Category Archives: what is right with us
Life With Mr. Dangerous and Other Stories
1. A friend wrote “What is this frenzy of activity?” Answer: I made a deal with myself that all posts drafted over 1000 words had to be considered as possible essays and finished as such and sent out to magazines … Continue reading
“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
Storage
I saw Heathers again last Friday night. I remembered how I went to it twice the first night it appeared in theaters. My friend Libby and I drove out to it in her ancient and enormous Cadillac DeVille, and as … Continue reading
Filed under film, travel, what is right with us, what is wrong with us
The Disease of Our Age
Last week my friend Allison put on her facebook, “Did anyone read the NYMag cover story?” She received a single response, besides mine, from a mutual friend who said “Mine hasn’t arrived yet!” Granted, we were all busy, it seemed, … Continue reading
Filed under what is right with us, what is wrong with us
On Getting Your Name Out There, Part 2: The Story That Sells the Story
For the first part of this series on authors, author sites and author blogging, go here first. When approaching an author site, what I find least interesting is a sort of bland, safe, risk-free aesthetic, a headshot with links and … Continue reading
February 19th, 2010
I just completed an interview for the forthcoming issue of the University of California at Irvine’s undergraduate creative writing journal, New Forum. Here’s an excerpt: NF: Many writers including myself grapple with the fact that creative writing in American culture … Continue reading
Filed under author's own, fiction, what is right with us, writers, writing
Junot Diaz in O Magazine, On Becoming a Writer
But if the world is what it is so are our hearts. One night in August, unable to sleep, sickened that I was giving up, but even more frightened by the thought of having to return to the writing, I … Continue reading
Filed under what is right with us, writers, writing
“Consider Writing an 86 Proof Sentence.” – Charles Baxter
1. Saturday, I drive to Vermont with my friend Tayari, to Bread Loaf. The mosquitoes are terrifying. At a cocktail reception, as we take turns outside spraying ourselves, Sigrid Nunez advances a theory that this is because the bats are … Continue reading
Filed under letters from away, media, novels, political art, politics, what is right with us, writers, writing
This Is Not The Superhero Film You Were Looking For
In retrospect, the sturm und drang over whether the Watchmen was any good or not (as a film based on the graphic novel) made us lose sight of what it actually was—a story that’s at least meant to satirize the … Continue reading
Filed under animal savagery, comics, film, gossip, graphic novels, manga, what is right with us, what is wrong with us
Most of What I Like to Do Is Indoors
1. Canada has more comics than we do, it occurs to me, as I walk through The Beguiling in Toronto. It is the best comics shop in Toronto, and perhaps in all of Canada. I pause to admire what appears … Continue reading
Filed under letters to no one in particular, travel, what is right with us
