Books, Personally

Sprite - LitStack's Flash Fiction Challenge #5

2012-03-03T15:01:00.000-05:00

She didn’t understand why she’d had to dress up. They fussed over her clothes, her hair. Forced her into black patent shoes that gave her blisters. And for what? Fifteen minutes after the first guests arrived and the first drinks were served, no one paid any attention to her. Caroline stayed for a while, sipping her Shirley Temple and chewing on the maraschino cherry. She held her glass just so and practiced standing like the ladies. One of her father’s friends noticed her on his way to the bar, bending down to say my, don’t you look grown up? She blushed and ran upstairs.

She spied on them from between the banisters. Her father poured drinks for the men from the neighborhood, whose laughter boomed over the music and drowned out the ladies’chatter. A group of women gathered on the divan, wine glasses in hand. Over by the buffet, Mrs. McCormick chatted at her bored husband, unaware Mr. McCormick was stealing glances at Mrs. Scott’s backside with every sip of his Scotch. Mrs. Scott, however, seemed to know, posing just so and tossing her hair as she talked with Caroline’s mother, who also seemed to know and whose eyes shot daggers at Mr. McCormick. He reddened and quickly turned his attention back to his wife.

Caroline crept softly down the hall to the back staircase and escaped through the kitchen door, heading out into the last of the light. The lace on her socks itched, and she bent to scratch, then decided to take them off entirely. She skipped barefoot across the lawn and down the hill that led to the neighbor’s. It was a much bigger home, a Georgian style brick colonial, with an expansive yard and garden. Mrs. Gilman, a widow, always welcomed Caroline. Caroline perched on the stone step overlooking the pond in the center of it all, wishing for something special to happen, anything at all.

She heard footsteps and suddenly saw Mrs. Gilman, in filmy white, standing by the edge of the pond. Caroline almost called out, but instead watched silently as the woman knelt down and traced the water’s surface with her finger. To her astonishment, Mrs. Gilman slipped out of her dress and slid gracefully into the water, diving down below the lily pads. Caroline held her breath, waiting. When she resurfaced, after what seemed like hours, Mrs. Gilman was something ethereal: her hair shone gold; her skin luminous; delicate, transparent wings shimmered in the early moonlight. Caroline gasped at the sight of the fairy, and fainted.

Caroline was in bed, remembering substance-less arms, light, yet warm, carrying her up the hill, placing her gently on the step, brushing the hair from her forehead. One of the guests had found her, and after that everyone went home. Her father helped her upstairs and her worried mother brought tea. Caroline drank a little, and looked out her window toward the pond, watching and waiting for the glow she knew must come.

Sprite is my entry for LitStack's Flash Fiction Challenge #5. Photo courtesy of Daphne Bahamonde.

Author Q&A - Andre Dubus III

2012-02-27T06:02:00.000-05:00

Andre Dubus III is a National Book Award finalist and author of the novels House of Sand and Fog and The Garden of Last Days. His writing has received many honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Magazine Award, and a Pushcart Prize. Townie (W.W. Norton, 2011, now in paperback) is his very frank and moving memoir of growing up in a neighborhood and culture of violence, being bullied and turning to violence himself, his complicated relationship with his father, and his own journey to becoming a writer. I was delighted to read and review Townie, and am truly honored to welcome him today to Books, Personally.

Townie is a very powerful and emotional memoir to read, as I imagine it was to write. At one point you describe being too close to your (fiction) writing. When did you first realize you wanted to tell your story in a non-fictional way? As a writer, how did your experience writing memoir differ from the experience of writing fiction?

A lot of what's in my "accidental memoir", I've tried to write as a novel three separate times over nearly thirty years: growing up in the shadow of the Vietnam war; living with a single mother in poverty; having sex way too young (13), and the drugs, the alcohol, the violence and very few men around, especially my father. But every time I tried to capture all this as fiction, it was just too close to my literal life experience, which then somehow choked the life out of the fiction. I think I knew so much about what I was writing about that I was not allowing any real level of discovery to happen, which for me is what descending into the dream world of fiction is all about: not telling a story I already know, but trying to find one I don't know.

A few months after finishing my novel The Garden of Last Days, I began to write a personal essay about my sons and baseball. (At the time, I had a contract with my publisher for a collection of essays.) My sons (Austin, 19, and Elias, 14) are baseball and football players, and since they started playing baseball as little boys I've gotten into this sport for the first time. So the question fueling the essay was this: how did I miss baseball as a kid, this sport I now love but knew nothing about until my forties? Five-hundred pages and two years later, I'd written Townie, which showed me what I was doing instead of playing organized youth sports.

Writing it felt surprisingly more similar to writing fiction than I would've thought. I had to stay loyal to the facts, but now that I was free not to have to come up with the story itself, I could focus instead on trying to capture what it was like, as experientially as I could, to live that story. As a writer who attempts to make character-driven fiction, this is what I do in novels all the time.

You write very openly and frankly about your parents, your siblings, friendships, and your own participation in violence. How did you decide what to include or exclude from Townie? What kinds of choices did you have to make? In retrospect, was there anything you wished you hadn’t written, or something you wish you had? How have family and friends responded?

I was surprised by how defined the narrative arc of my own story was as a boy, and I have a hunch many of us have a more defined shape to our story than we may know. I was a small, bullied "new kid" who snapped and became a dangerous young man who ultimately found creative writing which put me on a more constructive and peaceful path. (It sounds horribly reductive to describe it that way!) But, once I saw that shape, it was easier to make choices about what to leave out, which was anything that strayed too far from that arc, like the time I searched for, as an assistant bounty hunter, a killer in Mexico, the rich girlfriend I had for three years in my twenties, the acting I did early on along with my writing, etc. A memoir, I've learned is not an autobiography; it's not a complete life story but, instead, a focused section of one.

The most difficult part of all this was having to write about my family. How do you do that without violating their privacy or disrespecting them in public or misrepresenting them? After all, our human memory is seen through an entirely subjective emotional lens. In the first drafts, I left much of my home life out, concentrating on my experience out in the street. But what a horribly false book that would've been! Because I did not grow up in a bubble somewhere. The truth is, those rented houses my mother could never really afford, were largely depressed places that helped to color my relationship with myself and the world: my younger brother was suicidal and sexually abused; my older sister was gang-raped and selling drugs; my younger sister was isolating herself to a nearly pathological degree; my mother was exhausted and overwhelmed and barely holding on; I was learning how to hurt people, and my father just wasn't around much.

There's really nothing I wish I'd put into the book that I didn't, but I do regret that some reviewers have been hard on my father. I don't feel he "abandoned" us. (That would be driving away and never looking back and never sending money.) I believe my father did the best he knew how to do at the time, given the complex forces that shaped him - growing up in 1940's-1950's French/Irish Catholic southern Louisiana, joining the Marines, then the 60's doing what it did to him and his marriage, etc - all of which helped to shape his artistic vision of the world. Could he have done better as a dad? Yes, but so can the rest of us, I believe, myself included!

Much of Townie is about the experience of being bullied, trying to fight back, and even seeking out violence. You describe violence as puncturing membranes: “you have to move through two barriers… one inside you and one around him” - and contrast that experience with other times in life we humans connect with each other in ways that are that truly exposed, raw, or vulnerable. Looking back, what do you think you were seeking in those moments you chose to break through that membrane?

I was trying to find me.

You describe an incredibly poignant confrontation on a train, a situation that could have turned very violent, but didn’t. Not only did this seem like a watershed moment for you, it seemed like it also reached something inside of the man you confronted. How do you think that moment changed him? If you could, what would you say to other young men out in the world who are maybe going through something similar? What should we (parents, schools, communities, etc.) be saying or doing to help them?

On the night train from Holyhead to London, I was confronting the kind if young man full of rage I'd been just a few years earlier. But I was done with fighting. It was time to change, and I knew it. When I let that young man threaten me and rage at me verbally, which meant not caring whether I appeared to be backing down, I was then able to draw him out, to appeal to his sense of masculinity I could see - no matter how tough he looked - was as fragile as mine had once been. I believe the reason he went back into the train car and began apologizing to people he may very well have just terrorized was because he had felt seen by me, an older man. This gave him the sense he was actually alive and worthy of respect, that he wasn't a nothing and a nobody, two things I'd felt about myself for years. What would I say to young men like that? Seek out older men who care. If your own father isn't around, or isn't seeing you, go find a new father. And what should the rest of us be doing for young men in dire straits? Stop fearing them (within limits, if they're armed), and instead, look into their eyes and see the young children they once were and in many ways still are and then go from there.

It sounded like music was important in your home growing up, especially jazz – if you could make a soundtrack or playlist to go with Townie, what would be on it?

Miles Davis, Bruce Springsteen, The J Geils Band, Grand Funk Railroad, Bob Dylan, Robin Trower, Edgar Winter, The Rolling Stones, Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin, old Elton John, Golden Ear Ring, and Sinatra singing "Fly Me to the Moon".....

Townie ends with some very moving scenes – you and your brother hand-crafting a coffin for your father, digging his grave. These beautiful moments give a sense of closure to the narrative arc of the memoir; did writing Townie give you a personal sense of closure as well?

Yes, it did. In a way writing novels never have for me before. The word "to remember" means to put back together again. (The opposite is "dismember".) Of course I knew what had happened to me as a boy and a young man, but writing this memoir allowed me to integrate all that into who I am now, I think. My hope, though, is that any readers of this book will be taken back to their past, too, no matter how different it may have been from mine.

Can you tell us a little bit about your professional and family life now, and perhaps about any new projects in the works?

I've been happily married to the same woman for nearly 23 years. Her name's Fontaine, and she's a modern dancer who runs a dance company and owns a dance studio. Our three miracles are Austin, 19, Ariadne, 16, and Elias, 14. The absolute best years of my life have been these as a husband and father.

I teach writing at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, a place I love for many reasons, one of which is that most of the students in my classrooms come from the same kind of families in the same kind of neighborhoods on that Merrimack River I grew up on. I'm close to finishing a collection of linked novellas about men and women trying and failing and trying again to love well. I'm also working on an original screenplay, and I'm gearing up to co-write the screenplay for Townie, the film.

Many thanks to the author for his time and for his thoughtful and forthright answers to my questions, and to W.W. Norton & Company for arranging this interview.

Townie - Andre Dubus III

2012-02-27T06:00:00.000-05:00

"It was like punching [someone] in the face, how you have to move through two barriers to do something like that, one inside you and one around him, as if everyone’s body is surrounded by an invisible membrane you have to puncture to get to them… with violence you had to break that membrane yourself, and once you learned how to do that, it was easier to keep doing it."

Townie (W.W. Norton and Company, 2011, now in paperback) is novelist Andre Dubus III's very frank and extremely moving memoir of his violent adolescence and young adulthood, his complicated relationship with his father (the author Andre Dubus), and his own journey to becoming a writer. It is also an incredible view of the world through the eyes of an angry, frightened young man.

After his parents divorced, young Andre Dubus III moved with his mother and three siblings to a rough, economically depressed mill town outside of Boston. His mother struggled to make ends meet, just barely able to keep a roof over their heads and put food on the table. With her long work hours, the teenagers were often left to navigate adolescence on their own, skipping school, drinking, doing drugs. They were often bullied, or worse. Andre turned to weightlifting and training to defend himself and his family.

Meanwhile, his father lived an academic life, teaching at a private college in a more affluent town nearby and steadily gaining acclaim as a writer. In his later teens, the younger Dubus enrolled in classes at the college, but didn’t quite fit in, feeling very much the “townie.” He not only continued to fight, he often went looking for one. The father’s admiration for the younger Dubus’s skill as a fighter led to the beginning of a closer relationship between the two men.

The younger Dubus eventually turned to writing, which became his salvation and path to a more peaceful life. For Dubus fans, Townie is more than a gripping memoir, it is also a glimpse at the influences that shaped the author as a writer. I read Townie right on the heels of House of Sand and Fog, and loved considering both the connections between fact and fiction (among them, his characters and their choices, and how he wrote with such familiarity and detail about an Iranian family’s culture and customs) and Dubus's own development as a writer.

Townie is not always an easy book to read - there are moments that will break your heart, and others that will punch you in the gut. I found it hard to read about children who didn’t have enough to eat and who had to fend for themselves in far too many ways at far too young an age. It was hard to read about the bullying and violence, both against the author and his siblings, and perpetrated by him. It was also hard not to judge, when presented with the contrast between the relatively comfortable life of the father and the hardship faced by his family, though in the end Dubus himself does not judge, and urges his readers not to, either.

There are also moments in this story that are profoundly beautiful, both in their significance as personal transformation and as pure literature: Dubus choosing non-violence in a watershed moment confronting a younger man on a train, helping his father after a disabling car accident, and, when the senior Dubus passes away, working side-by-side with his brother to hand-craft his father’s coffin and dig his grave.

Townie is a very honest, very powerful, and ultimately touching memoir. I also found it to be a poignant reminder that we can and truly ought to do better for young people - that behind any angry, violent teenager is a human being who is hurting. This is a story that will not only stay with you, it might even shift your understanding of the world.

I was honored to have the opportunity to ask the author some questions about Townie, and his answers were every bit as forthright and fascinating as his memoir. You can read my q&a with Andre Dubus III today here on the blog.

Andre Dubus III is a National Book Award finalist and author of the novels House of Sand and Fog and The Garden of Last Days. His writing has received many honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a National Magazine Award, and a Pushcart Prize.

Many thanks to the publisher for a complimentary review copy of Townie.

Happy reading!

Club Carousel - LitStack Flash Fiction Challenge #4

2012-02-20T15:33:00.001-05:00

Playing the club was the most exhilarating high she’d everknown, the most alive place she’d ever been. She felt beautiful when sheplayed, desired, powerful, a sorceress casting her musical spell over them. Italways clicked just right with Mac and Joe, and they sent it out like magic, theirmusic piercing the darkness and the haze, enchanting the ladies, coy and dressedto the nines; emboldening the men, flirting, bragging, and generous with theliquor. Beneath the heat, the sweat, the perfume, the tobacco; beyond the clinkingof glasses, the flashing of teeth, the elated intoxication, was the seductive fever of the music that transcended rules and boundaries and cares of the world.

But her magic only existed in the night, in the clubs. Mostnights, after the people emptied out, the musicians would spill onto thestreets, heady from the set, the applause, the booze. They would laugh and partways, the men heading off to the bar, she back to the dull, modest apartmentshe shared with her girlfriends, a violinist and a teacher.

On this night, however, she was slow to pack up after a set,and when she emerged, still buzzing, there was Mac, leaning against thelamppost, waiting for her, changing colors under the flickering neon andlamp-glow. She flushed at the sight of him, this lean, tall saxophone player,stunning in his fedora, jacket held carelessly over one shoulder, cigarettedangling so casually from his other hand, saxophone case parked at his feet.

They were a hit for a while. Her and Mac. Her and the trio. Butit wasn’t destined to last long. It was a different world inside, where the usualrules didn’t apply. Outside, even in this, the most cosmopolitan of all cities,people looked askance at a single female jazz musician.

It was a good run, and when they broke up, there were nohard feelings. Mac headed for L.A., Joe signedon with their friend Charlie, who became a real star. And when Armand camealong soon after, and meant to marry her, not only did she truly love him, butthe time was right to quit this fairy tale life and start a real one.

She reached out one frail finger and touched the antique negative, asif she could still feel the pulse of the music through her parchment skin. Shewas in a new kind of modest apartment now, the last one she expected to livein. Not too many people remembered her, only the die hard fans, the onesthat lived it and breathed it like religion, like a purpose. Weren’t you…? Someone occasionally asked.

No, she’d smile. You must have me mixed up with someoneelse.

She placed the film slowly back in the cardboard box, takingcare to fix the lid just so, and resting her palm on it for a moment beforeputting it away.

Club Carousel is my entry for LitStack Flash Fiction Challenge #4.

Author Q&A and Giveaway: Lena Sledge, If I Had My Way

2012-02-17T06:00:00.000-05:00

Writer and poet Lena Sledge is the author of the new short story collection If I Had My Way and the forthcoming novel Waiting on Heaven. Lena is also one of my very favorite book blogging colleagues, so I was beyond delighted when she agreed to come be a guest here on Books, Personally. With her clear voice, easy, engaging writing style, and intriguing characters, reading If I Had My Way was like sitting down over a cup of coffee with a good friend and listening to her tell you what is in her heart. Welcome, Lena!

Lena, your writing career had it's earliest beginnings with an elementary school essay contest, which you won! What was your essay about? What was that experience like for you?

What fond memories. My essay was about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the many ways kids like myself could make a difference in the world. It was one of my favorite highlights as a child. I knew then I had a voice.

Did you continue writing throughout your childhood? When did you really know that writing was your calling?

I continued to write throughout my childhood. I knew writing was my gift in the 11th grade. I had to write an autobiography and my English teacher gave me an "A," but she asked to speak with me after class. She said she was very moved by my honesty and my writing style. She was the first person to tell me I had a talent for writing.

Who are some of the authors that have most inspired you? Who have most influenced you or shaped you as a writer and a poet?

Bernice L. McFadden, Toni Morrison and James Baldwin [have most inspired me]. I would say Bernice L. McFadden and James Baldwin influenced me the most. I once copied the entire book Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin completely by hand on yellow legal pads. His book is poetic, almost lyrical in tone. It is honest and authentic, and the first book I read that was categorized as gay lit. I consider it to be great literature, period. But I remember wanting to be as authentic as James Baldwin in my own writing. I also wanted to know what it felt like to write what I considered a masterpiece. Now, I can say I wrote one. Maybe not my own, but I did write it.

What are your all-time top three favorite books?

Oh that's easy, but I wish I could list more books. Sugar by Bernice L. McFadden - I have purchased that book so many times. I would lend it out and never receive it back and so I would have to purchase another copy. Then I started purchasing extra copies so I could give it away freely. The next book would be Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin and my other choice is I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.

Can you tell us a little bit about the beginnings of If I Had My Way? Was there one story, or one character that really hooked you, that got you writing, or with whom you knew you had found your direction?

I started If I Had My Way with the story "5 Minutes." The main character Niceta has been with me for some time. She is part me, I would say 1/4 Lena Sledge in spirit and 3/4 fiction. Then I begin to write stories that revolved around the theme of what would you do differently if you had your way to change it. And the stories began to flow from there.

Most of your stories are told from the point of view of women, and among the many things I liked about If I Had My Way was that your characters find ways to be honest, strong and resourceful in the face of adversity - when they don't have their way. Was that a conscious choice when you were writing, or is that just how your characters come to you? How are your characters like you? How are they different?

It was deliberate to write strong characters with flaws. I wrote with that theme in mind. But I didn't set out to write from the view point of women. It just happened that way.

So many of the characters are like me and yet completely different than me. Some of the choices I would never make, yet I can empathize with having to make certain choices in certain situations. For instance with Sunshine, she is self-conscious about who she thinks she is because of one aspect in her life. Yet she finds out later that one person, one moment, doesn't define you. You define who you are. I would like to believe I would make better choices than the characters in my stories from the start. But people are human and it isn't always cut and dry. I am no different than my characters in regards that my family is my strength, but I wholeheartedly believe I would make better choices early on.

A few of your stories are told from a man's point of view - I thought "Substitute" was especially moving, and "Journey." The characters in these two stories ultimately consider family, responsibility, and choices. Can you talk a little bit about the inspiration for those stories?

In "Substitute" there are two brothers who are both alive but not truly living the life they would like to have. I have three sisters and I would like to think I would behave differently to them if I were in the same situation as the brothers in "Substitute," yet I can relate to the struggles of both brothers because they are ultimately putting their life and their dreams on hold for someone they love. How many people do that in everyday life as mothers, wives, friends, etc? There's nothing wrong with being selfless, but at some point you have to be good to yourself to be any good to anyone else.

What aspects of writing these characters challenged you?

"Journey" challenged me the most because I felt for Raru. I wanted him to win. But Raru wasn't destined to win in this story, perhaps later in life I imagine, but everything doesn't end with a big red bow. I wanted Raru to grow, and he does. I knew a lot of Rarus growing up in Detroit, and a couple of them never made it in life as far as Raru does. As long as there is breath in you, it's never too late to make better choices.

The whole time I was reading "If I Had My Way," the song was humming in the back of my mind. Was it there for you as well? Just for fun: If you could make a playlist for the collection, what songs or types of music would be on it?

It would be R&B and jazz. I love to hear a saxophone playing and I love listening to violins. I honestly listen to all of Jill Scott's albums on my iPod when I write. I probably listen to her album The Real Thing: Words and Sounds more than any other album. Her music inspires and relaxes me. I got the title for If I Had My Way from the song If I Have My Way by Chrisette Michele. She has a powerful and soulful voice. I was riding in the car one day and it just clicked.

Please tell us a little bit about your novel Waiting on Heaven.

Waiting on Heaven is my first novel. It's a family drama filled with growing pains, tragedy, love and some very funny moments. It's about a mother who is terminally ill and disappears without telling her adult children. She only tells one person, her sister, and between the two of them they misdirect and deceive the siblings, but her youngest daughter doesn't believe the lies and gets closer to finding her mother and the real reasons she has left them to go die alone. I am excited about Waiting on Heaven and it will be released June 5, 2012.

Thanks so much to Lena for being a guest on the blog, and for a complimentary review copy of her lovely collection If I Had My Way. You can learn more about Lena on her blog, and follow her on twitter and Facebook. You can also purchase If I Had My Way on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Lena has also very generously offered a free e-copy of If I Had My Way to one lucky reader! Leave a comment telling us one thing you might do or change if you had your way on or before Thursday, February 23rd. Please enter only once, and ~~using the most technologically advanced methods known to humankind~~ Mr. Books Personally will draw a name out of a hat to select a winner. Be sure to leave an e-mail or twitter handle so we can make arrangements to get you your copy!

Update: Congratulations to Sidne, our winner! Thank you, everyone, for checking out the interview and for your great thoughts on "If I Had My Way."

Beatitude - Larry Closs

2012-02-11T11:13:00.000-05:00

Beatitude, Larry Closs - Rebel Satori Press, 2011

"It arrives when you least expect it, in ways you never imagine, from a place you never thought it could come... And though it may not be what you hoped it would be... to accept it for what it is, and for what it isn't... is the greatest gift of a good heart."

Harry Charity, a writer at Element, an arts and culture magazine in New York City, has a bad habit of falling in love with the wrong people. Burned one too many times, he is withdrawn, wary, and unwilling to risk love again... until Jay is hired in Element's art department. Harry feels an instant attraction, and the two men discover their mutual love of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and the rest of the beat writers and poets.

