By Jon Ulrich This September will see the release of my first book, Winter in the Wilderness. It’s been a long time coming. Success in writing, I’ve found, takes three things: persistence, luck, and persistence. I feel like I’ve won the lottery. In a way, I have. Not many people know this about me, but… Continue reading A Shameless Act of Self-Promotion
Tag: books and reading
And have you read… Erebus?
Jane Summer is pictured here on the left. Q: How did you get the idea for your book? A: I actually didn’t get the idea. The idea got me—in a leg-hold trap. I grew tired of writing poems about how sad I was. After futzing around writing poems about the civil rights era and the… Continue reading And have you read… Erebus?
And have you read… Three Apples Fell From Heaven?
Three Apples Fell From Heaven was Micheline Aharonian Marcom’s first novel. Here she tells us a little about its inception: I began it when I was in my late twenties and enrolled in the MFA Program at Mills College, where I also currently am on faculty. The main drive to write the book was to… Continue reading And have you read… Three Apples Fell From Heaven?
And have you read… The State of Kansas?
In simple, rhythmic, nail-sharp prose, the cast of unnamed characters in The State of Kansas survive a flood, brush their teeth, drink, attend a sinister dinner party, try to love others, think a lot about death (animal and human), and weigh the confusion of trying to and a place—decent or otherwise—in a big, beautiful, and often… Continue reading And have you read… The State of Kansas?
And have you read… Slab?
Slab is Goddard alumna Selah Saterstrom’s new book out from Coffeehouse Press, a place you can rely on for fascinating, timely and inventive work. “On a slab that’s all Katrina left of her Mississippi home, Tiger tells a story full of wickedness and incantation…” Excerpt from the book: “SCENE IN A HOUSE: The filthy kitchenette,… Continue reading And have you read… Slab?
And have you read… Gaining?
Gaining: The Truth about Life after Eating Disorders by Goddard MFA faculty member Aimee Liu is a classic on the subject of eating disorders. Read our interview with Aimee! http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/gaining-aimee-liu/1112492800?ean=9780759518421 http://www.gainingthetruth.com/ Q: You’re an author of several novels. How has your past struggle with anorexia influenced or impacted your fiction? A: While none of my fiction… Continue reading And have you read… Gaining?
116.8 Books in 365 Days
I’m on pace to read 116.8 books in 2015. It feels like something of a failure. In the U.S., 300,000 new titles were published last year. If all goes well, I’ll end the year having read 0.039 percent of that number. Globally, it’s in the millions. Some years back Google released what they considered to… Continue reading 116.8 Books in 365 Days
The Goddard Salons and The Un-Book Tour
by Ann Hedreen I remember poring over my first Goddard MFA residency schedule and the way my eyes skidded to a stop at the word “salon.” We would have such things as salons? À la Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas? I felt a little frisson, a cocktail of thrill mixed with dread. My instincts… Continue reading The Goddard Salons and The Un-Book Tour
Alumni News: Michelle Embree Interviews Sarah Shellow
Michelle writes: “The week has gifted me with numerous pleasures. The best being an opportunity to ask a few questions of a fellow writer and Goddard graduate, Sarah Shellow. Her words always give me a sense of healing and I very much would like to share them with all of you. Thank you and enjoy.”… Continue reading Alumni News: Michelle Embree Interviews Sarah Shellow
Narrative Permission Slip
First week of March, still frigid in New York, where it feels like someone in the sky kitchen said, “There’s hardly any winter left in the pot–you finish it,” and dumped a double helping on our plate. Still the same ice ridges and filthy snow heaps, still the pedestrian sidewalk rage at being trapped behind… Continue reading Narrative Permission Slip
New Zealand Pleasures
by Nicola Morris I love small collections of books… a hotel shelf of books, a “free library” on the side of the street that has popped up with a tiny collection, some books left at the laundromat. Here in New Zealand I went off to the library to find some New Zealand fiction. I found… Continue reading New Zealand Pleasures
The Most Beautiful Sentences in Literature
This is the “best sentence” that resonates most with me today. What’s yours? Click on this link, or the photo, for Jennifer Schaffer’s list on Buzz Feed. Here, not the best sentences, but the first sentences of the books that happen to be on my desk as I prepare for my memoir workshop at the… Continue reading The Most Beautiful Sentences in Literature