Richard Yates Reads a Story
I found this while poking around the discussion below. Alicia, who is putting up a good fight in the comments section for Narrative Magazine, has linked on her blog to an audio recording of Richard Yates reading “The Best of Everything.”
If you’re tired of reading about Narrative, take thirty minutes to listen to Yates.
Thanks, Alicia.
Mean Monday: Narrative Magazine Again! A Comment That Takes Things One Step Further
I was starting to understand Blake Butler’s argument regarding the amount of solicited writers that Narrative Magazine publishes versus the money they take from the unsolicited pile. And then David Kemp left this in the comment section, which spreads the responsibility even further than the editors of Narrative and I found his comment more or less convincing:
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March 16th, 2009 / 8:29 pm
March 16th, 2009 / 8:29 pm
New Magazine Monday: A Dog Keeps Chasing Itself Into the Funeral Home Parking Lot And Then Retreating Into the Mysterious Gray Snow
There’s so much going on in the literary world right now like dude. To wit: I ate all of a hip young author’s string cheese, but I’m going to replace the stock before she’s back from vacation, so she’ll never know. Pretty soon I’m going to buy dish soap and headphones, so I can clean my plates of bacteria and listen to country music in hunkered intensity, which will up my chug-a-lug and keep me fit to perform services for you, the literary public, including but not limited to announcements of three new online magazine issues:
WRITE UP AFTER THE BREAK
READ MORE >
Haut or Not: A Couplet
Tim Jones-Yelvington
I can’t argue with this guy — these books are just too haut. Good to see ‘writer’s writers’ like Diane Williams and Steven Millhauser, powerful ‘famous’ ladies like Moore, Gaitskill (I wish her last name was Hall) and Oates; and of course, our friends Tao Lin, Blake Butler, and Kim Chinquee. (Incidentally, Rachel B. Glaser’s ‘fiction’ piece about Christ, and Christ-like pop figures, in the pictured American Short Fiction is fucking great.) Impressed to see Vol. II (In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower) of Proust’s epic — as most people only read Swann’s Way and consider it done (like me). I will get slammed for this I’m sure, but I never really understood the cult behind Jesus’ Son. I have this theory that, like cats, we are either indoor or outdoor readers. Jane Austen would be the epitome of writer of indoor books, and maybe Graham Green or Conrad as writer of outdoor books. I’m an indoor kinda guy, and Denis Johnson feels outdoorsy. And just for the records, my ‘best american fantasy 2’ doesn’t involve the genre, but a shortage at the sperm bank during a sorority convention. I should grow up soon.
Rating: Haut
My therapist says I should meet new people: Short Letter, Long Farewell
I sat down on the edge of the bathtub, disconcerted because I had started talking to myself for the first time since I was a child. By talking rather loudly to himself, the child had provided himself with a companion. But here, where I had decided for once to observe rather than participate, I was at a loss to see why I was doing it. I began to giggle and finally, in a fit of exuberance, punched myself in the head so hard that I almost toppled into the bathtub.
All of this takes place somewhere gentle: Highlights from the new issue of elimae
There’s a new issue of elimae up! For those unfamiliar, elimae stands for electronic literary magazine, and they’re–so far as I know–the oldest lit journal on the web. (You might remember our Massive People Q&A with elimae editor Cooper Renner back in December.) They’re a fantastic journal–clear sense of mission, elegant minimalist approach to web aesthetics. Anyone looking to start a web journal would do well to take a long hard look at what makes elimae successful and sustainable. I haven’t read the whole new issue (YET) but I am prepared to report on what I”ve read so far.
“inconceivable wilson” (2 excerpts) by J.A. Tyler >>Go. He goes. Broken lines and the shape of circles. Circles. Go. He goes. The outside peeled off and he is in. He goes in. Go and he goes.<<
“Viral Video” by Kimberly King Parsons >> 3. The worst thing about the boy is that someone taught him to play the pan flute. << (It should be noted that KKP also provided the title of this post. – ed.)
“Creature” by Donora Hillard >>Invited friends over to watch. Saw me groom myself until the skin split.<<
“Threadbare Von Barren” by Nicolle Elizabeth >> you’ve changed your phone number you’ve changed your day to day your coffee guy moved somewhere else you’ve changed how funny you were you’ve changed how you touch my hand you’ve changed how<<
All this plus new work by Norman Lock, Michael Kimball interviewing Shane Jones, and a bunch of other stuff that I don’t know what it is yet. Go forth, friends! Read elimae and know peace.
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March 15th, 2009 / 11:17 pm
March 15th, 2009 / 11:17 pm
Hit and Run Magazine
Hit and Run Magazine (click here to check it out) is a new online journal that features the scraps, notes, doodles, “rough draft scribbles” and so forth that writers make while, er, writing. It’s fun! Paul A. Toth, the author of the novels Fizz, Fishnet and the forthcoming Finale (July 2009), is the editor and is accepting submissions. (Check out his website and learn more about him here.) The official description is after the jump: READ MORE >
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March 15th, 2009 / 8:24 pm
March 15th, 2009 / 8:24 pm
Bacon Explosion Wins A Book Prize!
Yes it is true! The Bacon Explosion has won a BOOK PRIZE which is something that ALL of us want! It just goes to show that BACON > US! I hear that The Bacon Explosion has quite a way with language and its work was called “elegant and lucid, emotionally charged and precisely controlled,” by the National Book Critics Circle! And that’s a circle I don’t want to mess with! Hooray for Bacon Explosion! AND the Bacon Explosion didn’t even have to die of liver failure like Roberto Bolaño to win this award! Because everyone knows that the Bacon Explosion CAN’T DIE! The Bacon Explosion was the inspiration for the modern children’s classic ‘Tuck Everlasting’! It is the perfect example of humanity’s awareness of our own mortality and makes us comprehend our role in the world! It’s so sad at the end of the book when the Bacon Explosion stands over Winnie’s grave! It’s so ironic that we all want to live forever, but then when we do, we’re all like ‘no i don’t want to live forever!’ and then it’s kind of like that BORGES story where Connor MacLeod fights his first battle in the Scottish Highlands in 1536, but fights his greatest battle on the streets of New York City in 1986!
DAKOTA FANNING!! NEW MEMBER OF OULIPO???
CHECK OUT THIS VID!!!
She was probably inspired by Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style (in which he tells the same inconsequential story of a bus ride using 99 different literary styles).
I am excited about Dakota’s project.
Terms I am tired of Hearing
Having been around writers more than usual lately, I’ve found myself disgruntled with some of the jargon and stylizing that comes up: not necessarily as a matter of pretension, but more as habits.
I’m the kind of guy that can’t stand to sit in a movie next to the dude eating popcorn with his mouth open. Gum chewing really nicks my nerves.
In that mind, here are 4 writing-related speech manners that seem all over the place and really crank my crank.