My friend Ryan Werner and I are involved in a work of collaborative fiction, the old Round Robin exercise. I’ll describe the general rules and what we’re up to below, but you probably already know something about this sort of exercise as it is. It’s been my turn to contribute for longer than I canContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: Collaborative fiction”
Category Archives: reading
The Road
It’s been a long time coming. When I first heard Cormac McCarthy‘s brilliant novel The Road was being developed as a film, I noted the release date on my mental calendar and held my breath. That was back in early 2008. When the movie finally did get released more than a year and a halfContinue reading “The Road”
The hardest thing about writing
I’m preparing one of my novels for submission, and I’m writing a synopsis. I hate synopses. Like all prejudice, it’s an irrational loathing–I always feel like I’m crushing the story, stripping away the beauty and leaving just a skeleton, and I can’t help but think that if people want to know what a book isContinue reading “The hardest thing about writing”
International Prize for Arabic Fiction
This is a bit slow in coming, but I’m working on an article for Driftless about reading culture and the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, and I remembered that last year around this time I posted about the shortlist and winner for the Booker-sponsored International Prize for Arabic Fiction. So I thought I’d post theContinue reading “International Prize for Arabic Fiction”
The importance of Prince Henry the Navigator was in the inspiration
If I ever have a chance to teach a freshman seminar course — to explain to students in their first several weeks what it’s going to take to succeed in college and what the value of their education might be — this would be my entire syllabus: Peg took courses, a different course each winter,Continue reading “The importance of Prince Henry the Navigator was in the inspiration”
“Anybody can make history; only a great man can write it.”
Irish lit scholars, please don’t curse me for this. Because today is St. Paddy’s day, I thought I’d list — in no particular order and with deepest respect for anyone I’ve left off (and there will be a lot of those) — a few writers I have read and enjoyed who hail from the EmeraldContinue reading ““Anybody can make history; only a great man can write it.””
Barry Hannah
Barry Hannah will leave a gaping hole in literature. His influence on my own work is strangely subtle and roundabout (I know him more for his influence on others–especially Tom Franklin–than for anything else), but when I think about the stories I’ve read, I realize how deeply effective they were. For all the brashness ofContinue reading “Barry Hannah”
Women writers
I can’t write a post about women’s literature. I could, but it’s not my field of study and I’d just wind up offending the scholars who know what they’re talking about. But I can list some of the women authors and poets I admire most, which is all this is. And by all means, ifContinue reading “Women writers”
I wish I was cool enough to quote LL Cool J
I’ve said in previous posts that I’m a bit of a number cruncher. But there’s one number that I always avoided crunching: the ratio of my submissions to my rejections. I know without looking that the number is high. It’s bound to be–competition is fierce, and rejection is practically as much a part of theContinue reading “I wish I was cool enough to quote LL Cool J”
New publication
Just a quick note to say I have a new publication online. Something like two years ago, a friend of mine in Wisconsin, Russ Brickey, had the idea to start a regional literary magazine, which he decided to call Driftless Review after the geological region where our little town lived. He also kindly enlisted myContinue reading “New publication”
Samuel Snoek-Brown 