AWP Panel Proposal Rejected – Let’s Get Technical
While people like Cate Marvin, Susan Schultz, & Craig Santos Perez have queried similarly in the past, speculating on a variety of causes for rejection, proposal applicants are still left wondering at the end of the process each year, where we went wrong. Did bias play a role? Are the panelists and I not noteworthy…
The Weenie Roast – Ingredients? Not How Long, But What’s in It…
Please don’t take another long drag on your ciggie and nonchalantly claim that the editors of Publisher’s Weekly didn’t know they were selecting books solely by men for their Top 10 Best Books of 2009. I will hurl dragon fire and burn your little house of cards down. One need only peruse the “brief reviews”…
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Marshmallows? This Saturday!
Marshmallow Roast Join us for a poetry reading in the backyard at Harrison Space as part of the Bushwick Arts Festival. Saturday, June 7, 2008 9:00pm – 10:00pm Harrison Space 14 Harrison Pl Brooklyn, NY Tao Lin is the author of the poetry-collection, COGNITIVE-BEHAVIORAL THERAPY (Melville House, 2008), and a few other books. http://reader-of-depressing-books.blogspot.com Elisa…
December 11, 1922 – August 22, 2007
I love her stories, which I still teach in my classes, and her pacifist activism was an absolute inspiration. Peace to Grace Paley and much gratitude. ~~ Interview at Salon. Another interview at Salon. NY Times on Paley’s books. Listen to Paley read and a conversation at UPENN. ~~ “Let us go forth with fear…
The Environmentalist?
Does the poem below evidence Günter Grass’s predilection for the environmentalist movement? Finnish librarian, Petri Liukkonen, has curated and written the Pegasos Authors’ Calendar (Kirjailijakalenteri) for many moons now, a spot I go to for succinct author, theorist, & philosopher introductions. The following was lifted from said spot: [Günter Grass] has once said, that writers,…
The Ballad of the Sad Cafe
First of all, love is a joint experience between two persons—but the fact that it is a joint experience does not mean that it is a similar experience to the two people involved. There are the lover and the beloved, but these two come from different countries. Often the beloved is only a stimulus for…
“…wealth shields from immediate judgment, takes you out of the subway crowd to enclose you in a chromium-plated automobile, isolates you in huge protected lawns, Pullmans, first-class cabins. Wealth, cher ami, is not quite acquittal, but reprieve, and that’s always worth taking.”
Many moons ago, I read Albert Camus’ novel, THE FALL. A few moons later, I watched Kryzsztof Kieslowski’s film, “Red“, which was from his “Three Colors” triology. I immediately thought (& surely I’m not alone) that Kieslowski modeled one of his main characters on Camus’ judge: “But equally real to me was the world of…
Vita is Life in Latin
It is a well known fact that Virginia Woolf wrote her gender-bending novel, Orlando, as a study of Vita Sackville-West in the waning part of their romantic relationship (they remained steadfast friends until Woolf’s death). Woolf was probably better able to scrutinize Sackville-West as a character and bring Orlando to life as West began to…
We Leave All Over
What do you do with a genius student? You publish her work on your blog and count yourself among the first. You publish it even if it’s a first draft. You’re too impatient to wait for the finished product. The semester’s end is a week away, and that’s more than a weekend. I don’t know…
Benderize Yourself
It’s time to give some overdue, major props to Ms. Aimee Bender. I’ve been following her for years now. Yes, years. She is one of the finest short story writers going today. I usually mix it up in my literature classes by teaching Bender along with Tobias Wolff for the short story component (& a…
AMY KING 