Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Donald Margulies' Pulitzer Prize Finalist play

3/1-2 at 7:30pm
See Donald Margulies' Pulitzer Prize Finalist play in a unique setting 
-the strand book store's rare books room. 

Bonus: Enjoy a free glass of wine at 7pm. 
$15 with promo code 'bookworm' (reg $20).

Collected Stories is a two-woman play that traces the evolution and devolution of a particular mentor/protégée relationship between the fictional successful author Ruth Steiner and her young, eager student Lisa. Their professional relationship and friendship grow ever closer until it is pushed to the limit. Set in the early 1990's, the play harkens back to 1950s/1960s Greenwich Village early beatnik poet movement and the rich influences that still define so much of the American literary world. As we learn more about Ruth's past and Lisa's drive to success, the complicated entanglement of fact and fiction offers intriguing questions and an emotional battleground in which each witness must choose a side.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

Born in Pakistan, Mohsin Hamid, author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, has a new novel out in the first week of March: How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. Michiko Kakutani wrote that the book confirms Mr. Hamid is "one of his generation's most inventive and gifted writers."

Who is Prudence MacGregor?


Author Bio:
Prudence MacGregor has been a lifelong fan of exploring the realm of what could be. Or, as she puts it, "finding the extraordinary within the ordinary."  She hails from the isle of Manhattan and among her passions are writing, travel and reading, especially about that which is in the realm of the impossible. 


Interview with Prudence MacGregor

What inspired you to write this book?
My deep interest in the unknown and what is possible spurred me to write this book. Also, I love the television show, The Twilight Zone, and that definitely was an influence.

How did you come up with the title?
I figured that keeping the title simple was key, not to give too much away. Since there are three stories, I came up with Trilogy: A Collection.

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
I would say that each of the stories has its own message but I leave it up to the readers to formulate their own opinions of what messages to take away. However, that said, I think one of the messages running throughout the last two could be "be careful what you wish for." But that's just my take on it!

How much of the book is realistic?
I would say that most of what is in the stories is realistic; the characters, settings, things like that. However, the situations they find themselves in certainly aren't. As I had said, I leave it up to the readers to decide what to take away from the stories, though.

Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?
Some of the experiences I detail in the book are kind of a mélange of what I have experienced in my own life, yes. Some of the characters are amalgams, if you will, of people I have known or have observed, and others are just made up. A mix of everything is in the book I guess would be accurate.

What books have most influenced your life most?
So many books have influenced my life. Everything from things I read when I was younger, such as A Wrinkle in Time  by Madeleine L'Engle, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger  to Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Dancing Girls and Other Stories by Margaret Atwood. I know that these books cover a disparate range of subject matter but they all had an affect on everything from the way I think to my writing.

If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
There are so many writers who could be wonderful mentors. I couldn't pick one, really. It would have to be all the writers I mentioned in the last question.

What book are you reading now?
Right now, I am not reading anything as I am focusing on promoting Trilogy. However, I do have a few books on my shelf that I need to finish, such as Long Drive Home by Will Allison and Carole King's autobiography. 

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Interview with Robyn Wyrick


Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
Hmmm. Message. There are lots of messages in Eviction Notice. For instance, remember the buddy system: Alice and Johnny, Clayton and Tyler, Barnaby and Gary, Sarah and Jenny, etc.; when the world is going to end, find your buddy.

Also, remember, the best-laid plans of mice and men oft go astray. I could give you a list, but basically, almost everything in Eviction Notice that's supposed to happen, doesn't.

Then there are other messages, about free will, nature, the universe, and the value of a good lawyer. So, yes, there are messages I want the reader to grasp, but I don't want to take away the fun of discovering them.

Is there any special method to your writing?
Eviction Notice began as a screenplay, and I had completed a finished first draft before I tried to write it as a book. Because of that I had a strong base of dialog and action, and then I just wrote and rewrote.

