Does Oates see herself with that Nobel Prize? No. Her husband is dead now, and so are her parents ("It's one's parents who care," she says). Who's going to celebrate with her, be proud of her now? Winning the Nobel would be, she says, just a little sad.

"No, I must say, it doesn't mean much to me."

Truman's inquiry stems from a statement she makes early in her piece that "the only major award that she has not received is the Nobel Prize for literature." Sounds right. Isn't right. According to Celestial Timepiece, the absurdly granular Web site dedicated to Oates' work, JCO has never won:

The Pulitzer Prize
The Orange Broadband Prize
The PEN/Faulkner Award
The National Book Critics Circle Award

She did win the National Book Award---in 1970, which means she's suffering a 38-year drought in which the NBAs passed over (rough estimate) 286 of her books. Her acceptance speech for that prize is worth a read. It's been a long time since she's won a big prize, but she hasn't changed her mission statement:

In novels I have written, I have tried to give a shape to certain obsessions of mid-century Americans: a confusion of love and money, of the categories of public and private experience, of a demonic urge I sense all around me, an urge to violence as the answer to all problems, an urge to self-annihilation, suicide, the ultimate experience, and the ultimate surrender. The use of language is all we have to pit against death and silence.

Narrative: The Museum of Dr. Moses is collection of ten short "tales of mystery and suspense."  In "Hi! Howya Doin!" an annoying jogger gets a surprise on the trail, in "Bad Habits" the children of a serial killer try to the discern the pattern behind how their father selected his victims, in "Valentine, July Heat Wave" a man prepares a bloody valentine for his estranged wife, and in the title story a daughter visits her mother after many years only to make a gruesome discovery.

Closing lines:

I drove south toward Strykersville, but would not stop there.  I would not stop for hours, fleeing south out of the Oriskany hills, and out of Eden County, and into Pennsylvania.  Mother in her dressing gown curled up beside me as I drove, drew her slippered feet up beneath her on the seat, like a child so exhausted by fear and strain that, at last, she has become relaxed, and sleeps innocently, not knowing what it is she flees, and whether it will follow.

-- "The Museum of Dr. Moses," page 229

Final thoughts:  I thought it was interesting that I've just started reading The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield and in it one of the characters talks about books and words that carry the reader along before they even know what's happening.  That is exactly how I felt about the stories in The Museum of Dr. Moses.  This is my first experience with Joyce Carol Oates and I was surprised at how unassuming yet engrossing her writing is.

Sometimes, with excellent, critically-acclaimed writers you get the impression that the writing is more important than the story.  That's not to say that I don't enjoy that kind of writing.  Gilead, I think, is one of those kinds of novels in which the writing seems more important than the story.  The writing is poetic and beautiful,  which is one of the reasons why I love it so much, but honestly there isn't much story.  It's very Henry David Thoreau-esq in it's contemplation of life, nature, and spirituality in all of its many incarnations.  That kind of writing certainly has its place in my reading life, but it's enjoyable to see a writer use her considerable skills not to showcase her writing but in the service of a good and engrossing story.

These stories were both less scary, yet more disturbing than I thought they would be.  The title story was probably my favorite of the collection.  I love the ambiguous way that it ended, leaving the reader wondering if the daughter had truly done the right thing.  Maybe we can assume she did, but Oates never provides enough details for us to be sure.

This seems to be her modus operandi in many of the stories.  "Suicide Watch" is probably the perfect example of this.  In it, a mentally disturbed Son tells his Father how he killed and disposed of his own son - by mailing him to the Father.  In the end, the son leaves the father (and the reader) wondering if he's telling the truth, or if it's just a "terrible story" meant to the test the father's belief in his son's morality.

At the doorway the son took pity on the father, called back over his shoulder, "Hey Dad: if the carton shows up where I mailed it, then you'll know.  If not, you'll know too.

That's how the story ends, and we the reader never know.

I thought this was an excellent collection and an auspicious way to start off Carl's R.I.P. III challenge.  This will certainly not be my final Oates book, especially if all of her writing is as good as this.

The Museum of Dr. Moses: Tales of Mystery and Suspense
Harcourt / Aug. 2008
$14.00 / 240 pps.

America has also produced some of the greatest works of short fiction being read today.

Cue jokes about attention spans that couldn't outlast a goldfish; I can already hear hecklers in the back rows sniping at a sitcom culture where mind-bendingly complex crises are routinely resolved within half an hour (twenty-two minutes if you count commercial breaks). Go on, get it all out. Americans are good at starting unpopular wars and crushing beer cans against their heads, but when it comes to short stories they can't hold a match to Maupassant, Kafka, Joyce or Chekhov.

Wrong.

When it comes to judging the well-being of the short story in the twentieth century (it's a bit early to comment on the twenty-first), we've got to give it to the ol' U.S. of A. British publishers now produce far fewer short story collections than they used to - and when one does turn up, you can bet that it will be the work of an established author rather than a newcomer. Stateside, things are rather different (despite fears registered by Stephen King, himself an author of nearly 400 short stories: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/books/review/King2-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin). Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that short stories still feature on most high school curricula. Perhaps it's the fact that short story collections are reviewed alongside novels in the national press (there's nothing particularly low-profile about, say, short story writer Jhumpa Lahiri's work, which recently inspired a major Hollywood film). Perhaps it reflects the popular taste for straight-talk (no dilly-dallying about the bush: see the penchant for prompt resolutions, above). Whatever the reason, when asked to consider my favourite short stories - and these include works by Roald Dahl, Cate Kennedy and Nadine Gordimer - at least half the list is attributable to American authors.

