I know this isn’t super timely news, but I just noticed that the Million Writers Award is open for nominations.
Go here if you want to nominate your favorite story you read online this year.
Go here if you’re an editor and want to nominate up to three pieces that appeared in your own magazine this year.
Categories: Writing · favorites · literary mags
I always give books and more books for the holidays. This year, though, I’m limiting myself to my favorite indie press books, since I want to 1)support indie writers and presses and b)introduce friends and relatives to books they might not see on the front table at Barnes and Noble or in the “best of” lists circulating widely at this time of year.
So far, I’ve picked up extra copies of Blake Butler’s Scorch Atlas, Amelia Gray’s AM/PM, Shane Jones’ Light Boxes, and Brian Evenson’s Fugue State. I highly recommend all four as fantastic gifts for the book lover(s) in your life. (I hope there are many.)
Speaking/writing of Brian Evenson, his holiday picks appear today on the Emerging Writers Network’s Holiday Shopping Guide, which is really worth checking out. Everyday until Christmas the site is featuring a writer showcasing their recommendations for holiday gifts, with writers like Laura van den Berg, Peter Markus, Scott Garson, and Molly Gaudry chiming in. I’ve already added several more books to my long, LOOOONG wish list from their excellent picks.
Enough chatter. Go shopping!
Categories: favorites · great books · rabid consumerism
Let’s start with me. You know what I want for Christmas? Molly Gaudry’s lovely-looking new book, We Take Me Apart. It is the first in mud luscious’s new ml press. It’s blurbed by KATE BERNHEIMER, for Christ’s sake. KATE. BERNHEIMER. And it’s beautiful. And every excerpt I’ve read is fantastic and full of goodness. Check out what Kate Bernheimer (did I mention she blurbed it?) says:
There is no more perfect place to be than in Molly Gaudry’s tender, dirt-floored novel(la), WE TAKE ME APART. Oh cabbage leaves, oh roses, oh orange-slice childhood grins: this book broke my heart. Its sad memory-tropes come from fairy tales & childhood books. With language, Gaudry is as loving & careful as one is with a matchbook . . . when wishing to set the whole word on fire.
But if you don’t believe Kate Bernheimer (for shame) you can read a great review at decomP and decide for yourself.
You know you want it, too. So buy one for both of us, okay?
For my next post, I will attempt to be less selfish and suggest some fine literary gifts for others.
Categories: Books · Writing · favorites · literary mags · smart people
Why is it that whenever anyone publishes a list of the best books for boys, it inevitably includes half of the books that made me fall in love with reading as a kid? And no, I wasn’t a tomboy and I’m not talking straight up sports books by writers like Matt Christopher, or even wilderness-y survival-y books like Hatchet (which I did love, but whatever.)
I’m talking about books like the ones on this list: The Phantom Tollbooth, The Red Badge of Courage, John Bellairs’ fantastic, Gorey-illustrated chillers, Watership Down, The Chronicles of Narnia, James and the Giant Peach, The Indian in the Cupboard, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, A Wrinkle in Time, or King Arthur and His Knights.
Why are these “books for boys?” I realize the Art of Manliness folks aren’t saying girls can’t read these books, or anything like that–but I’ve seen lots of lists like this and there seems to be one factor that ties all the so-called best books for boys together: adventure. Why is adventure still seen as the province of boys and men? Despite the fact that the central adventurer in some of the books mentioned about is a girl? Why are we still viewing men in modern society as wanderers, while women are seen as tied to the home, the hearth, the known?
It drives me mad. I know the people who make these list are just trying to get boys to read books, and that’s fine. But, if nothing else, the huge sales of the Harry Potter books and the Twilight series to girls and women, not to mention the vast success of the Lord of the Rings movies across both genders, show that everybody likes adventure. Excitement and exploration of the fantastic and strange is where it’s at. Duh.
So if we’re going to keep on splitting our reading into “his” and “hers,” can we at least own that the adventure genre belongs to both sexes? We may be worried about boys reading, but if we keep recommending stuff like Black Beauty and Little Women (two books that made me want to retch and both of which I never finished) to our girls, they might just stop reading, too.
Categories: favorites · great books
So, I don’t actually have the new Conjunctions in hand yet, but it looks amazing and I can’t wait to read it. I’ve been obsessing over Beckett lately, and lo and behold, there’s a piece in this issue by Barney Rosset on Beckett which includes his and Beckett’s correspondence over Waiting for Godot. Should be fascinating.
To be honest, though, this is what I’m most excited about. Matt Bell has a new story (a novella, really) in the magazine which is also up on the site, and ohmygod is it good. But don’t take my word for it. Read it, read it, read it. Read it.
Categories: Writing · favorites · literary mags
