Annual Creative Loafing Fiction Contest

The annual Creative Loafing Fiction Contest has come to a close. This year the theme was ‘blood,’ and although I’ve entered the contest for the past few years, I missed the deadline on this one. However, a friend of mine won–the talented Brett Bender. So, if you are in the ATL, be sure to pick up a copy of the Loaf the first week in January to read the winning story. And here’s the ad copy from the current CL for the scheduled celebration:

We’re having a BLOODY PARYT!

Creative Loafing and The Chattahoochee Review present our annual Fiction Contest Party

BLOOD

Wednesday, January 3rd 7pm-9pm

Eyedrum Art & Music Gallery

290 MLK Jr. Drive SE, Suite 8 404.522.0655 www.eyedrum.org

Live music, Art, Book Sale, Readings by Fiction Contest Winners, Free Admission

The Gift of Books

You shouldn’t underestimate the value of an Amazon wishlist–you’ll get what you want. I’m not one of those folks that obsessively updates or tweaks the selection of books on my wish list (out of sight, out of mind), so every Christmas I’m initally surprised by the perfect but unexpected books I receive from relatives. You read my mind, I think. No, it was the vast and glorious Amazon wishlist, with which we can thrust our desires out into the world, forming the simulacrum of an intimate conversation with others. The first thing I thought upon opening a pristine copy of Booth’s The Rhetoric of Fiction from the in-laws was Great! Then How? Then Oh yeah; cool.

Books I received for Christmas:

Books Mr. Ambergeek received:

Books the progeny received:

 Can I get a side of free time with those books?

Reading: the Best, Funniest

So, here I am with a long list of books to devour. I’ll asess what’s come before, this year, last week, etc. Last week I read Jane Shapiro’s The Dangerous Husband in two sittings. It would have been one, but life happens. It’s the funniest book I’ve read all year. Well, it might tie with Leonard Michaels’ A Girl With A  Monkey: New and Selected Stories. At one point while glued to The Dangerous Husband, my husband asks me what I’m reading. And I say, this guy is just so clumsy his wife must hire a hit man! I probably looked giddy, elated. My husband looked horrified. It’s a great book, a funny book.

I also read Victor LaValle’s The Ecstatic last week. It was a really good book that somehow manages to be boring and enthralling at the same time. Boring isn’t the right word….maybe pedestrian? No, it’s extraordinary and ordinary. It’s the first person voice that captivates, in addition to the bizarre family dynamics at play. It’s feels so real it’s sad, and some of it is so sad it’s funny, and that’s life.

Best book I’ve read all year: The Effect of Living Backwards by Heidi Julavitz.  I don’t know what is up with some of the poor reviews on Amazon. Some folks obviously found it too difficult to read; several reviews say the storyline is too obtuse. I thought it was incredible, thrilling. And the reviewers who give only one star and admit to not being able to get past the first chapter–classy, real classy. In close second (or maybe a tie?) comes Kathryn Davis’ The Thin Place, which pretty much floored me on first read.

I’m in the middle of The Intuitionist right now…

Lists for 2007

Apologies for the hiatus; busy is as apt a descriptor I can think of without sounding whiny. So, for your reading pleasure I’m going to post the reading lists for two of the three literature courses I’m taking in the spring.  I’m not sure how I’ll actually get all the reading done (not to mention all the inevitable papers, etc) but I am looking forward to reading all of these books.  I used to be able to study any subject, read anything at all, without disliking it, but as my schedule has become more hectic over the last couple of years I’ve become more picky. For example, I might die if I have to sit through an entire course on Milton, or Chaucer.  A few years ago I would have done it cheerily.  Not anymore!  This is what I’m looking forward to:

Contemporary Fiction (focus: the role of history)

  • Robert Penn Warren, _All the King’s Men_ (1946)
  • Thomas Pynchon, _V._ (1963)
  • Ishmael Reed, _Mumbo Jumbo_ (1972)
  • Louise Erdrich, _Tracks_ (1988)
  • Toni Morrison, _Beloved_ (1988)
  • Julia Alvarez, _In the Time of the Butterflies_ (1995)
  • William T. Vollman, _Europe Central_ (2005)

The Craft of Contemporary Fiction

  • The Ecstatic, LaValle
  • Motherless Brooklyn, Lethem
  • Dangerous Husband, Shapiro
  • Jimmy Corrigan, Ware
  • The Devil’s Larder, Crace
  • Magic for Beginners, Link
  • Home Land, Lipsyte
  • The Intuitionist, Whitehead
  • Best Seats in the House, Morris
  • The Virgin Suicides, Eugenides

I’m also taking a single author study on Eudora Welty. I started Europe Central and am sufficiently intimidated. I have no idea what’s going on, and it might be the longest novel I’ve ever attempted to read. If you have any opinions about any of these books, please send them over.

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