I'm slow and I have poor punctuation. I put everything in lists, and I don't trust commas. My first draft of Eviction Notice has 275 semicolons that I had to remove during edits.

Fortunately, (IMHO) Eviction Notice is a great story, and I had a great editor. (Anne Dubuisson.)
               
How many hours a day do you spend reading /writing?
I never have time to read other novels. I go through about one or two a year. It didn't used to be that way. But now I'm married, a dad, and run my own business, so gone are the days of spending a whole weekend wrapped up in a book.

I do drive a lot, and so I do audio books, which are excellent, but not the same as reading.

Also, almost all the reading I do these days is on science and technology. On that, I read mostly journal articles on the web, and usually about 30 minutes to an hour a day.

I write any chance I can get that I'm not exhausted at the end of the day. But that works out to a few hours a week.

What books have most influenced your life?
Influenced my life? The list is small: the Tao Te Ching, The Essene Gospel of Peace, the autobiography of Mohandas Gandhi, and Mark Twain's Letters From The Earth.

I'm not very well read as far as classic western literature goes. I have three main reading modes: philosophy, science, and escapism. Eviction Notice is a little bit of each, but mostly it's escapism.

If you could be the author of any novel, which would it be and why?
The Harry Potter series, without a doubt. It's brilliant, fun, moving, and an incredible accomplishment that any author would be thrilled to have completed. And it's loved by tens of millions of readers, and massively profitable. J.K. Rowling has done a wildly valuable service to the world by writing a book (the Sorcerers Stone) that young people simply devoured, and then made each successive book thicker and better. A whole generation grew up learning that reading can be awesome. Harry Potter changed reading across the world.

What are your current projects?
I'm writing the second book in the Eviction Notice series. That's taking up most of my writing time.


15 Great David Foster Wallace Quotes

15 Great David Foster Wallace Quotes

How to Make Your Writing (a Little Bit) Better

Writing

Some eBook titles

Some eBook titles that have only been available at the Dzanc website to date are now available at Amazon (and for those of you with Nooks, iPads, etc, will soon be available from those retailers as well). These include the 7 Mudluscious Press titles, as well as some of our rEprint titles:

Dancing Lessons by Olive Senior
The Lemon Grove by Ali Hosseini
14 Stories by Stephen Dixon
Time  to Go by Stephen Dixon
The Return of Service by Jonathan Baumbach
Seasons Smooth & Unperplext by Henry R. Williams

and the Mudluscious Press titles

How the Days of Love & Diptheria by Robert Kloss
When all our days are numbered... by Sasha Fletcher
Meat is All by Andrew Borgstrom
The Hieroglyphics by Michael Stewart
I Am a Very Productive Entrepreneur by Mathias Svalina
Grim Tales by Norm Lock
An Island of Fifty by Ben Brooks


Again these titles are also available at the Dzanc website, but for those of you that prefer buying from the vendor that sold you your eReader, you now have access. 

Saturday, February 16, 2013

More about The Gordonston Ladies Dog Walking Club



Interview with Duncan Whitehead


Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp? 
I think the message is that our actions and events from the past can always come back to haunt us when we least expect them to and while we think they may be finished and forgotten....it doesn't necessarily mean that they are.
Is there any special method to your writing? 
This book, as it has so many different characters and plots that had to intertwine and interconnect and because I did not want any plot holes or insult the reader, I wrote initially as three separate short stories. I then developed each one and arranged them so they would fit into the wider plot. Usually I write a very quick 10 or 20 page outline of how I want it to pan out and I revisit that outline and improve (I hope) and expand on it.

How many hours a day do you spend reading /writing? 
At least 5 hours.

What books have most influenced your life?   
The biography of John Kennedy Toole, Ignatius Rising.  He wrote A Confederacy of Dunces which is a picaresque novel that appeared in 1980, eleven years after Toole's suicide. He wrote a hilariously funny book and could not, during his lifetime, get it published nor was it appreciated.  Reading about his struggle and his despair and his ultimate death, due in some part because of his perceived failure as a writer inspired me to never give up, and to continue writing comedy and quirky stories and that one day they will be read and maybe liked.  It is a great read.

