May 2012
57 posts
Just Do It
emilybooks: by Anonymous When I was 24, I took mushrooms at a party in a seedy part of Hollywood and got it on with a bunch of strangers in a hot tub. There’s nothing inherently wrong with mushrooms + strangers + hot tub + heeeey, but the situation was wrong for me, because I wasn’t really enjoying myself. My focus was on putting on a show and making other people happy, not myself. And these...
May 30th
55 notes
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“All the perfect drugs and superheros wouldn’t be enough to bring me up to...”
– Aimee Mann, “Humpty Dumpty”
May 30th
“I don’t think it’s terribly controversial to note that women, from a young age,...”
–  Jennifer duBois, Writing Across Gender (via literarynerd)
May 29th
8,265 notes
4 tags
“Living did not mean one joy piled upon another. It was merely the hope for less...”
– Lorrie Moore, “Referential” (from The New Yorker, May 28, 2012)
May 28th
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Sunday Rumpus Fiction: Real Men - The Rumpus.net →
Beautiful story by Elissa Wald
May 27th
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Break All the Way Down by Roxane Gay →
Read it.
May 26th
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“I never know how to explain this properly to men but that, right there, is the...”
– The Rumpus Saturday Essay: Me Be Pretty One Day - The Rumpus.net A thing I wrote for the Rumpus today that no one will read because it is Memorial Day weekend! (via michelledean) I feel like I stalk Michelle Dean because I reblog her all the time.  I’m trying to work through some similar...
May 26th
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I have managed to put my most wrinkled curtain in the most conspicuous place possible.  I could shuffle it with the others so that it won’t be as noticeable or I could iron it or I could put it back in the dryer with a damp towel. (If I had been paying attention to the dryer in the first place…) But I’ll probably leave it there.  Emblem of shame.  It’s awful the work that...
May 26th
May 25th
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THE WEEK IN GREED #7: The Money Shot →
I wish I didn’t like Steve Almond so much because I’m pissed at the person who originally recommended him to me.  But there it is.
May 25th
melissa tells me what it’s like to teach in...
citizenkerry: This is a series in which you help me learn about America.   Melissa (daughter of Charles!) was born and raised in Iowa. She currently teaches in Chicago, in a high school that has been deemed a “drop-out factory,” where 100% of her students qualify for free or reduced lunch. I’ve always thought about becoming a teacher, and was curious to learn the realities of her job. I hope...
May 24th
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“You are going to spend your whole life learning how to write, and then you are...”
– 9 Things I’ve Learned About Writing by Teaching Freshmen to Write  (via bookriot)
May 23rd
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“Great stories are meant to be shared, not only by publishers but also by the...”
– Electric Literature’s New Magazine, Recommended Reading, Delivers the Power of Personal Recommendations (via rachelfershleiser) Very cool.
May 23rd
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“Two of the smartest inquiries into the psychopathology of paperwork were...”
– Ben Kafka, “Pushing Paper,” published in Lapham’s Quarterly Read the entire piece I agree with this wholeheartedly.  Kafka makes many great points throughout.
May 22nd
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“Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems...”
– William Faulkner (via edensunday)
May 22nd
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May 22nd
881 notes
Esquire Publishing Men's Fiction E-Books -... →
michelledean: agrammar: jamiatt: “His definition of men’s fiction? Work that is ‘plot-driven and exciting, where one thing happens after another,’ he said. ‘And also at the same time, dealing with passages in a man’s life that seem common.’” It’s a good thing we lady writers are busy writing books that are boring, and where nothing happens. We wouldn’t want too much excitement. We might...
May 21st
138 notes
“No other fear, not even that of ridicule, prevents me from writing these lines...”
– Colette, bloggin’  I kid, sort of.  This is from Break of Day, in a possibly bad translation (“show surprise” “love-secrets”) that I bought on the sidewalk.  This book is basically about being middle-aged Colette, living in Saint-Tropez, eating, gardening and taking a lot of interest in your cats’...
May 21st
54 notes
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May 20th
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Guys I wanted to Fuck in High School:... →
Because I am obsessed with writing about teenagers and high school…
May 19th
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Maile Meloy: “The Proxy Marriage” : The New Yorker →
I like Maile Meloy.  I kept wanting to yell out her name during a lecture at a conference I attended, when the lecturer could not think of a woman writer in his generation who was doing great things with short stories, this thinking being in response to being questioned by a woman in the audience first about why he was only recommending writers from previous generations and then about why he was...
