October 2009
24 posts
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The Fiction Generator →
Trying to come up with a great idea for your next SF/fantasy story? Check out this handy chart. One caveat, though — all the protagonists are male, so some gender-switching might be in order.
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Good reads: "Lostronaut," by Jonathan Lethem →
Reading this review of Jonathan Lethem’s new novel Chronic City, I’m reminded of this circular short story that appeared in The New Yorker last fall.
Trapped in space with a rowdy, unreliable Russian crew after the Chinese deploy mines around her vessel, lost astronaut Janice writes a series of letters to her boyfriend, Chase, stuck back on Earth. As their situation becomes more...
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“I don’t have answers, just a feeling that the journal-as-proving-ground...”
– Jennifer Howard, reacting to reacting to news that journal TriQuarterly is going online-only. This trend will probably only continue. As Howard notes, not many of these journals were read much in their heyday, and with new media competing for audiences’ attention it’s likely...
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Crazy Friend by Jonathan Lethem →
Lethem details his boyhood obsession with Philip K. Dick, and how the sci-fi genius helped launch his own career as a writer.
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The Arcade Fire — “Haiti” lyrics →
The parents of Régine Chassagne, half of the husband and wife duo at the heart of indie rock superstars The Arcade Fire, emigrated to Canada from Haiti before she was born. I’ve always loved the song “Haiti” on the groups first album, Funeral. Now I can read the lyrics, translated from Haitian French:
Haiti, my country,
Wounded mother I’ll never see.
My family set me...
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Still Fragile, Haiti Makes Sales Pitch →
International businesses are becoming more interested in investing in Haiti, whose unemployment rate hovers around 70%. The poor country seems to be caught in a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem: it needs investment and jobs to create societal stability, but companies are unwilling to set up shop in an unstable country. President Clinton, the United Nations special envoy to Haiti, is trying to help...
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A clean well-lighted place for books →
A set of notes detailing some different approaches for bookstores to take as we embark on our wild and woolly journey into our 21st-century media landscape. A few ideas: creating something more akin to a library and cafe, or perhaps shelving books according to publisher — accompanied by stronger branding by publishers, resulting in each publisher creating more of an identity by the types of...
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Frodo and the Great War →
This is fascinating: a summmary of a paper by John Garth that compares scenes and features from The Lord of the RIngs to aspects of the Great War that would have impressed themselves on the mind of a WWI soldier like J.R.R. Tolkien.
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“There was a brief, shiny moment sometime in the early 90s when Barnes &...”
– Julie Trelstad, commenting on this blog post about the continuing downturn in publishing. As the dot-com bubble and the resulting credit bubble continue to work their ways out of our economic system, hopefully traditional media enterprises (like book publishing) can find a way to regain their...
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City of Saints and Madmen: The Untold Story by... →
When the small press publishing City of Saints and Madmen, Jeff VanderMeer’s first collection of novellas, told him he could have carte blanch designing the interior, he went a little overboard. Here explaining the long series of trials, bouts of self-doubt, and bursts of hubris that were necessary to bring City of Saints to press.
This is a long and sometimes agonizing essay, but...
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“I think it’s going to be very interesting for editors to see how far along...”
– Poster on a Google Wave thread about Wave’s (supposed) impact on the writing and editing process. I completely agree.
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Iron & Wine, “Belated Promise...
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“The term criminalizes the person rather than the actual act of illegally...”
– The National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ Resource Guide for Journalists
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“But the phrase “illegal immigrant” is misleading. There’s a...”
– Eric Haas, Losing Our Minds over Immigration
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“Good thing I am not an illegal immigrant. There is no way out of that trap. It’s...”
– Lawrence Downes, What Part of ‘Illegal’ Don’t You Understand?
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Revising Fiction by David Madden: Leading by... →
Jeff VanderMeer shares his appreciation for the book Revising Fiction (now out of print, sadly). VanderMeer shares how the book “radically changed” his perspective on revision:
I grew immeasurably as a writer and began to exhibit more control. In encountering questions I didn’t even understand at the time, I also came to understand that there is no such thing as...
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The Best Fiction of the Millennium (So Far) →
The Millions asks 48 writers, editors, and critics to name their favorite works of fiction of the new millennium, so far. I’m a little impressed that I’ve managed to read five of them, without even trying at all:
20: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
19: American Genius, A Comedy by Lynne Tillman 18: Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link 17: The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem...
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“The job of a writer is to write. Anything else a writer does is entirely on his...”
– John Scalzi (via strutting)
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Kurt Vonnegut explains drama →
We love to read big, dramatic stories because our own lives have so little drama in them. We try to make our lives fit into a dramatic arc, but it’s a tough fit. On the balance, I’d rather live a less dramatic life and find my drama in movies and books. (via Big Contrarian)
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“If a better book than The Moviegoer has been written, I’ll cut off my little...”
– Ada Liana Bidiuc, as quoted in Oxford American’s Best Southern Novels of All Time.
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In Kentucky by James H. Mulligan →
Written for a banquet of the Kentucky General Assembly held in Lexington’s Phoenix Hotel, “In Kentucky” is supposedly one of the most well-known poems about the state. I hadn’t heard of it until Ashley told me about it the other day.