexis is onto something with all this irrevocable mor(t)al stuff. (And who needs The Iowa Review when I got a review of Iowa right here: corn blows.) If you think I’m grasping for material here, I’ll just repeat what I said to Marco Polo, ‘get lost.’

Rating: Haut.

Haut or not / 37 Comments
March 12th, 2009 / 3:23 pm

The Storymatic

Writing is easy!

Writing is easy!

Writer & Marlboro writing professor Brian Mooney just launched this website where you can buy (or just learn about) his writing aid/ game/ teaching aid/ toy The Storymatic. Here’s how it works:

“The Storymatic consists of 250 ivory cards and 250 silver cards. Each ivory card contains a character trait or occupation. Each silver card contains a situation or object. Wild Cards contain instructions about where and when your story takes place, and how it must be told.

“…First, draw two ivory cards. Then combine the information on these two cards to create your main character. For example, if you draw “surgeon” and “amateur boxer,” your character is a surgeon who is also a boxer.

“Next, draw one or two silver cards. Let the information on the cards lead you into a story. If, for example, your cards say “box of teeth” and “pair of pants that don’t fit right,” then perhaps after a night in the ring Dr. Boxer always scans the floor of the ring for the teeth of his opponents, but maybe Dr. Boxer has put on some extra weight due to his long days at the hospital, causing him to slow down in the ring, and then…”

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Technology / 12 Comments
March 12th, 2009 / 12:24 pm

PETER CAVANAUGH IS A QUIET PERSON AND HE EDITS THE JOURNAL “TULIP”

this is peter staring at a 40 oz of king cobra across the room

this is peter staring at a 40 oz of king cobra across the room

peter cavanaugh edits TULIP, a journal recently retuning to print. i emailed him some questions and he told me that on wednesday he was planning on blacking out so he’d answer them then. here they are.

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Author Spotlight / 32 Comments
March 12th, 2009 / 1:58 am

Duotrope Joins the Marketplace

keepitfreeDuotrope’s Digest has made a few changes. In addition to what the webmasters call a ‘fresh coat of paint’ for the site, Duotrope has opened an online store with Zazzle to sell a variety of writer-related things.

Here are a few pictures of what they’re selling.

(after the jump):

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Web Hype / 12 Comments
March 11th, 2009 / 11:33 pm

Haut or Not: An Assortment

hodges

David Hodges

Heller, Kafka, Orwell, Vonnegut — welcome to class kids. This semester Mr. Hodges will be teaching us how horrible society is and how to maintain a negative attitude. Then we’re gonna read A Confederacy of Dunces and all kill ourselves in hopes of also being posthumously published. And don’t forget, you can use Tom Wolfe’s book as an ottoman. Lastly, we’ll finish off with a biography of Clarence Thomas, cuz there’s nothing that says justice more than a pube on a can of Pepsi.

Rating: not.

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Haut or not / 44 Comments
March 11th, 2009 / 8:02 pm

Vicarious MFA: Jonathan Safran Foer & David Markson

The Vicarious MFA

The Vicarious MFA

Last Friday Jonathan Safran-Foer came to do a guest lecture titled “Intersections.” It was clear that he put a lot of work and thought into the lecture and I feel like I will do it a disservice by trying to describe his overall “point,” but I will say that he showed us this short video of a completely insane intersection in Hanoi. Please click on that. It is ridiculous. He also mentioned that one of the buildings on Columbia’s campus (one that is right by the Writing Department) used to be a part of the Bloomingdale Insane Asylum. He also mentioned  Hiroshi Sugimoto, a photographer who Jonathan Safran-Foer wrote a fan letter to when he was in college and whom he later got to collaborate with on a project called “Joe.”

There was a point to Safran-Foer’s guest lecture and I felt smarter and more calm when I left, but I can’t quite say why. From what I have gathered in the past 3.5 semesters in an MFA program, this is what it feels like: I have learned something; I feel different/better; I can’t explain why/what happened. READ MORE >

Vicarious MFA / 14 Comments
March 11th, 2009 / 5:20 pm