Archive for August, 2006
In Rotation
I read an article in The Wall Street Journal, the August 19-20 Pursuits section (I’m a little behind), titled “Reading, Writing–And Rocking Out.” Here’s a bit:
Having seen the power of songs to promote TV shows, movies and even video games, publishers and authors are increasingly experimenting with soundtracks for books. Writers like James Patterson and Lemony [...]
Filed under: music, what's new | 1 Comment
Decatur Book Festival
For the locals: The Decatur Book Festival is next weekend (Sept. 1-3). You should go, of course.
Filed under: doing, what's new | 0 Comments
Publishing and Personality
While the names James Frey, Nasdijj, and JT LeRoy will surely go down as catchphrases for fabrication in the memoir genre, my growing fear is that those writers may only exist as the extreme cases among a generation (admittedly, my own generation) of writers who are tempted to dangerously and falsely exoticize their identities for [...]
Filed under: musing | 0 Comments
Synopsis…
Ever try and write a one sentence synopsis of a novel? Your novel? It’s painful, daunting. Necessary. I don’t have an obvious hook. My character isn’t an Iranian woman, a former male prostitute, a galavanting criminal, a serious-minded Indian teenager making her way in American suburbia. Here are my drafts so far:
A double-threaded bildungsroman spanning [...]
Filed under: writing | 1 Comment
Standby
I just wanted to let everyone (and I know you’re there, friends who read but don’t ever comment! Kidding.) know what’s going on and what they can expect over the next few months at ambergeek. In short, don’t expect too much, and maybe I’ll surprise you. Lame, I know. But the semester is starting tomorrow, and [...]
Filed under: what's new | 0 Comments
New Nonrequired reading
My husband brought me The Best American Nonrequired Reading from his trip to San Francisco. I’m familiar with a few of the Best American series, but not this one. This is the fourth installment of the nonrquired reading category, edited by Dave Eggers. And we’ve established that McSweeney’s and 826 Valencia are pretty cool endeavors, [...]
Filed under: reading, what's new | 0 Comments
All This Heavenly Glory
I’ve been making notes to myself about fiction I’ve been reading this summer, keeping my own writing in mind…sort of a fiction journal. Here is a bit about Elizabeth Crane’s second book, All This Heavenly Glory:
It’s hard to know what to call this book. If I wanted to be crass, or mean, or jealous, or role [...]
Filed under: reading | 0 Comments
Moments
The magic moment…It is simply a psychological hot spot, a pulsation on an otherwise dead planet, a “real toad in an imaginary garden.” These queer moments, sometimes thrilling, sometimes just strange, momenets of setting off an altered state, a brief sense of escape from ordinary time and space–moments no doubt similar to those sought by [...]
Filed under: musing, reading | 3 Comments