Distilling this to my ten favourites has not been an easy task, and the result is by no means definitive. I decided to narrow the field to works published in the twentieth century, which is why I've not included The Turn of the Screw (which, with an 1898 publication date, missed by a hair). Neither Edith Wharton nor O. Henry made the cut, which is as shocking to me as it will no doubt be for many readers. But such is the nature of lists, and it is a dirty business.

So here, in no particular order, are my ten favourite American short stories of the twentieth century:

Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find

This is one of O'Connor's most highly regarded stories, and for good reason: it demonstrates her remarkable capability for combining violent action with carefully drawn characters and biting humour, and is underscored by a strong sense of her devout Catholic faith. A grandmother tries to convince her family that they shouldn't holiday in Florida, given the recent escape of a dangerous convict from a local penitentiary. The family ignores her, and they embark on a drive through beautiful Georgia. An accident ensues, followed by the appearance of three armed men... Suffice it to say that the final scene has been a source of controversy since its publication in 1955.

Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants

I first read this at high school in Toronto, where the short story remains a staple of the English curriculum. In a Spanish train station on an oppressively hot day in the 1920s, a man and a woman drink beer and talk. It soon becomes clear that the man is trying to convince the woman to have an abortion, although this is never made explicit. At the centre of the tale is the woman's pointed observation of the aimlessness of their lives: "That's all we do, isn't it-look at things and try new drinks?" A brilliant study in scene setting and dialogue, expert in its simplicity and unequaled in its impact.

Patricia Highsmith, The Terrapin

Based on Highsmith's difficult relationship with her own parents, the story features a young boy, Victor, who is emotionally neglected by his proud and distant mother. After witnessing the agonising death of a tortoise that she brings home for dinner - the boy is haunted by the sound of its screams as it is dropped into a pot of boiling water - Victor determines to seek revenge. As one might expect, Highsmith was an intriguingly disturbed individual, and I'd highly recommend Andrew Wilson's recent biography for those interested in the darker corners of her genius.

Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

I do seem to gravitating toward slightly grisly tales, and for that I apologise. But it would be criminal of me not to mention this one, which was inspired by the Tucson, Arizona murders committed by Charles Schmid. The story features Connie, a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl who has been left at home while her parents attend a barbecue. Two men pull up in front of her house and address the girl, telling her that they have come to take her away. At first she resists, but one of the men becomes increasingly threatening. The ambiguous ending shares much in common with my other favourite Oates story, Where Is Here? in which a stranger asks a couple if he can see the inside of the house where he claims to have spent his childhood.

Richard Yates, Oh, Joseph, I'm So Tired

Told from the point of view of a grown man reflecting on his Greenwich Village childhood, the story is an extended character study of his mother, a second-rate sculptor with delusions of greatness. I challenge any reader not to be reduced to tears by the ending. Yates was a master at capturing the postwar age of anxiety, and this piece is as much about creating a sense of time and place as it is about plot.

Donald Barthelme, Me and Miss Mandible

This story shares a similar premise with Billy Madison - in which Adam Sandler plays a grown man who is sent back to primary school - although it predates the film by roughly thirty years. The first line says it all: "Miss Mandible wants to make love to me but she hesitates because I am officially a child." Written in an episodic format, the story demonstrates the tight style perfected by Barthelme in his novels and journalism, and which presaged the rise of flash fiction.

Eudora Welty, Ladies in Spring

One of Welty's best known stories, this could be described as a tragicomic fantasy (how's that for genre bending?) about an African American postmistress who dabbles in rainmaking when work allows. Her tale runs in tandem with that of a father and son who are caught in a storm while on a fishing trip. If it sounds a bit odd, that's because it is - but in a gentle, whimsical way.

Kevin Canty, Blue Boy

A teenage lifeguard who has spent the summer daydreaming about an older woman screws up the courage to act on his fantasies. Shadows of The Graduate; painful consequences ensue.

Robert Olen Butler, Mr. Green

I'm always interested to see how male writers tackle the female voice, even though I know that this is hopelessly sexist (no one blinks when a woman writes in a man's voice, do they?). Butler does a fine job in this story, which is narrated by a Vietnamese woman who inherits her grandfather's parrot. When Mr. Green starts to pluck out his own feathers, the narrator must decide if she is prepared to do as her mother taught her: kill the bird by wringing his neck. Themes of gendered values, generational clashes and cultural dislocation dominate.

Lorrie Moore, How to Become a Writer

Alternately titled, Or, Have you Earned this Cliché? this gentle piss-take is just what it says on the tin. Contains such gems as, "First, try to be something, anything else", "Write a story about a man and a woman who, in the very first paragraph, have their lower torsos accidentally blitzed away by dynamite", and "Insist you are not very interested in any one subject at all, that you are interested in the music of language, that you are interested in - in - syllables, because they are the atoms of poetry, the cells of the mind, the breath of the soul. Begin to feel woozy. Stare into your plastic wine cup."

Recommended reading: five of the stories on this list can be found in The New Granta Book of the American Short Story, ed. Richard Ford, Grove Press, 2007

Fridays are a bad day for me.  I used to like Fridays until I joined the Borders bookstore club, and started getting a 20-30% off coupon in my email every Thursday.  It's brutal.  I don't need any more incentives than I already have to celebrate the end of the week by buying yet another book (or, more than likely, several books) that I don't need and can't afford.

Such was the case this weekend when I learned that Steven Pinker's The Stuff of Thought was finally out in paperback.  Coupon in hand, I went to Borders after work on Friday for one particular book.  As usual, I came out with four particular books:

The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window Into Human Nature by Steven Pinker

The Pig That Wants to be Eaten: 100 Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher by Julian Baggini.

