Peyton Manning on Writing
“People always say, ‘Hang in there.’ And I went, ‘I never was out there, wherever there is. I’ve always been in there, I’ll always be in there.’ Wherever that is, I never have left.”
Wind Call Swill Stein 2xQs Again
French rap is weird
1. Super thrilled to hear via twitter that Coffee House Press will be putting out a new collection by Brian Evenson, Windeye. Hopefully by 2011? No date word yet, but Evenson is the kind that I go stand in line for. If you haven’t read the titular story yet, it is gorgeous, and available via PEN America.
2. At Electric Literature, Melissa Broder interviews Ryan Call about, what else, litblogging.
3. James Yeh has a new chapbook out, 9/16/10, from a rad small press making beautiful objects, Swill Children.
4. The Complete Recordings of Gertrude Stein Reading Her Own Works @ PennSound
5. Interview with Dorothea Lasky by Nafiza Islam at Thoughts Interjected & interview with Patrick Somerville by Tobias Carroll at Vol 1. Brooklyn.
6. At Ubu, Doug Nufer’s Never Again, a 163 pg. novel with no word appearing more than once, which I discovered after an awesome conversation wondering if such a thing existed with Heather Christle and Christopher DeWeese, both of whom have books coming from Octopus in 2011 that I am also mega excited for.
Suggested Reading List for My Spring 2011 Fiction Workshop
(Because if you’re going to make a writer of yourself, you must read your brains out.) *
All Things, All at Once, Lee K. Abbott
The Box Man, Kobo Abe
Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
The Children’s Hospital, Chris Adrian
A Death in the Family, James Agee
Man In His Time, Brian W. Aldiss READ MORE >
THE ARTIST ELUDES ANY SYSTEM
“When, in order to adapt to his destiny as an artist, Anselm Kiefer attempts to throw himself open to a dimension larger than himself, he does not retreat in the face of a force that may overwhelm and daunt him. He allows himself to be possessed and swept away by it, to become the arbiter of a challenge which ultimately implies the construction of the formal energy of art. To let ourselves be overwhelmed means to agree to be impregnated and to mediate that which submerges and overtakes us: to discover ourselves in order to discover. The artist, like the poet, eludes any system, whether good or bad, religious or moral: he negates himself, dies in favour of an unknown and indefinable force, and aspires to establish the right relationship with forms and their origins. He wants to succumb to their primacy and lets himself be shattered and overwhelmed not for any banal or general reason, whether it be ideological or sociological, anonymous or impersonal, but only for one exceptional reason: the survival of the language of art.”
The Destiny of Art: Anselm Kiefer by Germano Celant.
Cami Park
I am very blue to learn this afternoon of Cami Park’s passing. Cami lived in Nevada, and she was a sly and observant writer, someone whose work knew the world tenderly and could—as Scott Garson put it—”wake you up where you sleep.” Cami was also a generous and delightful person to correspond with. Read some of her work at Fictionaut, Necessary Fiction, Night Train, PANK, and No Tell Motel. Her blog can be found here. I am sad to have never met Cami Park in person to tell her how much I enjoyed her writing. Her story “Everyone the Same But Not At Once” appeared in NOÖ [11], and I’ve excerpted it below the jump. Cami’s words will live on and around in these windows of ours. She will be missed. READ MORE >
Blake Butler—
I think if I had to say one book I read this year that killed me the hardest, it would be Pierre Guyotat’s Tomb for 500,000 Soldiers [1967]. I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since. What were your favorite reads of 2010, published in 2010 or otherwise?
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A Bit of This, A Bit of That
Metazen is putting together a Christmas anthology for charity and they’re seeking submissions.
Hart House Review, a literary magazine from the University of Toronto, is also looking for submissions.
Are you interested in some rad poetry? Consider making a donation to NOO Journal and they will make you a rad poem.
Holiday Sales
I’ve tried to gather after the jump as many holiday sales as I could find over the weekend. Secret Santas, pay attention; some of these sales go above the $20 limit, but you can always keep some books, send other books, or bust the limit knowing you might not get the same in return. Any editors/publishers who’d like to drop their special on our internet, do so in the comments or email me and I’ll add the sales here. For those not in Secret Santa, many of these will still apply to you, though some are only for Secret Santa participants. If you haven’t, please consider signing up to participate in the exchange.