The men develop a fast and exhilarating friendship, going to lunch together every day, exploring bookstores to search for first editions of Kerouac's On the Road, attending poetry readings in the hopes of meeting Allen Ginsberg. But Harry awkwardly finds himself in a confusing and ambiguous triangle with Jay and his girlfriend Zahra. Harry navigates this relationship clumsily, and needily - but so generously and sincerely, one begins to wonder if there could be any bigger heart than Harry's. When Harry finally scores an interview with the poet Allen Ginsberg, their conversation turns to love and friendship, and Harry finds the wisdom he needs to make sense of his relationship with Jay.

I very much enjoyed reading this touching exploration of an imbalanced friendship/unrequited romance, and while it is not a happy ending in the romantic sense of "happily ever after," it is a happy ending in that it celebrates love however it comes. I must confess more than once during the novel, I wished I could give Harry a good prod, push him out into the world, introduce him to a few new friends, help him find a new hobby, and move on from the waffling Jay. (Really Har, you can do better! But I also suspect that just beyond the ending of novel, you already are).

The added element of the Beat writers was also fun- I learned a few interesting new tidbits about Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, et. al. Beatitude even includes two previously unpublished Ginsberg poems.

Overall, I found Beatitude to be a warm, uplifting and hopeful story, recommended for contemplative readers who enjoy a thoughtful story infused with the spirit of the Beat generation.

Happy reading!

(Many moons ago I saw Allen Ginsberg read, and have a very vivid memory of the powerful anti-war poem Hum Bomb! - found this little clip of him reading it in a club in London in 1995 - a few years after I saw him. Enjoy!)

Monstress - Lysley Tenorio

2012-02-04T06:26:00.001-05:00

At the end of our first week Papa Felix said, ‘How I pity them, these Filipinos in America. So many sick without knowing why.’ He was standing at the hotel window looking down at the crowds in the street, as if they were his people. ‘Can you imagine, waiting and waiting, just for someone to bring you hope?”

I lied and said no.

-from the story Felix Starro in Monstress

A young woman abandoned to grow up in a leper colony in the Philippines. The conscience-burdened nephew of a charlatan “healer.” An older man whose very sense of self and nation are challenged by The Beatles’ slight of Imelda Marcos during their 1966 tour in Manila. As in the lovely excerpt above from Felix Starro, the stories in Lysley Tenorio's wonderful debut collection Monstress (Ecco Press, 2012) are all about hope, and longing, and identity.

Tenorio’s characters drew me in with their richness, warmth, humor, and originality. As an “emerging author,” Tenorio has already established himself as a notable literary talent: his work has been published in The Atlantic, Zoetrope, Ploughshares and others; he is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Whiting Writer’s Award, and several prestigious fellowships and residences; and if you read Monstress, you will see why. I recommend it highly for fans of short, literary fiction.

This review was originally published in longer form over at LitStack. I received a complimentary copy of the book from the publishers. All opinions expressed are my own.

Happy reading!

The Forgiven: LitStack Flash Fiction Challenge #3

2012-02-02T06:10:00.000-05:00

photo by Drew Hoffman

Greyson was standing on his own front step, compiling a verylong mental list of things he knew he shouldn’t have done. Besides lost his job, which, given the merger, he couldn’t reallyhave helped. But more recent things, tangible things. Like, assaulting a man,for example. Or using foul language. Well, maybe not so much of it, anyway. Frankly,he shouldn’t have gone down there at all in his condition, not all agitatedlike that, but he’d tried to explain it all over the phone first. And thepayment was coming, really. Okay, maybe not by today’s (arbitrarily set, let’sface it) deadline, but by the end of month at the latest. Probably. Yes, Greyson sighed, he was fully aware itwasn’t the first time he was overdue. Yeshe understood why he had to make a minimum payment right away. No he didn’t need a credit counselor tohelp him… help him what? Help him understand that his credit cards – all ofthem- were maxed out? That his daughter’s college fund was as good as gone?That he didn’t have enough money to keep both the house and the car? Heunderstood that. Did the bankunderstand that what he needed was a job?Was the bank going to help him withthat, he’d wanted to know? The silence on the other end was infuriating. Yes, he finally conceded. Yes I’ll be right down. Idiots, he’d thought, and slammed downthe phone.

He’d been calm on theway there. He put on a suit and his best game face, ready to buy just a littlemore time, ready to tell that snippy Mr. Pemberwick that he had anotherpromising interview next week, a really promising one, that things were finallystarting to look up… if only they could just wait, just a little longer. Whenhe reached the office, he explained it in the sincerest, most humble tone hecould muster up. He had a plan, Greyson said. Please, he implored… and Mr.Pemberwick didn’t give a single bit. Not even a hint of understanding andsympathy in his cold and inhuman eyes. That a man could lose everything.. everything! And get nothing in returnbut Mr. Pemberwick’s smug, stony, incredibly impassive countenance, well, somethinginside him just snapped.

So now Greyson stood outside his door, shaken and afraid,wondering how he was going to tell his wife. How he was supposed to explain whyhe found himself leaping across the desk of a tight-faced little man in order to shake somesense into him? Or why, after nearly forty-two years of upstanding citizenship,a security guard needed to wrestle him off of a bank employee? Or why a mancould do everything right, and still fail. So he stood there, clutching thepapers, wishing that an asteroid would obliterate the earth and save him fromhaving this conversation.

But then the door opened, and she took his hand, and he knewit was going to be all right.

The Forgiven is my entry in LitStack's Flash Fiction Challenge #3.

The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern - Guest Review by Adina Ciment

2012-01-28T07:00:00.000-05:00

Guest review by Adina Ciment

I have to be honest here. I picked up Erin Morgenstern’s debut novel, The Night Circus (Doubleday, 2011) for two reasons: first, because I shamelessly bought into the hype surrounding it, and second, because I really liked the cover. Add the two main topics of the novel – circuses and magic – and I was pretty much sold. Call me a sucker for promotional gimmicks, but whatever it was, it worked.

The Night Circus tells the story of two master magicians, the extraordinary competition between their two protégés, and the wondrous circus that serves as the backdrop for their games. While Marco and Celia, the star-crossed pair who find themselves caught up in the manipulations of their respective teachers, are the main show in this circus of dreams, Morgenstern paints a collage of other characters whose stories and personalities unfold within the circus walls. In fact, there are so many principal players here that at times you might feel like you’re lost in the freak-show tents. From astonishing contortionists and exclusive midnight parties, to dark magic and fantastical engineers, the circus comes alive on the pages of the book. Cool cover notwithstanding, this is a book that lives up to the hype.

Though the rivalry between the magicians drives the plot, the circus itself is the centerpiece here. The Night Circus opens at nightfall and “arrives without warning” with its black and white striped tents. This Cirque des Reves is certainly the greatest show on Earth, and Morgenstern gives you a front row seat. Each section of the novel begins with a personal tour of the circus written in second person. You walk between the sideshows and watch the tents grow and expand as the circus becomes more elaborate and magical. In essence, you become a reveur - the term used to describe the people who follow the Night Circus like Phish fans.

As fantastic and magical as the circus is, it quickly becomes clear that it takes more than pixie-dust to run the show. This is a dark story, with brooding characters and menacing magic. Circuses are freaky enough by themselves without the added bonus of workers who don’t age, shadowless producers, and unusually prophetic twins who seem like they stepped out of The Shining. Though any circus that sets up at night and never has a midday matinee should be a warning sign, most visitors and virtually all the workers ignore the very real magic in front of them. When they start to realize that something is amiss, they are pretty much too far involved to extricate themselves from the power of the Night Circus and the competition between Marcos and Celia.

Morgenstern’s pacing is slow, but her descriptions of the circus and its various attractions are definitely fun to read, though there were some I had trouble visualizing. The narrative jumps between times and locations that tend to get confusing, particularly at the end as the chapters become more concise. At a certain point I needed to backtrack and figure out where I was in the story. The competition itself is so shrouded in mystery that for the majority of the book, you’re reading blind, so to speak, without any real way of knowing where it’s heading. Some readers might enjoy that, but others might find it distracting. In addition, the love scenes between Marcos and Celia are a bit over the top. I found myself rolling my eyes as lights burst and chandeliers shook each time they touched.

There are many books about circuses, and Morgenstern’s is right up there with the best, though clearly more aligned with Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes than Gruen’s Water for Elephants. The Night Circus is one of those rare novels that you will want to revisit and explore long after the tents have folded. Grab your red scarf and get comfortable. You’re in for a treat.

Adina Ciment is an English teacher by day, mother of five by night, soon-to-be famous author in between. She writes for Tailslate and has contributed to The Best Damn Creative Writing Blog. You can also find her on twitter. It is always a delight to have her as a guest here on Books, Personally - she is the author of this outstanding ode to the marvelous Molly Weasley and this brilliant holiday gift recommendation.

Happy reading!

Daring Books for Grown Up Girls

2012-01-21T07:59:00.001-05:00

This weekend finds me off to ~~the remote internetless wilderness at the end of the earth~~ a scout lodge on a winter campout. While I'm out summoning up all my own daring (and in case I get eaten by a bear), I thought I'd leave you with a few excellent short story collections that depict women's lives with honesty, emotional range, complexity, and yes, daring writing.

Author Elissa Schappell holds nothing back in Blueprints for Building Better Girls (Simon & Schuster, 2011) the stories are raw, often heartbreaking and resonant, covering the terrain of relationships, marriage, conception, motherhood, self-image, high school ostracism, eating disorders and assault. If you are like me, you may find yourself urging this book on your closest friends when you are done. I was also thrilled to have the chance to ask Ms. Schappell some questions, and absolutely loved her very open, very forthright answers about the collection, writing about women, her own writer's journey, and her work as an editor at Tin House literary magazine. You can read the interview here.

This is Not Your City by Caitlyn Horrocks (Sarabande Books, 2011) is an elegant and yet unsettling debut. One of my favorites in the collection was “Steal Small,” in which a woman, just scraping by, reflects on the past while struggling to make peace with her present. It is a hard existence, she and her husband each working low-wage jobs, collecting and selling want-ad dogs to pharmaceutical companies for extra cash. Her closest family, a younger sister, is in another city starting college. Just as the woman was unable to protect her sister in childhood, she is unable to protect the dogs now. She is grateful, however, for what little she has, and in one of the most beautiful lines in the book, one that I thought summed up Horrocks’ take on her characters in general, she offers:

If this is what I get in this world, I’ll take it. Love and squalor, but mostly love. I’ll take it and I’ll take it and I will not be sorry.

Horrocks does not shy away from complicated moral and emotional terrain in any of her stories, and her characters own the complexity of their feelings — they are not sorry. The stories may leave a reader pondering, uncomfortable, surprised and even disturbed, but they are all striking.

Access: Thirteen Tales, by Xu Xi (Signal8Press, 2011)
While most of the stories in this collection are told from the point of view of Asian women, this is perhaps the only connecting theme, for each takes the reader in completely new and unexpected directions, radically shifting perspectives between types of women, circumstances, and even countries. Xi’s characters are – in constantly shifting combinations – smart, desirous, powerful, heartbroken, damaged, dutiful, hungry, jealous, sometimes defying convention and sometimes struggling under their compliance with it. The stories in Access tend to challenge, they’ve got a bit of an edge, and don’t even always leave the reader with clearly defined conclusions. But for the more adventurous lover of short, literary fiction, Access may be both a very memorable introduction to Xu Xi (recipient of an O. Henry prize; author of seven books of fiction and essays, one of which was shortlisted for the 2007 Man Asian Literary Prize; and editor of three anthologies of Hong Kong literature in English) and also a striking reminder of why it is well worth expanding one’s reading horizons beyond the familiar and the comfortable.

Birds of a Lesser Paradise, by Megan Mayhew Bergman (Scribner, release date March 2012) is about women and their most fundamental relationships — to lovers, spouses, children and parents — and their most primal hopes, disappointments, fears and desires — the loss of a parent, fear of loneliness, the desperate wish to have a child. What makes the stories most unique is their profound and beautifully observed connections to nature, and most notably, to animals. The animals in this collection are as important as the human characters themselves, and Bergman draws upon her own first-hand experience to write about them with exceptional insight and expertise (her husband is a veterinarian, and lives with four dogs, four cats, two goats, a horse, and a handful of chickens). Bergman is also the mother of two and a professor at Bennington College. I was delighted to have the opportunity to ask her about her work, teaching, and forging a writing life in the midst of all those animals, you can read the interview here.

Have you read any daring books for grown up girls recently? Share in the comments!

These reviews were originally published in longer form at LitStack.com. Complimentary review copies of all three books were provided by the publishers; all opinions expressed are my own.

Happy Reading!

The Eye: LitStack Flash Fiction Challenge #2

2012-01-19T05:53:00.000-05:00

The following is my entry for the LitStack Flash Fiction Challenge #2. Writing at 5am... not so sure how this will read later today, but here goes...

For what seemed like the millionthtime in his career (if you could call it that) Miles pressed a chloroformsoaked cotton ball to the top of the vial and waited for the Drosophilia melanogasterto still. The fruit flies dropped to the bottom, dead. Miles carefully tipped them onto a tray andbegan preparing a slide.

And so began every dreary day: Alarm,coffee, car, beltway, flies, flies, flies, car, beltway, tv, bed - and then itstarted all over again. Daylight hours spent, not in actual daylight, but underthe artificial light of the lab. Miles felt a bit like a fruit fly in a vial himself.

He gently lifted one of them withhis tweezers and placed it carefully on the the glass. Miles could do this byrote and his mind often wandered. In his fantasies, he was floating untethered,completely unbounded in space. Heimagined his limbs buoyed and soothed by weightlessness, his spirit calmed bythe absence of walls and infinity of the universe. But today Miles was stirred fromhis daydream by a noise never before heard in the lab. A soft, but clear hum.

Miles put the tweezers down andlooked around. All of the other technicians were still hunched over microscopes,seemingly oblivious. He listened again, there it was. Miles slipped out of thelab. Now on high alert, he followed the hum down the hallway. Surely somethingin the utility area, he ought to just call a custodian. But when he turned downthe next corridor there was an opening, what looked like an air shaft missingits grate. The hum was louder and seemed to be calling to him. He slipped inside.

The shaft wasn’t much larger thanMiles, and for a moment he panicked. But the hum was now more of a buzz thatcame from somewhere ahead. He felt the vibrations under his hands and knees,and crawled faster. After what seemed like hours, the shaft gave way to atunnel in which Miles could almost stand. It was odd, but he felt freer in thiscramped tunnel than he’d felt anywhere in years. He walked on, feeling his way throughthe near darkness until he eventually reached a larger tunnel, which finallygave way to a huge cavern. What was this place? Did his supervisor know?

The hum had by now become adeafening roar, and as Miles peered across the cavern, he saw an enormousglowing oval, made up of smaller, geometric rods. Mesmerized, he walked closerand reached up to touch them. Miles suddenly realized what they were and stopped. These were ommatidia, and this was an eye. A behemoth of an insect’seye. Welcome, he heard it hum. Welcome home.

Miles looked up, and around,taking in the vastness of this eye and its owner. He reached out his handagain, this time extending it right into the radiance. He smiled, and in aninstant he was gone.

# # #

The Thorn and the Blossom

2012-01-17T06:30:00.000-05:00

The Thorn and The Blossom, A Two-Sided Love Story
Theodora Goss, Quirk Books, 2012

You can always expect the unexpected from the creative, innovative and, well, quirky Quirk Books. The Philadelphia-based independent publisher is the literary home of the NYT bestselling, runaway hit Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, the itch-inducing thriller Bedbugs, and now the charmingly designed The Thorn and The Blossom, A Two-Sided Love Story.

From the publisher: "The Thorn and the Blossom tells the story of Evelyn Morgan, who, when she walks into the Thorne & Son bookshop, meets the love of her life. When Brendan Thorne hands her a medieval poem called The Book of the Green Knight, he doesn’t know that it will shape his future. After that first meeting, they don’t see each other for years—and yet neither ever stops thinking about the other. It’s as if they are the haunted lovers in the old book itself... ." What makes this book unique is that the tale of Evelyn and Brendan's romance is told twice- once from Brendan's point of view, and once from Evelyn's. Their stories are printed on opposite sides of accordion-fold paper with a spineless binding, allowing the reader to choose which story to read first.

The book is truly very pretty, and it is clear the publisher has taken a lot of care with the details. The cover art reminds one of an embroidered tapestry such as you might find hanging in The Cloisters, the book is printed on fine quality paper, with beautiful title pages and endpapers, and comes in an attractive sleeve. First impression: perfect for gifting. The pictures depicting the hero and heroine (of the modern story and the Green Knight poem) at the beginning of each story remind us of the prints or etchings found in antique books, hearkening back to medieval times. The concept of the dual stories, and the idea of Brendan and Evelyn's connection to the original characters in the poem, hold much promise.

How does one decide which story to read first? For no particular reason, I chose Brendan's story. The novel itself is very brief (the length limited, I'm guessing, in part by the unusual design) and I read through it briskly and for the most part, enjoyably. There is not a lot of depth to the characters, or much complexity to the plot, but The Thorn and the Blossom makes no pretense of being a sweeping novel or a literary heavyweight of a book. It is a simple tale of out-of-step lovers, with a hint of enchanted connection to the past. As far as the romance goes, it's a little unfulfilling - there's an open-endedness to the two stories that, while it encourages you to continue onto the other side, doesn't leave one feeling exactly satisfied in the end. Overall more style than substance, but stylish indeed.

If you would like to learn more about the book and see the accordion fold in action, check out this trailer:

Happy Reading!

I received a complimentary copy of The Thorn and the Blossom from the publisher. All opinions expressed are my own.

Three Good Things for the New Year

2012-01-15T09:10:00.000-05:00

Sometime over the past few weeks, we hit the one-year mark here on the blog - woo hoo! It has been an awesome, awesome year - many thanks to all of you who, in one way or another (readers, commenters, sharers, writers, guest posters and interviewees) have helped to make it so fun, and so very rewarding. Hard to imagine life without it now (though I like to think I'd be doing more - er, make that, any - yoga, or have become fluent in another language, or something healthy like that instead).

One of my 2012 resolutions (and perhaps it was one of yours, as well) was to keep working on my non-blogging writing. At the rate I'm going, I might have a publishable short story, in oh... say... a decade or two. But it's fun, when I get to it, and it definitely gives me far greater insight and appreciation for all you writers and authors out there. So with the art and practice of writing in mind, I'd like to share a few good things to encourage and inspire writers in the New Year:

The online journal Necessary Fiction not only publishes wonderful short fiction, reviews and more, but also offers two series that more deeply explore the writing process itself. The first, Origin Stories, invites authors and writers to look back at and share some of their earlier work, and to discuss inspirations, influences, and their own development (the post from Matt Bell about his story "Blanket" is an excellent place to start). The second, Research Notes invites writers to consider the information-gathering process (defined as broadly as they want) that went into their first books - for example, Ryan Bradley writes about pumping gas and other life experiences as research for his upcoming book Code for Failure.)

Back by popular request: the LitStack Flash Fiction Challenge (formerly the BDCWB Flash Fiction Challenge). This is a fun and very friendly way to get the creative juices flowing - LitStack posts a photo prompt, you write up to 500 words, post it on your blog or tumblr or what-have-you, and leave a link in LitStack's comments. It is wonderful to see how the same picture leads to such different stories. Everyone is welcome, so please join in! Check out our first prompt here, and come back this Wednesday for a new round.

And finally, something to reframe the way you think about the potential power of fiction: Safety Pin Review. Safety Pin Review publishes micro fiction on a black square of cloth and pins it to the back of a brave volunteer, who goes out into the world wearing a story for a week, and photo-documenting his/her experience. Thank you to Berit Ellingsen for sharing her story and bringing attention to this very cool project - check out Berit's story "Hostage Situation," and also the post considering the perspective of the "operative," or story's wearer.

Happy reading... and writing!

-Jennifer

Zazen, Vanessa Veselka

2012-01-11T06:55:00.001-05:00

Zazen
by Vanessa Veselka, Red Lemonade, 2011

Della is tormented by the violence and sadness in the world around her: a world that has succumbed to the hyper-consumerism of big box stores, big box banks, and big box churches; a world torn apart by social strife, race and class violence, militarism, terrorism. War is looming. Many of those who can, have left; those who can't, or won't, struggle to make sense of it. Della moves between the different people and strains of the counterculture - community organizers, vegans, yogis, her own 1960's style hippie liberal parents - seeking a place that makes sense to her, striving to find solace and a salve to the pain, to the Weltschmerz of her existence. She flirts with taking action of her own, calling in bomb threats without planting bombs, until suddenly bombs actually go off in the places she chose. She seeks connection in a nearby collective. Della finally feels at home, until she uncovers a secret, and must finally come to terms with how she will be in the world.

This book was, in some ways, a challenge read for me, and I knew that going in. Zazen came so highly recommended I had to give it a try, and am glad I did. Veselka captures, in often beautiful, exciting, and poetic language the atmosphere of this world in collapse, the ironies and details of the counterculture movements she describes (yet also eliciting the sincerity and humanity in them as well). I found Della herself to often be so self-involved in her own pain and fragility it was alternatingly enchanting and excruciating to read, and for a good part of the novel I both wondered whether (and hoped beyond all hope) this was intentional. I should not have doubted; eventually it becomes clear that this is the author's intent -Veselka even calls attention to it in a confrontational moment as events begin to escalate.

The author herself is quite fascinating, having had many non-traditional professions before writing this novel, and the breadth of her knowledge and experience comes through brilliantly in her writing. If you would like to know more about her, I highly recommend this interview with Vanessa Veselka over at The Rumpus. The publisher, Red Lemonade is also quite interesting, having founded an online community in which writers can share their works in progress with readers, getting feedback as they go along.

Zazen may not be a read for everyone, but it will appeal to thinkier readers, writers, folks who are drawn to stories that explore collapsing societies and identity and morality. I found it to be very thought provoking, if not always an easy read. If the story sounds like your kind of story, and Della a character who would intrigue you, it's well worth your time.

I received my copy of Zazen as a gift.

Story Sundays: Comma, Hilary Mantel

2012-01-08T07:00:00.000-05:00

"Comma," by Hilary Mantel (in The Guardian, August 13, 2010) is a dark and suspenseful story of a little girl and her forbidden friendship with Mary Joplin, a slightly older child from a less well off, looked-down upon family. Despite being warned away from Mary, the narrator sneaks out with her, and the two girls spend their summer days exploring the town, especially sneaking onto the grounds of the home of the Hathaways, a wealthy family who lives just beyond the graveyard. Mary insists that if they watch long enough, they will see the "comma", and one night they stay late enough that they do. The tenderness they witness there brings out Mary's jealousy, and causes her to act out.