The Museum of Dr. Moses: Tales of Mystery and Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates. Because I've never read anything by Oates - I know, crazy, right? - and this sounded like a great R.I.P. III challenge pick (more on that later).

Voices by Arnaldur Indridason.  Because I've never read anything set in Iceland.  Since Santa gets killed in this one, I think I'll postpone this until Christmas time.

Before I get off the subject of Borders, I have a quibble to make.  I absolutely do not like what they've done, or are in the process of doing, to the front of their store.  They've cut their "New Paperbacks" table to less than half of what it used to be and the other tables are taken up with "Bestsellers."  The days when I could just wander into the Borders and pick up something new and interesting from their front tables are probably gone.

I suspect - and this is with no concrete proof whatsoever, just my suspicions - that in the old days, a new paperback like Oates' The Museum of Dr. Moses is something I definitely would have once found on their "New Paperbacks" table.  Not so anymore.  I found it on the shelf, and only because I was looking for it.

I understand they're not trying to appeal to people like me who are probably going to come in no matter what they do to the front of the store.  But still, I hate that, in the quest for more customers, they forget about old faithfuls like me.  Old faithfuls who enjoy coming to bookstore to discover something new, not the same old "Bestsellers" one sees on every list, every week, in every bookstore.

Ah, well.  Maybe it's just me.  I have a tendency to be conservative about these kinds of things.  I don't like when they change the bookstore around, I don't like the "new" Facebook format (too cluttered, and difficult to navigate), or the new dollar bills (did someone spill Kool-Aid on them?), or the way they've rearranged the little market in the basement of my apartment building (it's like being in Bizzaro world, where the front is back, up is down, and hello is goodbye).

Now.  The R.I.P. III challenge.  It's just occurred to me what the purpose of a "pool" as opposed to a list is.  Since I'm sure most of you already know the difference (I know, I'm slow), I won't explain it.  I'll just say that in light of this most recent development, I'm adding a few more books to that pool.  Those are the following:

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

The Museum of Dr. Moses by Joyce Carol Oates

The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke

The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry

The Town That Forgot How to Breathe by Kenneth J. Harvey

There, now that's a much better list.

In other book news, I discovered that the new book by Marilynne Robinson, Home, is on bookshelves a week early (unless it was a mistake by the bookstore).  And Sarah Vowell, author of the great Assassination Vacation has a new book coming out this fall: The Wordy Shipmates.  Hmm.  We can't wait.

Update (8/31): I found this in my email this morning: You've Earned $5.00 in Borders Bucks! ... Sigh. Why do you do me like this Borders?  Really. Why?

Here's Nora Ephron writing about the Clintons. Nora hasn't been blogging much of late.

Joyce Carol Oates reviews Curtis Sittenfeld's American Wife: Curtis Sittenfeld surely did not intend to create, in this mostly amiable, entertaining novel, anything so ambitious — or so presumptuous — as a political/cultural allegory in the 19th-century mode, yet “American Wife” might be deconstructed as a parable of America in the years of the second Bush presidency: the “American wife” is in fact the American people, or at least those millions of Americans who voted for a less-than-qualified president in two elections — the all-forgiving enabler for whom the bromide “love” excuses all. Criticized for abjuring responsibility for her husband’s destructive political policies, Alice reacts defensively: “The single most astonishing fact of political life to me has been the gullibility of the American people. Even in our cynical age, the percentage of the population who is told something and therefore believes it to be true — it’s staggering.”

"Our greatest 19th-century prose writers from Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville through Henry James and Mark Twain took it for granted that 'American' is an identity fraught with ambiguity, as in those allegorical parables by Hawthorne in which 'good' and 'evil' are mysteriously conjoined; to be an 'American' is to be a kind of pilgrim, an archetypal seeker after truth. Though destined to be thwarted, even defeated, the pilgrim is our deepest and purest American self."

...

"The 'American wife' of Sittenfeld’s new novel, conspicuously modeled after the life of Laura Bush as recorded in Ann Gerhart’s biography The Perfect Wife: The Life and Choices of Laura Bush (2004), is a fictitious first lady named Alice Blackwell, née Lindgren, a Wisconsin-born former grade school teacher and librarian who comes belatedly to realize, in middle age, at the height of the Iraq war that her aggressively militant president-husband has initiated and stubbornly continues to defend, that she has compromised her youthful liberal ideals: 'I lead a life in opposition to itself.' As a portraitist in prose, Sittenfeld never deviates from sympathetic respect for her high-profile subject: she is not Francis Bacon but rather more Norman Rockwell."

Dessutom fuskar jag med två författare på L, eftersom Doris Lessing är min högt älskade husgudinna som följt med mig genom åren sen kanske 20-årsåldern och som jag dessutom träffat, medan Selma Lagerlöf var min mormors stora favorit som hon identifierade sig stenhårt med (låghalt lärarinna, med födelsedag 20 november). Jag kan helt enkelt inte välja mellan dem, det känns som ett personligt svek.

Bok: Lord Peters smekmånad av Dorothy L Sayers. Minst fem omläsningar, och Kamratfesten har jag läst ännu fler gånger.

Karaktär: Luna Lovegood.

På O är Joyce Carol Oates svår att gå förbi, även om den senaste jag läste var - det går inte att säga dålig för hon är aldrig dålig, men vissa tycker jag bara hjärtligt illa om. Å andra sidan har hon skrivit underbara böcker, så det måste bli hon. Bubblare: George Orwell.

