Moving books

This NYT piece has me second-guessing moving every book I own into my new efficiency. I'm still comforted by their presence even though many of them have been in boxes for over a year and a half. Sometimes I'm jealous of a house with spare bookshelves; other times I'm skeptical or depressed.

What books will you never get rid of? And what should leave your collection, or what did you most recently part with and why? The only reason I keep that heavy burgundy literary criticism book from Debra's class is for the Nietzsche essay, which I could easily photocopy. There are books I'm sure I'll never read, or that I have tried reading more than once and that collect dust on makeshift bookmarks browning and crumpled out their tops. I'll make a list as I start to pack. Anyone want a copy of Month-by-Month Gardening in Texas? Better Living Through Ventriloquism? Of Wolves and Men?

writing groups

hey! have any of you participated in face-to-face writing groups, workshops, etc. since we graduated? i'm hoping to find some people locally to take on julia cameron's the artist's way, a 12-week program with daily commitments. has anyone tried this? or, what methods have worked to trick yourself back into a habit that used to come so easily? what's worked, not worked for you? i'm totally serious.

More babies!

Beards and Laura got their referral yesterday (after 18+ months)!! I don't even think he reads this blog anymore, but I want to give them a hearty and long overdue congrats. The '07 family grows...

Southwestern Studies I, August 2004-December 2004

I must lighten my load of notebooks I tote around every time I move, so I'm doing the painful and picking through B.A., M.A., M.F.A. to see which ones can go in the recycle bin. It's that nagging in my brain that keeps this from being an easy process, "but what if, at some point in the future, I need to know the nuances of difference between stem succulents and leaf succulents, drought deciduous species and indicator species."

Anyway, I feel some tribute must be paid. Here's a list of my favorite gems from my notes for Southwestern Studies I in 2004, a class I only managed to stay awake through because you, Jack, and you, Amelia, helped me through it:

"Cuaranchuia- cannibals. The Europeans are the ones who ate each other. The civilized taught the uncivilized cannablialism."

"berdache- man taking on dress, role, status of the opposite sex. Anthropologists interested in this ongoing tradition, primitive people engaged in long history of homosexulaity. Cyclone Covey translation= bad!"

"deserts have sparse vegetation."

"D.H. says for next week's reading, 'don't bother with the footnotes, just the text.'"

"Conquistadors: 1) wore sombreros 2) were magic 3) liked coffee in the mornings"

"Cancer is unnatural.
The unnatural infringes on birds.
A man made lake.
First atomic test-New Mexico."

"American cowboy-one of the most iconic America figures."

"Change-Hall, Montejano
Imagine that you are __________."

"Geronimo was an Apache. Apaches either killed or corraled."

So what does everyone else do with all of their old paper? I'm interested. Are you keeping all the notebooks, keeping a select few; are you the type who can dump them all wholesale into the bin?

McArthur Genuis Grants

for Heather McHugh, Edwidge Danicat, and Deborah Eisenberg!

Take Me To Your Reader(s)

I'm prepping (get a load of that!) for a unit/week on voice, and I've been reading Janet Burroway's chapter from Imaginative Writing, which is pretty good, but now I have this question jumping around my brainy brain. Everything I've ever read about voice talks about where we're writing from, or from where the narrator/speaker is telling, how important it is to capture the idiosyncrasies of diction and syntax, pitch, tone, mood, etc. What I'm wondering is if any of you give, or have given, that same amount of thought to whom your narrator is telling the story? And, if so, did/does it help?

I've read of authors having ideal readers they're always writing to, and I'm interested in that, I suppose, if you have one and what her name is and what she looks like and when she gets mad at you or whatever. But I wonder if we sometimes fall into this ill-defined idea of the perfect reader who sits around reading literary fiction all day and loves to be entertained by writers with degrees. For me, it used to be y'all and our teachers I'd write to specifically, but, unfortunately, that's not always the case anymore. So I'm more curious to know if, other than epistolary stories or the semi-gimmicky 2nd-person turns to "the physical reader as the new, implicated character in the story," you can think of any stories (or have written any) with a clearly defined or implied audience. I'm wondering if this lesson we teach our comp students, about writing to a specific audience for a specific purpose (ie: you write an email this way to your parents, this way to your friends), might not benefit us as creative writers? Any experience, thoughts, suggestions? Does this make any sense?

It's a boy!

Had an ultrasound today, and we're having a boy. A boy named Finn Thomas Edington-Williams.

And

And Happy Birthday to Amelia!

Apartment Dog

How about this: A draft of 100 words or fewer.

Title: Apartment Dog

If you feel weird about posting it to the blogosphere, email it to everybody.

