i'm obsessed with shorts. short. stories.
an excerpt from Mark Anthony Jarman’s story “Our Stewardess Swims over the Sea” from his collection MY WHITE PLANET: We are jammed in the sky like rodents and I have seen it all, I know everything about you. I know about your doe-eyed 4H calf from another lifetime, the Mars bar you stole from Nancy … Read more
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He said, “What am I going to do about these fucking shoes, man?” “Whatever you stole,” I said, “I guess you already ate it all, right?” “Listen to how they squish,” he said, walking around carefully on his heels. (page 58) from the short story “Emergency” by Dennis Johnson. one of the best short stories … Read more
“run faster, you bastard.”
paddy doyle says you can learn the most about characters through dialogue. it’s the way people speak that defines them. but writing good dialogue takes a lot of practice and where it all starts is in eavesdropping. that’s right, eavesdropping. when you listen, really listen, to what people say and write it down, verbatim, you … Read more
i inhaled a beautiful book called THE VANISHING OF ESME LENNOX by Maggie O’Farrell. set in the 1930s, it’s a story about a young woman who’s caught wearing her mother’s negligee and institutionalized. the negligee, of course, is the last straw for a lifetime of being different. of wandering away from her desk at school. … Read more
i’m happy to say that one of my favourite characters, Fast Eddy, has made it into print. check out GRAIN Magazine (39.4) for my story “The Suitable Dress”. it’s a story about a woman with vertigo. here’s an excerpt: Sarah watches Fast Eddy sleep. Fatigue pools under his eyes like smog. She wonders how he … Read more
a list: 1. JANE EYRE by Charlotte Bronte 2. INVISIBLE MAN by Ralph Ellison 3. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE by J.D. Salinger 4. THE BIG SLEEP by Raymond Chandler 5. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee 6. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller 7. THE VIRGIN SUICIDES by Jeffrey Eugenides 8. WHITE TEETH by Zadie … Read more
your first book is the only one that matters.
i’ve been thinking about firsts. to first write, to first send it out, to have a story accepted. to eat a fresh nectarine, the juices dripping down my chin into the folds of my neck. to talk to a real writer. to take a weekend away from my life. to stay up all night writing. … Read more