Category Archives: fiction
In Which Blogging Teaches Me Something About Writing Novels
The other night I described this method to my friend Mike Albo and he said, “You jerk! Why didn’t you tell me about this ten years ago?”* So, I’m telling you now. I keep a journal of my novel that … Continue reading
Filed under author's own, fiction, novels, writers, writing
Me and the Great Pulitzer Do-Over, at NYTMag
The New York Times Magazine asked me and several other writers and critics–Maud Newton, Laila Lalami, Sam Anderson, Macy Halsford, John Williams, Garth Risk Hallberg–who we would have picked for the Pulitzer this year, given the vacancy. I chose Tayari … Continue reading
Filed under author's own, fiction, novels
Premonitions of the Literature to Come: Newton Arvin in Harper’s Bazaar, March 1947
I’m in Northampton, MA today, at the Smith College archives, where I am researching the life of Newton Arvin. My partner Dustin Schell and I are adapting Barry Werth’s biography of him, The Scarlet Professor, into a screenplay. Much of … Continue reading
On Asteroids, Stereoscopic Novels and Time
Tuesday night, as an asteroid was coming very close to striking Earth, I was re-reading a graphic novel I was teaching, Asterios Polyp, that concludes with an asteroid hurtling at the main character, who is, yes, on Earth. I thought about … Continue reading
On Maud Newton On David Foster Wallace
Maud Newton astutely considered the legacy of David Foster Wallace in the New York Times Magazine last weekend. I thought it was an exhilarating read. She begins with a quote from “Tense Present” and then uses it as a mirror from … Continue reading
In My Book Bag This Week – August 12
Mike Albo’s hilarious tell-all roman-a-clef of life as a freelance writer, The Junket. Get it. For weeks now I’ve had a galley for The Stranger’s Child, by Alan Hollinghurst. I love it. Don’t you want me to review it? Yes … Continue reading
Filed under author's own, books, fiction, Korean American, novels
My Next Move
One winter, I moved to Brooklyn to figure myself out. I was escaping a situation I didn’t understand, by which I mean a job and a lover and an apartment that when they were all together left no place for … Continue reading
Filed under author's own, fiction, fiction break
Fear of the World
If I have a religion, it is probably bibliomancy, the practice of flipping books open at random and reading from the quote I find. Just now: Fear of the world produces crystals in writing. One seeks the faultless, crystallized phrases, … Continue reading
Filed under novels, fiction, author's own
Shark’s Teeth
1. The 2010 ‘Best of’ lists appear, like little angels of death. Little cuts on my will to get to the end of the year. Not now, I say, each time one appears. Not yet. I need to make use … Continue reading
Filed under author's own, fiction, go team, letters from away, novels, what I am working on, writers, writing
“Professors of Fiction”
1. I have a conversation with my partner Dustin’s Uncle Jack about how he fell on his good hip and, while painful, it reset his hips. The pain he’s been suffering from the former bad hip is gone. I wish … Continue reading
Filed under fiction, MFA programs, novels, politics, what is right with us, what is wrong with us, writers, writing