I've been meaning to read Hilary Mantel's books for a while but haven't gotten to them yet, and so was delighted to have the chance to get to know her writing a bit through this short story. I especially enjoyed the way she captured the tension and inequalities inherent in this unlikely relationship - they put the reader on alert. The narrator is drawn to Mary because she is different, taboo, and perhaps a bit dangerous. But while she goes to meet her every day, the narrator carefully navigates her ambivalence about the friendship, for she is not exactly a loyal friend to Mary. When the girl makes excuses about her whereabouts to her mother and aunt, she makes them at Mary's expense, and they all have a good laugh over the Joplin family. The story ends with a later-in-life meeting between the now-grown women, the emotional content of which rings stark and a bit sad, but sadly true.

You can read Comma here. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the story. For those of you who have read other books by Hilary Mantel, how does "Comma" compare? Which of her books do you most recommend? Are you looking forward to the soon-to-be released sequel to Wolf Hall?

Story Sundays are all about short fiction here on the blog. This weekly meme was created by Ellen at Fat Books, Thin Women and is also celebrated at Novelniche: A Place for Books. Be sure to check out their blogs for wonderful short fiction selections and other excellent reviews. All stories reviewed can be read free online.

The Snakehunter of Liberty Grove: LitStack Flash Fiction Challenge

2012-01-04T16:54:00.001-05:00

The following flash fiction piece is my entry in LitStack's Flash Fiction Challenge #1, based on the photo prompt you see on the left. (By the way, everyone is invited to join in! Just check out the photo prompt, let your imagination take you where it will, post your story up to 500 words and leave a link in the comments of the challenge post at http://litstack.com/?p=4104. Happy writing!)

It was said that Corey Mayfield’s soul must have been ownedby the devil, for how else could anyone look right into a serpent’s eyes, hypnotizethe wicked adder into submission, and send it to kingdom come with a single flickof his knife or, under certain circumstances, the blunt end of his pistol? Corey’s pitiable lack of salvation didn’t stop the farmers and ranchers forsending for him when a particularly menacing rattler or sidewinder made its wayonto the property and threatened the livestock, but it did stop their wivesfrom inviting him to stay for supper after the job was done, though not from gossipingabout him in town or at church socials. As one might expect, Corey kept his owncompany, with the exception of venturing into the saloon on the occasional Saturdayafternoon for two beers and a whiskey, but never a game of cards, and rarely aconversation.

You could have heard the flick of an asp’s tongue the dayMaisy Jaspers strolled into Davison’s just as carefree as you please, chinhigh, basket tucked into the crook of her arm and the brazen notion that Mr.Mayfield might possibly care to join her on a picnic down yonder by the creek.And damned if Corey didn’t look her fixedly in the eye and declare that yes, ma’am,indeed he might, especially if that fine aroma meant blueberry pie. Damned also if he didn’t take one last sip of his beerand leave the whiskey right there on the table, push back his chair, stand up,place his hat on his head, take her arm, and go.

After that, Maisy and Corey were often seen in each other’scompany. Maisy’s family were decent folk,her mother active in the ladies guild and her father in The Grange. No oneunderstood what could cause Maisy to behave in such a fashion, though severalof her friends confided that that Mr.Mayfield certainly was an attractive man, albeit an unusual one, and giggled aboutwhat Miss Maisy must have come to know about Mr. Mayfield that they didn’t. Theolder ladies outwardly expressed their horror and inwardly sighed a breath ofrelief that here, at last, was gossip of a truly juicy variety. Maisy’s mother pursedher lips; Maisy’s father was gratefulfor the farmwork that kept him mostly in the fields and out of the town, wherepeople tended to stare.

Maisy and Corey raised five beautiful children, each of whomcould charm a snake every bit as well as their father, and though they were odd,people came to accept them. When Corey passed on at 83, having encountered acopperhead he hadn’t (what with age-weakened eyesight and hearing) seen orheard with fair enough warning to pull his knife or pistol, all the townspeoplecame to the service. He was buried in his finest, the ones you see here, andthat is how we remember him to this day, the Snakehunter of Liberty Grove.

Be it Bookishly Resolved

2012-01-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year!

January! Nothing like a brand new, clean, uncluttered calendar page to get the imagination going and inspire a fresh start. I'm not always one for making resolutions, but have been feeling recently that I'm spending more time doing things I ought to do, and not carving out enough time for the things I want to do. With that in mind, here are a few of my bookish and bloggish resolutions for 2012 - what are yours?

Write more (fiction, not reviews). Preferably something that isn't completely dreadful - but will take whatever comes as part of the learning process.
Continue to blog slowly* (have drifted, mostly out of necessity, into a once or twice a week posting schedule, and have found that works really well for me... if not as well for the page hits)
Do more of what I love best on the blog: writer/author Q&As, Three Good Things, and Story Sundays.
Read some new literary magazines
Spend less time/spend more productive time on the computer (errr... hmm.)
...and on a non-bookish note: get back to doing yoga... and cut down on the cookies.

Wishing you a happy & healthy New Year! Are you a resolution maker - why/why not? What aspirations do you have for the New Year?

*see Anne R. Allen's philosophy on blogging

Favorite Reads of 2011

2011-12-28T13:12:00.000-05:00

An end of year best-of post is required for book bloggers, is it not? My favorite reads (including some books read, but not published in 2011) tended to be the ones that left me with something upon which to reflect. There are so many outstanding books that deserve readership and attention; the following are just a few that stood out as especially moving or original or delighting or thought-provoking. Reviews for most of them can be found on the title index over there <----- .

The reads from my best-of list for Armchair BEA (put together much earlier in the year) still remain some of my absolute favorites: in exceptionally written and powerful short stories: Matt Bell's How They Were Found, Patrick Somerville's The Universe In Miniature in Miniature, and Alan Heathcock's Volt; in enlightening and entertaining non-fiction: Carmela Ciuraru's Nom de Plume, and Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns; in transporting novels: Sarita Mandanna's Tiger Hills, and Meir Shalev's A Pigeon and a Boy.

To that list I would add: Bonnie Jo Campbell's striking and evocative novel Once Upon a River; Tim Kinsella's brilliant and bleak A Karaoke Singer's Guide to Self Defense; Steve Himmer's highly original and endlessly thought-provoking The Bee-Loud Glade...

...Elissa Schappell's powerful short stories Blueprints for Building Better Girls; Jessica Francis Kane's The Report, Bradford Morrow's beautiful and haunting The Diviner's Tale; Tea Obreht's charming The Tiger's Wife and Margaret Atwood's suspenseful and surprising The Blind Assassin.

I would also like to mention a few other writers and short story collections that captured my attention and imagination this year: Megan Mayhew Bergman's unique and moving Birds of a Lesser Paradise (book and review forthcoming in 2012), Xu Xi's sharply written, exciting and globe-trotting Access (review also forthcoming), Alissa Nutting's wildly imaginative Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls, Tiff Holland's moving and colorfully charactered chapbook Betty Superman, Caitlyn Horrock's This is Not Your City, and Erika Dreifus' thoughtful and thought-provoking Quiet Americans.

I'm sure I've forgotten something... my apologies in advance.

What were some of your favorite reads this year?

Baking not Blogging: A (Somewhat Bookish) Holiday Post

2011-12-22T20:41:00.000-05:00

Ahhh, not a very bookish week... too much else going on, what with work, baking, cleaning and shopping. Baking is perhaps my favorite of the holiday to-dos - every year we bake several batches of my Nana's Christmas cookies (using passed-down-through-the-generations old-fashioned cookie cutters), and molasses spice cookies, which fill the kitchen with the magical smells of molasses, ginger, cloves, allspice and cinnamon - worth baking for the aroma alone.

We got a little more crafty than usual this year.... inspired by a wonderful recent blog post over at Lena Sledge's blog, the kids and I learned how to make beaded bookmarks (a.k.a. "book thongs").... they were a great project, not too hard (kids needed just a little assistance with knots and crimping), and they turned out so pretty! We made one for each of the teachers, and paired them with these very cute (but not very expensive) paper-covered travel journals from Michael's... the jewel-tone colors matched perfectly, and together they made charming gifts.

Here's a close- up of one of the bookmarks my daughter made:

Looking forward to getting back to more reading and reviews after the holiday (coming soon: Xu Xi's excellent short story collection Access and The Thorn and The Blossom, a very pretty new book from Quirk Books.) As this year winds up, I am so grateful for all of you who have been part of the blog - many thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read, comment, and share; write a guest post or be a guest for Q&A; or write one of the many wonderful books and short stories featured here. Wishing you a truly Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas and/or Happy Kwanzaa.

Are you having a bookish or non-bookish holiday? What traditions are you enjoying this season?

Happy holidays-
Jennifer

Flu Christmas

2011-12-18T08:30:00.000-05:00

A little essay of great sympathy going out to all the parents of young children at holiday time. Originally posted December 2010 on my personal (and currently-on-hiatus) personal blog, A Perfect Pot Roast.

As a brand new mother of a brand new child, you just can't wait for the holidays. Oh, the magic! But honey, what you really need for Christmas is a washing machine and a heckuva lot of paper towels and handi-wipes. Because I can almost guarantee that when you are the parent of small children, someone is gonna throw up.

I can't remember the sequence of those flu/illness ridden early Christmases. Out of some kind of post-traumatic merciful amnesia, they are all a blur. One Christmas my daughter was fever-ridden and we cancelled a trip over the river and through the woods to Grandma and Grandpa's house. She didn't feel like opening her presents, much less playing with them. The pictures from that year are in a folder called "Christmas 2003 - The Flu". One year my daughter and I were both so sick the week leading up to Christmas that as of Christmas Eve we still didn't have a tree. Another year child number one was sick before Christmas, but got better just in time, so we made it to Grandma and Grandpa's house for dinner - whereupon I promptly threw up. That might also be the same year my second child threw up on me in a coffee shop on New Year's Eve (sorry about that one, Starbucks.)

Those holidays "from hell" are also, however, chock full of moments of quiet insight, triumph and overcoming. Your child might not be up for opening all her gifts, but you find out it's okay to open just one or two. You may not have gotten every little last preparation done, but Christmas will come with or without them. One of my very favorite Christmas memories is my husband heading out in the snow on that tree-less Christmas Eve, and, just like Santa Claus, bringing back a tree and take-out to uplift his sad, sick and weary family.

In the hype and idealization of the season, it is easy to find yourself striving for Norman Rockwell picturesque or Martha Stewart-style Christmas perfection. But the real gift of Flu Christmas is in finding that even in the face of adverse (and occasionally nauseating) conditions, there can still be peace and joy.

Just be sure to stock up on those handi-wipes.

Author Q&A - Erika Dreifus

2011-12-14T06:00:00.001-05:00

Erika Dreifus is the author of Quiet Americans, a short-story collection that is largely inspired by the histories and experiences of her paternal grandparents, German Jews who escaped Nazi persecution and immigrated to the United States in the late 1930s. Erika earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from Harvard University, where she taught history, literature, and writing for several years. Currently, she lives in New York City, where she works for The City University of New York. I was delighted to read Quiet Americans, and am thrilled to welcome Ms. Dreifus to the blog today to talk a little more about her book.

Please tell us a little bit about your grandparents and the inspiration for your stories.

My dad's parents, Ruth and Sam Dreifus, were German Jews who immigrated to the United States in the late 1930s, when they were in their early twenties. Although they came from the same region of Germany (Baden), they met and married here. Like the characters of Nelly and Josef Freiburg, who appear in several of the stories in Quiet Americans, my grandparents came from very different backgrounds: My grandmother had grown up in a prosperous urban family, whereas my grandfather, through his mother, belonged to a family (like the Gross family of "Matrilineal Descent") that had lived in the same small village for several generations.

Some of the stories are inspired by actual experiences in my grandparents' lives, but others are sourced more tangentially. For instance, the opening story, "For Services Rendered," grew out of my questions about another refugee from Nazi Germany, someone not related to me at all. He was a pediatrician my grandmother met here in New York shortly after she arrived, when she was working as a nanny for a family whose daughter was his patient. He was later my father's pediatrician as well.

Others stories reflect my own preoccupations as an inheritor of this legacy, but they are inspired by events or circumstances entirely outside the realm of my own or my family's experiences. A good example is "Mishpocha," which was sparked by two disparate items: an anecdote I heard at a Jewish genealogy conference, and an article in the Boston Globe.

One gets the sense that many survivors (understandably) just did not talk about this part of their history. How common is this experience? What is it like to grow up with that silence, and how does it affect younger generations, especially their understanding of their own family history and identity?

I can't speak to that directly, because my grandmother, in particular, was not silent (about anything!). Moreover, my grandparents' personal experiences as refugees, while difficult, were not nearly as traumatic as the suffering that occurred in Europe later. But intergenerational transmission of Holocaust trauma is something that I've read and thought about quite a lot. I'd recommend that anyone interested in this take a look at my essay, "Ever After? History, Healing, and 'Holocaust Fiction' in the Third Generation" for some references.

I imagine that many readers feel very personally about these stories, that they resonate with their own family experiences. I know you’ve had the opportunity to meet and talk with readers, how have they responded?

I have been humbled and gratified by the responses. And yes, there are definitely some people with similar family backgrounds who have shared their stories with me. But I've been equally moved and inspired by other readers' reactions. It has been fascinating, too, to learn more about my stories through others' eyes. Readers have discerned things about these stories that I never realized!

You wear many writerly hats (writing both fiction and poetry, editing, blogging about resources for writers, plus a “day job.” How do you balance them all? Of all of these endeavors, which do you love the most? Which do you wish you had more time for? What upcoming projects are you most looking forward to?

Well, I try to wear all of those hats, at any rate! These days, I don't feel as though I'm balancing them very well at all. I love them all (I can't have a "favorite" child, can I?). I do wish that I had more time to think and read and let longer-form project ideas simmer. That's what I'm really missing right now. I have a few projects in the works, but right now, I don't want to jinx anything by being too enthusiastic about any of them! Please keep up with me on my blogs or Facebook or Twitter to find out about them!

Many thanks for taking the time to visit Books, Personally!

You can learn more about the author on her website.

Quiet Americans, Erika Dreifus,
Last Light Studio, 2011

Portions of the proceeds from sales of Quiet Americans will be donated to The Blue Card, which supports survivors of Nazi persecution and their families in the United States.

Quiet Americans - Erika Dreifus

2011-12-14T06:00:00.000-05:00

Quiet Americans, Erika Dreifus, Last Light Studio, 2011

When we think of the Holocaust, we think, of course, of deportations and concentration camps and war and genocide.But all that came before, and the lasting impact on survivors and theirfamilies after, too often receive very little of our attention. Erika Dreifus explores these other, quieter stories of theHolocaust - those of survivors, their ancestors, and their descendants - in a thought provoking collection of shortstories, Quiet Americans. In thesestories, characters wrestle with the complicated emotions and moral questionsleft in the wake of this particular war and these particular atrocities againsthumankind. Inspired by her own family history (her paternal grandparents wereGerman Jews who immigrated to the United States in the late 1930s), and informed by her academic work, Dreifus’s stories are both personal and illuminating.

In the opening story, and one of my favorites “For ServicesRendered,” a Jewish pediatrician and his family areassisted in safely leaving Germany before the deportations by none other thanReischsmarschall Hermann Goering and his wife, whose daughter is in thepediatrician’s care. The doctor and hisfamily flee to New York, where, over time he is able to reestablish hispractice. Eventually the Reichsmarschall and his wife are brought up for trialon charges of war crimes and collaboration; the pediatrician is left to weightheir act of personal kindness against their crimes against anentire people, including the pediatrician’s own sister. Will the doctor offer a word on behalf of thewife, who advocated for him, and to whom he owes his and his immediatefamily’s survival? Other stories, such as “Mishpocha” consider what it means togrow up with gaps in family history as we lose a generation of survivors; in“Lebensraum” what it may have been like to be both a refugee and American serviceman supervisingGerman prisoners of war; or, as in “The Quiet American,” how the past mightstill be very much part of the present in a visit to modern-day Germany.

I enjoyed reading all the stories in this relatively brief but thoughtful collection. The issues and themes will resonate particularly withreaders of Jewish ancestry who may recognize bits of their own families in thestories, but can well be appreciated by any reader who likes fiction thatconsiders history, heritage and identity.

Ms. Dreifus has very kindly agreed to answer some questions about Quiet Americans, you can read our conversation here.

Portions of theproceeds from sales of Quiet Americans are being donated to The Blue Card www.bluecardfund.org, which supportssurvivors of Nazi persecution and their families in the United States.

Three Good Things Mixology

2011-12-10T21:41:00.000-05:00

On its best days, the twitterverse reminds me of a really good cocktail party... the kind with sparkling guests, scintillating conversation, great mood and music, mixed drinks and passed h'ors d'oeuvres... (er...do those kind of parties actually happen in real life? or are they only in books and movies?) Anyway, three good things (and a few more) today to mix up and enjoy:

Two parts conversation

Atticus Books' Six Degrees Left series brings writers together in a roundtable-like discussion to consider topics such as the relevance of MFA programs and the Occupy movement/social responsibility and the writing community. So interesting to hear the range of very thoughtfully expressed opinions.

Over at Hayden's Ferry Review's blog, another discussion, this one about the role of small/independent presses - are they more than just a "stepping stone" to the "big time?" I have my own humble opinions about why small/independent presses are important in their own right, but these folks say it far more eloquently.

+ One part imagination*

I loved Marcus Speh's short story "Fox" over at Necessary Fiction this week - this little story is fantastical, charming and childlike -it has a fairy tale quality about it- with a surprising turn. I read it several times, liking it better and better with every reading. The post includes an equally enchanting personal note from the author and sketch by his daughter.

Garnish with an olive or a twist**

Stamp Stories, from Mudluscious Press These sound very cool. "Stamp Stories are texts of 50 words or less, printed on 1×1 cardstock, & shipped free from participating presses." Mudluscious has collected and compiled these miniature stories from 100 authors into one bound volume.

Hoot, now in its third issue, is a mighty bite of a literary magazine on a postcard. The writing really is quite excellent and the postcards are gorgeous (and witty), too. Designed to be shared, Hoot would make a fabulous holiday gift for a writer or lover of literary fiction and poetry. You can also enjoy Hoot online (I loved Nick Sanford's "Incompatability" in the online December issue).

What good things are you reading? Share in the comments.

*Sundays are (usually) all about short fiction here on the blog. The Story Sundays weekly meme was created by Ellen at Fat Books, Thin Women and is also celebrated at Novelniche: A Place for Books. Be sure to check out their blogs for wonderful short fiction selections and other excellent reviews. All stories reviewed can be read free online.

** Liberties have been taken, and these directions will not actually result in a proper martini. If you want one, I recommend you look elsewhere.

Holiday Gifts Picks from Some Favorite Bloggers & Writers

2011-12-08T06:13:00.000-05:00

With the holidays fast upon us, I was curious to know what some favorite blogging & writing colleagues recommend as gifts this season... so I asked them! and got the most marvelous answers. Here are their fabulous and unique suggestions for the book lovers on your list:

My brother-in-law - whom I love dearly, by the way – knows everything. I mean, he knows EVERYTHING. If I turn on a light, he will tell me the wattage of the bulb. If I write an article, he will cite the source, history, and alternative spellings for at least three of the words I use. He is that irritating sort of soul who feels the need to share his vast knowledge of all things unimportant with everyone he sees. And so, that is why, I am giving him Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl (Penguin, 2007). I’m not giving it to him because the story is fantastic, which it is. I’m not giving it to him to enjoy the brilliant writing, which it has. No, my brother-in-law – whom I truly love dearly – is getting this book because it is so thoroughly footnoted, is filled with hundreds of obscure literary references, and has a character that rivals my brother-in-law in terms of arrogance and intellectual snobbery. And though he probably won’t see himself in it, I know that this book will keep him busy for a long time, more than likely trying to find every reference and every line the author cites to try and find a mistake. And that will keep him busy for quite a while. Unless he knows all them. Which he might. Did I mention I love my brother-in-law? - Adina Ciment

Adina is an English teacher by day, mother of five by night, soon-to-be famous author in between. She writes for Tailslate and has contributed to The Best Damn Creative Writing Blog. You can also find her on twitter.

Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day by Ben Loory (Penguin Books, 2011) are the most curious stories you’re likely to behold this holiday, right through to the next, and I’m not certain how much they inspire by way of seasonal cheer, but they are a superlative offering for that one girl, or guy, in your life, who’s always ambled by merrily on the opposite side of the tracks. Within them, a wistful, urban city-dwelling octopus curates a gleaming collection of spoons as fortification against the constant lure-reminder of the ocean from whence he came. A tree, having grown dissatisfied with remaining rooted to the earth, unplucks its moorings and begins to rove. A wife strives to resolve her conflicted feelings for the amiable Martian she and her husband meet at an astronaut’s home during the course of dinner. Many other mysterious, sweetly and sincerely absurd, grittily incredulous occurrences make their appearance in ‘Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day’. Your ideal recipient will delight in them, calling you back days (or hours) after receiving the book to tell you that, really, none of these magical terror-tales are truly beyond the pale of possibility. - Shivanee N. Ramlochan

Shivanee is a twenty-five year old fiction writer and book reviewer who lives and works on the island of Trinidad in the Caribbean. You can follow her eclectic, bookish musings on Novel Niche: A Place for Books, as well as ‘like’ her Facebook page, follow her on Twitter and befriend her on Goodreads.

Gandhi: A Manga Autobiography, by Kazuki Ebene (Penguin, 2011) is part of a new series of manga biographies aimed at teens being published by Penguin; other titles include Che Guevara(which I'll be reviewing soon) and The 14th Dalai Lama. But this volume takes as its subject Mahatma Gandhi, the famed and revered activist who lead his country out of British rule and into independence, through nonviolent civil disobedience. It would make a fine choice for tweens and up, including adults, wishing to learn the basics about this important figure and leader. I like the emphasis on deeds versus beliefs (though you'll certainly get a sense of what he believed and why); I like the message it sends about individuals making a difference, motivated by principle as well as the experience of injustice. The reader gets a nice sense of Gandhi's development in these ways, and how this ordinary man grew in influence and reach until millions followed him and an entire nation (or two, depending on your point of view) was lead out of the British empire and into freedom. It's an inspiring story and this book is a great starting point. - Marie, The Boston Bibliophile

Marie is a librarian by training and a bookseller by trade. She blogs at The Boston Bibliophile, and you can also find her on twitter.

