Scott Cheshire

Claire Messud talks with the Tottenville Review about her new...

Mon, 13 May 2013 11:48:00 -0400

Claire Messud talks with the Tottenville Review about her new and wonderful novel The Woman Upstairs, claustrophobia, and Katy Perry (among other things).

“In the list of things we should be angry about, the manipulations of the media is one that we seem to be strangely docile in accepting. I don’t quite understand why we don’t have any ire about that…”

Click on the photo above to read more.

I’m new to Bennett Sims - and I’m happy for...

Wed, 08 May 2013 15:25:00 -0400

I’m new to Bennett Sims - and I’m happy for it…

twodollarradio:

May 2013, mark it on your calendars. That’s when we’ll be releasing a debut novel by an exceptional new talent, Bennett Sims. The book is called A Questionable Shape and it’ll knock your socks off, guaranteed.

Bennett Sims has had fiction appear in A Public Space, Tin House, and Zoetrope: All-Story. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he currently teaches fiction at the University of Iowa, where he is a provost postgraduate visiting writer. [Editor’s note: he’s only 26!]

Here’s the story: Mazoch discovers an unreturned movie envelope, smashed windows, and a pool of blood in his father’s house: the man has gone missing. So he creates a list of his father’s haunts and asks Vermaelen to help track him down.

However, hurricane season looms over Baton Rouge, threatening to wipe out any undead not already contained and eliminate all hope of ever finding Mazoch’s father.

What Bennett Sims has accomplished with this, his very fine first novel, is to turn typical zombie fare on its head and deliver a wise and philosophical rumination on the nature of memory and loss.

In the following mini-interview we chat zombies, studying with David Foster Wallace, and studliness.

Q: With zombies or vampires or werewolves, there seem to be some unanimous across-the-board rules and general narrative expectations . What impressed me so much about A Questionable Shape was how you employed what would be token plot devices for other writers – specifically, reanimation – and used them to explore much grander questions about our own human experience and how we relate to one another. Was that part of your initial approach or attraction to the story, or did this come about through writing and revision?

Even before I began the novel, I was up to my elbows in the grand questions of undeath, since my undergrad thesis was a long essay on zombies. What I found was that ‘the zombie’ keeps cropping up in different discourses as a kind of limit figure of the human condition. So in mind-body philosophy and neuroscience, the zombie is a mascot for non-conscious perception (aka ‘blindsight’), the brain’s ability to respond to visual stimuli without conscious awareness. In both Haitian anthropology and political theory, the ‘living dead man’ is a victim of social death, a biological body that has been stripped of all civil rights. And in psychoanalysis, the phrase ‘return of the dead’ is a ready-to-hand metaphor for describing a wide swath of psychological phenomena, from repetition automatism and the return of the repressed to our experience of the uncanny.

So in answer to your question, yes, A Questionable Shape was always a questions novel. It grew out of that project fairly naturally, as a way of dramatizing these questions and making them meaningful for a set of characters. If your undead dad shuffles back to his house, do you say that he’s the ‘same’ person? Do you say that he’s a person at all? How can you know what he’s experiencing, and what are your ethical obligations to him? This is a supernatural problem to be faced with, but of course there are other, more familiar issues bound up with it: the ethics of euthanasia; old age and senility; mourning, memory, and mortality.

Q: Was it frightening or liberating to write a novel that includes zombies when zombies seem to be the new vampires?

More frightening than liberating. The risk of exhaustion, of cultural saturation, is a legitimate one. I was mindful of this from the moment I started working on the book, in mid-2008—and that was back when Walking Dead was still a graphic novel; when Left 4 Dead had not yet been released; and when Zone 1 was just a twinkle in Colson Whitehead’s eye. (I can still remember the buttock-clenching dread I felt in December ‘08, when I read The New Yorker’s Q&A with him. Regarding future projects, he said, ‘I have a bunch of book ideas—my long-neglected Benjamin Franklin bio, my magic-realism zombie epic, my history of zeppelins in America…’ ‘Pick zeppelins,’ I remember thinking, ‘pick zeppelins!’) In the years since, zombie narratives have only proliferated, and I wouldn’t blame any reader for being bored by them.

