Category: Books

  • Knockemstiff

    I just read Donald Ray Pollock’s debut story collection, Knockemstiff, which takes place in rural southern Ohio, in a town of the same name as the book. The stories are dark, deadly, and mythic depictions of something more than what you’d even call small town Ohio, a sort of gothic revision of Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg,…

  • Back

    I’m back from Florida, which was wonderful. It was both weird and wonderful to be applauded and go up on a stage and give a little acceptance speech for an award for my writing, and I’m still tingly from the whole feeling. This week, however, has been very busy for me, and I had to…

  • The Gift

    Ever read Lewis Hyde’s famous book The Gift? It’s in its twenty-fifth anniversary edition this year, and it’s still relevant to artists living and working in what continues to be our increasingly commercial market culture.  Hyde is a proponent for a creative commonwealth, of sharing and giving as an essential part of creation.  His ideas…

  • Just in case

    Been hard at work today on novel revisions, but also I finished reading my first Meg Rosoff book. This one was Just In Case, which I enjoyed thoroughly, except for a couple of things that posed problems for me as a reader. The book is about a boy named David Case, who changes his name…

  • Caught in the middle

    Listen up, Midwesterners. This is all about your future.

  • Are you up to it?

    If you haven’t read it, go out now and purchase the new issue of Harpers magazine. Ursula K. Le Guin has the most perspicacious (not to mention a bit angry) essay on the state of reading, and the book, and the social bonding capacity of books, and their capacity to house cultural information and memory,…

  • Singularity’s Ring

    I read part of this debut novel of Paul Melko’s at the Blue Heaven Novel Writing Workshop several years ago, and loved it then, lots and lots. If you like hard science fiction with lots of humor and heart, Melko’s Singularity’s Ring is where it’s at. I can’t wait till my copy of the final,…

  • Highbrow/Lowbrow

    If you haven’t read the article by Charles McGrath in the Times about highbrow/lowbrow distinctions in literature in the wake of the author in England who won a settlement in court by claiming that fumes from a shoe factory near her house caused her to write a thriller, which she claimed was a fall from…

  • Hurray for Midwestern Awesomeness

    After a day of braving the twelve degree cold today, with a running inner monologue about the ridiculous starkness and severity of the Midwestern winter accompanying me throughout my travels about town, I came home to find an e-mail from my editor telling me that One for Sorrow has been nominated for the 2008 Great…

  • The Crawford Award

    I just found out yesterday (and see the news was just released) that this year’s Crawford Award is being given to One for Sorrow. The award, according to the press release, is sponsored by the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts, recognizes an outstanding first book of fantasy published during the preceding year,…