HUMP Day: November White-Out

http://www.chazen.wisc.edu/about/multimedia-center/publications/bridge-poetry-series-11-13-14 2) Rumpus review of Elissa Washuta’s My Body is a Book of Rules: http://therumpus.net/2014/11/my-body-is-a-book-of-rules-by-elissa-washuta/ 3) Andrew Stancek has a new story, “Thefts,” up at Revolution John: http://revolutionjohnmagazine.wordpress.com/2014/11/18/thefts-by-andrew-stancek/ 4) At Entropy, Juliet Escoria answers “What How & With Whom: Two Questions” by Christopher Higgs: http://entropymag.org/what-how-with-whom-two-questions-for-juliet-escoria/ 5) Roxane Gay’s Art or Humanity at The Butter: http://the-toast.net/2014/11/18/need-talk-bill-cosby/ 6) The Ploughshares blog has the Round-Down: The Right Way to Write by Tasha Golden: http://blog.pshares.org/index.php/the-ploughshares-round-down/ 7) At the New Yorker, Sarah Larson’s “Listen to Sinead O’Connor”: http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/listen-sinead-oconnor 8) Matt Coleman hosts a Tuesday “twitterreview” column at Saybird, this week five questions for Joshua Harmon: http://www.saybird.com/blog/twitterviews-tuesday-joshua-harmon 9) “Megan Daum won’t apologize” at The Salon: http://www.salon.com/2014/11/19/meghan_daum_wont_apologize_how_she_forged_a_new_genre_of_confessional_writing/ 10) Pharrell Williams has some of his favorite music at his Tumblr site. C’mon, what’re you waiting for?: http://tumblr.pharrellwilliams.com/ I’m reading this Friday night in Madison, Wisconsin for MONSTERS OF POETRY, hosted by Adam Fell, whose book, I AM NOT A PIONEER – H_NGM_N: an online journal & small press, is wonderful! 1237799_10203471176834427_8316997767999329443_n We have a Facebook event page here: Lauren Haldeman, Hannah Brooks-Motl, Robert Vaughan, & Caryl Pagel. Please come and support your friendly Midwest poets: fun raffles, strange minced words, bafflement. And warmth. (Friday, November 21, 7:30 p.m. at Dragonfly Cafe in Madison).   ]]>