Karaktär: Orm i Frans G Bengtssons Röde Orm. En härlig skröna som jag läste som barn och sen igen för några år sen när den kom på pocket.

Bok: Ord med historia är kul att bläddra i.

I love this cooler, saner weather. I’m so much more productive!

The amount of legal paperwork to file against the rat bastards who own the building is enormous. But, yet again, yesterday, they said they’d turn off the water for two hours, and it was off for six and a half. Every fucking week, we have no water for at least a day or two; sometimes they tell us, sometimes they don’t. They always, always lie about how long it will be off. Time to get the Health Department involved as well as the state. Yes, everyone is aware how illegal it is. No one cares, no one stops them – all consequences are just that, consequences, not prevention.

Plus, they’ve moved their “workshop” into the apartment next door, as a harassment technique, so that there is the sound, noise and dust all day from sawing, hammering, etc.

Not that ANY of the work can be seen in the partially finished hallways.

Errands were successful. At least one of the incompetents was handled with pleasantries, so that wasn’t as tough as it might have. The other, however, needed to be dealt with harshly. Such is life.

Not a very productive writing afternoon, but I managed to finish Chapter 19 in the evening, and I’m working on Chapter 20 this morning. Chapter 20 is the climactic point of the whole book. I think I won’t be able to stop at Chapter 21, it’s more likely to be Chapter 22. That will make OLD-FASHIONED DETECTIVE WORK approximately twice as long as HEX BREAKER.

Truncated writing day because I have two shows. Let’s hope I can stay focused, so that I can finally finish this piece tomorrow and not need a cooling down day between shows and focused writing. Maybe then, I can get it out this weekend – three weeks late. Oh, well.

Finished re-reading Joyce Carol Oates’s JOURNAL. It’s very inspiring, and I hope the next volume, covering the next decade, comes out soon. Her consistent work ethic, output, wide range, and talent are astonishing.

Back to the page until I have to dash for the train . . .

Devon

Devon’s Bookstore:

Hex Breaker by Devon Ellington. A Jain Lazarus Adventure. Hex Breaker Jain Lazarus joins the crew of a cursed film, hoping to put to rest what was stirred up before more people die and the film is lost. Tough, practical Detective Wyatt East becomes her unlikely ally and lover on an adventure fighting zombies, ceremonial magicians, the town wife-beater, the messenger of the gods, and their own pasts.
$4.00 ebook/ $6.00 on CD from Firedrakes Weyr Publishing.
Visit the site for the Jain Lazarus adventures.

5 in 10: Create 5 Short Stories in Ten Weeks by Devon Ellington. This ebooklet takes you from inspiration to writing to revision to marketing. By the end of ten weeks, you will have either 5 short stories or a good chunk of a novella complete. And it’s only 50 cents, USD. Here.

Writing Rituals: Ideas to Support Creativity by Cerridwen Iris Shea. This ebooklet contains several rituals to help you start writing, get you through writer’s block, and help send your work on its way. It’s only 39 cents USD. (Note: Cerridwen Iris Shea is one of the six names under which I publish). Here.

Full Circle: An Ars Concordia Anthology. Edited by Colin Galbraith. This is a collection of short stories, poems, and other pieces by a writers’ group of which I am a member. My story is “Pauvre Bob”, set at Arlington Race Track in Illinois. You can download it free here:

Part 6 of my interview is up on The Creative Heartbeat Collective. Check it out. This time I talk about mythology, how working backstage influences the writing, HEX BREAKER (finally), erotica, and solitude.

Yes, Brandy, you’re absolutely correct. I was a little down and tired yesterday. Life stuff, and wishing I could finish OLD FASHIONED DETECTIVE WORK faster than I am. The additions and complexities are good, but I have to speed up the process.

I had a nice lunch with friends and then had a good wander, because I had to give the cleaning person the run of the apartment for the afternoon. I went to Robin’s Bookstore, one of my favorite places in Philadelphia, and bought a bunch of books. Not as many as I wanted to, but I’m on a budget AND I have to cart them all home. Two of the books are the compilations of the NY TIMES WRITERS ON WRITING, which I like. And, now that I think of it, I bet I bought them when they first came out and they’re in storage. If that’s the case, I’ll put the doubles up on Bookmooch. In the meantime, I can enjoy them. I also bought the memoir CHOSEN FOREVER by Susan Richards and a novel called THE FORTUNE QUILT by Lani Diane Rich.

I went to Remedy, the tea bar, and snacked on chicken summer rolls and an iced Earl Grey tea, and wrote some notes on a mystery, a comedy, and a possible other piece. Wandered over to Rittenhouse Square because it was so beautiful. Sat in the park and read all of THE FORTUNE QUILT during the afternoon. I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It has a lot more heart and depth than I expected. I’ll definitely hunt down this author’s other work. Also wrote notes on some observations I made on people in the park, which may wind up being a series of short stories.

Went to an Espresso bar for an espresso and an apple tart, then wandered back to the apartment. It was a good refresher of a day, refilling the creative well.

I’m immersed in Joyce Carol Oates’s JOURNAL, and in the research materials for the play HOSTAGE. I have to say that the latter leaves me with a great deal of despair about the state of the world. But it’s necessary to do the research if I want this play to work.

I haven’t spent anywhere near enough time on the ICELANDIC SAGAS – and I’ll be very annoyed with myself if I dragged an 1800 page volume down here and didn’t look at it.

I wrote a few pages last night on something that’s been bothering me – the scenes and images keep haunting me. Now that I’ve got it on paper, maybe I can put it aside and get back to what I need to do.

Back to the page. Let’s hope I am back on track and can have a productive writing day.