May 19th
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May 19th
107,805 notes
May 18th
7 notes
Michelle Dean: Last night →
michelledean: I was trundling along through the internet, following metafilter threads down into the deep while I waited for my brain to calm down. (I blame the margarita I had at dinner; my neurons always interpret tequila as license to party.) Nights like that are always the same: I start off reading…
May 17th
25 notes
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“But this damn article I started reading made me feel almost worse. It was all...”
– J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye I just ate a big danish for breakfast, and I feel exactly like the girl in the commercial who fails to choose a Nutrigrain bar over a gooey pastry in the morning and is then fated for the rest of the day to make unhealthy choices in bad lighting with a sour...
May 16th
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Ta-Nehisi Coates on Marriage Equality And Humanist... →
theatlantic: jerkameleon: It’s always wild seeing rappers come out against homophobia. I’ve got more than my share of songs I can’t really enjoy like I once did.  But it’s good to see, and I can’t even say I live outside of it. I can remember coming out of Baltimore and viewing every interaction with someone who was gay with a kind of smug derision. It’s the closest I’ve come to a kind of...
May 15th
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May 14th
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May 13th
May 11th
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Justicia Omnibus: JusticeStrange1: was anybody on... →
thebluemaverick: mr1xiii3: techsgtjenn: chronically-awesome: me2ism: strengthofthepeople: kyssthis16: so-treu: YES! (no but not really i was born in 87 i don’t remember a damn thing but i still claim that shit!) Not really. 1988, but I still count!!!!! … I was born in 85, so there! Yes.
May 10th
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A Supposedly Fun Thing: The View from the Other... →
jessicalanglois: A couple of weeks ago, the New Yorker ran this Shout/Murmur on restaurant etiquette, by Paul Simms. It appears NYer editors don’t realize they have readers who serve restaurant-goers in addition to readers who have perhaps never had a wage job in their lives and exclusively attend…
May 10th
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May 10th
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Her Delivery by Ellen Akins →
In honor of Mother’s Day, a short story.
May 9th
May 9th
362 notes
The Penguin Press: Book Reviewing in the Age of... →
thepenguinpress: How is a book review on Tumblr different from one in print? The Paris Review‘sSarah Fay considers the evolution of literary criticism online: In his 1946 essay “Confessions of a Book Reviewer,” George Orwell outlined the changes he’d make to the standard, 600-word format of the book review….
May 9th
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May 9th
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“I knew what I knew, the mindless, mechanical bruteness of things, and when the...”
– Grendel by John Gardner I know this quote by heart.  I looked it up to be sure, but I had it right.  It’s been with me all these years.
May 9th
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May 9th
17 notes
6 tags
Oh, it's Teacher Appreciation Week
I had a great English teacher for half of my senior year in high school.  He gave us the short story I quoted in my last post, “Homework” by Peter Cameron.  It got to me, and I still remember it, even though it’s been many years since high school, and I’ve only re-read it once. We also read Grendel by John Gardner and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys.  I grateful to have...
May 9th
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“My dog, Keds, was sitting outside of the A.&P. last Thursday when he got...”
– First line, “Homework” by Peter Cameron Happy short story month!
May 9th
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“You know who my gods are, who I believe in fervently? Herman Melville, Emily...”
– Maurice Sendak Fresh Air Remembers Author Maurice Sendak
May 8th
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“[Pauls] Toutonghi wrote both books in the first person. And yet, he considers...”
– In Defense of Autobiography by Jennifer Miller (via millionsmillions)
May 7th
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May 7th
55 notes
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“Cold as it was, the girl would come down to George’s wearing one of those...”
– First line, “Nobody’s Baby” by Ellen Akins Happy short story month!
May 5th
May 5th
33 notes
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NOUVELLA: The Ultimate Guide To Writing Better... →
I get all kinds of anxiety when I read lists of tips (writing or otherwise) because I always feel like I do all of the things you aren’t supposed to do and will therefore fail at anything I ever try to do ever.  But this one is kinda funny. nouvellabooks: DON’T PROCRASTINATE Procrastination is an alluring siren taunting you to Google the country where Balki from Perfect Strangers was...
May 5th
86 notes
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“The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a...”
– First sentence, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson Happy short story month!
May 5th
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“I stand here ironing, and what you asked me moves tormented back and forth with...”
– Tillie Olsen, “I Stand Here Ironing” Happy Short Story Month!
May 4th
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“A new person, it was said, had appeared on the esplanade: a lady with a pet dog.”
– Anton Chekhov, “The Lady with the Pet Dog” Happy Short Story Month!
May 3rd
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Happy Short Story Month!
For the remainder of May, I will be posting the first line of a short story each day. The first selection will go up later tonight.
May 2nd