It happens in every great workshop. Somewhere in the first couple of weeks, you sit at your desk or on your couch and read through a story that completely and irrevocably alters your possibilities. Someone has written an amazing piece. All of a sudden, the story you were pleased with, the one you’re scheduled to…
From the ObservatoryJulio CortázarTrans. Anne McLeanArchipelago Books, August 2011130 pages$18.00 The first time I read Julio Cortázar’s From the Observatory, I thought I’d succumbed to a fever-dream. Eels slip, muscularly, into Möbius strips; the night is red-haired and the marble cold. I had no idea what I was reading or where I was, and I…
BOMB Magazine was founded in 1981 as an artists’ and writers’ quarterly dedicated to presenting work in its own light, and artists’ and writers’ conversations in their own words. BOMB has since grown to become an international magazine with an editorial board of over 80 professional artists, writers, actors, directors, architects, and musicians serving as…
If I were building an anthology of my favorite stories, Bruce Machart’s “What You’re Walking Around Without” would certainly be included. It’s the kind of story that sticks with you for days on end, and still when I think of it, the images come rushing back—organs sloshing in the back of a Chrysler, Dean Covin’s…
The Vices Lawrence Douglas Other Press, August 2011 352 pages $15.95 This post was written by Walt McGough. The title family of Lawrence Douglas’ The Vices is a slowly decaying assortment of upper-crust oddballs, whose creatively rendered foibles sometimes resemble an alternate version of The Royal Tenenbaums. Older brother Bartholomew, for instance, has a room…
You Deserve Nothing Alexander Maksik Europa Editions, August 2011 336 pages $15.00 Stop me if you’ve heard this story before: a handsome young teacher inspires great passion in the classroom; the guys want to be him, and the girls want to be with him. There’s an affair, scandal, loss of innocence, and plenty of inspirational…
I first met Michele Filgate when she was the events coordinator at the wonderful RiverRun Books in Portsmouth, NH. She is now the events coordinator for the equally awesome McNally Jackson. In addition to her career in indie bookselling, Michele is an accomplished critic—she contributes regularly to Bookslut and The Minneapolis Star Tribune—and was an early…
Initially, I think, the new writer figures they are committing to an Emily Dickinson life: isolated and lonely, accompanied only by a pen and paper. The life of a writer, however, has to be populated by others. It took me a long time to realize this. After college, I wrote two novels and sent out…
This Is Not Your City Caitlin Horrocks Sarabande Books, June 2011 224 pages $15.95 This post was written by Hannah Gersen. There are no small epiphanies in Caitlin Horrocks’s short stories, only huge, life-changing decisions. In her debut collection, This Is Not Your City, her protagonists commit crimes, seduce strangers, and, in the disquieting title…
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