Devon
Devon’s Bookstore:

Hex Breaker by Devon Ellington. A Jain Lazarus Adventure. Hex Breaker Jain Lazarus joins the crew of a cursed film, hoping to put to rest what was stirred up before more people die and the film is lost. Tough, practical Detective Wyatt East becomes her unlikely ally and lover on an adventure fighting zombies, ceremonial magicians, the town wife-beater, the messenger of the gods, and their own pasts.
$4.00 ebook/ $6.00 on CD from Firedrakes Weyr Publishing.
Visit the site for the Jain Lazarus adventures.

5 in 10: Create 5 Short Stories in Ten Weeks by Devon Ellington. This ebooklet takes you from inspiration to writing to revision to marketing. By the end of ten weeks, you will have either 5 short stories or a good chunk of a novella complete. And it’s only 50 cents, USD. Here.

Writing Rituals: Ideas to Support Creativity by Cerridwen Iris Shea. This ebooklet contains several rituals to help you start writing, get you through writer’s block, and help send your work on its way. It’s only 39 cents USD. (Note: Cerridwen Iris Shea is one of the six names under which I publish). Here.

Full Circle: An Ars Concordia Anthology. Edited by Colin Galbraith. This is a collection of short stories, poems, and other pieces by a writers’ group of which I am a member. My story is “Pauvre Bob”, set at Arlington Race Track in Illinois. You can download it free here:

Yes, I'm in Philadelphia. It IS Wednesday, right? The last few days have seemed like one long day. And I slept in this morning, which means I got a late start.

Megabus was fine getting down here. It's clean, it's cheap, they're nice. But my seat was broken in the "reclined" position and by the time I figured it out, it was too late to change, and they don't let you ON the bus until just before they leave, which I hate. I like a few minutes to get settled. Still, it beats driving myself through New Jersey! I had my music on, I read Joyce Carol Oates's JOURNAL -- she truly is one of the most prolific writers ever. I feel like an absolute slacker beside her.

I'm down the rabbithole of the writing, which is a good thing. Theatre seems very far away. While I miss specific individuals, I don't miss the amount of energy and focus it requires, even an easy show. And I'm not the kind of person who does things half-way. I can't phone it in. Wish I could -- it would probably save me a lot of stress.

I'm working out a lot and doing several yoga sessions a day. Unfortunately, before I left NY, I wrenched my good shoulder a bit, and wrestling the luggage didn't help. I'm trying to gently stretch it out and keep it from contracting.

Costume Imp, on tour with Herself, will be down here just for two days in early September, so I'm going to take the day off and come down to play. Because let's face it, being separated for seven to ten months is simply NOT going to work.

In the meantime, this week is about serious writing time. So, I'm going back to the page, back to OLD FASHIONED DETECTIVE WORK. I left them stranded off the coast of Cape Cod, and it's time to bring them back in.

Devon

Devon’s Bookstore:

Hex Breaker by Devon Ellington. A Jain Lazarus Adventure. Hex Breaker Jain Lazarus joins the crew of a cursed film, hoping to put to rest what was stirred up before more people die and the film is lost. Tough, practical Detective Wyatt East becomes her unlikely ally and lover on an adventure fighting zombies, ceremonial magicians, the town wife-beater, the messenger of the gods, and their own pasts.
$4.00 ebook/ $6.00 on CD from Firedrakes Weyr Publishing.
Visit the site for the Jain Lazarus adventures.

5 in 10: Create 5 Short Stories in Ten Weeks by Devon Ellington. This ebooklet takes you from inspiration to writing to revision to marketing. By the end of ten weeks, you will have either 5 short stories or a good chunk of a novella complete. And it’s only 50 cents, USD. Here.

Writing Rituals: Ideas to Support Creativity by Cerridwen Iris Shea. This ebooklet contains several rituals to help you start writing, get you through writer’s block, and help send your work on its way. It’s only 39 cents USD. (Note: Cerridwen Iris Shea is one of the six names under which I publish). Here.

Full Circle: An Ars Concordia Anthology. Edited by Colin Galbraith. This is a collection of short stories, poems, and other pieces by a writers’ group of which I am a member. My story is “Pauvre Bob”, set at Arlington Race Track in Illinois. You can download it free here:

Part Five of my interview is up at the Creative Heartbeat Collective.

I gave myself the day off yesterday because I felt lousy, and today I feel better. I had some errands to run in the morning, but was back a little after noon and just took it easy. I did some crocheting – don’t like what I’m doing, will have to take it out and start over, once I find a pattern I like. I’m sure I’ll discuss it on The Tactile Muse, a blog which has been seriously ignored in the past few months.

Read a bit, played with the cats, took care of some admin work. Didn’t do much writing. I’ve been hired to write an article for Women on Writing – they want it by the 25th, but if I can, I’d like to get it out before I leave for Philadelphia this week, which means getting it done this weekend.

Also on the agenda this weekend: Finishing OLD-FASHIONED DETECTIVE WORK and getting it to my publisher, and packing for Philadelphia.

I need to put two enormous and heavy books in my suitcase – I want to re-read Joyce Carol Oates’s JOURNALS, and I need to (finally) read the ICELANDIC SAGAS, because I’m working on a proposal based on them, so I have to actually read them and take notes. I’ll also start the next Jain Lazarus story – which will be told through Billy Root’s eyes – work on the ghost story, and I’ll see what else. I’m trying to figure out if I should work on the play HOSTAGE or another screenplay that’s relevant or keep working on REAL. Taking REAL down means a lot of heavy paper, but I need to get it done.

In other words, most of my luggage will be writing, and very little will be clothing! But I should have a lot of time to write while I’m down there working, so it’s all good.