Love,
Jack

Holla San Marcos

In the month's Texas Monthly, the Root cellar Cafe got a mention. "It's easy to miss this little gem, tucked away off the square. The atmosphere is hippie romantic, the walls are stone, and there are lots of wine bottles and eclectic art scattered about. We enjoyed our lunch, a sandwich called the Holy Aioli: citrus-marinated chicken breast pounded thin, served warm on ciabatta, drenched in scrumptious cilantro ailoli, and topped with tomato and melted provolone. Natives say breakfasts are excellent, especially on Sundays."

I never ate breakfast there, much less on a Sunday. Can anyone solve the mystery for me concerning this phrase, "breakfasts are excellent, especially on Sundays?"

Hi, Alaska

Sarah Palin's resignation speech edited by a team at Vanity Fair. Funny shit.

Happy Belated!

Happy Belated Birthday Abracadabra!
Hope you're living it up in the temporate Carolinas and having a ball.

I miss you and so I want to know:

What is the title whatever file/project/story/ poem/ novel/play/ you are currently working on?

podcasts

Do any of you listen to author interview/craft podcasts? Are there any free ones you'd recommend?

I'm on board with Booklust and Writer's Block, but I'm having trouble sifting through the mass market genre-related tips to find the good stuff.

Blacklist

This is a terrible idea that I've wanted to ask about for a long time. What journal(s) do you want to place on a blacklist? With or without reason. Where shouldn't we send?

Currently mine is The Baltimore Review, because I followed up twice with no response and have waited 10+ months. Not even a form rejection. And they have online submissions. And other people get responses in, like, two months. I'm just saying, tell me it's lost. Tell me it's not worth that digital postage.

RAWR!

Diane Black doesn't like black people

Senator Diane Black (R) from Tennessee makes me want to puke. If you're feeling the same or somewhere close to that, please join me and send her an email concerning her reprehensible actions:
sen.diane.black@capitol.tn.gov

(one of her staffers sent out a terribly offensive and racist email that pictured Obama as a pair of wide white eyes on a black back ground. unfortunately, Diane feels that this type of behavior is okay. she didn't fire her employee, she supposedly gave the employee a "sharp reprimand." too bad for her that the newspapers got a hold of her "sharp reprimand" which reads much more like a subtle, "so sorry you got caught.")

spreading the intellect

I just want to point out that the new griffin school website features famous writer Amelia Gray's handwriting.

My # 1

My vote for Number One Most Annoying Video of all Times is:
Beyonce's Halo. It even starts badly, Beyonce gazing into the camera soulfully showing the kind of sincerity for which people should get beat up.

A Nickleback video ran a close second though.

Have videos honestly reached a new level of predicitability? Or were they just a new experience when I was 13 and predictable then too?

So what video most bothers you? (Or who else can't sleep and likes to fuck around on the internet because what else can you do at this hour?)

Baby!

I'm pregnant! Woot, woot! 7 weeks.

Sha wham wham

Cheering about Alice Munro's Booker Prize all the way in Guatemala.

PS-Is this blog becoming obsolete? I feel like I'm hanging on to the golden years of grad school just by posting.

WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT

Announcing the winner of the 2008 Ronald Sukenick American Book Review Prize for Innovative Fiction hosted by FC2 (Fiction Collective Two):

Amelia Gray's Museum of the Weird

Judge Lidia Yuknavitch chose Museum of the Weird out of 175 entries. Along with winning the prize money, Amelia's book is slated for a Spring/Summer 2010 release.
A piercing collection, as poetic as it is poignant, Museum of the Weird will be available for teaching in the Fall 2010 semester.

Congratulations Amelia!!

Okay, y'all: I know I sent several of you a suggestive text message about checking the blog tomorrow, but fuck it--I couldn't wait to post this. Do you know how hard it was to glad-hand at the reading and clap and smile at the base ball game?

Congrats again, Amelia! I love it when a bobcat roars!

For your summer reading pleasure

Dennis has been up to no good! Stick em up.

House

We got the house! The family is, indeed, moving back to Jamaica.

We don't close until the end of June. Hopefully I'll have pictures to post soon.
It's well after noon. I just saw a loon.

Eve Sedgwick died.

Jamaica Baby!

Yay! The family has to move back to Jamaica. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Alice Munro

Last week I was on a panel.

Lamp

Now I'm making a shade for a vertical floor lamp out of this vintage beachy-looking floral material I found in a tub of sewing accoutrements given to me by my grandmother. It's not going as well as I expected.

Odd Titles

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/books/28contest.html?_r=2

This is an article I read today. If I had something more interesting I'd post it.
Hope everyone's well!

Where in the World?

I love this guy. Today, I'm seeing myself anywhere I don't know the language. I want to be a stranger. South America. Chile or Argentina. What about you?

Missing you.

Hey, I'm missing the heck out of you guys this morning. What's the weather like over there? How's work, school, interviews, writing, house-hunting? Abby, did you see the lights?