Jacob T. Marley by R. William Bennett (Shadow Mountain, 2011) is the book which I would recommend for the holiday season. The book follows the life, death and after-death of its title character whom many people will recognize from the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol. Mr. Bennett tells in a language reminiscent of Dickens, evoking a classic feeling to this heartwarming tale which would be perfect for the Christmas season or to any fan of Dickens’ timeless fable. -Zohar Laor, Man of La Book.

Zohar is a father, husband, book blogger, software engineer & wood worker who is known the world over as a man of many interests and to his lovely wife as “an idiot.” You can find him on his blog and on twitter.

Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away (Christie Watson, Other Press, 2011) is one of my favourite reads of 2011. Set in the Niger Delta, this is the story of Blessing and her family. We see the world (as it changes, crashes and rebuilds) through the innocent eyes of this young girl. This wonderfully nuanced story deals with humanitarian issues and coming of age with equal grace. Not just a Christmas or holiday read, this book will appeal to anyone who appreciates the power of stories and the strength people have to rise above their difficulties. As in all good stories, this is one that makes you think and wonder about the opportunities you get, the decisions you make and the yardsticks we use to measure success. Do you know someone who loves well-told stories? Likes to read about cultures that many of us know very little about? Enjoys celebrating strength in all its forms? Get them Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away. (Don’t forget to get yourself a copy.) - Pujitha Krishnan, Stargazer Puj

Pujitha blogs at Stargazer Puj. You can also find her on twitter.

Years ago, after I had complained of being without a good book to read, a friend of mine hoisted into my hands, a very large book and said “Here, read this - it’s great.” The book was Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy (HarperPerennial, 1993), and my friend was right, for it is a great book. Set in India during the 1950’s, the novel tells the story of Lata Mehra and her families attempts at finding her a suitable husband. The story will appeal to anyone who embarks on an annual reading of Pride and Prejudice or Gone with the Wind, as it is a saga of enormous proportions, full of quirky characters, history, etiquette, social and religious prejudice, tricky family relations (what other kind are there?) and of course, love. Give them the book and then be sure to stay on good terms with them, because you’ll want to borrow it when they’re done. - Lisa Emig

Lisa is a writer and book reviewer for LitStack.com. She can also be found on her blog and on twitter.

If you and/or a friend like Little Women, despite it being a bit moralistic and possessing the world's worst romantic pairings ever and ends with our heroine getting shamed into writing literature that improves rather than the trashy stuff she enjoys, then I recommend Louisa May Alcott's delightfully dramatic pot-boiler, A Long Fatal Love Chase (Dell, 1996). This is the kind of book Jo March was writing before Professor Bhaer got all judgmental on her, and it's awesome. It's ridiculously over-the-top, lurid, dramatic, Gothic, dependent on improbable coincidences and lacking in character development. But it's also going to be the best afternoon you've had in a while. Creepy but not scary, big on mood, this is like a chocolate martini or maybe Yoohoo -- it's not good for you, but wow, does it taste awesome. - Audra, Unabridged Chick.

Audra blogs as Unabridged Chick and can also be found on twitter. Audra is a 30-something married lesbian with a thing for literary fiction and historical novels. But she's also having a pretty torrid affair with gritty noir and some paranormal/supernatural fiction. She loves interesting heroines, gorgeous prose, place as character, and the occasional werewolf.

For the literary fiction lover on your list, I can think of no better book than Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (Random House Trade, 2004). The story is really six, set one inside the other like Russian nesting dolls. Throughout these mini-masterpieces runs a fine thread of connection, linking each to its neighbors. The whole presents an absolute joy into which to sink one's mental teeth. Cloud Atlas has all the bases covered: a captivating story, a bit of a puzzle, dazzling prose, and characters about which one can care deeply. I have no doubt my favorite read of 2011 will delight fellow fiction aficionados this holiday season! - Erin, Erin Reads

Erin is a lifelong reader and a bookstore employee. She blogs at Erin Reads and can also be found on twitter.

What books are you recommending/giving as gifts this season? Share in the comments below!

Happy reading, and Happy Holidays!

Story Sundays: The Way We Live Now, Susan Sontag

2011-12-04T07:00:00.000-05:00

Well everybody is worried about everybody now, said Betsy, that seems to be the way we live, the way we live now.

Susan Sontag's The Way We Live Now, a short story published November 24, 1986 in The New Yorker and made available this week to read online, is a window into another time - the earlier years of the AIDS epidemic, when experimental treatments were only first becoming available, when an AIDS diagnosis was still the equivalent of a death sentence. In it, Sontag both tells the story of one man's illness through the flurry of chatter and conversation among his circle of friends, and conveys the zeitgeist of an era.

The story's structure suggests an elaborate, intricate game of telephone (what Max said to Kate who told Quentin who reported to Orson). You could get lost trying to keep track of who said what to whom... until you realize it doesn't really matter. Between the names, Sontag captures the smallest, daily details of Max's experience and the details of the progression of the disease (weight loss, hospitalization, metallic taste in the mouth, bleeding gums, fatigue, re-hospitalization). Beyond the names, the "he saids - she saids" build up a rythym and momentum, coming again and again, like waves, with a cumulative effect that can feel (appropriately) overwhelming. We realize this is not just Max's story, but also the increasingly common, tragic story of friends coming together to care for each other in dying. Read these many years later, The Way We Live Now helps us to remember how profoundly a single disease changed life for so many.

You can read the story online here. Red ribbon logo from the worldaidsday.org website.

* * *

Story Sundays are all about short fiction here on the blog. This weekly meme was created by Ellen at Fat Books, Thin Women and is also celebrated at Novelniche: A Place for Books. Be sure to check out their blogs for wonderful short fiction selections and other excellent reviews. All stories reviewed can be read free online.

The Diviner's Tale - Bradford Morrow

2011-12-01T08:20:00.001-05:00

The Diviner's Tale, Bradford Morrow, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011

Cassandra Brooks, a diviner of water, is used to being a bit of an outsider in her community. Her unusual talent for finding water below the ground, her non-traditional family, and a tragic incident in her past have always set her apart. When she comes across the body of a young woman hanging in the woods, Cassandra finds herself caught up in a terrible crime. In order to help, Cassandra must accept that she is more than a diviner of water - she must embrace her connection to the spiritual world and divine her own soul on the way to divining the truth.

The Diviner's Tale beautifully combines the suspense and tension of a supernatural thriller with the prose of literary fiction. I loved this book, but noticed there was a range of opinions on this one - I suspect because some readers may have gone into it expecting something different. The Diviner's Tale is not a fast paced, high-action thriller. But if you enjoy a story that unfolds slowly, richly, and thoughtfully with as much emotion and character as plot, you might be enchanted. The novel is as much about Cassandra's inner journey as it is about the mystery of the girl in the woods and the threat to Cassandra and her family. I adored Cassandra- I thought she was smart, complicated, capable, and incredibly compassionate, with hearty dose of mama grizzly. The story gave me goosebumps, and I couldn't put it down.

Thank you to Lisa Riley Emig for sending me her personal copy of The Diviner's Tale.

Related links:
Lisa Riley Emig's (far superior) review of The Diviner's Tale on The Best Damn Creative Writing Blog

My review of Bradford Morrow's excellent new short story collection The Uninnocent on LitStack

Happy reading!

Story Sundays: Lucky Bamboo, Agnieszka Stachura

2011-11-27T07:41:00.001-05:00

If the goodness, graciousness, and gratefulness of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend have finally caught up with you, and you are secretly wishing Monday would hurry up and come around so you could get back to the witty banter, gossip, and snark of the office watercooler, you may enjoy spending a few minutes with the wickedly pointed, funny short story Lucky Bamboo, by Agieszka Stachura, at Prick of the Spindle literary magazine.

Lucky Bamboo is the story of an inter-office romance that breaks up a marriage, as seen through the eyes of the offending lovers' fellow employees. Our narrator is a nameless officeworker who speaks on behalf of them all, and we learn that the lovers' transgressions are not merely those against their marriages, but also against the office culture as a whole. The woman, Claire, has never fit in - she doesn't decorate her cubicle, she doesn't attend office birthday parties... and now this. Just who does she think she is?

The fact that said husband has hairy shoulders and no neck to speak of is no justifiable excuse. Claire’s not the first woman to make do with happily enough ever after.

The story will make you laugh, and perhaps wince, at the same time, for there is something recognizable in these employees' resentment of those who make different choices, who reject traditions, and who dare to be happy in unconventional ways.

You may enjoy this delightful story online here.

* * *

Story Sundays are all about short fiction here on the blog. This weekly meme was created by Ellen at Fat Books, Thin Women and is also celebrated at Novelniche: A Place for Books. Be sure to check out their blogs for wonderful short fiction selections and other excellent reviews. All stories reviewed can be read free online.

Happy reading!

The Books I Didn't Get To

2011-11-20T17:51:00.001-05:00

It's every avid reader's lament: so many books... so little time. I read so many truly wonderful books this year, but didn't get to everything I might have liked. The following are just a few of the books that came out in 2011 which I would have loved to have read but didn't.*

The Magician King, Lev Grossman, Viking Books, 2011
Many of my fellow bloggers disliked this book (and its predecessor, The Magicians) intensely. Intensely! Oh, the tweets! And I don't actually blame them. I don't know how to properly describe my feelings for The Magicians, except that I was enchanted and completely transported by the story and could not put it down, no matter how aggravated I grew with the characters and no matter how bleak and depressing the ending. I expect nothing less from its sequel The Magician King, and can't wait to read it.

Started Early, Took My Dog, Kate Atkinson, Reagan Arthur Books, 2011
I love, love, love Kate Atkinson's books- they are a delightful combination of mystery-meets-literary fiction, and I just adore detective Jackson Brodie. I do. (Her non-Jackson Brodie fiction is wonderful as well, by the way- Behind the Scenes at The Museum was an excellent read.)

Swamplandia, Karen Russell, Vintage Books, 2011
Swamps, and alligators, and ghosts - oh my! Confession: I didn't get very far with St. Lucy's School for Girls when it came out, but very much enjoyed the story about a family running an alligator wrestling theme park that grew into this novel.

Zazen, Vanessa Vaselka, Red Lemonade, 2011
Zazen, a novel with a post-apocalyptic type setting from Vanessa Vaselka and the innovative publisher Red Lemonade, was one of the very hot indie press reads of this year. Zazen would ordinarily not be my kind of story at all... except that I have heard so many rave reviews from other readers whose opinions I value. Would love to give it a try.

The list goes on and on (you can see more on my shelf at Goodreads), and does not include the books coming out just now (such as The Artist of Disappearance, by Anita Desai.). Books I'm looking forward to in 2012 will be another blog post entirely...

What are some of the books you hoped to read this year, but didn't get to? Please share in the comments!

*(In some circles of people, such as those who live with me here in my house, dear husband and children, this list might be otherwise known as...My Holiday Wish List.)

Story Sundays- Audrey Niffenegger, Moths of the New World

2011-11-20T06:30:00.000-05:00

photo credit: C.M., 2008

"The man saw a woman climb into a book and disappear."

What if books were spirits, with fears, yearnings, longings, and desires? "Moths of the New World" (the Guardian, November 7, 2011) - a fantastical, funny, and oddly appealing short story by one of my favorite authors, Audrey Niffenegger - explores exactly that. In it, Moths of the New World, a rare and exquisite book, has gone missing from The Library's collection. A Librarian (also a spirit) is sent out into the real world (the City of Chicago) to retrieve her. He finds her holding hands with Workers, Arise!.... an organizing pamphlet! (*gasp*). Will she stay... or will she go home?

Though the short story doesn't have quite the sophistication and polish of her novels (both The Time Traveler's Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry are among my very favorite books), this imaginative supernatural concept is charmingly and wittily carried out. There is something lovely and ethereal about the idea of a woman emerging from a book and disappearing back into it, and a great deal of humor in her falling in with a "bad boy" labor pamphlet of a boyfriend. The story also winks at the current-day literary/publishing world:

"More time went by. Moths of the New World wondered if anyone at the Library knew she was gone. For the first time, she wished she had been a bestseller."

It's a story well worth enjoying for the bookish creativity, or just a delightful little dose of Audrey Niffenegger, in case you (like me) have been missing her.

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Story Sundays is a weekly meme created by Ellen at Fat Books, Thin Women and also celebrated at Novelniche: A Place for Books. Be sure to check out their blogs for wonderful Story Sunday selections and other excellent reviews!

The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides

2011-11-16T06:30:00.000-05:00

The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides, Farrar, Strous & Giroux, 2011

Ahhh.... the highly anticipated new Jeffrey Eugenides book: The Marriage Plot. There's a bit of a danger to hype and anticipation - they can lead to very high expectations. I've been reading a lot of short stories recently, and, excited to change it up a little (especially with one of the "big" novels of the season), I dove into this one very eagerly. I really did like it... but confess it did not quite sweep me off my feet.

The Marriage Plot follows three graduating Brown University students caught in a love triangle: Madeline, an English major writing her thesis about Jane Austen; her boyfriend Leonard, a budding scientist grappling with severe manic depression; and Mitchell, the thoughtful religion major whose love for Madeline is unrequited. The plot follows a classic romance-derailed-resulting-in-marrying-the-wrong-guy formula. It got off to a great start, with an excellent, interesting and often funny introduction to the characters and setting, but I found my engagement with the story overall came and went after that.

There is no doubt it is an impressive book: Eugenides creates incredibly detailed, thoroughly developed characters, and I mostly liked them, along with their fundamental struggles and conflicts. Madeline grapples with her identity as independent young woman, girlfriend, wife, caretaker, and academic; Mitchell wrestles with faith and his love for a woman he cannot have; Leonard fights for his relationship and his own mental health. There were a few things that I thought weighed the story down somewhat: With a university setting, it is no surprise that the narrative and dialogue also take some very academic turns, occasionally plunging the reader into lengthy passages about subjects such as semiotics (symbolism in literature) and genetic research. While these are no doubt brilliant and absolutely add authenticity to the characters, my own interest in them was pretty limited. The plot itself was fairly predictable, although there were a few exciting moments (among them, Leonard in a cape and a manic state in a Monte Carlo casino), and a bit of surprise in the ending (which I very truly liked). Most significantly, I felt like the humor - which really made the opening of the novel sparkle - largely disappeared as the story went on, which was a shame.

Perhaps my patience has been a bit spoiled by short stories and am seeking greater impact in fewer words, or perhaps the buzz on this one has been a bit overdone - I have even heard it bandied about on twitter 'can there be a novel about marriage in a post-marriage age'? I wouldn't say that this novel offered any greater understanding about marriage as an institution, or even about the literary 'marriage plot'. It is a love story particular to its protagonists, and often a sad one, at that. What it did offer (in addition to very impressive writing and depth of character) was an incredible window into the nature of living with manic depression. Eugenides paints such a comprehensive, compelling, and eye-opening portrait of Leonard, Madeline, and their relationship, it would be worth reading the novel for this alone.

I borrowed this book from my public library.

Happy reading!

Updates:
You can listen to a clip of the audiobook version of The Marriage Plot here - thank you to Esther Bochner at Macmillan for sharing this link.

You can listen to the author discussing the book and his writing in this BBC interview - thank you to J.A. Pak for sharing this link.

Three Good Things +1

2011-11-12T20:51:00.000-05:00

Hope everyone is having a great weekend! Today's post is a bit of a mash-up: Three Good Things meets Story Sundays... +1 more, just because.

A few short stories from around the web I've recently enjoyed:

"A Simple Task" by Michelle Bailat-Jones (Atticus Review, September 2011) a forty-something woman's journey to scatter her mother's ashes is not quite so simple in this poignant story.

This tiny, fantastical flash fiction "Revenge of the Goldfish" from Kristine Ong Muslim (The Brooklyner, September 2011, after art by Sandy Skoglund). Thanks to the author for bringing this wonderful piece to my attention - I'm looking forward to reading more of Muslim's work in her forthcoming book of art-inspired mini-stories We Bury the Landscape, due out this Spring.

More loveliness from J.A. Pak, also at Atticus Review (August, 2011): her recent short story, "Fantasm." J.A. always captures the magical, delicate, and romantic in her writing, and I always look forward to her stories. This one has almost a dream-like quality, taking us from scene to scene, with some lovely images throughout. J.A. was a guest here on the blog earlier this year, talking about writing, food, music and more.

+1 - this phenomenal trailer for Moby Dick in Pictures: One Drawing for Every Page (art by Matt Kish, forthcoming from Tin House). I'm not much for book trailers, but this is exquisite, and I am dying to see the actual book. I know I posted this on Facebook already, but if you didn't watch it, just do. I will stop bothering you about it. Probably.

What were your "good things" this week? Share in the comments!

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Story Sundays is a weekly meme created by Ellen at Fat Books, Thin Women and also celebrated at Novelniche: A Place for Books. Be sure to check out their blogs for wonderful Story Sunday selections and other excellent reviews!

Q&A with Tee Tate

2011-11-11T06:10:00.000-05:00

So delighted to welcome TS (Tee) Tate as my guest on the blog today! Tee is the Editor in Chief of LitStack.com, a fiction writer, tech writer, and freelance editor. Her short story "Street Noises" will be published in Pine Hill Press's forthcoming anthology Daily Flash 2012: 366 Days of Flash Fiction. Tee earned her Masters of Arts in English at Southern Louisiana University and has worked as a news reporter and assistant editor for regional magazines and newspapers.

It's been such a pleasure to work with you at LitStack. The site is about 3 months old now - how are things going? What have been some of the highlights so far? Where would you like to see the site go, and what are you looking forward to?

Things are going great on LitStack. We have been truly blessed to host so many wonderfully talented writers. They just keep producing quality reviews, interviews and news posts and it's humbling that they have chosen our site to publish their work. The highlights, for me personally, have been the opportunities I've had to meet gifted writers and to gain insight on how the publishing industry works. The contacts we've made (with publicists, writers and editors) have been such a blessing. They've all been incredibly generous and their support of our little site is astounding. I'm looking forward to our massive book giveaway in December and some really amazing Featured Authors in 2012. It's going to be an incredible year!

You host the popular twitter chat #writersroad - how did that get started? What kinds of topics do you cover? When does #writersroad happen, and who should join in?

#writersroad is an offshoot of another Twitter chat started by Lia Keyes called #ScribeChat. Heather McCorkle and I were regulars to #ScribeChat and when Lia decided she needed to revamp her schedule and she'd no longer be hosting the chat, Heather and I took on #writersroad.

We cover any and everything one would need to discover on their journey down the "Writer's Road." (See what I did there? :)) From turning off your internal editor to how to motivate your muse or the importance of a platform, we talk about a huge range of topics related to writing and the publishing industry.

This month, in honor of NaNo [National Novel Writing Month], we've condensed the chat so that the last half hour is for writing sprints. We come back at the end of that half hour and compare our numbers.

#writersroad happens every Monday night, 6pm PT on Twitter. Search for the hashtag #writersroad and you're there. We welcome writers of all levels: novice, intermediate, professional; but the chat really is for anyone who wants to improve their writing abilities.

What has your own writer's road been like - have you always been a writer? What do you love to write? How would you describe your own writing style/genre?

My writer's road has been a little bit bumpy. There seem to have always been a few hurdles in my way, mainly ones of my own making. I have always written, since probably junior high, but I tend not to count those years because all that I produced then was really angsty pre- and post-pubescent poetry. But when I got into college (which wasn't until I was about 25), I took several writing classes with Dr. Tim Gautreaux. He taught me form and technique, and I consider those lessons invaluable. Later, while in graduate school, I sort of adopted Bev Marshall as my writing mentor. I learned so much from her. I always say Tim Gautreaux taught me to write with my head; Bev Marshall taught me to write with my heart. But it was during this time that I had what I needed: a deadline.

It was also during this time that I wrote for the university paper and got the opportunity to meet Frank McCourt. He spoke during one of our arts festivals and afterward, I was invited to the private cocktail party held in his honor. That night changed my life and I knew, without a doubt, that I had to write. I wanted what McCourt had and I knew nothing was going to stop me from getting it.

What I love most about writing is what it gives me. I feel, in some ways, constrained in my daily life: between the 'real job,' LitStack, family and a tiny side business. I'm a very busy person, but I make time for writing because if I didn't, I wouldn't feel complete. Writing, for me, is like stretching my soul- finding the space and energy to shake off the dust of the daily grind and disappear into my own world where I am free, under no obligation to anyone other than my muse. Writing is like breath for the soul and is, therefore, necessary.

I'm definitely a genre writer. There's no way around it. I love the fantastic, the weird, the surreal and thrive under those parameters. Gautreaux, bless him, limited us to literary fiction and I quickly discovered I couldn't do it. I generally believe that fiction should entertain, should provide escape and should inspire and, for me, there's no better source than genre fiction. My style is a weird sort of mash up-sometimes it's gruesome and horrific, sometimes it's surreal fairytale, but it's almost always snarky. To an extent.

Your short story "Street Noises" is forthcoming in a new anthology from Pine Hill Press. Can you tell us a little more about your story and the anthology? What is coming up next for you?

"Street Noises" was a flash piece written last Halloween for Kealan Patrick Burke's writing contest on his blog. I was in 'the top five' with that story (so he says). When I didn't win, I nagged him, asked what he thought of it. Burke then proceeded to lecture me about why I wouldn't get off my butt and start submitting my stories around. Motivated by him, I sent it out and Pill Hill accepted. It's my very first publication.

The story is based on the supposedly historically accurate account of a nameless nine-year-old girl in the 1930's in New Orleans who escaped two brothers after they kidnapped her. When the police got to their apartment, they found several dead bodies, many vats of blood; an altogether gruesome scene. The implication was that the brothers were vampires. I sort of ran with that in a not-so-blatant sort of way.

Upcoming is an anthology I've been asked to write for and the continual journey through my WIP.

If you could give any advice you wanted to new writers, what would it be?

Everyone says it, but there's a reason for that: if you want to write you must read and write every. single. day. At some point, if you're serious about writing, you have to decide if you're married to writing or just having a brief affair with it. If you're married to writing, then it's a daily commitment, one that you absolutely could not do without. If your writing leans toward the "affair" side of things, then enjoy it at your leisure. The bottom line is this: "if it's important enough, you'll find a way. If it's not, you'll find an excuse."

