Category Archives: writing
I Love BOMB Reading + Like A Boss with Emily Books + Mentors in Paperback
It’s a busy time. First, this Monday, February 6th, I’m reading from a new short story, just finished, unpublished, not even under submission yet. The occasion is the BOMB Magazine I <3 BOMB party, at the Powerhouse Arena bookstore in DUMBO, … Continue reading
Filed under author's own, books, bookstores, dance break, what I am working on, writers, writing
Ayana Mathis On Joy
I often worry at how often my writing students seem focused on misery and pain. As if literature were a Victorian curio cabinet of suffering and the point of writing was to find the most interesting pain. Ayana Mathis wrote … Continue reading
I Just Feel Like It Is Going In A Really Random Direction
It seems to me the idea of inspiration is a terrible burden, to many. A cruel one. A myth. I think people are haunted by it, as they are horoscopes that say they’ll meet a lover this week, or that … 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
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
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
100 Things About a Novel
1. Sometimes music is needed. 2. Sometimes silence. 3. This is probably because a novel is a piece of music, like all written things, the language demanding you make a sound as you read it. 4. Sometimes I have written … Continue reading
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
Sexy Nerd
My former student, Victor Vazquez, is one of my pride and joys, despite his not having yet published his novel.* He’s since gone on to do much more important things–things that will in all likelihood guarantee the publication of his … Continue reading
Filed under dance break, letters to you, music, writers, writing
