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.