silencing the bell (Free subscription) | 22/11/2009
Rape a love story by Joyce Carol Oates It seems somehow wrong to put the words 'rape' and 'love' together in a book title. It is almost as if doing so undermines the horror with which which rape should be viewed. It is a testament to Joyce Carol Oates that she can do this, and when you read the book you know why. This is a short novel. I started it before dinner and sat reading until the middle of...
silencing the bell (Free subscription) | 21/11/2009
We reached the end of our Gilmore Girls marathon yesterday and it felt kind of sad. 153 episodes, many many hours of watching, often late into the evening, with far too much tea being drunk (on my part) and far too much time spent on Happy Aquarium (by the girls). It is one of those stories where you can really allow yourself to get attached to the characters and it has been a source of much heated...
Wheelchair Dancer (Free subscription) | 20/11/2009
The LA Times Blog asks whether this is art: In the U.K. next month, a dance artist who has epilepsy will attempt to induce a seizure on stage. Rita Marcalo has stopped taking her medication ahead of the event at the Bradford Playhouse, according to the BBC News . "If she has a seizure, an alarm will sound and the audience will be invited to film on their mobile phones," said the report. And...
Cocoposts (Free subscription) | 20/11/2009
A detour in recent reading veered away from the regimented non-fiction book diet. American Wife, a novel by Curtis Sittenfeld modeled on the life Laura Bush is reviewed here in the NYTimes by Joyce Carol Oates who does a better...
The Mark on the Wall (Free subscription) | 18/11/2009
The Rumpus reprints Steve Almond's appreciation of Kurt Vonnegut . It's a long, long essay, much taken up by Almond's account of Vonnegut's uncomfortable appearance at an event called the Connecticut Forum alongside writers Joyce Carol Oates and Jennifer Weiner and then Almond's own autobiography, the measure of Vonnegut's influence on a young person learning to think, to write. It's funny, sad, risky...
Swerve and Vanish (Free subscription) | 17/11/2009
In every narrative that is even remotely conventional, there comes a point of no return. A decision is made; destiny is sealed; there's no going back to undo the circumstances that drive the story to its (let's face it, often terrible) ending. This point is also one of great risk for the story's credibility. Because, as a writer, you may have a perfect ending in mind--a great image, or an event that...
Phillyist (Free subscription) | 12/11/2009
Image Credit: Flickr User Jim Linwood Pot and incense. Although we could easily identify the aroma at the Dylan concert on Monday night, the show itself left us scratching our heads. Yes, we know the artist is aging. Yes, we know that his voice has drawn criticism throughout his career. But he is an icon. And he is constantly on tour. Wouldn't, then, his team know about the horrible acoustics at the...
The Huffington Post (Free subscription) | 10/11/2009
All this week, Miami is celebrating the world of literature with its annual Book Fair. Running from November 8 - 15 and open to the public for a small entrance fee, the fair is already going strong in its 26th year despite a significantly reduced budget , and is celebrating authors big and small. Says the Miami New Times : The afterparties are nil and the fashions are more along the lines of smoking...
NY's Funniest Rabbi (Free subscription) | 08/11/2009
– David Kirby Once I got a postcard from Joyce Carol Oates, whose novel Unholy Loves I had reviewed favorably, and on it (the card) she wrote, "I think you must be a fellow Canadian," and I figured, well! That's me, all right: the Mounties, Wayne Gretzky, Margaret Atwood. . . . It wasn't until years later when I found the card again while cleaning up some old files that I saw she had...
caribousmom (Free subscription) | 07/11/2009
I am always interested in what authors have to say about HOW they write and the craft of writing a novel. I found some interesting videos on You Tube which I hope you’ll enjoy! John Irving: On Writing Joyce Carol Oates: On Writing Characters Stephen King: How You Know When You are a Writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The Danger [...]
the Richard Larson blog (Free subscription) | 06/11/2009
From "The Madness of Art," by Joyce Carol Oates: Those of us (how many of us!) who have given our souls to the activity of writing are obviously engaged in a lifelong quest. Perhaps, though we experience ourselves as individuals,...
Ed Gorman Blog (Free subscription) | 28/10/2009
Todd Mason forwarded me the following list of writers' favorite scary stories. I reply after the list Martin Morse Wooster reports to the FictionMags list: In their October 28 WASHINGTON POST fiction page, the editors of BOOK WORLD asked writers, "What story scares the hell out of you?" Anne Rice: M.R. James, "Count Magnus" Scott Smith: Stewart O'Nan, A PRAYER FOR THE DYING Douglas...
badgerblog (Free subscription) | 27/10/2009
One of the stories I've always liked is Jekyll and Hyde. I collect film versions of Jekyll and Hyde - there are so many, and with highly variable quality: from the classics of John Barrymore or Spencer Tracy, and the more recent and brilliant modern-day Jekyll miniseries written by Steven Moffat [1], to the Asian action fighting film with Jekyllish trappings starring Adam Baldwin . But I digress....
2 Blowhards (Free subscription) | 21/10/2009
Donald Pittenger writes: Dear Blowhards -- Edward Craig, back in Michigan after bravely braving San Francisco's City Lights Bookstore and living to report his findings here, now unearths for us a surprising nugget of ... well, let him report: * * * * * Michael Blowhard often lamented on this site about the lack of appreciation for the writing skills of popular novelists. These novelists often share...
New Jersey Poets and Poetry (Free subscription) | 20/10/2009
Althea Ward Clark W'21 Reading Series MAXINE KUMIN & JOYCE CAROL OATES @ Princeton Wednesday, October 21, 4:30 PM James M. Stewart '32 Theater Lewis Center for the Arts 185 Nassau Street Princeton, NJ Free Contact: Hope VanCleaf, 609 258-1500 / vancleaf@princeton.edu http://www.princeton.edu/arts
Videos