Two For Tuesday: Gay Degani and Kathy Fish

TWO FOR TUESDAY: GAY DEGANI Dumas’ Two Counts- Alexander Dumas Sometime earlier this year, I listened to Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo on CD, the two-part library edition. Full of adventure, betrayal, lost love, and surprise, it was a revelation. The week I plugged into this story, I cleaned out the refrigerator, ironed an overflowing basket of clothes, pulled the weeds taking over my potted plants, went on long rambling walks, all because I didn’t want to stop being a part of this swashbuckling19th century French novel. How could I not have read this book before? Well, it’s long. Penguin Classics; Unabridged edition (May 27, 2003) puts it at 1276 pages. Sitting down to read a tome this long is way too daunting in today’s busy-busy world. That’s why I strap on my ugly fanny pack and tuck headphones into my ears. I can multi-task!! And I’m so grateful because The Count picked me up and carried me off, surprising me with his misfortunes and singular brand of justice. Don’t all readers love it when books make them gasp in disbelief? After a lifetime of reading and listening to books, this doesn’t happen to me very often. As a writer, I’ve trained myself to see clues, understand structure, and anticipate the twists and turns, but Dumas astonished me time and again. Surprise is always a most delicious treat. Count of Monte Cristo, Library CD edition: http://www.amazon.com/Count-Monte-Cristo-Blackstone-Collection/dp/1433215772/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416023790&sr=1-8&keywords=the+count+of+monte+cristo+on+CD Count of Monte Cristo, Penguin Edition: http://www.amazon.com/Count-Monte-Cristo-Penguin-Classics/dp/0140449264 Paperback, 1276 pages, (Penguin Classics, Unabridged edition- May 27, 2003) Count of Monte ChristoPenguin version The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo- Tom Reiss Then, I recently discovered another audio book at my public library, Pulitzer Prize-winning The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss and the surprises continued to mount up. I had some vague memory that Alexandre Dumas (the author of The Count of Monte Cristo) was of mixed race, but I didn’t realize the rest of the story, that his grandfather was the ne’er-do-well elder son of French aristocrat and a slave in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti). When the old Marquis died, Alexandre Dumas’s grandfather returned to France to claim his fortune and title, bringing with him his son Thomas-Alexandre Dumas (he sold his other children). The “Black Count” was this Thomas-Alexandre Dumas and it is from his life, his hardships and his triumphs as a general in the French Revolutionary army that Alexandre Dumas drew his inspiration for “Monte Cristo.” From Reiss’ biography, I began to understand the differences between the French attitude toward race and slavery and the attitudes held by the U.S. I also learned more about the French Revolution as well as the craft of writing, how Dumas incorporated the stories he’d been told by and about his father into his own work. I’m surprised when I discover there are seemingly inadvertent patterns to my reading. Time and time again I will pick one engrossing story only to find another shortly thereafter that somehow links perfectly with the first one. It’s my subconscious at work, I suppose, but too often I choose books blindly, especially audio books, having to take what’s on the shelf, but they often dovetail one into the other, giving me a richer look into history or into the human heart or both. Paperback (or audio, Kindle, Hardcover): 432 pages, Broadway Books, reprint edition (May 14, 2013). The Black Count: http://www.amazon.com/Black-Count-Revolution-Betrayal-Cristo/dp/0307382478/ Tom Reiss Gay’s Bio: Gay Degani’s suspense novel What Came Before is available in trade paperback and e-book (What Came Before – Kindle edition by Gay Degani. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com). She is founder and editor-emeritus of EDF’s Flash Fiction Chronicles, content editor at SmokeLong Quarterly and blogs at Words in Place where a complete list of her published work can be found. She’s had three stories nominated for Pushcart consideration and won the 11th Annual Glass Woman Prize. She has written a novella, The Old Road, as part of Pure Slush’s 2014-A Year in Stories project and is working on the prequel to What Came Before. ****************************************************************************** TWO FOR TUESDAY: KATHY FISH  Nine Stories- J. D. Salinger Everybody has read The Catcher in The Rye. It was much later that someone recommended Nine Stories to me. I studied psychology in college, not literature, so I was late to a lot of great fiction and poetry. It wasn’t until I started writing that I read Salinger’s short stories. No matter how many times i dip back into this book, I remain astonished at how good they are. How perfect they are. I learned so much from this book. I’m convinced that nobody does dialogue better. Salinger makes it look easy and effortless. When his characters talk to each other in these stories, it just flows naturally and yet, his dialogue does an incredible amount of work in the stories. Voice, characterization, back