I wondered why my muscles were so sore yesterday – then realized because, after a long break, I’d done an hour and a half weight training workout on Thursday night. Duh! Getting back into a regular fitness schedule is important – letting it slide while I’ve worked on the show was stupid, and I’m paying the price.

I’ve got some errands to run, some bills to pay, some fights to fight with building management (so what else is new?), and then it’s back to the page for a hopefully productive day.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Devon

Submitted by:  artful4mysoul  **** (4 stars)

Coming up with titles is one of my favorite parts of writing.  Usually within three chapters I know what the title of my book will be, because by then I know the scope of the book.  I'm one of those writers who likes to know the whole plot before I get too far into writing, so the concept and theme of the story become clear pretty early for me.  If they don't, I stop actually writing the book and do some plotting exercises until I work it all out.  Because I work this way, titles start appearing fairly early for me. 

Sometimes I like the titles of books I read better than I like the books themselves. One of my own books, an adult nonfiction that I coauthored with another writer, has the great title Love and Loathing - of course, the subtitle is really long and not so interesting: Protecting Your Mental Health and Legal Rights When Your Partner Has Borderline Personality Disorder.  Yuck.  Unless you are in, or know someone who is in that situation, it's not a very interesting subtitle.

My good friend and mentor, Tim Wynn-Jones, has some great titles for his books.  A Thief in the House of Memory is an intriguing title, and a very good book.  Same with Some of the Kinder Planets, and Lord of the Fries.  Great titles, great books.  Gregory Maguire, creator of Wicked, also has some wonderful titles for both his adult and children's books.  The sequel to Wicked is entitled Son of a Witch.  A clever play on words.  He also wrote Confessions of an Ugly Step-Sister, which I think is a catchy title.  He has a series of children's books that all take place in the little town of Hamlet, Vermont.  They are a hoot to read, and come with titles like Six Haunted Hairdos, Five Alien Elves, or Three Rotten Eggs.  You get the idea.

My friend Laura Torres' first novel was titled November Ever After.  My darling friend and writing soul sister, Carol Lynch Williams, has a great book titled Christmas in Heaven - and no, it's not about spending Christmas in the afterlife.

I love the writer Joyce Carol Oates.  Her book titled Freaky Green Eyesis favorite with my oldest daughter.  I am also very partial to Jacquelyn Woodson and her book titled If You Come Softly.  M.T. Anderson has many titles I love like The Game of Sunken Places, Whales on Stilts, and The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation.

The title plays an important role in a book.  It has to carry some meaning, be interesting enough to attract the reader if that's all the reader can see of the book, and in my mind, it has to add something to the story or draw something from the story so that, once the reader has finished the book, the mere mention of the title will summon the entire reading experience from memory.  That's a big job for such a few words.

There are a number of writers who think that adding a long, convoluted subtitle to their title is the way to go. Actually, I think that's sort of forcing the issue.  It's as if the writer said, "I don't trust you to get what I mean by this, and you may not want to read the book if I don't give you something else, so here is all this extra information." This should serve as a warning about those books: the writer thinks you might be an idiot, so know what you're getting into before you read this.

I didn't title Love and Loathing.  If I had, the subtitle would be shorter, or gone all together. I prefer the way Christopher Moore does it.  For example, his book Fluke has the subtitle Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings. It's brief, it's funny, and it's a play on another title (go look it up).

Titles are red-haired step-children of the writing process for some people.  They get the proverbial short shrift, and they are often left to editors to decide.  For me, I have to have a title early on.  It keeps me focused, reminds me of the theme, and they're just plain fun to come up with.

Tidigare i veckan såg vi "Kung fu panda" och den var kul och välgjord. Har man yngre barn skulle de älska den, nu är mina mellan 18 och 24 så de blir bara lätt förtjusta.

Min egentliga plan var att se "The dark night" denna vecka, men jag har åkt på en förkylning så jag håller mig inomhus. Hann läsa Oates "Livets uppkomst" men det var dumt. Kylig och klinisk, som hon ibland kan vara, och totalt utan kärlek eller hopp eller någonting att trösta sig med.

Where have I been is easy enough: Auburn, where I no longer live, having moved out of my apartment there last week. Empty apartments, incidentally, are always so eerie -- so strange to have empty space where once there was so much, and, more importantly, where so much happened.  While where I have been is clear, where I am going seems, at the moment, murky: I know I am going to Kentucky, supposedly, though I'm stuck in Birmingham for the time being, as my things have apparently been held captive by a moving company who sees no need in transporting them to Kentucky, no matter how many urgent phone calls I make, or how close I come to tearing my hair out. Moving company, boo to you. I am moving beyond mild annoyance.

I am taking advantage of this extended layover, however, to move deeper into the editing and organizing process with the witch manuscript -- 32 pages pushed through, as of this afternoon. And I'm putting the finishing touches on my classes for next semester, which is always exciting. This summer, I read Ken Bain's What the Best College Teachers Do, a book about pedagogy that was more enlightening, exciting, intuitive, and helpful than all of other pedagogy books on my bookshelves put together. Bain's ideas seem to gel well with Grant Wiggins' and Jay McTighe's ideas in Understanding by Design. I have to admit that my knowledge of backwards design is severely limited, though I have learned a great deal from Whitney Reed, my co-teacher in the Art of Writing Program at W.F. Burns, but I think (and Whitney, please correct me if I'm wrong) I can safely say that it has a lot to do with thinking of the big questions first -- and what you want your students to be able to do/how you want them to think differently at the end of the class -- and move backwards from there in designing your course.

