A couple of month’s ago, McSweeney’s came out with Yeti Researcher: The Magazine of the Society for Cryptic Hominid Investigation, which they included in the highly unusual and wickedly amusing“junk mail” packaging of the latest issue. This week, Tony Earley has a story in The New Yorker entitled The Cryptozoologist. While I loved Earley’s story collection, Here We Are in Paradise, I must admit I am at a loss when it comes to the recent literary Bigfoot craze. Yeti, that staple of 70s “documentary” television, seems to have become a favored topic for a wide array of writers. But...
Monthly Archives: January 2006
parent of dead marine questions the semantics of patriotism
In an article for the Washington Post, Paul E. Schroeder questions the eagerness of well-meaning friends and strangers to label his son a hero merely because he died in combat: The words “hero” and “patriot” focus on the death, not the life. They are a flag-draped mask covering the truth that few want to acknowledge openly: Death in battle is tragic no matter what the reasons for the war. The tragedy is the life that was lost, not the manner of death. Families of dead soldiers on both sides of the battle line know this. Those without family in...
mama smarts
Andi Buchanan, managing editor of the hip online mama mag Literary Mama, has a new book out, Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined, which she co-edited with Amy Hudock (Seal Press, Jan. 2006). This compendium of work gleaned from the magazine features well-known and beginning writers tackling motherhood from many different angles, from adoption and miscarriage to gender identity and generational rifts. Read the introduction here. I’m particularly pleased to blog about this offering from a member of the Girlfriends’ Cyber Circuit, as I’m a big fan of Literary Mama. Disclaimer: they recently ran a story of mine,...
Blue Room Backstory
M.J. Rose has posted my backstory for Dream of the Blue Room, which includes a NYT classified ad, a last-minute trip to China, a lonely but posh apartment in Beijing, a failed memoir, an outspoken geologist I met on a bus in Xian, the Three Gorges Dam, and an Alabama murder. For more information about the Three Gorges Dam, go here. For more info about Dream of the Blue Room, go here. If you have a broad interest in Chinese affairs, both political and cultural, check out the excellent blog Peking Duck, which is written by an expat (American?...
The international bestseller about one woman’s search for a missing child…
"Mesmerizing." ~Library Journal, starred review.
Stop dreaming, start writing!