story, the advancement of plot–all accomplished in a simple phone conversation between mother and daughter or a seemingly playful back and forth between a man and a child. Salinger’s physical descriptions of his characters are actually rather scant, but I see them. I see them so clearly because of how they talk. And also, their small gestures that carry so much weight. Every character in every story is so alive, so fully realized. Salinger doesn’t explain much in these stories. He doesn’t have to. I always go back to this book when I”m stuck and need inspiration. The thing about these stories, though, is that they’re so perfect as to almost make you want to close your laptop forever and try your hand at something, anything else. Almost, but not quite. What I’ve learned from Nine Stories is that stories are about people, and that people sad and funny and bewildering and full of secrets. You start with fascinating people, fully realized, and story takes care of itself. Paperback: 320 pages (January 30, 2001) http://www.amazon.com/Nine-Stories-J-D-Salinger/dp/0316767727/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416275117&sr=8-1&keywords=nine+stories+by+j.d.+salinger Nine Stories The Shipping News- E. Annie Proulx Mention this novel and there’s always a mixed response. Some people really hate it. The strange, fragmented sentences. That harsh, forbidding setting. All the shitty things that happen to poor, passive, lumbering Quoyle. I absolutely loved it. It’s another book I’ve read multiple times. I love Proulx’s diction, her brilliant descriptions, they way her characters talk. I love the harshness. How setting in this book is indeed another character. How Quoyle is pushed around and molded into the man he eventually becomes. Or rather, how his presence molds the people around him somehow. It’s a relentlessly sad, dark, odd book. And again, I love how Proulx is not afraid of words. Fresh, strange, arcane words. I read this book with such pleasure. And I learned so much about writing from reading this book. Proulx loves her characters in all their imperfect humanity. Quoyle is so moving in his loneliness and desire to connect. I can tell you that I never fail to cry when I read the final amazing paragraphs: “Quoyle experience moments in all colors, uttered brilliancies, paid attention to the rich sound of waves counting stones, he laughed and wept, noticed sunsets, heard music in rain, said I do. A row of shining hubcaps on sticks appeared in the front yard of the Burkes’ house. A wedding present from the bride’s father. For if Jack Buggit could escape from the pickle jar, if a bird with a broken neck could fly away, what else might be possible? Water may be older than light, diamonds crack in hot goat’s blood, mountaintops give off cold fire, forests appear in mid-ocean, it may happen that a crab is caught with the shadow of a hand on its back, that the wind be imprisoned in a bit of knotted string. And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery.” Paperback: 352 pages, (Scribner, June 1, 1994) http://www.amazon.com/Shipping-News-E-Annie-Proulx/dp/0671510053/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416275233&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Shipping+NEws The Shipping News Kathy’s Bio: Kathy Fish’s stories have been published or are forthcoming in The Lineup: 25 Provocative Women Writers (BLP), Slice, Guernica, Indiana Review, Denver Quarterly, Elm Leaves Journal, and elsewhere. She is the author of three collections of short fiction: A chapbook of flash fiction in the chapbook collective, A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness: Four Chapbooks of Short Short Fiction by Four Women, Rose Metal Press, 2008 (A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness), Wild Life, Matter Press, 2011 (Wild Life | Matter Press) and Together We Can Bury It, The Lit Pub, 2013 ( The Lit Pub • Kathy Fish’s Together We Can Bury It). She blogs at http://kathy-fish.com/. ******************************************************************************* Recently I listened to Brad Listi’s Other People podcast with Frederick Barthelme (Episode 327 — Frederick Barthelme) who’s new book, There Must Be Some Mistake, is available from Little, Brown & Co. Frederick is such a sweet man, so self-depracating, and I was fascinated by his reflections on growing up in this amazing American southern literate family. I also recalled one of my favorite collections, which had an enormous impact on me. I devoured it the first time I flew between New York and Los Angeles. Then read it again on my return flight. (And sorry, Frederick, but this one is by your older brother, Donald). And a second book which really spoke to me around the same time was Black Tickets by Jayne Anne Phillips. ‘Nuff said!” UnknownUnknown-1   Overnight to Many Distant Cities- Donald Barthelme (Overnight to Many Distant Cities: Donald Barthelme: 9780399128684: Amazon.com: Books) Black Tickets- Jayne Anne Phillips (Black Tickets: Stories: Jayne Anne Phillips: 9780375727351: Amazon.com). What books were instrumental in your youth? Were there any that made you want to write? Or want to take action? Thanks again, for another fun Two for Tuesday. Now get your pen moving!      ]]>