What is one of your recent favorite reads, and why? What's the number one book on your holiday wishlist right now?

Without a doubt, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. It's such a beautiful, magical, elegant little book that left me stunned and contemplative for weeks afterward. Ha! My holiday wish list is full at the moment. I'm very, very lucky that, because of LitStack, I get lots and lots of free books. Harper, especially, seems to love to send me books, so there's not a real need for me to add a book to my Christmas list. I do, however, finally want to read The Help and possible start reading George R. R. Martin (I'm a terrible genre baby, I know). I'm also so excited to read Kim Harrison's A Perfect Blood in the new year. I'm so incredibly behind on my [to be read] list!

Many thanks to Tee for taking the time to answer all my nosy questions ;D. You can find Tee at LitStack.com, on her blog, on Facebook, and on twitter (@teetate).

Story Sundays: Some Place, Court Merrigan

2011-11-06T05:48:00.000-05:00

"Some Place" by Court Merrigan, new up over at Necessary Fiction this week, is at first glance a fairly straightforward story about a man, provoked by an irritating, intrusive, unidentifiable "buzzing, a beeping - a maniacal monotone." Unable to sleep, he drives off into the night and finds himself giving a ride to Loralee, an out-of-cash, feisty gal he meets at the convenience store who just needs a little gas so she can get home. He takes her back to her "husband" and finds himself in the middle of an argument. All the while, he hears the hum.

As a bit of a poor sleeper myself, I love a story about insomnia. I enjoyed our protagonist's journey out into the night, a place which, as anyone who has ever worked overnight shifts knows, has routines and denizens all its own. I also thought Loralee was a great character - Merrigan quickly conveys what we need to know about her with a few carefully chosen but telling details, such as her "cheap rings" and giant purple denim purse, and her scrappy, spirited conversational style.

In the background of this story, along with the constant hum, is the fact of our main character's wife, Hannah, being away. He feels the weighty oppression of loneliness, "...the house’s empty half bearing in on him." The noise, and the man's disquiet stay with the reader throughout the story. We are left to make of the noise and the characters what we will: is it our man's loneliness? Is there more to Hannah's absence than we know? Does the noise represent a more existential discontent? What will become of them all?

You may go ponder such questions for yourself here.

Happy reading!

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Story Sundays is a weekly meme created by Ellen at Fat Books, Thin Women (currently on blogging break) and also celebrated at Novelniche: A Place for Books. Be sure to check out their blogs for wonderful Story Sunday selections and other excellent reviews!

The Uninnocent - Bradford Morrow

2011-11-03T09:42:00.000-04:00

The Uninnocent,Bradford Morrow, Pegasus Books LLC, Release date December 2011

“When Margot died, adark maw rose before me, a somber shaft into which I tramped, wanting never toreturn.” – from “Lush”

This is not a book for the faint of heart. The Uninnocent of Bradford Morrow’snew short fiction collection are manipulators, thieves, and even murderers – and they are the narrators of the stories themselves. Morrow tells their stories skillfully and suspensefully,carefully unfolding each one to ultimately reveal these lost souls at their cores.We readers might be tempted to call such characters The Guilty – but the firstperson point of view takes us inside their heads, deliberately drawing us deep intotheir twisted psychologies, despite our better judgment.

All the stories are ominousand disturbing, all well written, each with its own chilling twist. I found the collection as a whole to be quite excellent,and highly recommend it for readers who enjoy intelligent, dark, and very unsettling stories.

you can read my full review over at LitStack.com

Happy reading!

(I received a complimentary e-version of The Uninnocent from Open Road Media via NetGalley)

Story Sundays - Sinners, Edna O'Brien

2011-10-30T06:00:00.000-04:00

I don't know if I'm breaking any Story Sunday guidelines here (Ellen and Shivanee please feel free to scold me in the comments), but I just couldn't help myself. This week I'd love to share an fascinating short story, "Sinners" by Edna O'Brien, superbly performed by actress Cynthia Nixon on the new-to-me radio program Selected Shorts. Selected Shorts is a public radio show produced by Symphony Space and WNYC Radio (distributed by Public Radio International), in which short stories by established and emerging writers are performed by "stars of stage and screen," and recorded live. I was thrilled to not only hear this story by Edna O'Brien, whose work is also new to me, but also to hear Ms. Nixon's lovely rendition of it.

"Sinners" is the story of Delia, a lonesome, somewhat embittered older woman and owner of a bed and breakfast, who often has trouble sleeping. Typically, Delia's mind wanders at night - obsessing over seemingly small things, such as quirks of the house and needed repairs. Now a family has come to stay with her, parents with a daughter. During their stay, Delia is reminded of her own unhappy marriage and of her children who have grown up and left her. Delia doesn't usually like guests to stay too long, she afraid they will make themselves a little too at-home, and even more afraid "she might grow attached to them and ask them to stay longer, for the company." But in this case, the family annoys her early on with their expectations; subsequent events during their stay cause her normally tame late-night wonderings to turn wild, grotesque, disturbed.

O'Brien captures Delia's isolation, stalwart forbearance, indignation, and fragility with fairly straightforward language and carefully chosen detail - there is no overembellishment in the descriptions of her home and belongings, the memory of her husband, the habits of her children, and her gradual unraveling. Delia's darkest speculations were utterly surprising, and the story as a whole was fascinating, unsettling, and moving. Ms. Nixon brilliantly and suspensefully conveyed Delia's emotional decomposition, keeping me rapt until the end.

If you enjoy"Sinners," you might continue on to hear the second story (also from O'Brien) entitled "Black Flower." This story is also gorgeously read (complete with gorgeous Irish accent) by author Colum McCann. I will definitely be seeking out more O'Brien stories, and look forward to many more Selected Shorts.

You can listen to the story, free, at http://www.selectedshorts.org/onair/. Selected Shorts is also available as a free podcast on iTunes.

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Story Sundays was created by Ellen at her blog Fat Books and Thin Women, and has been joined in this weekly meme by Shivanee of Novelniche: A Place for Books. Be sure to pop over to their blogs to read their Story Sunday picks!

Happy reading (and listening).

Boo

2011-10-29T07:37:00.000-04:00

Happy Halloween, friends! One of my favorite times of year, and maybe yours, too. Hope you are enjoying the spirit of the holiday ... and not shoveling snow :(. I know it's been a bit quiet here this week... but Stuff Is Happening. Really! It is!

As you may know, I have come to love mixing literary magazines in with my other reading- it adds some much needed spice and excitement (it's such a great way to sample new writers and different writing styles.) A few new litmag articles are up over on my SpotLit column at LitStack: the most recent is my q&a with the editors of Swamp Lily Review, a lovely new online journal of Louisiana literature and arts. I loved learning more about their vision and the writers and artists featured in their debut issue. In The Snake magazine is also a new online litmag featuring short stories, with a mission to reach new and seasoned readers alike. Their October issue offered a wonderful collection of four delightful, accessible stories, which I review here. Don't miss the many, many other wonderful articles and reviews up over at LitStack, including some good Halloweeny ones this past week, such as Lisa Emig on Ray Bradbury's The Halloween Tree, and Tee Tate on the Graves of Famous Writers.

I'm very excited about some upcoming reads, reviews, and projects - I read and loved Elissa Schappell's new short story collection, Blueprints for Building Better Girls (it is the kind of book you urge on your very best girlfriends.) Look for the review soon on LitStack. Am currently reading Bradford Morrow's new collection The Uninnocent. The stories are dark and wonderful. Caitlyn Horrocks' This is Not Your City is up next after that. On a completely different note, a few blogging and writing colleagues and I are conspiring about a collaborative post a little closer to the holidays! I won't tell you about it yet, but it should be a whole lot of fun.

Finally, will be back here on the blog tomorrow for Story Sunday - have a great one picked out for you, and can't wait to share! Please come check it out.

What are you reading or excited about reading? What fun projects are on the horizon? And most importantly, what will you (or kids) be for Halloween!

May the Great Pumpkin bring you lots of Halloween goodness....

BOO :D

Wherever You Go - Joan Leegant

2011-10-21T09:46:00.000-04:00

Wherever You Go, Joan Leegant, W.W. Norton & Company, 2010 (new in paperback, 2011)

Joan Leegant's Wherever You Go has been widely and highly praised by many other reviewers and fellow bloggers, and rightly so: this is truly a wonderful novel. Wherever You Go is the story of three troubled souls who, for very different reasons, make their way to Israel where a single act of violence connects them in ways they may never fully comprehend. Leegant gracefully and poignantly explores the inner lives and emotional struggles of Yona Stern, a woman seeking to mend a broken relationship with her estranged sister; Aaron Blinder, a disturbed young man who seeks purpose and connection in a radical community; and my favorite, Mark Greenglass, a Talmudic scholar with a spiritual crisis.

Sometimes I forget how much I enjoy a book set in a completely different (non-American) place, and one of the things I loved best about this novel- and which sets it apart - is the setting. Mark Greenglass's story excepted, most of the novel takes place in Jerusalem or in border settlements. As a lively, diverse, complicated and often conflict-ridden place, Israel is a setting rich with opportunity for our characters to consider many facets of love, spirituality, religion, idealism, and extremism. It was especially intriguing to have some insight into the latter, through Aaron and Yona's sister, Dena.

Leegant weaves the characters and setting together into a brisk and intriguing plot - we want to know what will happen - and she sews it all up very neatly, and hopefully, in the end. Some readers may wonder if one needs to have a particular interest in or knowledge of Israeli history or politics to enjoy this novel, but I think it is written to have universal appeal. I highly recommend Wherever You Go to all novel lovers who like an interesting, thoughtful, and compelling read.

Many thanks to the author and the publisher for a complimentary copy of the book. All opinions expressed are my own.

Happy reading!

Story Sundays: Weimaraner by Kate Lorenz

2011-10-16T07:46:00.000-04:00

"Weimaraner", by Kate Lorenz (The Collagist, October, 2011)

Then it was clear to Kathleen and, despite his numerous shortcomings, she disagreed with his decision not to love her anymore.

"Weimaraner" is a funny and ultimately poignant short story about Kathleen, a young woman clinging to a seemingly doomed relationship. Her boyfriend, Jack, doesn't leave the door unlocked for her even though he knows she's coming. He goes on a cruise (er, honeymoon trip?) with his ex-fiancee and brings Kathleen back a cheap souvenir. He says "ironic" things that Kathleen knows really aren't. And he gets a dog, a Weimaraner, to which he knows Kathleen is allergic.

When Jack "tenderly" hands her some Benadryl, she takes it - but drops the accompanying glass of water in a bush.

Your first reaction may be to swoop in and intervene. Kathleen, girlfriend, it is so obvious he is a jerk, why are you hanging around for this? But reading closely, you realize it isn't quite so simple. Kathleen knows, why hasn't she left? She may be hurt, and stuck - but she's also stubborn, and angry. She drifts close to danger. Lorenz's humor and suspense kept me hanging on right up to the end.

And if you, too, want to know, dear reader, you will have to go read the story.

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Story Sundays was created at Fat Books and Thin Women. Thank you to Shivanee Ramlochan of Novelniche: A Place for Books for bringing this weekly meme to my attention and encouraging me to participate. As you know, I love short stories and hope to join in more often. From Novelniche:

"Story Sundays is a weekly feature that seeks to prompt and share discussion on, as well as promote reading of, short stories, which we believe are an underrated source of fictional enjoyment and insight. All stories discussed will be available to read online, for free...The full list of stories covered so far at Fat Books and Thin Women can be found here."

Happy reading!

Red Hook Road, Ayelet Waldman

2011-10-14T12:13:00.001-04:00

Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman (Doubleday, 2010)

The day couldn't have been more perfect: a young, beautiful, blissfully happy bride and her handsome, adoring groom, just married in a picture-perfect, traditional New England seaside village... when tragedy strikes: the newlyweds are killed in a freak automobile accident on their way to their own wedding reception. Red Hook Road is the story of the two, very different families they have left behind, how they grieve, and how they move forward.

The plot was somewhat predictable, but it was predictable in a way that was both moving and ultimately comforting - it took the reader right into the heart-wrenching thick of the tragedy, but gently and surely led her back out to hope and safety. I thought the greatest strength of Red Hook Road was the warm and compassionate way in which Waldman explores the story from the points of view of all the characters, capturing their unique histories, personalities, and complicated relationships. The tense relationship between Iris and Jane, the bride's and groom's mothers, may be central to the novel, but I have to confess that my favorite parts were about (or told from the point of view of) other characters, especially Daniel, the bride's father, and Emil Kimmelbrod, the bride's grandfather. Their narratives were the most unexpected, and thus the most interesting to me.

Ms. Waldman is the author of several other bestselling books, perhaps best known for "Bad Mother, A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace." She is currently co-editing a new (non-profit) book, Voice of Witness, as part of the Women in Prison project: Voice of Witness is "a collection of oral histories from imprisoned and formerly imprisoned women across the U.S. who have suffered violations of their basic human rights." Given the author's passion for issues she cares deeply about, I have no doubt it will be an eye-opening and very powerful collection.

You can order Voice of Witness from McSweeneys.

Happy reading!

Red Hook Road was borrowed from my local library.

Author Q&A: Anne R. Allen

2011-10-11T06:00:00.000-04:00

Anne R. Allen is an author, freelance writer and editor, blogger, and faculty member of the Central Coast Writers Conference. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in various literary journals; her novels Food of Love and The Best Revenge, previously published in the U.K., are being released for an American audience this Fall. Anne also has several comic mysteries coming out over the next few months. I'm so delighted to have her as a guest today - we're talking about her new books; women writers, labels, genres and publishing; and more.

"[Food of Love] is the book they said couldn't be published. It breaks pretty much all the rules ever invented by corporate publishing. I wrote what I wanted to read–but couldn’t find on the shelves: a can’t-put-it-down, laugh-out-loud mystery/thriller about women. I loved Carl Hiassen and Chris Moore and wanted to write that kind of socially conscious, but funny novel, dealing with women’s issues. I didn't know you're not allowed to be funny about women's issues." – from Anne's blog

Anne, your previously published novel Food of Love (a mystery/comic thriller) has just been released by Popcorn Press for the U.S., and you have not one… not two… but three new books (The Gatsby Game - a stand-alone mystery, and Ghostwriters in the Sky and Sherwood, LTD a comic mystery series) coming out soon. In one sentence each: who is your favorite character in each of these books, and what is the most interesting thing about him/her?

The most fascinating character in The Gatsby Game is the Fitzgerald-obsessed con man, Alistair Milbourne—who’s found dead in a movie star’s bedroom in chapter one—he’s based on David Whiting, a man I actually knew, who died mysteriously on the set of a Burt Reynolds movie.

Ghostwriters in the Sky has a yummy love interest—a rogue LA cop named Maverick Jesus Zukowski—who may or may not be affiliated with a Latino gang that is terrorizing a writer’s conference in California’s wine-and-cattle country north of Santa Barbara.

Sherwood, Ltd has an intriguing love interest, too, Peter Sherwood—a charming British publisher of kinky erotica who imagines himself a latter day Robin Hood—who unfortunately may be planning to kill the heroine.

You have said that your work doesn’t neatly fit into any one genre, and you do not seem to be alone, especially among women writers. What is your experience with labels, genres, and publishing, and what is your advice to writers whose work isn’t easily categorized?

Don’t do what I did, if you want to break into Big 6 publishing. I bloodied my knuckles on New York doors for years without realizing my combo-genre of upmarket romantic comedy and mystery was toxic to the Big Six. The only category they could put me in was the dreaded “chick lit” --which has been banned from New York publishing. I could only have been published if I wrote straight romance or straight mystery. (With emphasis on “straight”. Big 6 is also increasingly uncomfortable with gay and bisexual characters in certain genres.) Every time I came close to landing an agent, she’d ask me to remove either the mystery or romantic comedy elements (and the gay characters.)

Polly Courtney, author of It’s a Man’s World recently (and very publicly) dropped her publisher just as her book was coming to market, denouncing the cover design as demeaning. In an interview at Curiosity Quills she says “It was not a spur-of-the-moment decision; it was the culmination of three years’ pent-up frustration as a result of repeated errors in packaging and marketing.” Anne, you have also said that it is a common experience for authors to have no input into the cover of their books. What is your take on Courtney’s decision? Did she make a smart move or endanger her career? What kind of impact do you think her actions will have on the publishing process? How do you think her decision will inspire or influence other writers?

I admire what Courtney did and I think she’s made a good career move. Big 6 publishers have never allowed writers any input on covers or marketing. The wonderful agent Kristin Nelson has blogged a number of times about fighting marketing departments when her authors were given bad covers. The Rejectionist also blogs about how most books with black protagonists have pictures of white people on the covers—no matter how much the authors and their agents protest.

Big 6 publishers want to appeal to as many buyers as possible, so they figure since there are more dumb blondes and white people, they can’t go wrong with putting dumb white girls on the covers of all novels. I have a little problem with their logic, but that’s probably why the Big 6 has never wanted me. Now that Big 6 are coming up with draconian “non-compete” contracts, selling ebooks for ridiculously high prices and slashing author advances while paying miniscule royalties, most writers are better off leaving the Big 6 for more author-friendly small presses or self-pubbing.

There are so many publishing options available to writers these days, yet you still encourage new writers to go the traditional route and try for an agent first – why do you believe that process is important?

I’m a firm believer in teamwork. I guess that’s because I spent 25 years in the theater. A play is just a little paper booklet until you get all the people together—actors, designers, publicists, etc. I want people on my team, and a good agent is the best person to have heading that team if you’re a writer. Not all agents are good, and some are seriously behind the times, (and never, ever pay an agent a fee!) but I still think finding a good agent is the single best way to a strong writing career—I’d love to have one myself. Also, the query process helps a new writer in a lot of ways. It helps you learn to write about your own work, and often, helps you see structure problems, as you struggle with stuff like the dreaded synopsis.

You are wonderfully generous with advice, support, information and encouragement for new writers. Who were some of the writers who helped you the most when you were starting, and what were the most important lessons you learned from them?

My most important mentor is certainly Catherine Ryan Hyde, who wrote PAY IT FORWARD and so many other bestselling, inspirational novels. She kept telling me to keep at it, no matter what. Without her, I’m sure I would have given up long ago. She also taught me that helping your fellow writers and networking is the best way to help your own career—which is absolutely right. I started my blog mostly to share information with new writers. I was pretty sure my own career was over, but I wanted to help people learn from my mistakes. Instead my blog took off and I got a number of offers from publishers because of it. Paying it forward works. And Catherine and I are now working on a nonfiction book together. Working with my idol is pretty awesome. And yes, she’s that nice in person.

Many thanks Anne, for sharing your thoughts, and wishing you the best of success!

You can find Anne on her blog and on twitter.

Food of Love is available as an ebook from Amazon and in paperback from Popcorn Press

The Gatsby Game is available as an ebook from Amazon. Look for Ghostwriters in the Sky and Sherwood, Ltd. - coming soon!

Hoosier Life & Casualty, Ian Woollen

2011-10-07T16:31:00.000-04:00

Hoosier Life & Casualty, Ian Woollen, Casperian Books, 2009

A family gathered in a hospital room is always a loaded litmus test. Who will make the first bad joke to try to break the tension? Who will collapse in tears? Who will smuggle in the hooch?

What do you get if you throw a millionaire insurance company CEO, a Civil War re-enactor and museum curator, a closeted filmmaker, a socially-conscious heiress, her Unitarian-Universalist choir-directing yoga-teaching best friend, a political striver, a mensch of an ex-juvenile offender named Elvis, corn-starch falling from the sky, a lost diary, and some rogue PsychClones together in one novel? A smart, warm, funny book with an offbeat sense of humor that is just plain fun, that's what.

Hoosier Life & Casualty is set in Indianapolis, described as the insurance capital of the Mid-west and a city with a small-town atmosphere. Everybody knows everybody else, and everybody knows your business. Despite their conniving and cover-ups (such as of the accident that created the PsychClones which occasionally sweep through the streets, sucking up careless bystanders and depositing them, days later, as lifeless shells of the former human beings they once were), corporations and their executives drive the city's economic, political, and social scenes.

Elvis Scurvine grew up in this town and knows every nook and cranny of every neighborhood. He's a divorcé with a juvenile record who has pretty well cleaned up his act, perhaps with the exception of forging a meaningful relationship with his young son. He and his best buddy Devon Eustiss still get together once a year at the state fair to reminisce about old times. This year, after leaving the fair, Devon spots Elvis's old truck, "The Beast," and on a whim, the men take off with it. Little do they know it now belongs to Marian Purlbaugh, heiress to Hoosier Life & Casualty. Elvis, who can't afford a "third strike" on his record, bails out to avoid capture, inadvertently taking Marian's diary along with him. The diary, of course, contains secrets that the family would rather not come out. In an unlikely turn of events, Marian and Elvis become close. Their romance is complicated by family maneuvering and manipulations, production of a Civil War movie, the line of succession at HL&C, and a little blackmail.

Woollen writes with levity, wit, humor and plenty of humanity, resulting in very likeable characters and a very likeable novel, with enough depth to engage a thinking reader, and enough comedy to keep it entertaining. There were two places in the plot I wasn't wholly convinced of Elvis and Marian's reactions to each other's faults (I thought Elvis moved pretty quickly past one that would likely take more time and soul-searching for most people; I thought Marian overreacted to one of Elvis's later missteps), but it works overall. Woollen also manages to poke some fun at the bureaucratic behemoth that is the insurance industry without coming across as heavy-handed or promoting a personal agenda. I won't tell you what happens to our millionaire CEO, but I thought it was just perfect. If this sounds like your kind of story, it probably is.

Many thanks to the author for a complimentary copy of the book. All opinions expressed are my own.

Happy reading!

Author Q&A: Steve Himmer

2011-10-03T06:00:00.000-04:00

SteveHimmer is the author of The Bee-Loud Glade (Atticus Books, 2011), editor of the literary magazine Necessary Fiction, and a professor at Emerson College. I was delighted to read and review The Bee-Loud Glade earlier this summer for LitStack - it's a very smart, funny, thoughtful and thought-provoking novel about Finch, a corporate drone who gets fired and subsequently takes a job as a decorative hermit in a millionaire's garden. Steve generously agreed to subjecthimself to relentless and rigorous interrogation here on Books, Personally.Steve, welcome and thank you!

One of the things that first piqued my interest in reading The Bee-Loud Glade was the notion of Finch-the-office-drone inventing entire worlds online, complete with invented friends and conversations. Like a lot of other people, I spend a lot of time online, and this idea struck me as hilarious – but it also hit a little close to home. How bizarre we must all seem, sitting at our little screens and pouring out our thoughts in bits and bytes in blogs and tweets that may or may not be read by people we may or may not ever meet. I loved this quote of yours in your interview in 3:AM magazine ….

