June 2010
19 posts
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The Unicorns — Jellybones. (via girlperson)
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Experiments in writing →
bobulate:
A small selection from Bernadette Mayer’s Writing Experiments:
Pick a word or phrase at random, let mind play freely around it until a few ideas have come up, then seize on one and begin to write. Try this with a non-connotative word, like “so” etc.
Explore the possibilities of lists, puzzles, riddles, dictionaries, almanacs, etc. Consult the thesaurus where categories for the...
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“[T]he great and the would-be-great ‘research universities’ … These gigantic...”
– Wendell Berry, on pulling his personal papers from The University of Kentucky (via ayse, via austinkleon)
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Four iterations
Holding her father’s shotgun in her tiny hand, Ethyl advances on the target. Her baby brother Paul carries her, piggy-back style. Ethyl wears a floral-print sundress and no shoes. Her lithe school-girl legs press against Paul’s ribbed undershirt.
Shotgun holding hand tiny her father, target baby Ethyl advances on. Brother carries, Paul piggy-back her style. Floral-print Ethyl no...
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“And so I imagine Faulkner and Kafka sitting together at a wobbly table in a café...”
– The Mumpsimus, reacting to the news that Jose Saramago has passed away.
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All the Dead Are Vampires →
Because “the dead always want us to join them”: Michael Sims explains the nineteenth-century origins of Vampire stories, and why they still resonate with us today. (via youmightfindyourself)
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“As a novelist you start your dig. Your shovel turns over clots of soil, worms,...”
– Novelist J.P. Smith explains The Trick of It, and how a novel is different than a screenplay.
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“‘The cat sat on the mat’ is not the beginning of a story, but ‘The cat sat on...”
– John le Carré (via slowrain)
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"maggie and milly and molly and may" by e.e....
maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and
milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and
may came home with a smooth round stone...
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Presto Book-O (Why I Went Ahead And... →
Another side of the self-publishing argument: Steve Almond decided to self-publish a short, 15,000 word mixture of stories and essays after his editors balked at the idea. He got a designer friend to make a cover and prints copies using a POD Espresso Book Machine.
Almond writes:
Several years ago, musicians figured out that they didn’t need a big label to put their work into the world. They...
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"Vanity" Press Goes Digital →
Via Sagatrope, who writes:
The Wall Street Journal has a great piece explaining all the advantages the self-published author has behind them. It looks like the publishing industry is starting to mimic the music industry. Here is what readers of WSJ online have to say about self-publishing.
It might come as a shock to some academics and those that refuse to accept a changing business model for...
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“When I had the Internet at home, I would find myself down a rabbit hole....”
– Dave Eggers doesn’t like the internet, and instead writes in a shed. (From an article about New Orleans, and Zeitoun.)
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The Avett Brothers, “For Today.” Originally...
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Good reads: "Nomen Ludi," by Rob Beschizza →
Fantastic short story about nostalgia, old video games, and not always getting what you want out of your memories. The presentation — simple reading format, great images, and no visual distractions — is awesome as well.
(via Robin Sloan)
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June reading list
Fiction
Annabel Scheme
Tainaron
The Things They Carried (once again)
Love in the Ruins (finally!)
The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
The Invisible Bridge
What is the What
And You Shall Know Our Velocity!
Nonfiction
The Portable MFA in Creative Writing
Sickness Unto Death
Writing Down the Bones
The Artful Edit
Nothing much new to report here, except that I finally finished Love in...
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“The brain is a neural tangle of near-infinite possibility, which means that it...”
– Jonah Lehrer explains why travel makes us smarter. (via Bobulate)