Year / 2007

by Edward Champion

Hello New York

On Friday morning, I signed a lease for an apartment in Brooklyn.

This explains, in part, my two week absence.

I’ll have more to say about all this later, including a lengthy and perhaps needlessly maudlin post about San Francisco. (I apologize in advance for any visceral fulminations. One doesn’t leave a city that one has lived in and loved for thirteen years with anything approaching ease.) But before I do, I’d like to once again greatly thank the guest bloggers who have been kind enough to step in as I continue this remarkably insane cross-country migration, as well as the kind people who have offered recommendations, kudos, plaudits, and all manner of positive juju. These are exciting times. More later.

by Jeff VanderMeer

From the Annals of Freelancing: Object Lesson #1

So I became a freelancer 100% as of February of this year. For awhile I was scrambling around for work and I wanted to take everything that came my way. I quickly learned this was a bad idea, but not before a few interesting experiences.

Probably the most interesting involved doing re-told Bible stories for young adults. I was really appreciative that my friend had recommended them and I read through all of their extremely horrible instructional information soberly.

As part of the indoctrination, I then took a conference call with the CEO and their creative director. I really didn’t know what to expect, except that they would be telling me more about the project.

What I did know upfront is that for their version, they were changing the name of the snake to something like Scottie and having him tell fart jokes…in addition to tempting Eve and all. That probably should have tipped me off.

So I get on the phone and the creative director tells me right off the bat that he’s an ex-comics executive, in a ham-handed style right out of Used Car Salesman Don’ts, adding, “This ain’t like writing for your penny dreadfuls, Jeff. This is mainstream audience. This isn’t penny dreadful work, Jeff.”

Okay…what the hell is a penny dreadful, was my first thought. And where can I get me some of that?

Followed by: “You can’t go wrong if you just think of Adam as being like Batman, except without parents.”

Batman, without parents. Okay…

And then, this kicker: “Pitch me the Tree of Life, Jeff. Pitch me the Tree of Life.”

Me: “Pitch you the Tree of Life? Um…what?”

“Ya know, how would you deal with the Tree of Life.”

“Um. Mysterious. Unknowable. Dappled in sunlight?”

And it just went downhill from there.

I wound up not doing anything for them. But it was an instructional experience in freelancing. Most definitely.

Jeff

by Nick Antosca

im going to jfk to fly to france now

instructions for cooking avocado scrambled eggs

Delicious and easy breakfast: slice a soft avocado in half and remove the peel from the seedless half. (Put the other half in a plastic bag and store it in the refrigerator.) Put some olive oil in a frying pan and set the avocado-half, empty side up, in the pan. Crack an egg and pour the egg onto the avocado, containing as much egg as possible, particularly the yolk, in the avocado’s seed cavity. Turn the burner on. As the frying pan heats up, mash the avocado (and the egg in/on/around it) into a paste with a fork. Treat the resulting egg-avocado paste as you would regular scrambled eggs, sliding it around and so forth with a spatula.

When the avocado scrambled eggs have a delicate golden brown crust, turn the burner off. Lightly salt the avocado scrambled eggs. Sample a forkful; they should be crispy on the outside but soft, rich, and creamy within. It is best to eat them directly from the pan, while they are still hot.

by Michelle Richmond

The Search

My favorite line from The Moviegoer, Walker Percy’s classic novel of lust and longing in New Orleans, is this: “To become aware of the possibility of a search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.”

Which brings me to the Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco, tonight, where the writers who take the stage at Inside Storytime will be reading short pieces based on the theme Searching. In the lineup: Michael Disend, author of cult classic Stomping the Goyim; Barry Wildorf, author of Bring the War Home; Elizabeth Koch, who will be reading from The World Tour Compatibility Test; Roger Pinnell, and yours truly. I’ll be reading from my new San Francisco-centric novel The Year of Fog, which opens with the disappearance of a child on Ocean Beach. You can read the story behind the book here in the San Francisco Chronicle.

In addition to The Moviegoer, other books that come to mind when I think of “searching” are two older Ian McEwan novels: A Child in Time, and The Comfort of Strangers. For readers who came late to McEwan with the mainstream successes Atonement and Amsterdam, the two earlier novels might show you a side of McEwan you haven’t seen. Both are very short and deeply moody, and both are absolutely chilling.

by Erin O'Brien

Two that might have slid under your radar

Steve Hayward’s first novel, “The Secret Mitzvah of Lucio Burke,” is a masterpiece of fiction you may not recognize because it was never released in the United States. This is a small story contrasted against the grand setting of depression-era Toronto. It is funny and accessible and historical. It is simply dazzling–so much so that it won the prestigious international Grinzane Cavour Prize in 2006. When Hayward returned from the prize ceremony in Italy, he sent me photos of the event, including one of himself and Salmon Rushdie. Then he told stories about hanging out with Richard Ford and Derek Walcott.

As usual, I swore at him (“Goddamnit, Hayward!”), but in truth I was proud of him. He’d earned this. Hayward is maddening and brilliant–a writer’s writer to the core. I thought accolades of this caliber would surely mean a big U.S. launch. So far it hasn’t happened.

When you’re done with his novel, read his first short story collection, “Buddha Stevens and Other Stories”–provided you can find it. Why? Because the first installment in that anthology “August 14, 1921,” was simultaneously accepted by The Iowa Review and Crazyhorse and the Greensboro Review.

No shit.

That alone gives you an idea of what sort of writer Steve Hayward is. If we’re lucky, perhaps he will grace the comment section and tell the Erin O’Brien Lucio Burke Erection story.

Next up is Maureen McHugh’s first anthology, “Mother’s and Other Monsters.” Published by Kelly Link and Gavin Grant over at Small Beer Press. The collection was a finalist for the 2005 Story Prize, which carried a $20,000 award. Patrick O’Keeffe beat out McHugh and Jim Harrison with “The Hill Road”. But the two runners-up still received a $5,000 award for the title of finalist. Not bad.

Whenever I’m running a workshop I reference this book. McHugh has a way of juxtaposing impossible topics such as Alzheimer’s disease next to that which is so common, it’s almost invisible, a bowl of macaroni and cheese for instance. Sounds strange, yes, but she does it with the same skill Tim O’Brien uses to scale the horror of the Viet Nam war by setting it next to a packet of KoolAid and a comic book. Call it perfect application of detail. McHugh’s got it in nines.

McHugh and I have been reading and critiquing each other’s work for years, but when I sat down and read this published anthology, her singular talent shone like a beacon.

Here’s a few pertinent links–by no means complete–but you people are smart. You know how to use Google.

Steve Hayward’s (ahem) Wiki page (sorry, but it’s the best I can do).

The Secret Mitzvah of Lucio Burke on Amazon Canada

McHugh’s website.

“Oversight” a short story from “Mothers and Other Monsters”

The preceding program was brought to you by Smart Erin.