With that said, the overexposure has felt liberating at times as well. Part of the fun of the novel was to try to hash out a different thematics of undeath, a wider Venn diagram of undeath, and to show that there are other criteria for zombism beyond reanimation and cannibalism. Criteria like memory and nostalgia, hauntedness, obliviousness, obsession, regret. Zombies may be the new vampires, but once you adjust your definition of undeath, you realize just how rich and long-tailed the zombie tradition is. Night of the Living Dead is a zombie movie, but so is Vertigo. George Saunders’s ‘Sea Oak’ is a zombie story, but so is Gogol’s ‘The Overcoat.’ Ditto Dostoevsky’s ‘Bobok’; or Euripides’s The Bacchae; or the Orpheus myth.

Q: You studied at Pomona College with David Foster Wallace. What was that like?

It’s difficult to talk about, to be honest. Dave was (and remains) a tremendously important mentor for me. He was one of the advisors for my thesis, and when I began the novel after graduation, he was one of my ideal readers. I never even got to show him a chapter. Some of my classmates have written movingly about his generosity as a teacher. In their memorial reflections and essays, they’ve already left an eloquent record of what we all cherished in him. He really did write us five-page response letters for our manuscripts, and line edit us with a ruthless jeweler’s-loupe scrutiny, and hold hours-long meetings in his office, to counsel us through crises. In a pedagogical culture that condones the absentee writer-professor—who gives 10% to his students and saves 90% for his novel—Dave gave 100% to everyone. He took us seriously as writers, and, what’s more, he required us to take each other seriously as well. We all felt honored by that attention. We learned to work self-martyringly hard to deserve it.

Q: Most writers toil for many years and through many projects before they meet with any level of success. You’re 26. Your first story was published in A Public Space; your second in Zoetrope; and your third in this summer’s issue of Tin House. In college football country, you’re what we’d refer to as a ‘stud.’ Does that type of immediate success create added pressure or stress?

Good Lord. I wish that were the kind of stress I felt. I wish that when I sat down to write, I was thinking, ‘All right, you stud. You stallion. This sentence better be up to snuff. You were in Tin House!’ But the fact is, I still just feel like a failure every day: less like a stud than a spavined lordotic wreck, whinnying for John Wayne to shoot me. The problem with writing is that every page is its own pressure cooker, regardless of how many pages you’ve written (or even published) beforehand. No matter what, you’re always going to be banging your head against the limitations of your language and your inferiority to your forebears. It’s a minute-by-minute exercise in humiliation and shame. So far, I’ve had incredible luck in finding good homes for my stories. They’ve benefited from the input of whip-smart editors, and been printed alongside some supremely humbling company. But the stresses of writing are still the inherent ones, the daily ones, because it’s never my author bio who’s writing. The Bennett at my desk isn’t ‘a fiction writer living in Iowa City, whose stories have appeared in A Public Space, Tin House, and Zoetrope.’ He’s more like ‘a freelance idiot living in anxiety, whose story is about to appear in the trash can.’

If you’re a bookseller or are affiliated with the media, and are interested in receiving an advance copy of A Questionable Shape, write to eric[at]twodollarradio.com.

I spoke with Bill Cheng about his amazing debut novel. And not...

Mon, 06 May 2013 10:28:00 -0400

I spoke with Bill Cheng about his amazing debut novel. And not only is he a superb writer, but he’s my friend. What’s better than that?

Click the book above and read…

Two Dollar Radio Recommends Bennett Sims

Wed, 01 May 2013 09:02:21 -0400

More from badass Bennett Sims, an excerpt from his new novel up now at Electric Literature’s...

Join me here, y’all… bycheng: Tuesday, May 14,...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:12:33 -0400

Join me here, y’all…

bycheng:

Tuesday, May 14, 7:30 PM, Greenlight Bookstore
Bill Cheng presents his novel SOUTHERN CROSS THE DOG
In conversation with author Alex Gilvarry

New York-based author Bill Cheng has already received expansive praise from fellow authors including Edward P. Jones, Colum McCann and Nathan Englander for his dazzling debut novel SOUTHERN CROSS THE DOG. Set in part against a backdrop of the devastating Great Flood of 1927 in Mississippi, this saga about the bonds between a group of black childhood friends was inspired by Cheng’s love of the blues, and captures the savagery and complexity of the Jim Crow South in the first half of the twentieth century. Cheng discusses his work tonight with fellow author and former Hunter College classmate Alex Gilvarry, author of the novel FROM THE MEMOIRS OF A NON-ENEMY COMBATANT

Click through for the Facebook Event page

So the new issue of the Slice Literary Magazine is now out. And...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:22:00 -0400

So the new issue of the Slice Literary Magazine is now out. And so you should buy it. Why?