HUMP Day: November Nuggets

PETS: THREE VIGNETTES by Robert Vaughan | REVOLUTION JOHN. Thanks editor Sheldon Compton, for your support! And check out the other amazing work at this great website! Here are ten other places you can click and visit in cyberland: 1) Allie Marini Batts is interviewed by Drunk Monkey’s editor Matthew Guerrucky: http://www.drunkmonkeys.onimpression.com/interview-allie-marini-batts/ 2) Janice Lee, co-founder of Entropy, talks about origins and more, “Writers and Creative People are Multi-Faceted” at The Review Review: http://www.thereviewreview.net/interviews/writers-and-creative-people-are-multi-faceted-jan 3) At Gigantic, a conversation about Fairy Tales between Porochista Khakpour and John Dermot Woods: http://thegiganticmag.com/magazine/articleDetail.php?p=articleDetail&id=206 4) Although I typically abhor these sort of “exclusive lists,” at Buzzfeed, this one is pretty damn good: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jarrylee/20-under-40 5) Roxane Gay writes at her blog with “By Way of My Heart”: http://roxanegay.tumblr.com/post/102325291790/by-way-of-my-heart 6) An excerpt of his forthcoming novel, Alice, Sheldon Compton is up at New World Writing: http://newworldwriting.net/fall-2014/sheldon-lee-compton/ 7) Downtown Express highlights “Risque Tales from respectable parents,” including a great photo of writer Paula Bomer: http://www.downtownexpress.com/2014/11/06/risque-tales-from-respectable-parents/ 8) Adam Robinson at Everyday Genius sums up the Letters Fest in Atlanta 2014: http://www.publishinggenius.com/?p=4536 9) Ryan Bradley’s Pop Cartography is up at Revolution John: http://revolutionjohnmagazine.wordpress.com/2014/11/11/pop-cartography-in-which-i-steal-rock-and-roll-by-ryan-w-bradley/ 10) Gabe Durham interviews Maxwell Neely-Cohen about his new book, Echo of the Boom at The Rumpus: http://therumpus.net/2014/11/the-rumpus-interview-with-maxwell-neely-cohen/ My Dad was a veteran of WWII. And so, we toasted to him last night, and thanks, Dad for your service. But today I don’t want to focus on war. I’d like to focus on peace. Have a great HUMP day. Do something nice, unexpected, for someone. Perhaps a stranger.  ]]>

