2009 Narrative Prize
I am excited and kind of stunned to say that Narrative Magazine has awarded me its annual fiction prize for an emerging writer, for “When the Flock Changed.”
The story is actually an excerpt from a novel I’ve been writing — and writing about writing — for an embarrassingly long time. Here’s how it opens:
My [...]
Nicholson Baker’s Method writing
To discover his narrator’s voice, Nicholson Baker recorded & transcribed 40 hours of himself lecturing. (Via.)
More Schaub for your feedreaders
Bookslut’s Michael Schaub, funny man, and fellow Merwin fan, is now also writing for HTML Giant.
James Hynes on Polanski: This isn’t Chinatown
“What Polanski’s defense boils down to finally is what you might call the Ezra Pound Exception.” See also.
The essential chutzpah
“Man is least himself when he talks in his own persona.” Jim Shepard quotes Oscar Wilde in a piece on using real life in fiction.
Third-generation dairy farmers meet weekenders
Richard Russo will write the script for an untitled HBO series about the ongoing Catskills Gas Rush.
Twain, quote magnet
Quotations scholar says Mark Twain is the most common victim of erroneous quote attribution in the U.S.
Hilary Mantel on her new book and Henry VIII
Joan Acocella’s profile sent me off on a Hilary Mantel binge several years ago. I started with Beyond Black and quickly made my way through most of the rest of her work. Now Wolf Hall beckons, but I don’t want to start in on it until I have a chunk of time to focus properly.
Meanwhile, [...]
Practicality, fear, hiatus
Samantha Peale (The American Painter Emma Dial) contemplates the difficulties of building a life around art.
Reach for what’s called Dramatic Irony
Alexander Chee applies Ford Madox Ford’s rules of fiction to Wolverine.
Intimate recap of an accidental career
Jon Krakauer, whose latest book is just out, calls 90% of his early magazine work “total crap,” but good training in concision. (Via.)
Amitava’s short-short story
James Wood chooses my friend Amitava Kumar’s Postmortem as a 3-Minute Fiction finalist at NPR.
Proust loved the truth — and a pint
For the last month of his life, Marcel Proust subsisted entirely on beer, according to his housekeeper. (Via.)
Stephen Elliott on writing in the first person
“It’s a common misperception that … we should be telling stories about other people instead of ourselves.”
The silence of a falling star: on Hank Williams’ phrasing
Over the years I’ve developed a bad habit of going over sentences again and again in my fiction because they don’t quite sound right. By that I mean that the rhythm is off or the vowel sounds clash or an adjective is too bland or, worse, too “creative” in some [...]
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