Wednesday, September 19, 2012

A busy October awaits

October is going to be busy. My first personal essay (in quite a while) is getting published and should be coming to a news stand near you. The inaugural issue of Catamaran is coming out. Also, we're starting to practice for our event at SJSU on October 10th. More news soon.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

More books I love (or am in the process of loving). P.S. -- would someone help me design my website?

Ben Lerner: Leaving the Atocha Station. Funny, mordant look at an artist who develops in spite of himself during a hash-fueled poetry scholarship year in Madrid. Even his narrator's musings about boredom are fascinating. Thanks to Elizabeth for recommending this one. I don't think I would have come across it on my own. By the way, this book deserves to be republished with a much better cover. Just saying. Normally I don't care about such things but it looks like something somebody printed up in a basement.

Josh Garrett Davis: Ghost dances: proving up in the Great Plains: A lovely, witty memoir about a Midwestern childhood, with seamlessly incorporated research. Not quite done but I'm hooked.

Henry Adams: The Education of Henry Adams. My oh my did I despise this book in high school, but I picked it up again the other month, mostly because it appears at the very top of a revered Wesleyan writer-in-residence's coveted  "lifetime reading list."  I was hooked from the very first page. Mr. Adams could write like crazy. Modern-day reviewers would attack him for his decision not to write about a  personal tragedy that must have been a defining moment in his life (wouldn't that qualify as part of his 'education,' according to his own, broad definition of the term?)  but I love the style, the thinking, and the way he avoids shoe-gazing memoir by suggesting the wider world around him.

If you have reading recommendations, that would be nice. If you are up for designing an author's website for me at a reasonable rate so I can leave behind this cheesy blog interface once and for all, that would be even nicer. Let me know. I know some of you Cactuseaters readers are high-tech wizards. I could use your expertise. If this ever happens, I would like the website to have a name other than "Cactuseaters," which is kind of misleading.

Saturday, September 08, 2012

Matthew Parker's Larceny in my Blood -- and the Cactus Eaters! -- featured in The Millions website

Now get a load of this.  This eye-opening interview appears this week in my very favorite web-based literary magazine, and this interview just happens to include a mention of The Cactus Eaters. Anyhow, I thoroughly enjoyed Matthew Parker's hard-hitting, honest and funny book, which was published this month.Oh, and there's one more thing I want you to see: Wolf Larsen's beautiful song, "If I Be Wrong," featured recently on NPR. Here's the link to the song and video. Anyhow, I am glad to report that I am following up my recent TC Boyle interview with a Wolf Larsen Q and A. Stay tuned! By the way, I almost forgot to mention that the TC Boyle interview will appear, in print version, in the upcoming debut issue of Catamaran, which will also include a very brief essay I wrote about Boyle's work.