1 - Because it’s a super magazine, and magazines like this need your support.

2 - Because it’s not expensive, and actually you could subscribe to it for just $15. I just spent $17.00 on a terrible lunch, and you’ve probably recently done something similar, am I wrong?

3 - Because there is really good writing in it from lots of really good writers.

4 - Because I’m in it, and this particular story is a practically a gateway to my neuroses, and if that kind of thing interests you, well, I think you’ll like it. And if you happen to owe me $15 or more - and there are a few of you - buy the magazine and consider all debts paid.

Click the image and you shall find…

The nice folks at The Millions had me write about Jessica Soffer's debut novel Tomorrow There Will be Apricots, here...

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 09:20:06 -0400

The nice folks at The Millions had me write about Jessica Soffer's debut novel Tomorrow There Will be Apricots, here...

"At SLICE, over ninety percent of the work we publish is unsolicited. Lock’s story is one of the many gems that have arrived, without fanfare, in our submissions pile. Members of our editorial board were drawn to this story for individual reasons: the simple yet incisive language, the noir undertones, the weight of the spaces between each scene. But we were unanimous in our support of including it in our eleventh issue..."

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 12:14:09 -0400

"At SLICE, over ninety percent of the work we publish is unsolicited. Lock’s story is one of the many gems that have arrived, without fanfare, in our submissions pile. Members of our editorial board were drawn to this story for individual reasons: the simple yet incisive language, the noir undertones, the weight of the spaces between each scene. But we were unanimous in our support of including it in our eleventh issue..."

"Todd" by Etgar Keret

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 19:34:13 -0400

recommendedreading: Vol. 12, No. 1 EDITOR’S NOTE If you’re a writer, chances are you’ve heard...

This is a fascinating conversation and I hope one of many to...

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 15:29:51 -0400

This is a fascinating conversation and I hope one of many to come. Jontham Lethem introduces a wonderful talk between Michael Seidenberg - the man behind Brazenhead Books - and Jerome Charyn - the man behind more novels than you and I will ever hope to write: http://thenewinquiry.com/features/conversations-at-brazenhead-jerome-charyn/

Bill Cheng: The Ecco/Amistad Summer 2013 Fiction Sampler

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 07:00:25 -0500

Bill Cheng: The Ecco/Amistad Summer 2013 Fiction Sampler: bycheng: I think this was put together...

In which I speak of Real Housewives, smoked salmon, and my...

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:50:00 -0500

In which I speak of Real Housewives, smoked salmon, and my Not-So-Top-10 list of 2012 films (for the smart folks at PMC Magazine)…

http://pmc-mag.com/2013/02/scott-cheshire/

This is a lovely and fascinating and brand new-ish talk by Geoff...

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 08:37:13 -0500

This is a lovely and fascinating and brand new-ish talk by Geoff Dyer (who I am becoming increasingly enamored with) about the very same writer/reader thing I am now consumed by:

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/310427-4

Writing Beauty and Terror: Gotham Writers’ Workshop: Lorrie...

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 08:40:00 -0500

Writing Beauty and Terror:

Gotham Writers’ Workshop: Lorrie Moore, Lydia Davis, Jamaica Kincaid, Jessica Soffer

This week we had two conversations. First we talked about Lorrie Moore’s story “Dance in America,” in an attempt to add some levity to what has proven to be a rather grave course (or so I’m told, haha…). That is if you consider the story of a young child suffering from cystic fibrosis “light.” That said a story that includes a squirrel chase, modern dance instructional videos, and Kenny Loggins can’t be too much of a downer. All of which started a great conversation about sentimentality, the depiction of typical and atypical children (in typical and atypical circumstances) in fiction, and what it means to write about something you “know” and “don’t know.” One of the writers in the class was a ballet dancer for years and found herself resisting the story because of certain “dance” details she found to be false, while others found themselves entirely convinced of Moore’s authority on the subject. It never fails to amaze me how different the reading experience is for each of us.

