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Guest post by Megan Mayhew Bergman Or, perhaps I should say, Nightwood–finally visited. As readers may recall, I publically chided myself for my inability to get through a book I truly wanted to read–Djuna Barnes’ novel, Nightwood. Fond of her other work (Ryder, Creatures of an Alphabet, Ladies Almanack, How it Feels to Be Forcibly…

Guest post by Greg Schutz Early in her National Book Award-winning novel Lord of Misrule, Jaimy Gordon offers two competing accounts a single conversation through two different points of view. Medicine Ed, an old groomsman at a rundown thoroughbred track in West Virginia, spies on an encounter between Maggie, a young woman, and Tommy Hansel….

Guest post by Greg Schutz In 1873, Tolstoy famously opened Anna Karenina with a homily that has hounded fiction writers ever since: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Even though Anna Karenina ultimately complicates the notion of happiness and, furthermore, questions the very notion of a happy/unhappy…

Guest post by Fan Wu An acquaintance recently e-mailed me to announce her upcoming book launch party, to be held in an expensive restaurant, with free food and drinks and a near-celebrity’s attendance. Each guest will pay a small entrance fee and receive a signed copy of the book. Other than the e-mail announcement, this…

Guest post by Megan Mayhew Bergman Two things caught my eye before the Thanksgiving holiday: 1) Michael Vick’s electrifying performance against the Redskins 2) James Frey’s “Fiction Factory”, and his alleged tactic of asking his employed writers to follow a Greek three-act narrative structure in their commercial work, with a focus on the protagonist’s redemption…

Guest post by Greg Schutz The advent of another holiday season reminds me that, as readers and consumers, it’s easier than ever these days to get what we think we want. Looking for Jonathan Franzen’s new novel? A couple clicks, a couple keystrokes, and it’s on its way to your doorstep. Searching for the perfect…

Guest post by Megan Mayhew Bergman Q: I used to think agents were really scary, city-savvy people only concerned with the bottom line. However, the more agents I’ve met, the more I realize how many of them truly love literature and care about the authors they represent.   Basics first: Why did you decide to…

Guest post by Greg Schutz Thanksgiving is almost upon us. For me, this means a welcome weeklong vacation from teaching: a chance to dig into that stack of student essays awaiting grades; a chance to sort and stow or recycle the countless handouts, worksheets, rough drafts, lesson plans, and attendance sheets that seem to accumulate…

Guest post by Fan Wu In 2004, I attended the Key West Literary Seminar–my first literary event–where I met Sandra Cisneros, a keynote speaker. Though I had just begun to write and was unpublished, she was encouraging and generous with her advice and wisdom. Later that year, after reading a short story of mine, she…