Two for Tuesday: Michael Seidlinger and Mike Joyce

TWO FOR TUESDAY: Michael Seidlinger The Novel: A Biography- Michael Schmidt Man, this one’s a tome. Quite literally the biography of how the novel, as a literary long-form, evolved through the various eras, Michael Schmidt also managed to write in a way that invigorates the (maybe) ailing/uninspired novelist into remembering why s/he got into writing novels in the first place: the innovation, the freedom, the exploratory eye of letting free both storytelling and structure. It’s a hell of a book to read and savor. I’ve been reading it in small, ten to fifteen page, doses and intend on keeping this one in rotation for months to come. http://www.amazon.com/Novel-Biography-Michael-Schmidt/dp/0674724739/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415713815&sr=1-1&keywords=the+novel+a+biography Hardcover: 1200 pages, Belknap Press (May 12, 2014) The Novel Dept of Speculation- Jenny Offill I was a little late to the party with this one but I’m glad I gave it a shot when the paperback version dropped. From a distance, I expected it to be something quite similar, predictable fare from the major New York publishing houses, but upon inspecting the book up close and seeing how it is structured (spare, small snippets of language with plenty of white space), I quickly took to it as a novel that could have easily fit as an indie conquering and finding a home with the majors. Structurally, it’s a lot like an early novel of mine, The Sky Conducting, where the small nuggets of language propel the narrative in a somewhat anomalous yet remarkably poignant and on-point prose. It’s the sort of novel that stays with you for a long time after reading it. http://www.amazon.com/Dept-Speculation-Vintage-Contemporaries-Offill/dp/0345806875/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415713914&sr=1-1&keywords=dept+of+speculation Paperback: 192 pages, Vintage Contemporaries (October 7, 2014) Dept of Speculation Michael Seidlinger’s Bio: Michael is the author of a number of novels including The Laughter of StrangersMy Pet Serial Killer and The Sky Conducting. He serves as Electric Literature‘s Book Reviews Editor as well as Publisher-in-Chief of Civil Coping Mechanisms, an indie press specializing in unclassifiable/innovative fiction and poetry. Check him out here: THE FEATURE S P A C E _ | File under: author/designer Michael J Seidlinger. ******************************************************************************* TWO FOR TUESDAY: Mike Joyce Dear Nobody: The True Diary of Mary Rose- Gillian McCain and Legs McNeil Dear Nobody: The True Diary of Mary Rose is a nonfiction book. It’s epistolary. Diary entries spanning a three year period written by a young teenage girl who was a drug addict; who was fatherless; who had cystic fibrosis, the killing disease; who spent years in and out of rehab facilities for her condition, suicide attempts, and drug use. Who was going through love and loss all the same as any teen. It’s a true story about a girl who died in the year 1999. The book was compiled/edited by the famed authors Gillian McCain and Legs McNeil (the authors of the definitive Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk). I heard about it first from a Poetry Editor of the journal I edit, Literary Orphans (thanks, Katie). The press [Sourcebook Fire, out of Naperville, IL] was kind enough to send myself and the Managing Editor press copies. We were skeptical–nonfiction like this isn’t really my bag and to be honest I was mostly just taken with the idea of getting the free book from these two pivotal authors. Man, I didn’t know what I was in for. For about a month as we each read it, it was all we could talk about. I’m constantly telling anyone who will listen that if you want to be a writer, just write honest and unfiltered. Write when you have something to say, even if you can’t yet see what it is you’re trying to say but still have that lump in your throat. I can appreciate the iambic pentameter and the delicate merger of Faulknerian and Joycean stream-of-consciousness as much as the next guy, but that stuff is just the icing. At best. At worst it’s the boring 20 minute guitar solo in every lame heavy metal album ever made. That stuff shouldn’t be what you set out to write–at least in this Editor’s opinion. It should be more about heart. My role as Editor and my ridiculously long hours snuggled up with the aluminum railings of the Chicago Transit Authority allows me to read quite a bit. I read a lot of books with heart, but nothing with as big of a heart as this book, not in the past few months, not in the entire year. Mary Rose writes and she doodles and the heart she pounds on the page swells and is filled with tension–even when she writes about boredom. She falls in love and desperately seeks friends and is abused and fills herself with sex and is hit again and again and she finds new love and when it’s all on the brink of the end, when she’s writing on the stationary of the room she’s about to die in, and she looks back at her youth as a little girl, sneaking out in the hospital hallways with the older kids who are there to die at 17–rolling their IVs as they laugh and play–just to feel alive with a tube stuck in ‘em–well that heart swells and it breaks. Yours will to. For me reading this book was a return to what it means to be anybody worth anything, to write fearlessly. To remember where I come from. Don’t let the Lifetime-channel vibes stop you from experiencing this book and remembering what it’s like to be brave. http://www.amazon.com/Dear-Nobody-True-Diary-Mary/dp/1402287585/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415713586&sr=1-1&keywords=Dear+Nobody Paperback: 336 pages: Sourcebooks Fire (April 1, 2014) Dear Nobody Nonconformity- Nelson Algren My second choice for a book will also remind you how to write, how to write with heart, but in a very deliberate way. It’s also a nonfiction book. What is going on with that? I must be getting old. Nonconformity by Nelson Algren is a short thing. Inside of 100 square pages, with the little pages not even stacking up against a dimestore trade paperback. The book was only recently published (i.e., the 90s), and is essentially the right-hook of the great depression-era Chicago writer that you probably don’t know about. It’s a tad more academic than my other recommendation, if you can ever call Algren academic and not be rightfully crucified for the sin. Algren writes poetry and awkward lines and he does it better than me, and probably better than you.  He is amazing as a writer and has a style immediately identifiable—his book on writing has no shortage of the prose he is known for. The Chicagoan had a love affair with Simone de Beauvoir, and there is a lot of speculation in the annotations of this book that he was trying to raise his fists up at Sartre, take him at his own game, win the girl. The socially conscious writer. The ethical imperative of the artist. But let us not forget. This book, Nonconformity? It’s Algren. This is all Algren. Confrontational. American. In danger of censorship. He’s a proletarian writer, fighting for the masses, pegged by McCarthy and pursued as a communist. He’s attacked and challenged and while he may complain about it every chance, you know he wouldn’t have it any other way. Nelson reminds you that the only writing worth writing is writing that spends you and leaves you dry. He quotes and pulls in references and destroys and supports and makes this wonderful manifesto for what it means to be a writer. A breath of fresh air. Needed now more than ever. Sometimes I feel like we are in a stagnate cave where the only writers who are serious, who are hard at work , who are in the papers or being interviewed by Crest-Whitestrip news anchors—are out there doing what they do just make a fast buck. I guess Algren felt the same back then. They’ll write a novel about the sexiness of a man who stalks you with GPS beacons and a TV script about the danger of underwear-bombs. They’ll write anything at all to get your cash. It’s like a braincell bank. Insert 10 brain cells here: receive double-d cup entertainment. So you want to make a million? That’s all fine and good, writer, if that is what you want to do, just don’t lose your heart along the way. Algren has a word of advice for you: “You don’t write a novel out of sheer pity any more than blow a safe out of a vague longing to be rich. / A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as it is to armed robbery.” To Algren, and to me, the writer is that constant whetstone–there to grind away ceaselessly against the axe that has become the American mind, to keep it sharp. This book is a plea not to let that role be forgotten. Written during his prime, his leanest, his fighting weight–before the depression won and he ran away from this city, he wrote a book on writing. This is the book. It’s unlike any book on writing you’ll ever read. It’s a lot like any clarion call to arms you will ever read. http://www.amazon.com/Nonconformity-Writing-Nelson-Algren/dp/1888363053/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1415713697&sr=1-2&keywords=nonconformity Paperback: 142 pages: Seven Stories Press (September 10, 1996) Nonconformity Mike Joyce’s Bio: Mike Joyce edits Literary Orphans Journal and writes in the underground. ******************************************************************************** There are books we read purely for enjoyment, books recommended by family or dear friends. Also there are books we read that re-arrange our lives, make our approach to writing, as writers, seem uniquely, markedly different. I nod to both Michael and Mike this week for mentioning books that are craft focused. And so, I also would like to mention two more books, recently read, that altered the way I write, or formerly perceived writing. One is non-fiction (interviews) and the other is poetry (Ellen Bass): UnknownUnknown-1        ]]>