…it makes sense to me now: being online makes literal, if not tangible, something that was probably already true, that so many of us are hermits in our heads, a secret part of ourselves tucked away as we go about being workers and spouses and everything we are in the course of a day. Being online can be a kind of meditation that way, a means of disembodying ourselves and drifting half-minded as we connect to something much larger than ourselves.

…What do you think the “something much larger than ourselves” is? Are we all a bit like Finch, or at risk of becoming like him?

The web is larger than us, both in a physical sense of blanketing much of the world with wires and signals, and also in how many people it includes. Not as a replacement for face-to-face contact and friendships, but as a complement to them. To find people who share your interests all over the world, and to talk to them daily, is a powerful thing we can’t easily accomplish offline. I can’t overstate how important that connection has been for me in the past decade. And just think about the lives it’s changed, even saved. To a person who feels alienated from the community they live in, someone who feels alone, the connections you might make online, to know there’s someone else out there like you... that’s vital. So are we at risk of becoming Finch? Probably. Though I think we’re also all already Finch in some way, isolated and alienated and looking for a way of becoming less so whether it’s online or off, indoors or out. I think that’s part of why we read, and I know for certain it’s a big part of why I write.

When Emma Donoghue’s Room came out, everyone marveled that the entire novel that took place within a single, enclosed space. The Bee-Loud Glade also takes place largely within the walls of millionaire Mr. Crane’s garden. I haven’t yet read Room but I imagine you and Donoghue must have faced some similar issues when writing your books. What were some of the challenges your setting presented to you as a writer, and how did you address them?

In some ways it probably made the story easier to write. I had a firm map in my head because it was so constrained. Finch only had so much range available to him, and I only had so much ground to cover following him. But it was a challenge for building tension at times. I made a deliberate decision to keep some of the action of the story off the page, beyond the bounds of the garden. Those are probably the most exciting parts of the story in some ways, or the highest stakes. Yet what Finch was able to know about what went on around him was limited by his constrained landscape. So while part of me wanted to do more with those characters who come in and out of his garden, and the larger machinations they’re part of, I couldn’t because I was more committed to the isolation of Finch’s perspective and voice.

I loved the way Finch learns to turn his attention to very small happenings in the garden - the rituals he adopted (meditation, floating in the river) allowed him to deeply observe then understand the importance of these small happenings and to be moved by them, it became a spiritual experience. In real life, many people might dismiss or overlook such things as insignificant. What importance does nature have in your own life? How would you describe our (modern human) relationship to nature compared the one Finch develops?

I get very, very claustrophobic if I don’t get outside fairly often — at least for a walk on a not too crowded street, somewhere with trees. Or near water. I’d like to get out into farther, wild places more often than I’m able these days, but for practical reasons I spend more time thinking and reading about nature than getting dirty in it, unfortunately. I’m fascinated by how we’ve made nature mean different things at different times in history. Especially the way we make animals bear the weight of so many metaphors it’s a wonder they can still move around. I’m certainly guilty of piling more on.

I’m fascinated by how nature is mediated by technology, and always has been — as far as back as building a fire rather than accept being cold in the dark. Finch’s “nature” may be more overtly mediated than what most of us encounter, but I’m not sure it’s so different. My daughter and I look up the birds we see on my laptop as often as in my bird book, so we can hear their calls and watch videos of them. That’s bringing us closer to nature, not further away. But those same tools become toxic pollutants when they’re obsolete — they’re a far cry from logs decomposing in the woods. And we carry our awareness of technology into the woods with us, so we’re always looking at the world through the lens of being online however far we are from our screens. I don’t know that this moment is any more or less contradictory and confusing than any other, in terms of how complicated our relationship to the natural world is, but the stakes seem to be higher so it seems worth writing about. Particularly in fiction, because I don’t think outdoor fiction has kept pace very well with either the philosophical changes to environmental thinking in recent decades, or with the innovations that have happened elsewhere in literature. So maybe there’s fertile ground.

Recently you tweeted that you are designing the ideal class for … yourself. I know you were joking (a little, anyway) but it made me wonder, what would the course description be for your ideal class? What is the most important thing about writing you never learned in school? What have you learned about writing by teaching others? What is the most important thing you hope your students learn from you?

Oh, I have any number of ideas for courses. The one I was thinking about the other day was a course on everyday life and making it exciting through art. “The Hum of the Humdrum” or something like that. Boredom, solitude, quiet... these different types of social withdrawal or reclamation of our daily time are coming up over and over right now, and I’d love to explore that with students. We’d read novels, watch films — Monsieur Hulot, of course! — take walks, sit quietly in our classroom each doing our own thing.

As for what I never learned about writing in school, it’s not so much that I wasn’t taught something as it took me awhile to figure it out. And that’s to write for your own reasons and trust them, which seems obvious. Working on my MFA I felt very self-conscious about never having studied literature properly. I think I still feel that way. Apart from a few seminars in grad school, my reading has been esoteric and auto-didactic, at best, and haphazard and full of holes at worst. The same is true about what I write: I don’t think I’d be capable of approaching fiction as purely style, or purely aesthetics, in the way much of the online and indie lit worlds seem to favor. I am always, always writing in response to some question beyond myself, something political or historical or theoretical or something. I hope that doesn’t sound like I’m putting down other approaches, because I’m not. It’s just taken me a while to be comfortable with what I’m doing, because sometimes I feel like I’m going at writing backwards compared to what other people are doing. Maybe everyone feels that way.

But I’d like to pass that along to my students. That, and the idea that writing — any writing — is creative, but it’s also inquiry. And research. Whether you’re writing fiction or an essay or a lab report or whatever, you’re asking and answering questions about the world. No writing comes out of a void.

It’s so wonderful when authors and writers participate in #fridayreads on twitter - your reads are often new to me - they always sound interesting, and inevitably send me running to look up the titles on Goodreads. What’s a recent very favorite read and why? Who are some of the best writers and authors most readers haven’t heard of yet?

There are so many good books! It’s panic inducing just to worry about all the great books you’ll miss, isn’t it? I thought Chris Bachelder’s Abbott Awaits was terrific. It’s a novel about fatherhood, a subject close to my heart, and it’s honest without becoming sentimental and without sacrificing complexities of style as it considers some pretty big questions about identity and masculinity through a domestic lens. Another great read was Marcy Dermansky’s Bad Marie, about a pretty terrible woman who is terribly likable, and her almost (but not quite) accidental kidnapping of a friend’s daughter. Bad Marie has gotten some well-earned recognition, but Abbott Awaits is a book that deserves far more. I’d also like to give a nod to Robert Kloss, who just published his chapbook How The Days of Love & Diphtheria and has a novel coming out in a few months. Full disclosure, he’s a good friend of mine, but I think he’s an incredible writer, someone with a voice and a view of the world that’s entirely his own and if he wasn’t such nice person I’d be intensely jealous. His prose is what mine wants to be when it grows up.

Finally, you are doing a reading event for The Bee-Loud Glade with TNBBC on Goodreads in October - can you tell us a little more about what that is, and how someone could join in?

That’s right, I’ll be discussing my book with TNBBC throughout the month on their Goodreads group page. I’m excited about it, because I’ve enjoyed talking with a couple of book groups in the last couple of months. The truth is, one of the anxieties I had before The Bee-Loud Glade was published — probably because so many literary agents told me I should — was that the story would only appeal to people of particular interests or reading habits. Clones of me, more or less. So it has been deeply gratifying over the last few months to get the book in front of those mythic “general readers” agents told me wouldn’t be interested and to have them engage the story in thoughtful, wonderful ways. That’s what I hope will happen this month at TNBBC.

A special note from Lori from TNBBC - everyone is welcome to come join in the The Bee-Loud Glade discussion on Goodreads. In support of the read-along and discussion, Atticus Books is offering The Bee Loud Glade at a special price for the month - you can buy it online here.

You can also find Steve at his website, on twitter, and at the literary journal Necessary Fiction.You might also like to check out his excellent and thought provoking essays OnBeing Indie at TNBBC's website and “Making Room For Readers” at The Millions.

My review of The Bee-Loud Glade is up at Litstack.com.

Brrr.....

2011-10-02T09:45:00.003-04:00

Brrr.... it's a chilly, wet, windy morning here on our hill. Nine wild turkeys grazed their way through the yard earlier, a sure sign that Fall is truly here. I'm clutching a hot mug of coffee to stay warm- we're stubbornly resisting turning on the furnace, but looking forward to firing up the wood stove this evening for the first fire of the season.

Many thanks to everyone who came to visit and check out this week's Q&A with Lisa Riley Emig, talking about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and her no(vel) - what a wonderful response. I'm beyond thrilled to welcome Steve Himmer, author of The Bee Loud Glade (Atticus Books, 2010), to the blog tomorrow - we're discussing technology, nature, writing, and more. The Bee-Loud Glade is smart, funny, and thought-provoking, and so is the author - please drop by and say hello.

Some excellent new pieces over on LitStack this week - if you didn't catch Sam Spokony's wonderful article (and striking photos) on Bunhill Fields , the final resting place for many of England's non-conformist and dissident thinkers and authors, don't miss it. Tee Tate interviewed LitStack's featured author of the month, Cherie Priest - (I learned a lot about Steampunk!). My review of Quirk Books' Bedbugs is up (along with awesomely fun trailer), and much, much more. And I'm almost too bashful to tell you, but it's for a good cause... some rather, um, attractive male librarians have gotten together to make a rather, um, steamy calendar, the profits from which will benefit It Gets Better.

Hope you're enjoying the weekend and staying warm - are you perhaps curled up with a good book? which one?

Q&A with Lisa Riley Emig - Writer & NaNoWriMo Winner

2011-09-27T05:35:00.000-04:00

Lisa Riley Emig describes herself as a “wife, mother, writer, editor, fundraiser, decrepitathlete, occasional thorn in side, embarrassment, attention challenged.” A 2010National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)winner, Lisa is completing her first novel. I first “met” Lisa as a fellow book reviewer over at The Best Damn CreativeWriting Blog, where she wowed us all with her wonderful writing and great senseof humor; she is currently a review contributor to LitStack. Needless to say, I am a huge fan. It is a great pleasure towelcome her back to the blog today!

Lisa, one of the things I love best about you and yourwriting is your fantasticand offbeat sense of humor. When I thinkback, I can pinpoint almost exactly the influences on my own sense of humor - who and/or what influenced, inspired or informed yours?

When you have an offbeatsense of humor, you always run the risk of being misunderstood or perhaps evencommitted, so your words are greatly appreciated. I watched a lot of British comedy when I wasgrowing up, so I think probably John Cleese and Michael Palin had the mostinfluence on my sense of humor. Honestly, anyone who can use the word‘comestible’ in a sentence about cheese scores very high marks on my list of ‘funny.’ Neil Simon has also been a steady influence - I especially love The Odd Coupleand Plaza Suite – brilliant.

Duringthe month of November, thousands of writers all over the world sit down attheir computers, typewriters and notebooks with the goal of writing a 50,000word novel in that 30 day period. You participated last year and were one ofthe writers who met that goal - congratulations! What first inspired you toparticipate?

My oldest child had gone off to college,leaving me with a small amount of extra free time, so rather than picking upanother book to read, I thought it might be good to actually try and write onemyself. I was on Tumblr last summer anda couple of people were talking about entering NaNoWriMo. Not knowing what it was and too shy to ask, Igoogled it and once I’d made my way to their website, I was hooked.

NaNoWriMoasks you to start “from scratch”, although you are allowed to have an outlinegoing in. How much of the story had already been percolating in your head whenyou began writing on November 1st? Did you know where you wanted your novel togo, or did it emerge as you wrote?

When I began writingon November 1^st, I didn’t really have much of an outline, only anice relationship with my characters - I was confident that we all understood eachother. The problem was that I hadliterally an entire town full of characters. Some of them never even spoke - they were just there - hanging out,drinking coffee I guess. The story line evolved as I wrote, often scattering indifferent directions and heading off into subjects that I didn’t really knowmuch about. In addition to too manycharacters, I had created so many subplots that I found myself faced with somethingthat resembled a Gordian knot, and no knife to cut it with. I ended up cuttingmost of the characters out and concentrated on about 5 principals. From there, I took each character alone andcreated their arc. Then I’d startblending their actions together, matching up their actions and reactions untilthe storyline began to appear and make sense. Not the best way to go aboutwriting a novel, but I managed.

What wasthe NaNoWriMo month like for you? What surprised you about the experience? Howdid it impact your daily life- job, family etc?

It was a great month which I thoroughly enjoyed. I think what surprised me the most about the experience was how little stress it created for me. In fact, I think if anything, it made me happier to be engaged in something that I enjoyed so much – I had an excuse to write.

I ended up taking off one day each week in November to use for the heavy writing. I’m very fortunate to have a job that ends at 3 pm each day, so I was able to write on weekday afternoons while my daughter did her homework, and then I’d also squeeze chunks of writing time in on the weekends. All in all, it really didn’t have much of an impact on my family or my job. Well, that’s not entirely true - the dog and I became close. He’d sleep in the basket of dirty laundry while I’d type away on the keyboard, both us exuding contentment.

How did the emphasis on word count influence your writing style, process, and writing habits in the short and long term?

The word count was very helpful, because it gave me daily goals. I knew going in that I was going to need to write approximately 1,600 words a day. Some days I’d write more, other days less. I boldly signed up for a 5,000 word challenge for the first day, which was great because it provided me with some slack for later on if I needed it.

My writing style was definitely affected by the word count – it disappeared completely. When you’re under the gun to produce words, any style you thought you had goes right out the window. I found myself focused on getting as much out and onto the page as I could without stopping to choose my words, etc. One of the nice things about NaNo is that you can go back afterward and make it pretty.

What would you say to writers who were considering participating for the first time?

If there is anyone reading this who is considering participating in NaNoWriMo for the first time, my advice is to jump right in. I can’t think of any other writing endeavor that provides you with more support and encouragement. There are forums for every genre, which allow you to communicate with other NaNo participants. I had a question regarding legal representation for one of my characters. I posted the question in the forums and the next morning I had five responses from lawyers who happened to be participating. There are groups in every region who meet weekly to write together or to just drink coffee and commiserate. Participants are invited to join as many groups as they like, or none at all. Utilize the buddy system that they offer as well. I had three writing buddies who were fantastic. One was a teenager in Australia who was writing fantasy. Every day we’d check on each other’s word count, and comment on our progress. It was a great experience and I hope to participate in it every year.

Whathappened after the month was over? What stage of writing/editing/publishing isyour book in now?

Once the competitionhad ended, I put the book down until January. Having taken a break, I went back and re-read it, and started the majorediting portion. When I felt as thoughthere was enough of a storyline to follow, I had two friends read it for theirinput. I’ve been working on it eversince and after writing countless outlines, have finally produced one that Ifeel confident in using as a road map – I’m serious (God help me!) The word count is up to 65,000 and I’d liketo write another 15,000 in the next month. Then I’ll go in search of reading volunteers; probably make a few moreadjustments and then hopefully shop it around to the publishing houses.

Please tell us a little about the novel (and would you be willing to share a favorite passage?)

The novel is a satire about the ridiculous lengths that parents will go to – including murder, in order to get their children into a prestigious university, and the social ramifications of raising a child who not only fails to live up to those standards, but self destructs in spectacular fashion - literally.

Susan Stewart was among those overly pious parishioners entering the coffee shop. She quickly determined that the length of the line was far too long for her to waste time waiting in, and so quietly made her way over to the display of coffee mugs. From there she carefully slid over to the barista counter where a group of people were waiting for their orders to be filled.
She smiled at the others milling about and then approached the barista behind the counter.

"Excuse me, I’m just waiting for a tall black coffee, I don’t understand what’s taking so long." She looked questioningly at the barista behind the counter, who had his hands full with a pitcher of steamed milk. He looked up in time to see Susan’s eyebrow beginning to rise and sensing a tornado in the making, quickly put down the pitcher, grabbed a cup, poured the coffee and placed it on the counter in front of Susan and her slowly descending eyebrow.

"Tall coffee, black - sorry for the wait."

Susan stuffed a $5 dollar bill into the tip jar, grabbed her coffee from the counter and headed out the door, oblivious to the disdainful looks of her fellow customers – many of whom had witnessed this little charade before.

Finally,I have to ask…. whose side are you most often a thorn in, and whom have youembarrassed recently ;D?

Ha! Well I always suspect that I’m a thorn in the side of just about everyone who has to deal with me, from my family to my co-workers (I pray daily for all of them, so I figure that helps).

Last night I embarrassed my daughter – I think the reason was something like - I exist?

* * * *

You can find Lisa over at her blog, at LitStack, and on twitter. She is also the author of this wonderful essay about Frances badger's mom in our Mother's Day series here on Books, Personally. Check out the NaNoWriMo website for more information about participating this year. Last but not least, here is the infamous Monty Python Cheese Shop sketch. Enjoy!

The Sisters Brothers- Patrick deWitt

2011-09-23T13:00:00.000-04:00

The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt, Ecco Books, 2011

My very center wasbeginning to expand, as it always did before violence, a toppled pot of blackink covering the frame of my mind, its contents ceaseless, unaccountablylimitless. My flesh and scalp started to ring and tingle and I became someoneother than myself, or I became my second self, and this person was highlypleased to be stepping from the murk and into the living world where he mightdo just as he wished. I felt at once both lust and disgrace and wondered, Whydo I relish this reversal to animal? ... Shame, I thought. Shame and blood anddegradation.

Gold rush fever is sweeping the country, and brothers andhired killers Eli and Charlie Sisters have been dispatched to California, sentto kill one Hermann Kermit Warm for offenses unknown. The Sisters Brothers, shortlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize forFiction, tells the story of their journey from Oregon to California and back,as well as the story of Eli Sisters’ personal journey to find and become theman he wants to be.

While Charlie is nearly all sociopath, Eli is a killer witha (selective, anyway) conscience, and it is from his point of view weexperience this adventure. Told in a style that calls to mind a carefully told Western (I’m reminded of the movies Unforgivenperhaps, or True Grit), the pacing ofthe story, along with the era-evoking formality of the dialogue and vocabulary madethis book read like a film I could see and hear playing in my mind. Eli all at once funny, thoughtful, sensitive, violent, and dark. One momentI was amused by his quirks, charmed by his love for a woman, or moved by his profoundcompassion for his horse; the next I was startled by and cringing at hissudden, instinctive, and offhandedly brutal violence.

Eli and Charlie meet a host of colorful characters along theway and eventually forge an unlikely alliance with the man they’ve been sent toeliminate. They consider a new way of life, and Eli commits to becoming a differentkind of person. The question, of course,becomes will they? and can he?

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel – I was struck by thebeautifully crafted sentences, the way the writing conveyed Eli’s distinctive personalityas well as the time in which the story took place, the humor, and all thedetails of a rougher, earlier way of life. The storyline itself was intriguing – wild and adventurous, though not especiallyfast-paced. If I had any quibble at all,it was a very small one: late in the novel, Eli and Hermann Warm have a heartto heart conversation, and in one stretch, Warm tells his entire back-story.I wondered if there might not have been another way to relay all that information,but it didn’t detract from the overall excellence of the book. The tale then takes a dramatic turn or two beforedrawing to a gentle close. I highly recommend this novel for literary fictionfans who like to savor a story’s prose and setting as much as its plot.

TheMan Booker Prize for Fiction 2011 Shortlist

Also check out Beth Fish Reads' thoughts and wonderful roundup of reviews of The Sisters Brothers and featured imprint Ecco Books

Happy reading!

many thanks to HarperCollins and Ecco Books for a complimentary copy of The Sisters Brothers. All opinions expressed are my own.

Author Q&A: Jason McIntyre

2011-09-21T06:00:00.000-04:00

I'm so delighted to welcome suspense/thriller writer extraordinaire Jason McIntyre to the blog today. McIntyre’s books include the #1 Kindle suspense The Night Walk Men, bestsellers On The Gathering Storm and Shed, and the multi-layeredcoming-of-age literary suspense ThaloBlue. His new novella, Bled, returns us to Dovetail Cove (the island featured in Shed) and picks up the saga with a waitress named Tina ("Teeny") who dreams of a better life but instead gets caught up in a tale of horror and deception. I've been following Jason on twitter for quite a while now- it's amazing to "watch" him work - balancing writing, fatherhood, and the (extremely successful) marketing of his self-published books. Jason, a hearty and long overdue welcome to Books, Personally!

"Bled" opens with our heroine, Teeny, a waitress, workingin a diner and dreaming of a different life. I did my requisite collegesummer waitressing, and thought you did a great job of capturing life aswaitress (right down to the creepy old guy regulars). Then of course, in trueJason McIntyre style, the ordinary takes a turn for the terrifying. What do youthink it is about scary stories that we readers love so much? Who/what wereyour favorite authors/books growing up, and when did you realize that you wantedto write thrillers?

I think by ournature, human beings are explorers. Hundreds of thousands of years ago weneeded to go into the dark cave to see if there might be meat in there: aninjured animal we could take down with ease. All this time later, we don't haveto confront danger on a daily basis for our survival, but I think it stillappeals to us on an almost cellular level, engrained from our heritage. And ifwe can explore the thrills of the dark cave vicariously, say, doing it from thesafety of our living room couch and reading about someone else going into thescary, dark spot to try something, it's a much easier way to get that high.

My favoriteauthors growing up were popular fiction writers like John Saul and StephenKing. Dean Koontz was in there too. His book, The Bad Place, formed a lot of what I feel a dark, creepy thrillershould be.

I actuallystarted writing stories at about thirteen years old. The kernel for my novel THALO BLUE came to me after a fenderbender with a particularly psychotic stranger when I was in the back seat of mymom's car at the age of fourteen. It stewed in my mind for many years until Ifinally wrote it down. It had changed a lot by the time I wrote it, but I canstill see that original kernel when I read it today.

"Bled" has a number of different meanings in the story- itis not only the loss of actual, physical blood, but also the corrupt use anddraining of a community's resources and people, and deception and violence'sdrain on the human psyche. Which meaning of bled was your first inspiration forthe story, and how did the others emerge?