Then we talked about the attempt to do a lot in a very small space. We read Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl”:

http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/fiction/Girl/story.asp?p=&font=sans

- followed by Jessica Soffer’s “Beginning, End”: http://www.granta.com/New-Writing/Beginning-End

- and finally Lydia Davis’s (pictured above) “For Sixty Cents,” read here on NPR by James Wood (a mere 90 seconds long): http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106027548

All three take significantly different tacks. Kincaid tells the story of one girl’s life in one long syntactically complicated sentence, drenched in detail, that demands an immediate re-reading because of its rather dense poetic style. Soffer’s tells the story of a couple, but with refreshingly clean sentences, in neat ordered paragraphs more dependent on cadence and rhythm than syntax, and it is such a lucid piece of writing. And the Davis tackles one brief moment in a Brooklyn diner (and by that tackles everything there is…), serving not only as a beautiful story but a compelling narrative argument for how much you can do with so little.

The class overwhelmingly preferred the Soffer story (which made me oh so proud of my friend Ms. Jessica Soffer…). And what I think is so remarkable about this was the class’s argument that the Soffer piece is so measured, so emotionally reserved that it allows the reader to feel. And feel they did. Tears were reported!

I know this much: all three of these lovely short works depend on one thing - detail. As they say: “The Devil is in the details.” And yet still others will say: “God is in the details.”

I think they both are right.

It's always sort of thrilling to read a writer's first published work. Read this, only Kate Wheeler's second, from the smart folks at Electric Literature. I'm lucky enough to be a reader there...

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 10:39:31 -0500

It's always sort of thrilling to read a writer's first published work. Read this, only Kate Wheeler's second, from the smart folks at Electric Literature. I'm lucky enough to be a reader there...

Writing Beauty and Terror: Gotham Writers’ Workshop: Phil Klay,...

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 13:29:00 -0500

Writing Beauty and Terror:

Gotham Writers’ Workshop: Phil Klay, Paul Fussell, and Kenneth Koch

This past Tuesday at the Gotham Writers’ Workshop we not only got to talk about Phil Klay’s super story “Redeployment” - published first in Granta and now in the lovely new anthology of war writing Fire and Forget http://www.amazon.com/Fire-Forget-Short-Stories-Long/dp/0306821761 - but Phil was kind enough to provide me with a few supplemental materials that have clearly influenced his work.

We looked at Paul Fussell, an excerpt from The Great War and Modern Memory:

http://www.amazon.com/Great-War-Modern-Memory/dp/0195133323

“One of the cruxes of the war, of course, is the collision between events and the language available—or thought appropriate—to describe them…”

And we read “To World War Two,” the extraordinary poem by Kenneth Koch. The full collection is here:

http://www.amazon.com/New-Addresses-Poems-Kenneth-Koch/dp/0375709126/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1360778934&sr=8-1&keywords=new+addresses+koch

But here are a few choice lines:

“I’m glad you ended. I’m glad I didn’t die. Or lose my mind.

As machines make ice

We made dead enemy soldiers…”

Good lord, that is good.

All of this started a very good conversation about what seems a sudden proliferation of writers writing directly about their war experiences. The class largely found “Redeployment” immensely moving, and yet the story also brought up interesting questions about masculinity, “masculine” fiction (last week I read them some Gertrude Stein out loud, and asked who it was, and of course their answer understandably was Hemingway because of how “masculine” it was. Then again, she probably could have beaten me in an arm wrestle), the use of jargon in fiction, and the notion of a writer finding his or her subject matter. As in, subject matter for life. I won’t speak for Phil, but I do find all great writers seem to have one, filtered through various lenses, yes, but essentially one. I believe Phil is on his way.

Regarding Fussell, he eventually claims that soldiers have no real trouble at all with the available language for describing war. The problem rather is discovering “that no one is very interested in the bad news they have to report. What listener wants to be torn and shaken when he doesn’t have to be? We have made unspeakable mean indescribable; it really means nasty.”

This speaks to the very heart of what I’m hoping this class will accomplish. That is to awaken our senses to the more difficult things, terrors both everyday-banal and explosive. Why? Because in order to write about them in such a way that the reader sees them, really sees them, the writing must be beautiful - as there are indeed moments of great beauty in Klay, Fussell, and Koch, even amidst all that terror. And in order for the writer to write this way, we must look. We must really look.