If you could be the author of any novel, which would it be and why? 
It would be a Confederacy of Dunces - it was written with a style and humor that I like.  I believe it is one of the best comedic novels ever written and to be able to develop a character like Ignatius J Reilly would have been so much fun.  I would love to one day write a follow up to that as there was so much that Toole could have done with a great comic character such as Reilly.

What are your current projects?
 I am currently drafting two sequels to The Gordonston Ladies Dog walking Club and my next book, a comedy set in Manhattan, The Reluctant Jesus is at the editing stage.  I am also writing spoof and comedy news articles for various websites. 

It's Fine by Me


It's Fine by Me By Per Petterson
Novels about teenager angst can sometimes sound, well...teenage. Not so in the case of It's Fine by Me by Norwegian writer Per Petterson, who previously wrote the haunting, spare Out Stealing Horses. In this newly translated novel (courtesy of Don Bartlett), he follows the struggles of Audun Sletten, a 13-year-old boy who supports his mother by delivering newspapers. Having recently moved to town, this family of two remains slightly lost. Audun makes one friend (a classmate), as does his mother (a lover). But the majority of their time is spent reflecting on the violence that Audun's father created in their old home, at one point shooting a pistol at the ceiling while 2-year-old Audun crawled around on the floor screaming. Like so many who grow up with chaos, Audun tries to make up all kinds of elaborate, even slightly comic rules to prevent the same thing from happening again. "You must never drink alone," he says, "never drink on Sundays, never drink before seven o'clock and if you do, it has to be on a Saturday. If you're hungover, you go for a walk in the forest, and you must never drink the hair of the dog. Do that, and you are an alcoholic ... you are finished. Then you spend the rest of your days walking through the valley of the shadow of death. ... They give you a wide berth in the street, scurry behind the canned food when you're in the shop to buy beer. ... And then you die." But his efforts to move on become all the more difficult when his father shows up—awakening not only memories but also new, acutely understandable fears. The tangle of this boy's mind—and the direct, graceful way it's portrayed—creates a tale that's far more adult than adolescent, one that asks the age-old question about how to deal with the past: Stay and pretend it's not happening, or run and pretend you don't care? Or...find some other way (please).— Leigh Newman

‘Marcel Proust and “Swann’s Way” ’ at the Morgan Library


“Marcel Proust and ‘Swann’s Way’: 100th Anniversary” is on view through April 28 at the Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Avenue, at 36th Street, Manhattan; (212) 685-0008, themorgan.org.

A new gathering of short stories


"Perfect, masterful portraits of an international cross-section of wise, broken souls--hopeful, brutal, funny as hell, and heart-crushing, every last one." 
—Elizabeth Crane, author of We Only Know So Much
"Roy Kesey is one of my favorite contemporary writers, and Any Deadly Thing is another triumph. These stories, reminiscent of William Gass in the remarkable way they combine a virtuoso playfulness and wit with an atmosphere of grimness and grief and heartbreak, range the world over for their brilliantly realized locales, but they share a deeper setting in what Gass calls 'the only holiness we have,' human consciousness. Kesey demonstrates once again that he is a spectacularly deft and empathetic priest of that creed, which is the only one for me."
 —Michael Griffith, author of Trophy

On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes

"Supplemented by recent research in cognitive psychology and biology, her book is an informative and often charming 21st-century Thoreauvian guide on how to transform physical transport into mental and sensory transportation -- and 'be here now.'"
Glenn C. Altschuler, The Oregonian


"In this elegant, entertaining book, Horowitz exhorts readers to learn, or to re-learn, how to see what we pass as we walk through our cities and towns."
Boston Globe


“Horowitz writes like a poet, thinks like a scientist, and ventures like an explorer. Her book will have you looking in a new way at the world around you, and make you glad you did.” (Susan Orlean Rin Tin Tin )

Off-kilter collection of short stories

Product Details

Karen Russell, the author of Swamplandia!
returns with 

What is love?