I hope thisdoesn't come off as a cop out when I say that I generally come up with thingslike that in an explosion: all at once. I started Bled without a title or a clear direction. I had this image burnedinto my mind, one of a waitress pouring coffee for an older man who was leeringat her with a particular brand of creepiness. I just started writing, thinkingit might be a short story. When I got about ten thousand words in, I literallywoke up one night understanding how Teeny's story fit into the Dovetail Coveworld, what Teeny's relationship was with Frank Moort and the rest of theisland, how it played against my novella, Shed,and what the title would be. I knew how it would work with the various aspectsof the larger story and the whole series. Wham! It hurt, but I ran to thecomputer to make notes at four in the morning.

I've had a lotcome to me clearly like that in the middle of the night, or just as I'm driftingto sleep or drifting awake. The wee hours have proven to be a potent time forme.

Teeny's experience turns terribly brutal. In spite of how upsettingone particularly violent scene was, it was both suspenseful and, it seemed tome, very carefully written. How difficult is it for you to write about violence(and in this case, violence against women) emotionally as well as technically?What kinds of issues and choices did you confront as you wrote it?

I wrote that inone long stretch, opting not to drink or eat or sleep or leave the computer. Itflowed from me (with the exception of some grammar and typo corrections later)pretty much exactly as it reads in the final book. I don't know about carefulbut I would definitely say it is a deliberate kind of writing. The sloppinessin the style is intended to mirror what's actually happening in the scene and Ibelieve it works well. Preview readers hated and loved it at the same time so Ifeel like I accomplished something with it.

Readers who haveread my first long novel On TheGathering Storm will know that I've tread this territory before. I wasscared witless the first time and felt I needed to confront that subject matterin order to grow as a writer (and, really, as a person, a man even) --precisely because it was so daunting. This time I was more ready for it, butthe challenge was just as personally gruesome. I care for my characters (Ha!Maybe that's where the word 'character' comes from!) so I find it really hardto put them through hellish experiences. But at the same time, I need to. If Idon't, then I won't get up and over the highest fence either.

I don't want to give anything away, but "Bled"'s endingsurprised me. Did you know where it was going when you started writing, or didyou have a few possible endings in mind? How often do the endings of yourstories surprise you?

The endingsalmost always surprise me! If they don't then they won't surprise the reader,either. Some stories intentionally have no stunner at the end. That's okay too.Bled kept me guessing the whole waybecause Teeny is a dreamer and she day-dreams a half dozen different scenariosabout how it might play out. Without giving anything away myself, I'll just sayI was on board with her and didn't know which way it would all go. I wasexcited and so happy with the final act and I hope readers are too.

I would be completely remiss if I didn't mention -and congratulateyou - on having an astounding 100,000 downloads of your work! What do you thinkhas been most key to your success as a self-published author? What would yourbest advice be to other self-publishing authors?

Aw, thank you,Jennifer! It has been an exciting time indeed. To have anyone read my work isastounding. To have this many reading and enjoying puts me over the moon withjoy.

I can'tnecessarily pinpoint any one key behaviour that has helped me. I can say that Ipay careful attention to individual readers, and have given a lot of free booksto those who are keenly interested in reading something of mine. I won't getrich as an indie writer but instead love to tell stories and interact with asmany people as possible. I believe this comes across as genuine and manyreaders pick up on this.

Over this lastweekend, my email account at The Farthest Reaches blew up because of an overwhelmingrush of hourly email. I get about 200-250 emails a day now, many of which arefrom readers who have questions or want to discuss a theme in my stories. Yes,I like to entertain with a good suspenseful yarn, but I also want to exploreissues in my writing too. My hope has always been to write stories you'll wantto read a second time -- especially in this world of one-book writers you mayread and then forget about when you're on to the next one.

I try to spreadmyself as thick as I can across broad marketing efforts and getting one-on-onewith as many readers as I can manage. I believe there's something very personalabout the kinds of stories I write so I try to mirror that with a personalapproach to people who have been kind enough to give their time in reading mywords.

I enjoyed reading Bled and recommend it as a taut, suspenseful read for fans of the genre. As discussed in the interview, Bled does contain mature content. Many thanks to the author for a complimentary advance review e-copy of his book. You can find Jason on twitter and learn more about him and his work at his blog, The Farthest Reaches.

Bled is available for purchase in ebook format on Amazon. You can also watch the trailer for Bled on YouTube.

Calling Mr. King, The Karaoke Singer's Guide to Self Defense

2011-09-17T08:31:00.000-04:00

Aren't these gorgeous? these covers may be two of my recent favorites.... the fonts and designs take me back in time... The Karaoke Singer's Guide's cover has been aged in such a way that you practically expect to feel that dry burn of paper dust in the back of your throat. They're both good reads, too - was privileged to review them both recently for LitStack.

Calling Mr. King, Ronald DeFeo, Other Press, 2011

Nothing like job burnout, especially when you’re a professional hit man. One day you’re cool as a cucumber, taking out your mark with expert precision and an air of nonchalance; the next, your timing seems off, you botch a job, and you start wishing your goon bosses would stop calling and leave you alone so you could enjoy a little architecture in peace and quiet… just like anybody else… right?

Calling Mr. King, a debut novel from writer Ronald DeFeo, explores the inner life of a paid assassin, the best of the best, code name “Mr.King.” Mr. King has long left behind his violent, abusive father and his childhood hometown in upstate New York to work for a network of criminals. He now finds himself a man of the world, traveling to exotic locales, considering himself more Brit than American, and killing for hire..... read more of my review of Calling Mr. King over on LitStack.

The Karaoke Singer's Guide to Self Defense, Tim Kinsella, featherproof books, 2011

Absolutely loved this one....if it is a measure of anything, by the time I finished the book, my copy was more dog-eared than just about any other book I own, and when it ended, I felt bittersweetly bereft. I thought The Karaoke Singer’s Guide to Self-Defense was a brilliant read, highly recommended for readers who like a little nostalgia in a smart, dark, funny, and engrossing novel....read more of my review of The Karaoke Singer's Guide to Self-Defense over on LitStack

Many thanks to the Other Press and featherproof books for complimentary copies of these books. All opinions expressed are my own. I am (in theory, very modestly) compensated by LitStack editors for my reviews.

Author Q&A: Craig Machen

2011-09-13T06:29:00.000-04:00

I couldn't resist using this scowly pic...

Craig Machen, film and television writer, is the author of Still Life With Brass Pole, a remarkable memoir about coming-of-age as a strip club bouncer, finding his way amidst a culture of sex, alcohol and drug abuse, and disfunction, and finally realizing his dream of becoming a dad. Still Life is above all, a story of personal redemption, and what struck me most about it was the heart, humor, honesty, and compassion with which Craig writes. Craig was kind enough to indulge me in a few questions about the book - and more.

What motivated you to write Still Life? Who do you hope toreach with your story, and what do you hope readers will take away from yourmemoir?

Well, I'd grown weary ofmaking a living a wage and wanted to try my hand at something that could sinkme below the poverty line. So I thought,"A memoir! Just the thing to bringmy finances in line with my self-image."

Ah, but… The truth is kind of corny. At its heart, Still Life With Brass Pole isabout the helter-skelter journey I took to become a father. That was a dream for me since I was a littleboy. As a matter of fact, being a dadwas THE dream for me, and it preceded music and writing, and all of my otherpassions. So as my oldest son wasgetting ready to leave for college, I found myself kind of paralyzed. It was crazy. Here I was with the best jobs I'd ever had in Hollywood, writingscreenplays for Ivan Reitman and DreamWorks, Ben Stiller and Fox - broadcomedies, mind you - and it got to the point where this sadness, or whatever,made it very difficult to focus on screenwriting. I kept going over the events that brought meto fatherhood, and fearing that it might all be over now. Anyway, I just sat down and started workingon this book, and basically disappeared from sight, professionallyspeaking. Then, about ten months later,I was done. My son was in college(ironically, in Oklahoma), and he still loved me (as did my other son) andamazingly, the sky didn't fall.

As far as ideal readers go, Iguess I had two groups in mind. Thefirst was women of almost any age because part of me was trying to say,"I'm sorry. If I ever barreled throughyour life and seemed sidetracked or self-involved, this is what was happeningin mine. I was confused and I didn'tmean to be a jerk."

The other people I wasthinking about, perhaps for obvious reasons, were young guys. And to them I guess I wanted to say,"Try not to let your mistakes define you, and if you can have a sense ofhumor about them, so much the better. Like Lauryn Hill says, 'Every day's another chance to get it right thistime.' And… If you're lucky enough to wind up withsomeone to love, make sure you do love them, with all your might. Because nothing else is even half asimportant."

Youfaced a lot of adversity in your childhood and teen years, but you not onlyovercame it, you also tell your story with plenty of humor, andeven compassion. Where does that come from? How has your perspective changed over time?

I guess humor is how I've always tried toexplain things to myself. There were longstretches in my young life where my decision making was not great. It was painful to blow it so often and tocontinually end up in places where I knew I shouldn't be. So when I've screwed up - then and now -after an extended period of self-flagellation, I'm usually looking for a way toaddress my inadequacies and get on with life. Humor helps me do that. Maybemore importantly, though, being a father constantly reminds me to get overmyself, if only so that I can return to that stable emotional baseline fromwhich you need to parent. I also have afew amazing friends that I can talk to about anything and a dog who loves to goon long walks, so I feel like I at least know where to start climbing when Ifall into a hole.

My feelings about the periodin Still Life have changed a great deal. Before I started writing about them - in fits and burst at about age 27or 28 - I felt like that stuff was proof that I was a flawed and untrustworthyhuman. Writing forced me to take acloser look, and helped me to find the funny, some of the reasons, and a lot ofthe common threads in my background and behavior. I guess now I'm proud to have made it fromthere to here, emotionally and familially.

Everytime you mention being a dad, or wanting to be a dad, in your book or on yourwebsite, it sounds like you are beaming. What is your very favorite thing aboutbeing a parent? What surprised you the most? What is the hardest thing?

Definitely! I love it so much I feel ridiculoussometimes. I love being a person my sonscan depend on. I love having a reason tobe a better man. Mostly, though, I justlove my boys. That's my favorite thing. So much good comes from just standing next tothat fire and, at least in the early days, being responsible for keeping itlit.

And though I anticipatedbeing blown away, I was most surprised by simply looking at my sons' faces forthe first time. I'm an adopted person soI guess it starts with seeing a blood relative for the first time. It was way bigger than that, though, anddefinitely the reason I believe in God.

The hardest thing for me wasconvincing myself that I deserved this amazing gift, and fearing that I was onthe cusp of blowing it. I was confidentthat I would do everything in my power to be a good dad, but my fears were moreabout not recognizing fatal flaws in my character or just failing at thejob. Finding time to write has been achallenge too!

Anymemoirist has to make choices about what events and details to include, or notinclude, in his or her story, but I imagine these choices are especiallydifficult when you are writing about youthful, er, indiscretions, shall we say-and your children may eventually read the book. How hard or easy was it towrite frankly?

I decided up front that if Iwas going to talk about this stuff I needed to be harder on myself than anyoneelse. I thought constantly about myboys, but their mom and my close friends were very encouraging. As a matter of fact, I got called at the lastminute to do The Adam Carolla Show early last month, which felt in a weird waymore official than even writing the book. I was really scared to be talking about some of this stuff, so I calledmy former spouse and she said, "Just tell the truth." It was such a relief, I almost broke intotears. Then I went and did the show andthought I sucked. That night my soncalled from Oklahoma. He hadn't heard myappearance yet, but he could tell I was worried. He said, "Dad, relax, worst casescenario, you were boring. Let me listento it and I'll call you back." Thenext day he posted my interview on his Facebook page. Then I felt like everything was going to beokay.

I was also worried about myparents. Those relationships have alwaysbeen bumpy, and sometimes non-existent, and I guess they still are (or areagain). But I just decided my story ismy story. I'm entitled to tell it aslong as my motivation is not malicious. Eventually, I was just worrying about the writing, and asking myself,"Did it happen, and is it relevant to what you're trying tosay?" If the answer was yes, then Ikept on writing, and thinking, "The truth will you set you free." Amazingly, it has, and I don't really haveany regrets.

Upuntil recently, you co-wrote a blog On The Fence With Jesus with Dr. Travis Collins, a Baptist pastor. In a world in which people on theright and left of everything seem mostly to holler at (and past) each other ontelevision, it is refreshing to find such thoughtful and respectful discussionbetween two people with very divergent views. How did that blog come about, andwhat is the most important thing you take away from that experience?

I met Travis at afuneral. My sister had a baby, Stephen,who lived for about ten months with a degenerative disorder, and then passedaway. Travis was her pastor, and we hada very random conversation after Stephen's service that went on for about anhour. We couldn't be more different, butI really enjoyed going back and forth with him. We traded emails about all manner of things for a couple of months andthen decided to do the blog. It was agreat experience. We agreed to postthree times a week, so eventually we wandered into all of the topics thatdivide liberals and conservatives, the religious and the "spiritual,"for lack of a better term. There werecertainly days when we got on each other's nerves, but the best thing for me -and I think for Travis - was the candid exchange of ideas with a first, last,and always acknowledgement of each other's humanity. There were also surprising moments for mewhere we agreed on things I was sure we wouldn't. Anyway, my main takeaway is how important itis to listen to people and take them individually. Maybe that's obvious, but when I'm tempted tostereotype it's often Travis that jumps into my head along with the word"friend." I don't bat athousand in that respect, but knowing Travis has definitely helped.

Finally,how has the book writing/publishing experience been so far, and what isnext for you?

I loved writing thebook. Publishing has been timeconsuming, but rewarding. Again, myaccountant would probably prefer that I get back to screenwriting, and I have,but I'm also working on a novel too. Ijust love the way it feels to write prose. You get to be interior in a way that you really can't when writing forthe big or small screen. There's also alot of cooks in the kitchen in the movie and television worlds, and it's kindof like being in the crew of a cruise ship (or a garbage scow, depending). Writing books is like surfing, and I hope tokeep doing it for the rest of my days.

Thanks so much to Craig for his generous answers to all my questions as well as providing a complimentary review copy of his book. Still Life is for readers who enjoy a heartfelt, often humorous story of overcoming adversity and personal redemption, and who are also very comfortable with plenty of mature content (language, sex and substance abuse) and tackling some tough subjects (parents who aren't there for their kids, or worse; life for the young women and men who work in strip clubs). What I liked above all else was the way the author's personality shines throughout his story, and I was so glad to have this opportunity to talk further with him.

You can learn more about Craig on his blog and find him on twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads. Still Life With Brass Pole is available for purchase on Amazon. I will also refer you to ErinReads' blog for her excellent review of Still Life.

Happy reading!

Odds 'n Ends

2011-09-12T05:54:00.000-04:00

Hope everyone's Fall is off to a great start! August turned out to be a bit of a blur around here, what with kids home, travel, LitStack launching etc. It's been so great to have everyone back in school, to start getting back into a routine, and to start catching up.

I'm so excited to host a number of author Q&A's on the blog this month. Tara Woolpy, author of Releasing Gillian's Wolves, was my guest last week. Releasing Gillian's Wolves tells the story of a woman, the ultimate supportive political spouse, whose husband's betrayal finally forces her to choose between staying or forging a life of her own. Her book is a thoughtfully written, enjoyable and romantic read and it was wonderful to hear her perspective on political spouses in the media today, the rewards and challenges of self-publishing, growing up in a political family, and more.

Coming up tomorrow, I'm delighted to welcome Craig Machen, writer for film and television (MTV's Wasted, Summerland with Zac Efron) and author of Still Life With Brass Pole. Still Life is a frank, funny and heartfelt memoir of misspent youth and personal redemption, and in his interview Craig talks candidly and humorously about his experience as well as writing and parenthood. Next week, thriller writer extraordinaire Jason McIntyre joins the blog to introduce his new novella and share his thoughts on scary stories, writing dangerously, and self-publishing success (his work has been downloaded more than 100,000 times). Please drop by to learn more about the authors and their work, say hello and/or ask questions.

LitStack is in its second month now - with reviews of books in many genres, book news, and author interviews, there is something there for every reader. I was thrilled to read and review So You Know It's Me, by Brian Oliu (Tiny Hardcore Press, 2011) and literary publications Specter Literary Magazine , Shelf Unbound Magazine, and Hayden's Ferry Review among others.

What does Fall have in store for you - what reads are you looking forward to, what new and exciting projects are coming up? Leave your thoughts in the comments. Wishing a very happy Book Blogger Appreciation Week to all my wonderful blogging colleagues, and happy reading!

Author Q&A: Tara Woolpy

2011-09-07T06:00:00.000-04:00

Tara Woolpy is the author of Releasing Gillian's Wolves, the story of a woman -the consummate, supportive political spouse of a philandering congressman- who finally is forced to choose whether to stay in her marriage, or to leave, and learn how to forge a life of her own. I reviewed an advance copy of Releasing Gillian's Wolves earlier this year, and was thrilled to have the chance to talk more with Tara about the book, her own childhood as part of a political family, the media climate for today's political wives, cooking, and the publishing process.

I was surprised and interested to learn that you grew up in a political family, except one very different from Gillian’s (in your case, your mother is a politician, your father is the political spouse, and there was no scandal). In Releasing Gillian’s Wolves, Gillian’s story is the main focus, but her grown children play a large role as well. How did your own family experience inform or inspire the story or characters in Releasing Gillian’s Wolves?

Gillian's family is very different from my own and the challenges they face are much more daunting than anything in our experience. But I do have a sense for how large the political career looms within the family. Everyone participates (as a child I went door to door, stuffed envelopes and handed out leaflets at parades) and when your parent's name is in the paper on a regular basis, you give up any sense of anonymity. My mother was a loved and respected state senator so I've spent my life hearing about all the good things she's done. I imagine that in the wake of a scandal that could turn ugly very quickly and it was that understanding that informed Releasing Gillian's Wolves.

Recently there seems to be more media attention given to the spouse’s story (thinking of Silda Spitzer, Elizabeth Edwards, Jenny Sanford) – What is your take on the way the media covers these more recent scandals? How have things changed for betrayed political wives? If you (or Gillian) could give them advice, what would it be?

More women are refusing to stand on the podium with strained smiles on their faces and that's probably a positive sign. On the other hand, we're far too concerned with how these women react, as if it were a measure of something important. Voters are more likely to forgive and re-elect a man whose wife stands beside him while he admits his affair (so if she still thinks he's the best man for the job, she has to take that into consideration). We're seemingly obsessed with her presence on the podium, even though presence or absence probably has more to do with how she feels about his political life, her own temperment and how long she's had to think about it (remember Dina Matos McGreevey, who found out two hours before the press did and was undoubtably still in shock as she stood beside her adulterous husband as he came out to the world).

Betrayed women get labeled anti-feminist and weak for supporting their husbands, although Hilary Clinton got through that by simply declaring she wasn't a stand by your man kind of wife even as she stood by him. It's all part of the larger-than-life quality of political life that we feel free to judge these women at a time when their world is in melt-down.

Food and cooking are very important to Gillian- there are even a few recipes (brownies, pasta sauce) included in the book, so I’m guessing you may do a little cooking and baking yourself? What would you cook/bake/serve if you were:

Celebrating
Needed cheering up
Hosting a dinner party for your very closest friends

Ah, now you'll learn my dirty little secret, which is that I'm not the cook in the family. Most of the recipes in the book are my husband's, although Survive Anything Brownies is all mine and that's definitely what I would make if I needed cheering up. Jerry says he'd cook leg of lamb for a celebration. Some of our closest friends are coming to dinner next weekend and he's planning on making moussaka. Yum.

Can you tell us a little more about other books in the Lacland series?

Sure. The Lacland series is a set of books all set in Lacland, a fictional town in the upper midwest. Each book is written from a different character's point of view, although characters overlap between the books. The next one to be released is Raising Wild Ginger, in which Edward and Sam contemplate adopting a child. After that will come Midnight Supper at the Rise and Shine, the story of Irene and Claire, owners of the Rise and Shine cafe. And after that... who knows?

How has the experience of founding Bats-in-the Boathouse Press and the self-publishing process been for you – what have been the highs and lows, the challenges, rewards and surprises so far?

I resisted the idea of self-publishing for a long time. But the process of getting someone else to publish the books was taking a lot of time and energy and moved frustratingly slow. I finally realized that what I really wanted was for people I didn't know to read my work and that I could accomplish that most quickly by simply publishing the books myself.

I studied the process and made some good choices and a few not so good ones, but overall it's been a great experience. My best choice was to have Pat Bickner design the cover using Tom Nimsgern's great photo. The cover took my breath away when I opened the first box. My worst choice was to go with only one round of editing. I hired an editor (which was good) but didn't hire a second copy editor to catch all the errors in my edited book - some of which were not caught the first time and others were generated during my final edit. I'd rather this was a perfect book but it's not and there's probably a lesson in that. Still, I'm very glad I created Bats in the Boathouse Press rather than waiting around for someone else to love my book enough to publish it. I'm really enjoying talking with folks about the story and I love that people all over the country are reading my work. It's amazing.

You can find Tara on Goodreads and at the Bats in the Boathouse website. Releasing Gillian's Wolves is available for purchase at local, independent bookstores in Wisconsin and on Amazon.

Once Upon A River - Bonnie Jo Campbell

2011-09-01T22:27:00.000-04:00

Once Upon a River, Bonnie Jo Campbell, W.W. Norton and Company, 2011

This is the book I've been waiting for all summer. I've been dying to read it ever since reading Ron Charles' amazing review in the Washington Post. So I put in a hold request at the library and waited.... and waited.... In the meantime I caught up on Campbell's short story collection American Salvage (reviewed here), which I'd also been wanting to read for ages, and I'm so glad I read it first.

Once Upon a River returns us to the scene of "Family Reunion," a stunning short story, and my very favorite in American Salvage. The story and the novel tell the powerful tale of Margo, a teenage girl growing up on a river in Michigan. She lives only with her father, her mother has left them. She doesn't talk much. She's a helluva shot. She had been very close to her extended family just across the river until her uncle cornered and raped her at a holiday get-together. Her gun becomes her way of coping with her subsequent confusion and anger: she shoots targets and hunts more deer than the law allows. Although forbidden to visit them again, she sneaks over to spy on the family's Thanksgiving dinner, and in a moment of serendipity and sudden clarity, she acts decisively to send the uncle a clear message about his behavior.

