I give up. I spent the past few days trying to write a blog that was witty and timely. I wanted it to be smart like an essay by Roxane Gay. I hoped to get my thoughts together about the fuss over “Jonathan Franzen: What’s Wrong With the Modern World,” which appeared in The Guardian on Friday, September 13. The piece named names (Jennifer Weiner, Salman Rushdie, Jeff Bezos) and was as juicy as a reality TV show, with responses by Jennifer Weiner and Nathan … [Read more...]
Weighed Words, Micropublisher
I often find something in Nathan Bransford’s blogs. He’s a smart guy. His April 6 column asked: Who Should Have the ‘Indie’ Label: Self Publishers or Small Presses? I bristle when someone refers to my project as self-publishing because although this is a project I have published, it is not self-publishing. Weighed Words won’t publish my novel or yours. The same goes for your chapbook and mine. Weighed Words has a specific mission to publish mixed-genre anthologies of … [Read more...]
Gratitude, part 2
I guess the most logical way for me to lay out my series of thank-yous is go about it chronologically. If I start at the very beginning I must start by thanking Fran Podulka, my neighbor and mentor. Soon after I moved in, I was going through a Reynolds Price phase. While searching the library stacks for his works, I came across Fran's novel The Wonder Jungle (Putnam, 1973). I read it, called her, told her I was a writer myself, and we have been friends since. Fran … [Read more...]