I wrote most of my novel at Housing Works, while Ms Bullock here...

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 12:57:44 -0500

I wrote most of my novel at Housing Works, while Ms Bullock here seemed to never stop running around…

housingworksbookstore:

togatherinc:

Amanda Bullock is director of public programming at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, a nonprofit all-donation and mostly volunteer-staffed social enterprise in downtown Manhattan where all proceeds go to fight homelessness and AIDS. She books, organizes, promotes, and runs over 150 events a year at the bookstore, and she manages the store’s social media accounts and general bookternet presence. She also writes the occasional book review, and she co-founded and co-organizes, with Polly Bresnick, Moby-Dick Marathon NYC.

Amanda took some time out of her busy schedule to tell us how fun collaborations, free booze, and treating your event proposal like a job application can lead to more successful events. See you at the next You’ve Got Mail screening!

Togather: What do you think separates a good book event from an average one?

Amanda: Besides the obvious, or should-be-obvious, like don’t read over the time you’ve been advised, at least act excited to be there. It matters, and it doesn’t always happen. And free booze for attendees always helps, if you and/or your publisher can swing it.

Togather: At Housing Works you host over 150 events a year. What do you think makes for an awesome event?

Amanda: There’s a place for the read a chapter, do a Q&A, sign books style of event, but less and less. The common threads in my favorite events are crossover and collaboration. Try to do something unique, whether it’s audience interaction, adding a musical or visual element to your event, opening up the theme of your book to discussion, anything. The more unorthodox, the more interesting.

Togather: Do you have any tips for new authors who are just starting to do readings?

Amanda: Think of event proposals like job applications: it’s not what my bookstore can do for you, it’s what you can do for my bookstore. I know that you would love to do a book signing here, but if you take one look at our calendar you’ll notice we don’t really do that kind of event. And assuring me all your friends will come is not enough, we all think we have 100 friends. Write a thoughtful, store-specific proposal. Look at other events the store has done to get a feel for their style, know the space and attend an event there if possible. I’ve taken risks on small local authors and publishers because they sent thoughtful pitches that won my heart, but I’ve rejected far, far more for missing the mark completely. Give yourself a chance by knowing your audience.

Togather: My book is coming out in six months. How early should I get in touch with you? When should I start my event planning?

Amanda: We usually book two to three months out, up to six, but because we don’t buy books I know we are a little later with that than most bookstores. It doesn’t hurt to start the conversation early, and definitely don’t try for something the same month (“I’ll be in your town in two weeks” will never work unless you are J. K. Rowling or something), and it’s risky asking for the next month. Aim for at least two, ideally at least three months.

Togather: Is there one really offbeat event that you’ve booked that was really great? Like tonight’s Literary Speed Dating, perhaps?

Amanda: We rarely do “normal” readings (if that means one author reading and signing), in fact! Recently we’ve hosted everything from an interactive screening of the bookstore classic You’ve Got Mail to a a marathon reading of Moby-Dick. I think the less normal, the better, although that doesn’t mean you need to create a circus (unless your book is circus-themed, then that would be pretty cool). Take some of the themes of your book and get creative with it; the event can still be centered on your own work, but you’ll have more success if you tie it in to something larger.

Photo credit: Yvonne Brooks.

Here are some things I have to say about events.

A CONVERSATION WITH BENJAMIN STEIN

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 10:31:36 -0500

A CONVERSATION WITH BENJAMIN STEIN: Benjamin Stein’s second novel, The Canvas, one of the more...

90-second Bellow blast from Noa Jones… 90outloud: The...

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 08:26:47 -0500

90-second Bellow blast from Noa Jones…

90outloud:

The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow, read by Noa Jones

This one comes all the way from Thimphu in Bhutan!

Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March can be found at http://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Augie-March-Penguin-Classics/dp/0143039571/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2 and other major bookstores.

Follow Noa at noajones.tumblr.com!

30-second Beckett reading for...

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 08:24:13 -0500

30-second Beckett reading for 90Outloud…

bycheng:

90outloud:

Watt by Samuel Beckett, read by Olga Pester

Samuel Beckett’s Watt can be found at http://www.amazon.com/Watt-Samuel-Beckett/dp/0802144489/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_8 and other major bookstores.

Thanks to my lovely wife, who is a sport!