Grade Level: 9-10
Quick Links:
Part I: Two-way Love
Part II: Responding to One-way Love

Monday, February 11, 2013

February 22 is National Dog Walking Day

Leading up to this "holiday," THE GORDONSTON LADIES DOG WALKING CLUB eBook will be on $ .99 promo from February 14 through February 22.

The Gordonston Ladies Dog Walking Club

Trilogy: A Collection. Written by author Prudence MacGregor

A new paranormal fiction title: Trilogy: A Collection. Written by author Prudence MacGregor, this short collection is very Twilight Zone-esque. Things are not always as we see them and the stories contained within this little book challenge readers to look beyond what is tangible and real.
Trilogy: A Collection
 
 
About the Book
Trilogy is comprised of three stories, all of which have an otherworldly, paranormal theme to them. Each of the main characters in these stories wrestles with extraordinary circumstances in an otherwise ostensibly ordinary world. Journey with the stories' main characters as they navigate the unplumbed depths of the unknown.

The first story, Parallelograms, centers on protagonist Justine, a determined yet troubled young woman who, quite by accident, discovers that she has a double and thus finds herself facing unexpected and ultimately terrifying consequences. Her previously tightly controlled world spins out of control, causing her to question her very existence.

The second story in the trilogy, Random, concerns Ulyssa, a young woman who is intrigued by the possibility of releasing a balloon with a note and seeing where it lands. This seemingly innocent activity will take her down a dark path, the circumstances of which may or may not be resolved. This will conflict with the outwardly picture perfect world that she thought she inhabited.

The final title, Up There, focuses on Gregory, an unassuming office worker who is fascinated by the airplanes he sees in the sky. Quite by accident he meets Sherry, a beautiful motivational speaker who just may have a connection to one of the planes he has seen. An activity he previously saw as harmless and a bit innocuous - watching planes fly overhead and guessing their destinations - turns questionable and ultimately forces him to take a look at his world: is it real or has it always been an illusion?

Friday, February 8, 2013

The Love Song of Jonny Valentine: A Novel


The Love Song for Jonny Valentine: A Novel by Teddy Wayne
Available at: Amazon.com | Barnes & Noble | iBookstore | IndieBound | Target
Jonny Valentine is an 11-year old Justin Bieber–esque pop star, crisscrossing the country in a caravan of buses and 18-wheelers on his second national tour.  His momager (mother-turned-manager), Jane, keeps him on a strict schedule that includes tutoring on his tour bus, vocal and dance warm-ups, and advancing through the levels of his favorite video game The Secret Land of Xenon, but no eating dairy (bad for the vocal cords) or surfing the Internet (too many potential child predators). In his latest novel, The Love Song of Jonny Valentine, author and Whiting Writers’ Award winner Teddy Wayne paints a scathing portrayal of our culture’s celebrity obsession. —Abbe Wright

The best minds of a generation captured on a thirteen-dollar Kodak Retina.


Roslyn Bernstein: The Photography of Allen Ginsberg

Lorrie Moore & Sherman Alexie

with Cynthia NixonJill Eikenberry and Amber Tamblyn

Wednesday, Feb. 20 at 7:30pm
"Sherman Alexie has always been regarded in my circle of poet friends to be one of the most important voices of our time. Sherman has inspired many poets over the years, myself included, to dig deeper. To go for the throat — no, to go for the guts — and to never be ashamed to spill them."
— Amber Tamblyn
New Yorker contributors and mutual friends Sherman Alexie and Lorrie Moore introduce readings of their stories performed by Cynthia Nixon,Jill Eikenberry and Amber Tamblyn.

$28 adults; $24 members; $15 for 30 and under