I currently have a piece in The Writer’s Chronicle called “In Search of the Beautiful Lie.” Pamela Schoenewaldt, whom I met a few months ago when she submitted a lovely story called Threads on the Mountain to Fiction Attic, just emailed me in response to the WC piece…thought I’d pass her well-said missive along: The issue of lies and writing is so complicated and fascinating – the efforts we go to convince students to pry themselves away from “but that’s what really happened,†and then the dark side of the writers’ life, or mine anyway, lying in bed at...
Monthly Archives: October 2005
booknotes: a quick thrill, the royal family, and coming of age in Afghanistan
More from Lauren Baratz-Logsted: I started out the week with one lousy book after another, but then, just when I was at the end of my reading rope, the book gods of the universe shined down on me with a string of hits. The Cadaver’s Ball, by Charles Atkins. I reviewed Dr. Atkins’ first two novels for Publishers Weekly (The Portrait; Risk Factor) and only wish I was working for them now so I could review this one as well, because this psycho-medical novel of revenge ranks right up there with his earlier works and belongs on the shelf...
blurb man
What inspiration have buxom blondes lent to the literary landscape? James Bernard Frost lets you in on the details, as told to him by Lewis Buzbee (Fliegelman’s Desire). Who knew?
tonight at litquake!
I’ll be reading at the Makeout Room tonight with Stephen Elliott, Michelle Tea, Will Christopher Baer, and Craig Clevenger. I’m excited about hearing from Clevenger’s new novel, Dermaphoria, the follow-up to his cultishly beloved The Contortionist’s Handbook. The reading will be emceed by MacAdam/Cage publisher David Poindexter–yes, you’ve seen him, that tall fellow with the perpetual grin who’s always buying drinks for the down-and-out writer folks. It’s all part of Litquake, which wraps up today. If you just can’t get enough Stephen Elliott, he’ll be hosting a Writing the Novel Seminar tomorrow at 826 Valencia. Panelists include yours truly,...
the elitism of the “realist” camp
Ben Marcus has an interesting piece in Harpers this month with the rather long but accurately descriptive title, “Why experimental fiction threatens to destroy publishing, Jonathan Franzen, and life as we know it.” Marcus argues that the Franzens of the world, and a preponderance of stick-in-the-mud critics, hold that realism can be achieved only through traditional narrative forms, marginalizing any fiction that doesn’t fit the traditional mold as “experimental.” He notes that Franzen has even gone so far as to say that James Joyce has very little to offer, and quotes an earlier essay of Franzen’s in which the...
The international bestseller about one woman’s search for a missing child…
"Mesmerizing." ~Library Journal, starred review.
Stop dreaming, start writing!
