Perfume of the Page

My mother sometimes phones to read me a line or a passage, often from The New York Times; and when I was a reporter in my twenties, she called to read me enslaved by the scent of lilac. She savored the idea of a passerby bound to a lilac bush by invisible ropes of scent. Enslaved… … Read more

“Have regrets. They are fuel.”

Ten rules for writing fiction, an article from The Guardian, recently went viral at The Grotto—a group of about 35 San Francisco authors who share office space and comradeship. Thanks, Natalie Baszile, for the link. Don’t be put off that the piece starts with Elmore Leonard, whose ten rules you read nine years ago in… … Read more

Dog & Poem Therapy

Spend three weeks at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica and you will meet quite a few canine therapists. Moe, a standard poodle, was particularly healing for my mom; he ascended to her bed on lanky paws, folded them beneath himself like a colt, and rested his long muzzle on her hand. Kiki, a golden… … Read more

Thick handles swirling by

I’m rereading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, because my brain deletes all critical data on some mysterious schedule. So I just had the great pleasure of remembering (again) that the first chapter is a collection of sensory impressions that alter as Stephen matures. Meaning: as his brain changes neurologically from a… … Read more

Cezanne, Eisenberg, and the question of rape

“Either you see a picture immediately,” Cezanne told the writer Joachim Gasquet, “or you never see it at all.
Explanations don’t help a bit. What good does it do to comment on it? All those things are imperfect, imprecise things. We talk as we do because it’s amusing, like drinking a good bottle of wine.
… … Read more

Deborah Eisenberg’s Intensely Intimate Third

Deborah Eisenberg talks to Ron Hogan about intensely close third: “What does it feel like to be a human being? Whoever the character is, how far can I crawl into the mental processes of that character?” … Read more

Reading Cormac through Walker’s telescope

Every writer reads with a split brain, right? One eye for pleasure, the other peering at technique–but with my mental telescope trained right on the sentences, I often miss the big picture and end up with the bulleted list. … Read more

“All the angels may be out to lunch…”

My friend Heather Hartley’s debut poetry collection—the witty, nervy, sexy Knock Knock (Carnegie Mellon U Press)—comes out this month, launched by Tin House magazine with a fabulous NYC party on Thursday, January 21. Gorgeous invitation won’t upload, so print it out before it vanishes, or make note:

8 p.m., Thurs. 1/21, at the Old Stone

… … Read more