The short story leaves us there, and when I read it, it left me absolutely wanting to read more about Margo; Once Upon a River tells this story, and continues with everything that follows, going on to reveal the life-changing consequences of Margo's actions, and her subsequent journey along the river to find her mother and ultimately herself. Margo is a wonderfully different and absolutely compelling heroine - she is unbelievably tough, and at the same time heartbreakingly vulnerable. She knows how to survive outdoors- hunting, fishing, foraging - and she feels trapped anywhere else. I marvelled at how capable this young woman is, and at the thorough details the author includes to illustrate Margo's skills (I know far more about skinning animals than I ever thought I would). Yet because she is still so young and has grown up so isolated from others, she can also be clueless and impulsive.

Margot connects up with a series of men along the way (some heads will shake here, but read on) some for better and some for much, much worse, but each relationship or interaction changes Margo in a different way and I thought Campbell captured something remarkable in each one:

Margo was getting an idea that ....love was different than she'd expected, that it was something ordinary.... if you knew the feel of his soft hair and knew how he felt in his skin when you touched him, if you listened to every word a man spoke, his truth and his lies, then you couldn't help but love him.

Margo is a loner, and as such much of the book is narration rather than dialogue. I found the narration outstanding and the dialogue occasionally not quite as stellar, but overall it was a book I loved start to finish and had a hard time putting down. Most of all, I found that while Campbell in no way glorified the challenges of life along a rural river or Margo's extremely hard existence, she did make me feel the pull that the river had on Margo. I am tempted to go read it again, one more time, before I take it back to the library - and then go buy a copy to keep on the shelf.

Happy reading!

Caught Reading: Island Edition

2011-08-28T10:21:00.000-04:00

Just back from a week on this beautiful rock in the sea. No blogging, no tweeting, no reviewing, but lots of sun, water, family and friends. Shoalers as a whole are a very avid bunch of readers - these are just a few of the books I spotted around the island.

Ben Loory's Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day (Penguin, 2011) was my read for the week. I loved this collection of sometimes-creepy, sometimes-poignant, always unsettling short stories. In a week in which down time came in fits and starts, these bite-sized stories were the perfect escape, and each bite left me with plenty to chew on.

Special thanks to The Guys over at Three Guys One Book for hosting the giveaway in which I won my copy!!!

Happy Reading!

Purple Leaves, Red Cherries: A Gift for Mothers

2011-08-19T07:59:00.002-04:00

Purple Leaves,
Red Cherries
A Gift for Mothers with Short Stories, Journal, and Toolkit,
Tania Elfersy and
Andrea Katzman,
Flower Cap Press, 2011

I thought there must be a way to embrace new mothers and make them feel like they are not alone; and there must be a way to provide mothers with an accessible outlet for creativity and expression, because these aspects of our core identity are so easily put aside when our lives are overwhelmed with the care of young children, often causing us to lose ourselves. - Tania Elfersy

Most mothers would probably agree that motherhood is one of the most transformative, amazing experiences in their lives - it changes a woman forever; it is overjoying and wonderful - and yet... how profoundly challenging and depleting those first months can be with a new baby. Purple Leaves, Red Cherries is a collection of very honest, open stories about motherhood, paired with a journal and "toolkit" designed to help new mothers keep their sense of self through reflection, writing, and other mindful practices.

Of the two aspects of the book, I most enjoyed the stories, many of which resonated with me as I recalled my own ~~sleep-deprivation~~ days as a new mom. The brief, personal stories, contributed by about thirty different women, touched on a wide range of issues including birth and nursing, expectations and feeling capable, changing roles, changing bodies, marriage and intimacy. I liked that the writers were so frank about their own experiences, and that the collection also includes stories from adoptive mothers, mothers who needed assistance conceiving, and mothers of children with health issues. Knowing you aren't alone can make all the difference, and such stories could be very meaningful to an exhausted and discouraged new mother.

Designed and intended as a gift, the book is very lovely. I read it in e-version, and would have loved to see the print copy - the illustrations throughout are colorful and cheerful, and the toolkit seems very stylish and pretty. (It almost verges upon the too-pretty-to-actually use - I myself would have a hard time writing my open, honest, grouchy, tired, new mommy-thoughts in such a pretty book, but then, you can't really give a friend a ratty old notebook for a present). There are some very nice suggestions in the toolkit section, including a "mother's declaration of rights" (absolutely do demand that daily shower, ladies!), a "today I am grateful for" reflection, and a list of small but meaningful projects to assign well-intentioned visitors who aren't sure how they can help. Some of the suggested practices may appeal more to some mothers than others, so keep your intended recipient in mind (I am thinking of Quote Decor- posting inspirational quotes around the house; or some of the pampering ideas, such as taking five minutes for a facial or making a delicious smoothie). All in all, I wouldn't have minded more stories, perhaps from a broader range of moms, but it is a lovely book and I would have been pleased to receive it. Well worth considering as a gift for a thoughtful woman who has newly become a mother.

You can learn more about the book at purpleleavesredcherries.com, which also includes a forum for reading, posting, and commenting on motherhood stories and tips.

Happy reading!

(Many thanks to the author for a complimentary copy of the book!)

High Tea and Rural Noir- Short Stories by Margaret Drabble and Bonnie Jo Campbell

2011-08-13T07:44:00.000-04:00

A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman, Margaret Drabble, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011

The short stories collected in A Day in the Life of A Smiling Woman have been assembled from over the course of the author's writing life, beginning in the 1960's. (Drabble is known best for her novels, which I sadly confess I have not read.... yet.) The stories are very internal, very intelligent, and very elaborate explorations of inner emotional mood and crisis - and thus also sometimes rather intense. All of them were well written, though (and perhaps this is a danger when writing stories that are so internal) some left me caring more than others. My favorites included "The Gifts of War", a very moving story in which idealistic young students challenge a working class mother's purchase of a war toy for her son, and "A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman," in which a woman, facing both the more usual kinds of challenges (unsupportive husband, career, motherhood) and what is a surely a devastating health condition (and resulting inner panic), presses on, maintaining appearances. As a mother, both these stories touched me deeply, the latter in a very visceral way.

American Salvage, stories by Bonnie Jo Campbell, Wayne State University Press, 2009

There is nothing like having a brand new, complete rave of a novel come out to motivate a reader to catch up on the author's last work that's been sitting and waiting on the to-read list. For me, that work was Bonnie Jo Cambell's short story collection American Salvage (her new novel Once Upon a River has just been released to some breathtaking reviews).

I believe I have heard (seen in a tweet?) Campbell refer to her stories as "rural noir," and that seems to be a fitting description. Her stories are about average, working folks scraping to get by, both emotionally and economically. If you are looking for uplifting, you will need to look elsewhere: her characters are surrounded by poverty, violence, and a very discouraging amount of meth abuse. While I thought all the stories were well worth reading, some are more tautly written than others, some are more emotionally compelling than others. There were a few powerful stories such as "The Solution to Brian's Problem" and "Family Reunion" that really stood out for me as both; others had a quieter, less defined impact. They all linger with me, and I am eagerly awaiting my copy of Once Upon a River.

By the way, LitStack had a fantastic second week! Lots of wonderful reviews and other bookish news (my reviews this week include Steve Himmer's the bee-loud glade and highlights from Shelf Unbound magazine but there are many other excellent articles)- if you haven't been over to visit yet, please check it out!

Happy reading!

On Rereading, and Round-ups

2011-08-06T07:53:00.003-04:00

If you asked for a list of favorite books by favorite authors, Carson McCullers' The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter would be right at the top. This was a book that made a huge impression on me when I read it in my teens as part of a high school English class. I reread it recently, along with The Member of the Wedding, another McCullers favorite.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter tells the stories of a small cast of characters in a small Southern town - Mick Kelly, a spirited teenage girl from a struggling family; Jake Blount, an idealist and labor activist; Doctor Benedict Copeland, an African-American physician; John Singer, a mute boarder at the Kelly's; and Biff Brannon, owner of the town's The New York Cafe. I remembered it being a wonderfully written novel of longing: each character is restless, unsettled, yearning for something out of reach. I didn't remember how much it also considered the political and social climate of the time. McCullers was only in her early twenties when The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was published in 1940. She wrote with amazing insight and maturity for her age, incorporating labor struggles and civil rights injustices into her characters' inner lives with sympathy and complexity.

The Member of the Wedding is also a coming-of-age story about a young teen in a small Southern town. Our protagonist, Frankie Addams, is very much like Mick Kelly, but more so. Spirited, turbulent, just on the cusp of adolescence, switching wildly in any moment between childish and grown up behavior, unsure of where she fits in. Frankie seizes on the idea of her brother's pending wedding and can't let go; she envisions her brother and the bride taking her away with them. Where The Heart is a Lonely Hunter's reach is broader, with several stories carefully paced and woven together, The Member of the Wedding is all intense, stormy burst of passionate early adolescent girl. Read one as a moving novel, read the next to feel the grip on your heart. Rereading confession: I think in the revisiting, I liked The Member of the Wedding more.

In other news, it was a great launch week over at LitStack - hope you got a chance to check it out! Week 1 included lots of wonderful reviews, interviews with authors Hannah Moskowitz and Adam Schuitema,some nostalgia-inducing staff picks (books we loved when we were 14), and much more. I loved (and reviewed) Tiff Holland's Betty Superman,winner of Rose Metal Press's fifth annual chapbook contest, 2011 a brief collection of short stories about a mother-daughter relationship that will make you laugh and break your heart all a the same time. In the SpotLit feature I highlight some favorites from Issue 24 of The Collagist, a truly excellent online literary magazine from Dzanc Books. You can follow LitStack on twitter and Facebook

Happy reading!
(a complimentary copy of Betty Superman was provided by the publisher.)

Introducing ....LitStack!

2011-07-31T07:25:00.000-04:00

... a new literary site dedicated to readers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, short stories, literary magazines, ebooks, manga and graphic novels. Launching Monday, August 1st - that's tomorrow, people - LitStack's mission is to promote the love of storytelling and language in its many and varied forms.

Led by the fearless and fabulous duo Adrienne Crezo (Editor in Chief) and T.S. Tate (Managing Editor), LitStack will offer daily book reviews and much, much more, including - but not limited to - spotlights on indie bookstores, featured monthly authors, original short stories and essays by established authors, author interviews, a book club, and weekly staff picks.

Yours, truly is delighted to join the LitStack review team, with a special focus on independent/small press books and literary magazines. Come celebrate the launch on Monday, check out the new site, and stick around to become part of the ongoing conversation. It's going to be absolutely smashing.

Three Good Things, Part Deux

2011-07-27T08:15:00.000-04:00

There is so much exciting fiction to be found online or outside of traditional book publishing, such as online literary journals, and writers nurturing their own (or others' ) writing on their blogs and websites. In the second installment of what I hope will become a regular feature, I'd like to offer highlights of just a few writerly things I've recently read and loved, and hope you will enjoy, too.

1. Trigger: a brand new, biannual online art/literary mag from StatusHat Publications. Trigger's debut issue pairs eight artists with eight writers, whose initial creations become the "triggers" for another artist or writer's response: Art inspires writing inspires art. It's a wonderful concept, and the results are surprising and delightful. If you click on a contributor's name in the table of contents (for example, Steven Brown ) you will see a link to Brown's poem "Be Right Back" and Meagan Dye's artistic response. Next you see a link for Brown's poem "house of the vitruvian man" and the art (by Russie Wight-Waltman) that inspired it. The literary pieces include short stories as well as poetry. Look for the "read more" and keep clicking. It is rather fun to see where you end up.

2.This Introduction to Tiny Hardcore Press and its recently published book So They Know It's Me (by Brian Oliu) over at the LitPub. Well, there were several things I liked about this post. I liked learning more about Tiny Hardcore Press ("The 'Tiny' in Tiny Hardcore Press is literal. Our books will fit in your pocket or your purse or your hand. They will most definitely fit in your heart."). I loved reading about Oliu's book - the description itself is beautifully written - and I was intrigued by the concept: a collection of lyric essays, each originally posted on Craigslist's Missed Connections, designed to vanish. Straight to my to-be-read list. (And then of course I started clicking around over at the LitPub, where a gal can find any number of writers/books/ideas to distract her.)

3. Finally, I enjoyed the poem "Repairs" by Gareth Spark over at Used Furniture Review in which the hot, dry, overwhelming disrepair of a yard mirrors the disrepair of the heart.

Happy reading- would love to know what you think!

In My Beachbag

2011-07-18T14:15:00.000-04:00

Books, Personally went to the beach, and all she brought were her books...

(...and some kids.. and her husband....and some pails... and several boogie boards... and a lot of sunscreen... well, you know the drill.)

A Visit From the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan, Alfred A. Knopf, 2010 (winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the LA Times Book Award)

"Time is a goon."

Oh deary, it is indeed. But time brings gifts, as well. The short stories in Jennifer Egan's (multiple) prize-winning collection rotate among a related cast of characters at various stages in their lives. Egan's characters are wounded, lost and struggling souls, and their stories are generally not happy ones. It took me a while to warm up to the characters and the non-chronological order of the stories, but by the end of the fourth story,"Safari," I was hooked. The stories were reflective and insightful; I especially liked Sasha, the first character we meet, and one whom we get to know both firsthand and through the eyes of other characters. Her story ends on a hopeful note, and I was surprised how much I enjoyed the much-cited "powerpoint" story, touchingly told from the point of view of Sasha's daughter. Goon Squad left me feeling rather sentimental about the passage of time, and I highly recommend it.

The Tiger's Wife, Tea Obreht, Random House, 2011

winner of the Orange Prize for fiction

The Tiger's Wife weaves together the stories of a young woman's devotion to her recently passed grandfather, the folktale-like memory of a tiger arriving in his childhood village, and his mysterious, supernatural encounters with a Deathless Man - all set against the backdrop of a country torn apart by war. I can't say I have read many stories set in a "Balkan country" (based, I assume, on Yugoslavia, where Obreht spent the first years of her life) - the cultural details and thorough character back-stories drew me in and I found myself absolutely transported. I loved the portrayals of the tiger - pacing in a zoo in an ancient citadel in the middle of a modern city, his stealthy presence in a superstitious, remote village - and the consideration of old village ways and their lingering presence in modern life. Really loved this one - found it quite beguiling.

What's in your beach bag (or tote bag or backpack) this summer? Have you read either of these, and what did you think?

Happy summer, and happy reading!

The Good Thief- Hannah Tinti

2011-07-10T05:00:00.000-04:00

The Good Thief, Hannah Tinti, Dial Press 2009 (paperback)

Delightful. Just delightful. Through and through.

Oh, did you need me to say more?

The Good Thief is the story of young Ren, a one-handed orphan left to be raised by Catholic priests in early industrial New England. The circumstances of his missing hand are a mystery, and when a young man presenting himself as Ren's brother comes along to claim him, offering a fantastic story of their parents' murder and the dramatic loss of the hand, Ren is thrilled to find his long-lost family. Of course things are not at all what they seem, and Ren quickly finds himself part of a band of thieves and con men. They scam and steal their way across the region, until they hear of an even better gig: a doctor is paying good money for corpses for medical research. This gruesome job goes terribly awry, and each in our band of characters find themselves in a good bit of trouble. As they work their way out, Ren finds his true families - of both the genetic and the adoptive kind - and learns the truth about his heritage.

Well let me first just say that I am a little wary of child protagonists, but this novel surprised me and absolutely sucked me in. It started off as charming, and suddenly (from the moment one of the 'corpses' sat up in the wagon) became quite riveting. The characters are quirky in an appealing, rather than irritating, way - sometimes sinister (but deliciously so), largely flawed (but mostly warm and humanly so), some fanciful in a fairy-tale like way. I especially adored Ren, his doting and shouting landlady Mrs. Sands, and the huge, loyal murderer of a thug who becomes Ren's best friend. The plot is exciting at every turn, I enjoyed the slow revealing of the family mystery, and the inventive way it came together in the end. I stumbled across this one in the library, and am so glad I did - a very compelling story, highly recommended, and the author's recent collection of short stories Animal Crackers is now on my to-read list.

Happy reading!

Three Good Things

2011-07-07T05:47:00.001-04:00

"I fall in love with fifteen men walking down the city sidewalk on any given day. But the minute they open their mouths or eat carrots, everything is ruined."

2. This excerpt from J.A. Pak's novella Sealskin on Fictionaut - a story of love, heartbreak, revenge, curses, and healing. An excerpt from the excerpt (go read the rest)-

"Perhaps a curse would work better, he suggested. There were many kinds of curses. Curses involving love, business, health. Curses that burn slowly, ate the soul like corrosive acid. Or makes one hungry, so hungry the soul is driven mad. Or, he suggested, you can forget about him and everything you know and come home with me."

3. Lena Sledge's Poetry Contest and Interview with Nikki Giovanni. Poets and poetry lovers are invited to visit Lena's blog and to submit a poem this month (no entry fee, prize for the winner who will be chosen by readers.) Lena has also interviewed the renowned poet Nikki Giovanni, and will be posting segments of the interview throughout the month. The interview and the first round of contest entries are lovely so far - looking forward to more.

Would love to know what you think of these three good things and the feature as a whole! Thanks for checking it out, and happy reading!

The Lantern- Deborah Lawrenson

2011-07-05T06:14:00.000-04:00

The Lantern, Deborah Lawrenson, HarperCollins, 2011

Spirits, secrets, and suspense pervade Deborah Lawrenson’s enchanting new novel The Lantern... an homage to Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca entwined with a compelling ghost story, set in the beauty of Provence - it was satisfyingly hard to put down. You can read the rest of my review of The Lantern over on The Best Damn Creative Writing Blog.

My thanks to the publisher for a complimentary copy of the Advance Reader's Edition. All opinions expressed are my own.

The Mimic's Own Voice, a novella - Tom Williams

2011-07-01T09:07:00.002-04:00

The Mimic's Own Voice, Tom Williams, Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2011

The Mimic's Own Voice is the story of Douglas Myles, an unusually gifted mimic, and his unlikely meteoric rise to (and dramatic fall from) fame on the comedy circuit. While the voices Myles spoke in became internationally renowned, the man behind them remained quite a mystery. In the novella his story is told as if by a researcher or academic reconstructing the events of Myles's life, piecing together all the bits of evidence about this extremely talented and elusive man.

The novella gave me a lot to think about in its consideration of identity with regard to family, race, voice, profession, and celebrity. Myles's ability emerged early and was nurtured by his family members

...[who] were most pleased when he would imitate those relatives who were not present at the time. "Do Freddy, they'd shout. Your Cousin Bailey. Your Aunt Jane. And each voice that came from your mouth fetched more laughter than the last." One by one, though, his family members departed this earth, leaving him each year with a smaller audience, and fewer voices to duplicate. Soon, it seemed, the only place where his family spoke was in his head, but no one, including him, wanted to laugh anymore."

The talent which was so beloved at home, paired with his (uncommon for the time) interracial heritage, set him apart in school, and again in the professional world. The book also considers the toll an overeager public's beliefs and expectations can take on a celebrity's true self.

The Mimic's Own Voice is a remarkable and unique story, sad, thought provoking, and sometimes funny. I didn't breeze through this one- I was sometimes slowed by the narrator's formal style, and sometimes distracted by details in both the narration (such as weighing the merits of various expert opinions) and in the extensively recreated comedy scene and history, but these also impressed me. The more I consider it, the more complex both the story and the writing seem, and the more I find to chew on. Those who choose to read it will find it memorable.

Tom Williams is an associate editor of American Book Review, Chair of Humanities at the University of Houston-Victoria, and a former James Michener Fellow. For those who would like to learn more about the book or the author, I highly recommend Tom William's interview with Dan Wickett over at the Emerging Writer's Network. The book can be purchased through the publisher at Main Street Rag. Many thanks to the author for a complimentary copy of the book. All opinions expressed are my own.

The Club (BDCWB flash fiction challenge #2)

2011-06-21T00:36:00.000-04:00

(the following is an entry for Best Damn Creative Writing Blog's flash fiction challenge #2)

Lilah and Bethanny had both turned fifteen this summer, and they were going to the county fair, but – for the first time ever- not with their parents. Kristy, a grade ahead of them, got her license in April, and was coming to pick them up and they were all going together. Lilah came over early to Bethanny’s house. The girls spent a long time trying to figure out what to wear, and another long time choosing lip gloss, and even longer wondering what they would talk about, and the day seemed endless and they thought evening would never come.

Be home by eleven - Bethanny’s parents reminded them – drive safe! Kristy nodded and smiled as she pulled out, gravel spitting, and headed down the long driveway, waving her polished pink fingernails out the window all the way.

Kristy was tall and slim and blonde and perfect in the way that some girls are, and other girls aspire to be. Lilah and Bethanny knew they really weren’t in the same set but they were flattered Kristy had offered to drive them. Just as the car was beyond sight of the house, Kristy reached across Lilah to open the glove box and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, one-handedly flipping the box open and shaking one out. Kristy clutched the steering wheel with one hand as she lit the cigarette with the other, took a drag and sighed deeply. The windows were still open and ashes occasionally flew over the back seat of the car. Bethanny swatted them away like pesty gnats.

Oh my God, Kristy began, finally, you just wouldn’t believe. She told them about her boyfriend Jake and how he wasn’t even coming tonight even though it was the best night of the fair, the night everyone was going to be there, except he and a few of his buddies decided to hike out to the falls and probably drink beer instead and how much of a jackass could he be? and so here she is and wouldn’t it just serve him right if she didn’t just hang out with Trey just to make him mad. She went on and on, and with every charge against Jake, Kristy jabbed the cigarette in the air as if to emphasize his jack-assedness. More ashes flew around and Bethanny swatted, hoping they wouldn’t land on her new shorts. The girls murmured and nodded, no room to get a word in edgewise much less knowing what to say.

Then it got quiet and the ashes stopped. I love him, you know, Kristy said. He’s an idiot. But I love him. She wiped a tear from her cheek, streaking her mascara and somehow managing not to set her hair on fire with the stub of her cigarette. You know what I’m talking about, right?

They didn’t quite know, but they could just almost imagine it. Oh yes, they said, suddenly feeling like they’d been invited into a secret club. Oh yes. Yes. We know.

Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls - Alissa Nutting

2011-06-20T19:06:00.000-04:00

Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls, Alissa Nutting, Starcherone Books, 2010

...From the very first sentences of “Dinner,” the opening story in Alissa Nutting’s debut short story collection Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls, the reader knows he or she is in for something completely different and quite remarkable. Winner of the Sixth Starcherone Prize for Innovative Fiction, the collection is daring and wildly imaginative, full of fantastical and sometimes macabre situations that are at once funny, touching, and sometimes quite sad....

You can read the rest of my review of Alissa Nutting's Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls up on Best Damn Creative Writing Blog.

A complimentary copy of the book was provided by the publisher; all opinions expressed are my own.

Happy reading!