Chabon bam bam

Sad Link Happy Link Happy Link

The archive of Henrich Boll, author of my favorite short story, Murke's Collected Silences was destroyed in a building collapse.

Here's Amelia's Amazon page.

Two more novels by Roberto Bolano found.

Spring?

This morning the music of birds was loud and proud in a way it hasn't been for a while. Loud enough for me to notice. This past Friday, two doves sat on the window ledge of my husband's office and made, what looked like, awkward humping motions towards one another. I think it's spring. Nothing everyone doesn't know already, but we needed a new post, and I'm feeling a sense of renewed energy. How are the rest of you feeling? Done any spring cleaning? Any spring binges of any kind?

Quickie

I need some good examples of ethnography (preferably a documentary film I could get my hands on quick-like). I guess I would consider fictional (film) examples as well, as long as they could lead into an interesting discussion of ethnographic research and/or reporting. This is for my next two teaching sequences which will be in two parts - 1. talking about ethnography, defining the genre and talking about its characteristics, gathering information about a community/landscape/civic issue/etc. and analyzing it 2. creating and presenting a project based on their research for a specific purpose and audience of their choice. This is deliberately broad, so that students may individualize their projects based on their interests/backgrounds/goals. I imagine their projects to be local, accessible, researchable, and practical.

Thanks!

Give it up! What's the AWP news?

P.O.V.

Hey, can anyone think of any good novels that alternate between first and third person? So far, I've come up with "The History of Love" and "No Country for Old Men."
I've been working on back story for my novel, and a first person character has popped up in what I was thinking would be a strictly third person novel. I'm just looking for more examples of this being done seamlessly.

Cross Your Fingers for Me

For those of you who didn't see on Facebook, I'm a finalist for a Fulbright grant to study in Macedonia for nine months (Project Title: The Mosques of Macedonia an Architectural and Literary Exploration a.k.a. Check out mosques, write a novel). Will probably not find out until very late spring.

Faulkarific

Happy Birthday Faulk! I hope it's a good one.
Love and Miss,
all the oo7's

RIP John Updike

Link

Sad news.

AM/PM in Take the Handle

Check out an excerpt from AM/PM in the Winter '09 Take the Handle. I'm enjoying listening to the issue's mixtape (in the lower right) as I page through the issue.

Seeing more and more of these ebook-style journals lately. Katya's got a great story in the latest issue of 34th Parallel.

A Reading List That Shaped a President

From this NY Times Article. What is your list?


Some of President-elect Barack Obama’s favored reading matter:

* The Bible
* “Parting the Waters,” Taylor Branch
* “Self-Reliance,” Ralph Waldo Emerson
* Gandhi’s autobiography
* “Team of Rivals,” Doris Kearns Goodwin
* “The Golden Notebook,” Doris Lessing
* Lincoln’s collected writings
* “Moby-Dick,” Herman Melville
* “Song of Solomon,” Toni Morrison
* Works of Reinhold Niebuhr
* “Gilead,” Marilynne Robinson
* Shakespeare’s tragedies

5 Days

In case you haven't heard, our country goes in for a facelift in 5 days. And if that's not enough hope, then maybe this is.

Five Things' New Venue

Hey all, vote us up on Do512! Top events get on their mailing list. Click that blue "I like it" button. Thanks!

 

Five Things has an indoor venue! I'm giddy. Do512 was great to us and I want to keep working with them, but the U.S. Art Authority venue will be perfect for our chilly January and March months. There's a full bar, a big stage, new sound equipment and lights, two bartenders, two door-people, three projectors, ipod setup. Bathrooms! Chairs!

More pictures here if you're interested. You guys should all fly out here for the Jan 23rd show.

What About Gay Marriage

There is a funny video up at www.236.com titled What About Gay Marriage?

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

Fifth Wednesday

In other publishing news (yay, Carmen), my story "Another Round" will be coming out in Fifth Wednesday. I was solicited by my friend and former teacher, J.C. Hallman, and will apparently be in the issue with Tom Grimes (who was at Iowa with Chris a.k.a. J.C.).
Tee hee.
P.S. to the webmaster, my stories are already out in Eclipse and Inkwell.

announcing...

My story "Coulda Been Blind" got picked up by REAL. I'm so happy; it had been months since I'd even gotten a personal rejection letter.

Mon Dieu!

French author pens a 517 page, 150,000 word sentence.

B & N

Hope you all had fun on holiday.

Barnes and Noble is now having their after holiday sale-- 50% off and more-- on certain selections. I looked through the first 50 or 60 pages, and while most of it is fluff, there is also Zadie Smith's On Beauty, an Alice McDermott novel I'd been after, one by Julian Barnes, and some other literary lovelies for $4 or $5.

For those of you who also enjoy supporting businesses that make monetary donations to Democrats, http://www.alibris.com/ is also a good place.