Read Immobility by Brian Evenson, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and Hobart 13. Finished Diane William’s Vicky Swanky is a Beauty and Lorrie Moore’s Anagrams. Started Why I Have Not Written Any of My Books by Marcel Benabou.
Some short notes on these after the jump.
“Billy the Kid vs. Dracula” is up over at Juked.
This should be mentioned. The story was born out of frustration over the movie’s misused premise.
Also, this.
Other points of reference: Shadow of a Vampire, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Guy Maddin’s Keyhole.
Juked is fantastic, and I’m glad to be among their ranks. Check out this gut-wrenching story by Emily Koon, or this short-short by fellow Caketrain author Rob Walsh.
The best movie I’ve seen so far this year is Upstream Color. It’s the second film by Shane Carruth, the director/writer/everything else of Primer. Upstream Color is strangely affecting, beautiful, and terrifying. Some notes after the jump. Spoilers, etc. Continue reading
Read Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” and David Markson’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress. Finished Blake Butler’s Sky Saw and Raymond Queneau’s The Flight of Icarus. Started Diane William’s Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty and Loorie Moore’s Anagrams.
We should crown Diane Williams as the god-like ruler of short-story collection titles. Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty? Romancer Erector? Some Sexual Success Stories Plus Other Stories in Which God Might Choose to Appear? It’s just no contest. I’ve read some of her work in various lit mags, mainly old copies of The Quarterly. The stories in this collection are very good, and she’s tightened her sentences even more. I’m enamored with the way her and Gary Lutz make plot feel like a repercussion of language.
More small notes after the jump.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my motivations behind trying to publish, and I’ve got 3 theories worked out. They’re sorted from least to most probable. It is descriptive of my own reasoning and not intended to be prescriptive.
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The first way is the most complicated, and also the most problematic. We’re going to assume that a piece of fiction is an experiment. I should clarify that by an experiment, I don’t mean what is commonly referred to as “experimental fiction” — I simply mean that we should consider the story like we would a scientific experiment. We can then assume that the piece will achieve varying degrees of success or failure. While one could argue that the author should be the judge of the story’s success, it makes more sense that a reader should judge this, the reader being more objective and less personally involved with the piece. So, in this situation, the writer sets the conditions of the experiment, performs it, and the reader determines its success. The writer requires a reader for the piece to be evaluated as successful.
Read Kate Zambreno’s Heroines, Jane Bowles’s Two Serious Ladies, Jac Jemc’s My Only Wife, and Michael Kimball’s Big Ray. Started Blake Butler’s Sky Saw, Raymond Queneau’s The Flight of Icarus and finished Daniel Levin-Becker’s Many Subtle Channels.
Zambreno’s Heroines is, on the surface, difficult to categorize. It’s a book length work of both literary criticism and memoir. However, the form works and seems very natural — it fosters my belief that fragmentation is often more natural than adherence to traditional form. Heroines is unashamedly subjective, justifiably angry, and very readable. Sometimes when reading a book I think that it’s something we are going to have to come to grips with as a culture, and this is one of those books. Zambreno has identified an unacknowledged problem — how the literary cannon, psychiatry, and the culture as a whole has sold these women short, and how we continue to dismiss creative young women.
I read Big Ray in one evening. I can’t remember the last time I’ve read a book in a single sitting.
I’ve got some thoughts on Diane Cook’s story Flotsam, appearing in Redivider 10.1, after the jump.
“Five Cities,” a short story of mine, is in Gigantic Sequins 4.1. The issue features work from Brandi Wells and Rebecca Hazelton. You can preorder it here. I’m proud to be included.
I’ve started Many Subtle Channels by Daniel Levin Becker, as well as The Recognitions by William Gaddis.
Becker’s book is thoroughly charming so far, as any book concerning Oulipo should be. The Recognitions is funnier than expected. My previous experience with extremely long books is limited to 2666 and The Man Without Qualities. They’re both incredible books, but they haven’t made me laugh out loud as much as Gaddis’s book. I’m also fascinated by expressions of faith that fall outside the norm, and the book has those in spades.
I read M. Kitchell’s Variations on the Sun, from Love Symbol Press. Some thoughts on that after the jump.
Thrilled to announce that Caketrain Press will publish a chapbook length collection of my short stories this summer. Bodies and Homes was chosen by Michael Kimball as the runner-up manuscript in their fiction chapbook competition.
I’ve been working on the stories in Bodies and Homes for over two years now. Its got seven in it — six small/medium ones, and a long, half crazed story called “Lake of Earth.” All of the statistics referred to in this post are still accurate except for one.
Caketrain has been around for ten years now, and they’ve put out collections by Ben Mirov, Sarah Rose Etter, and Ryan Call. They’re based out of Pittsburgh, and the previous fiction runner-up was “Short Dark Oracles” by Sarah Levine. I’m overjoyed to be in such good company.
