In An Uncharted Country

a short story collection by the talented writer and blogger Cliff Garstang is now available for preorder from Press 53 or Cliff's new website!

Read: "Wash, Dry, Fold" by Myfanwy Collins

in the summer issue of Mississippi Review

Push the Limits

Twice in one week this wisdom has come to my attention, though it may be fairly obvious to some of you, for me, at this particular time, it was like receiving permission from the universe.

From Poets & Writers Magazine's interview with Joshua Mohr:

Any advice about navigating publishing?
"I think it's vital to remember that no one knows what will succeed and what will flounder in the marketplace, and therefore, writers should take that intimidating unknown as license to write the craziest books they can imagine. If there are no guarantees for success, why not shove the boundaries so far away that they're invisible?"

and after watching the powerful,sexy, and haunting movie "Little Ashes" last night, which, by the way, was critically chastised, but I loved it, I was reminded Dali lived by his belief it was important to push the limits in art and in life if one wanted to be recognized as an important artist.

30

is the number of books I want to bring on my two week trip.

8 is the actual number of books I'll be bringing.

4 is the number of books I'll probably end up being able to read.

Oh why can't I read faster?????

Out of Touch

I'm going to be without internet access for the next couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to this "quiet" time with family and travel. I'm also looking forward to coming home, getting back to routine, my writing, and specifically, the novel.

Be well. Be fruitful.

Peace.

Read: Everything Matters!

The second novel by Ron Currie Jr.. It's getting rave reviews and Ron's offered a free download of his first chapter on his website.

To friends in Iran

May you be safe, may your voices be heard, and may your country come to a peaceful resolution.

Introducing: The Collagist

The new online literary journal produced by Dzanc books!!

I imagine this journal is going to be amazing since it has Dzanc Books behind it as well as Matt Bell as editor and Mathew Olzman as poetry editor.

Read This: Freight Stories

There's a new issue out and it has a piece by one of my very favorite writers: Alicia Gifford.

Read This: Kathy Fish

at Night Train

Novel, Story, Novel, Story...

I sat down with my rough draft this morning and read and took notes on the first five chapters. At first, I panicked at the amount of work there was to be done after looking at the thing in the harsh morning-after light. But there's definitely something there that still excites me and that's really all I can ask of a first draft.

Oddly, in the last day or two, I've been getting flashes of inspiration for a story/excerpt of my other novel and am now desperate to revise that piece. Go figure.

Rough Draft of My Novel is Done

Ah. I never thought I'd get to write those words. I'm both excited and relieved. And today I'm going to take a day off from writing.!!!

In other news, I've been put on a waitlist for Bread Loaf. Which means if someone who was invited decides not to go, I may have a chance to get in. On the postive side, going to the mountain in 2006 was one of the most validating experiences I've had and on the negative side it's a lot of money to go as a contributor. I'm not going to worry about it now. If it's meant to be, it will.

I hope to dive into a couple of short story collections for Dan Wickett's May is Short Story Month, and soon I'll be scouring the internet for interviews and advice on revising the novel and who knows what else...

Question on Process

Okay, so I have these three chapters that have just been sketched in as place markers. I'm going in now to fill them in, but I'm considering (but not decided) a major change to the book, a main character getting banished to back story. Do I fill in the chapters with new change in mind, or with same character and make the changes in revision?

What would you do?

Here's what I'm going to do...postpone killing the character until I have the full draft done.

Oh boy. Can't wait to see what kind of mess I have when I'm finished.

Listen: Interview with Elizabeth Strout

on NPR

Wigleaf's Top Fifty

Here is this year's amazing group of short-shorts, wigleaf's top fifty. I see many writers I admire on that list. I can't wait to dig in!!!

Read This: "Dear Everybody" and "Lawnboy"

With apologies to Dan Wickett at Emerging Writers Network I want to take a moment out of short story month to talk about two novels I've read recently that blew me away. They're quite different, and yet there are enough similarities to inspire me to write about them both in one post. Both are coming of age stories, both deal with strained relationships between brothers, and both are written with an uncommon level of emotional vibrancy.

The first is "Dear Everybody" by Michael Kimball, which has already been nicely summed up at the offical website:

"A Novel Written in the Form of Letters, Diary Entries, Encyclopedia Entries, Conversations with Various People, Notes Sent Home from Teachers, Newspaper Articles, Psychological Evaluations, Weather Reports, a Missing Person Flyer, a Eulogy, a Last Will and Testament, and Other Fragments, Which Taken Together Tell the Story of the Short Life of Jonathon Bender, Weatherman."