This is an interesting theory to apply to a creative writing course, for me, at least, because it means, for me, an exploration of the creative process and the questions which lie behind it. The first question, of course, would be why? Which is nearly impossible to answer -- the best answers I can come up with are because I have to and because I am driven to. Then, of course, what -- what is this thing that you're driven to tell? What story or mood or emotion or definition within you? The next question may be how -- what form will this particular piece take? -- and the answers here are myriad, up to the needs of the piece (though in the somewhat-artificial environment of the creative writing workshop, this question is answered for you, so you can learn the ropes of a form and use it as an answer on your own later). There's always the oft-forgotten who, stressed so much in Composition courses but so little in creative writing -- who am I speaking to? -- which raises another why -- why speak to them? -- and what -- what do I need to tell them? -- and how -- how to best speak? -- of its own. And the where -- what space does my work inhabit, where does it live, where do I want it to live?

The truth is that most of these questions can't be answered, and that true understanding in a creative writing class might be learning how to live in the mystery, the not-knowing, and love it.

Min favvoshop, den lila, finns numera också i busshuset i Stockholm, och där hann jag införskaffa Wislawa Szymborskas dikter. Plus två fina kassar.

Väl framme hann jag börja på Cards "Profeten" och det verkar mycket lovande, men den hade jag dumt nog inte med mig när jag sen fick sitta flera timmar och se mina kära söner spela Naruto på X-box 360. Så jag började läsa i skräckfarfars egen "Drömfångare" och har hunnit sådär 250 sidor i den. Gillar den också.

Inatt kom kära dottern hit, och hon har med sig bland annat Joyce Carol Oates "Livets uppkomst" som jag blir sugen på. 115 sidor bara, hinnar jag den innnan hon vaknar? Nej, nu får jag ge mig. Jag tror jag läser ut Card först.

You know the age-old debate of pop vs. soda vs. coke? Well, it's over, because Wonkette says "pop." See for yourself in this article on the interesting antics of Chuck Stepanek, a former Republican candidate for the Nebraska state legislature:

“According to court records, police say Stepanek drove under the influence of marijuana in Lincoln on May 29, 2007. Police said he was seen naked at a convenience store near South 27th Street buying a pop, then later at the Sid Dillon car lot, before getting into his car again and driving it into a light pole.”

Okay. I maybe just realized that the "pop" comment was actually from a quote from the local Lincoln paper, which makes sense, because Midwesterners and Coloradans like me (who are NOT Midwesterners, thankyouverymuch) tend to say "pop," you nutty East Coasters tend to say "soda," and the truly crazy Southerners say "coke" (which must really anger those Pepsi people). So actually this whole post is a big lie.

Still, this debate gets me fired up. I was ecstatic one time when I got to see Joyce Carol Oates read from High Lonesome and she said "pop" instead of "soda" in the excerpt. I was so excited, in fact, that when I went to get my book signed by Oates, I told her that I was thrilled that she said "pop," and she was all, "Well, yeah, I was trying to make it seemed old-fashioned." Which does not help my case.

You know what does help my case? This super-scholarly Web site that breaks down the geographic distribution of pop vs. soda vs. coke vs. other. (What could "other" be? Carbonated beverage? Soft drink?) The site's impressive conclusion at the end of all this is the following:

People who say "Pop" are much, much cooler.

Ha ha! I WIN!

Also, can we talk about how Stepanek got high and then wandered naked into a convenience store? I'm no stranger to spending time in convenience stores (read: 7-Eleven) in an, er, altered state, but naked? I guess I'll have to work up to that.

[Posted by Mallory]

"My Sister, My Love is John Barth with heart. It is Bonfire of the Vanities for grown-ups and literature majors. ... With this tour de force ... Joyce Carol Oates has helped us understand what it means to be human."

you get a gold star if you know who she(s) is. if you don't, read this.

p.s. and if you know which joyce carol oates story inspired roberta's name, i might bake you a cake. (no fair googling it.)

To be sure, the book has issues. (If critical characters like Skyler's dad seem wooden and irrational, is that Oates brilliantly exposing the tics of the novel's unreliable narrator, or is she just writing weak characters?) But Oates' obsession with tabloid-news culture itself never seems misguided, and she discusses "tabloid hell" in an interview with BookPage, in which she reveals that Bill O'Reilly was good for something:

"I had the whole Fox News syndrome," she says. "I was watching Fox News while I wrote the novel, watching Bill O'Reilly. I do come from a Christian background and the Christianity on Fox News is just used for political purposes, it's so transparent. Bill O'Reilly always used to say 'secular progressive' for left wing. Secular progressive sounds pretty good to me! Fox News? I call it Hawk News. I don't watch that anymore. I just can't even look at it now." She detoxed with "The Daily Show." "He's excellent," she says. "I get a lot of news from Jon Stewart."

From Pastelportraits.co.uk. Commissioned portraits from snapshots.

There he lies, in the grass, in his habitual place, waiting for you. It has been years. He is aged, near blind. But he waits. In the grass, in his usual place. For you.

He is part collie and part German shepherd. His fur has coarsened and feels like wires, dry and unforgiving, to the touch. Its luster has long since faded; it's that drab dun color of a deer's winter coat. He is lying, forelegs extended, shoulders and head quivering erect. His eyes are rheumy, as if covered with a thin film of mucus. His muzzle is gray, his lower lip unnaturally swollen. From time to time his nose twitches and his ears prick up alertly at imaginary sounds; actual sounds, less loud and immediate, he is less likely to hear.