In this brilliantly designed novel, we learn right up front that the main character of the story, Jonathon Bender, commits suicide. Kimball then takes us through bits of archeological evidence to show us what is too often left unknown after a suicide: why. And we gradually learn that in this broken, dysfunctional family, the young man who kills himself was actually the sanest one of all. What I loved most about this book, aside from its beautiful structure, is the depth of character and emotion. It left me feeling as if the author left a huge chunk of his heart on the page and it is this generosity and depth that left me stunned when I finished and grateful I had read it.

Here's a small excerpt from Bender's crushingly innocent point of view:

"Dear Mom and Dad,

I know that I must have looked strange after I pulled most of my eyelashes out of my eyelids. It must have looked as if there were something wrong with me. But I want you to know why I did it: this girl at school told me that if you blow on your eyelashes and they fly away it's good luck."

#


I found this same level of depth and emotion in Paul Lisicky's "Lawnboy." A beautiful coming of age story set in south Florida. The reader finds dysfunction in this family as well, if a bit quieter, still a dispiriting dysfunction all the same. And our main character must navigate his teen years under the blanket-like unhappiness of his parents and without the guidance of his adored and elusive older brother. The narrator eventually breaks away from his stifling parents and grows into himself. I found his embrace of his true self, his reconnection with his brother, and his finding "the one" when he was least expecting it, beautiful and affecting. Lisicky writes with the attention of a poet. His ability to go deep into experiences gives us passages such as this one:

"Hector and I floated in the pool one night. No talk. My suit floated off on the surface, an empty bag. Our mouths fastened. We were circling, hands pushing at each other, muscles tensing. I wanted him closer. I studied his face: that scar beneath his ear, those fleshy pink lips. How to get him closer? How to get deeper inside the body? Our bodies. I tried hard as I could to inhabit it, us, closing my eyes frenetic."

And Lisicky isn't afraid of shocking us with startling images such as this one on the first page:

"They didn't know that I spent hours inside a concrete pipe, a cool, cramped cylinder in the middle of a field, whenever I needed to get away. They didn't know about the morning in my thirteenth year when out of sheer boredom, I stitched my fingertips together with needle and thread, making an intricate basket of my hand and giving myself a tremendous infection."

But for me the most amazing part of the novel is the moment in which the narrator sees for the first time his lover, really sees him, in all ages, future and past, in his vulnerability and strength, and it is this seeing that is the eventual undoing of our narrator's protective armour, and he has made the leap to living life fully.

Read This: Women Up On Blocks by Mary Akers

What better way to kick off Dan Wickett's designated short story month then a riveting, unique collection of stories by my talented friend, Mary Akers. I'd read most of these stories prior to reading them in the collection and it's a testament to Akers' talent that I was just as dazzled by them this time as I was then--even more so, actually.

Mary writes about motherhood, marriage and desire with a fierce honesty. Fierce! "Medusa Song," the opener, is an affecting story of a harried, exhausted mother with little support and we follow her through her afternoon, breath held from the fear of what will happen next, and then Akers ends it in the most desperately beautiful way. "Wild, Wild Horses" offers a look at the strength of a woman, both literally and figuratively. "Mooncalf" blew me away with its raw, emotional power. Who would dare to write about motherhood from the perspective of a woman with cerebral palsy? Mary Akers did and she does it with veracity and heart and this story will slay you. And then there's "The Rashomon Tree," a story of two women with very different views, each mired in their own brand of righteousness, discovering the middle ground, learning what it means to love "the other". Mary Akers has a gift for empathy, for getting inside the heads of all kinds of women, and giving them a voice full of bravery, honesty, strength, humor and love.

Interview with Elizabeth Strout

at Failbetter

I love everything Elizabeth Strout writes.

In terms of process I'm quite interested in "Olive Kitteridge" being considered a hybrid, and in the reasons Elizabeth Strout gives for the structure. My other novel, not the one I drafted in March, but the one I've been working on for over two years now, has come to me in a similar fashion. And knowing that kind of hybrid isn't considered as marketable as a novel has done nothing to whip my muse into compliance. I'm not sure why the novel is coming to me through stories, perhaps because the span of time and the subject matter are daunting for me to handle in one neat line. Before I drafted this other novel, though, I thought it was a failing on my part of being able to write a normal novel. I'm proving that theory wrong. (I'm not talking about quality of content, mind you. That will remain to be seen.) And I'm beginning to understand that each project demands its own kind of attention and process.

Wordle

Wordle is fun and the results are visually interesting. I'm not sure how useful it is in analyzing your work, but the clouds are pretty. I don't post mine, but instead, I just print them out for fun. I've done three short stories so far. I haven't tried it for a micro (probably won't make much of a cloud--more like a wisp) or a novel.

Narrative's Winter 2009 Contest

The results are in. Congratulations to the all the talented winners and finalists!!

Laila Lalami interviewed

at Powells.