He has become an old dog, you would hardly recognize him now. The bony haunches, the lusterless eyes, ribs showing through his fur. When he'd been a puppy, his small eager body was charged as if with electricity; he seemed never to sleep, nor even to rest. His eyes shone with a doggy intelligence and good will. His feelings were easily hurt but his hurts easily forgotten. He loved you above all things, and has never outgrown that love. You were his fate, you alone. Though this was not a fate you would have acknowledged.

From Old Dog by Joyce Carol Oates

Why are summer holidays the best time to have a stack of books to read?  You'd think winter would be the season for it.  Rainy, cold, windy, dreary....  

No wait.  That's Germany this summer.

Good thing I'm well-stocked for holidays starting in only three days.  Probably too much to attack in just under four weeks, but I'll give it a shot.  Besides, some of them aren't meant to be read from beginning to end.

The first one I'll mention is Siri Hustvedt's The Sorrows of an American.  After falling in love a few weeks ago with Ms. Hustvedt after reading What I Loved, her latest was something of a post-honeymoon let-down.  I guess I came to expect a book with the same depth of insight into troubling psychological themes and instead found myself getting bogged down midst a dandelion salad of intertwining relationships spanning three generations, several families and storylines.  Maybe I just wasn't paying attention enough.

A lot in that stack I've read before.  Bill Bryson's Notes From a Small Island I've been through twice already, but always find a laugh from him.  Shakespeare was bought on the strength of the author's name - we'll see how that turns out - and as for Mother Tongue: read it!  It's full of a-hah! No shit? moments about the language you use every day and never really thought about before.

I'm probably the last person in the Western Hemisphere to read anything by Richard Dawkins, so it's about time.  Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go I bought for the same reason as the Bryson: my wife and I love the film The Remains of the Day and so we've high hopes for this one.

George Carlin's Braindroppings and Napalm and Silly Putty, mentioned back when the great man brayed his last, is for those spots inbetween when there's just no time to get deep into a story.  Monologues, one-liners, quips, probes, thrusts, screeds, japes, taunts, insults, musings, harangues, verbal ordeals, jokes, notions, doubts, opinions, questions, thoughts, beliefs, assertions, assumptions, disturbing references, comedy, nonsense, satire, mockery, merriment, sarcasm, ridicule, silliness, bluster, toxic alienation, joy, anger, wonder, confusion, wisdom, hostility, innocence, impudence, reflection and semantic distortion*** suitable for about 10 minutes before the book falls to the floor with a soft plop to begin a mid-afternoon sacking out in a cot somewhere, or maybe just a trip to the john.

Sarah's Key and Missing Mom are a nod to my wife's taste, but despite their obvious girly exterior, I always trust her judgment.  Did I ever mention that I think she's the wisest woman I've ever known?

And last but not least: a recommendation to read Planet Germany by Cathy Dobson, a well-written and funny account of a year in the life of a British expat family's attempt to fit in once and for all with their German neighbours and surroundings.   I liked it because it was both personal and refreshingly free of most of the worn-out stereotypes you hear all too often about Germans and their country.  Self-published doesn't get much better.  You can order it by Amazon like all the books here, or just get ahold of her via her blog.  Tell her I sent you.

***Full disclosure: shamelessly copied from both covers.

Stars released Set Yourself on Fire in 2005. It was a surprisingly good and catchy pop album from a band I hadn't heard of before. It was lyrically downbeat, and yet the choruses were sweeping and grand. A great paradox of a record that I liked very much.

Well, they gave the master tapes to a whole bunch of their Canadian band friends and had them remix or redo the songs. This collection is interesting in that the collective work is very strong and everybody makes a remix that is fresh and interesting. I didn't know too many of the bands before hand (only The Dears) so the sound was pretty new to me. The Dears do an interesting thing with their track: they split their song into two songs, since the original had two distinctive parts. It's a fun thing to hear.

Most of the roster comes from the Arts & Crafts label, so that may give you an idea of the sound; they include some dance remixes, some indie rock remixes and some straight ahead pop ones. Obviously, the original is better if only for the overall continuity, but this is an interesting and enjoyable listen in and of itself.

[READ: June 30, 2008] "Suicide by Fitness Center"

Joyce Carol Oates must talk in her sleep, and she must have a dictation service that records all of it. And her dreams must be very detailed and well written. There's no other way that she can churn out the amount of material that she does. And, it's amazing the variety of subjects these stories cover. She definietly has a dark streak in her subconscious and this story shows it off quite well.

The awkward title actually describes the action pretty well. The narrator is a woman who goes to a fitness center regularly. This center is rarely full when she goes, giving the whole place a sombre appearance. She imagines (or does she?) that she sees a fitness center cat (no one else has seen it) and when the cat appears by a club member, it means that member will die soon.

Sadly, that aspect of the story (the cat) is a little underdeveloped and doesn't really wrap up too well.

The other aspect of the story is that the narrator has named all of the other regulars that she encounters at the gym: Carrot Top, Eggplant Man, Big Gus etc. She disdains most of the them for one reason or another, and is constantly surprised by their humanity when they interact.

But it's the suicide part that we're most interested in. The narrator convinces herself that she should try to kill herself through one of these machines. No real reason is given aside from general ennui. She tries running full speed on a treadmill to see if her heart will burst. Then, maybe if she is thrown from said treadmill, that will do the trick. Her attempts, along with much of the story, are somewhat hallucinatory. Making for a surreal story in style as well as content. She is broken from her suicide thoughts when one of the members passes out. himself. She is instrumental in reviving him, and the returns to her home life.

A weird little story that I enjoyed quite a bit while reading, but now thinking back on it, it wasn't as fully realized as it could have been.