HUMP Day Holla

http://pankmagazine.com/piece/three-poems-51/ 2) NPR talks about Car Talk’s Tom Magliozzi: http://www.npr.org/2014/11/03/357428287/tom-magliozzi-popular-co-host-of-nprs-car-talk-dies-at-77 3) Meg Tuite, Michelle Reale and Heather Fowler won Artistically Declined’s 2013 Twin Antler’s Prize: http://artisticallydeclined.net/poetry/twin-antlers/bare-bulbs-swinging/ 4) Jen Michalski at Nervous Breakdown with ‘Origin Story: Sara Lippman’s Doll Palace’: http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/jmichalski/2014/10/origin-story-sara-lippmans-doll-palace/ – more-119571 5) Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish re-blogs Ellen Bass’s “Prayer” from her new Like a Beggar collection: http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/10/15/a-poem-for-tuesday-9/ 6) Seems fitting for “Democracy” by Dorianne Laux, at Young Chicago Authors: http://youngchicagoauthors.org/blog/artist-feature-dorianne-laux/ 7) Ocean Vuong’s “Descent” in Drunken Boat 17: http://www.drunkenboat.com/db17/ocean-vuong 8) BOMB magazine’s editor-in-chief, Betsy Sussler, has published BOMB: The Author Interviews at Soho Press: http://sohopress.com/books/bomb-the-author-interviews/ 9) Len Kuntz is straight from the heart at his blog, People You Know By Heart: http://lenkuntz.blogspot.com/ 10) If you are near the NYC area on November 16, The Sunday Salon reading series is hosting three Massachusetts writers who are not to be missed: http://www.sundaysalon.com/nyc-november-16-2014.htm.    ]]>

Two for Tuesday: Amanda Harris and Karen Stefano

TWO FOR TUESDAY: Amanda Harris The Glass Crib—Amanda Auchter Amanda Auchter’s chapbook found me in an unexpected place—one full of ache and aimlessness and a desk full of rejection letters. Everyone on Amazon had raved and raved about this little volume of poems, so I figured, if anything was going to give me my spark back, it would be this woman. Now, I did not know anything about this other Amanda, beside than the fact that we share the same first name and we both have curly hair. One poem, in particular, undid everything I thought and understood about poetry, and I believe it was called “The Ecstacy of Saint Theresa.” I could give you a thousand reasons that this poem is worth being anthologized in every poetry anthology ever, but nothing could do justice to its deep musicality and raw power. You have to read her writing to believe it: “There is no pain but the bodily. Nothing less / than the long spear / the golden iron / dagger. “ The more I read her work, particularly this poem, the more her precision amazes me. Breaking the line on “dagger” may seem like a small detail, but it makes the image that much sharper, that much more likely to pierce the skull of the reader. If you’re a writer who wants to learn how to make your writing emotionally connect with people, this book is like a crash course in an MFA program. It’s that revelatory. http://www.amazon.com/The-Glass-Crib-Amanda-Auchter/dp/0978612760/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1414637246&sr=8-2&keywords=the+glass+crib Paperback: 88 pages, Zone 3 Press (September 15, 2011) Amanda Auchter The Afflicted Girls—Nicole Cooley  The first time I saw Nicole Cooley was in my freshman year of college. She didn’t look like anything particularly unique—just another flighty Creative Writing professor who tried to see too much of the world at once. Perhaps those wandering eyes, however, are the reason Nicole Cooley has produced such consistently breathtaking poetry. The Afflicted Girls, which centers on the Salem witch trials, provides hauntingly poignant takes on gender, sexuality and the fear of what’s different in a way I didn’t think poetry was capable of doing. What makes it even better is that she does it in simple language: “Marriage is the punishment (God) invented / for the wicked in this village. . . / My lungs are burning / Bury my words in the dirt. “ In one stanza, we get a gripping conflict and we get all the layers underneath it: sexual conflict, ‘othering’, transgression. Nicole Cooley’s writing organically balances craft and rawness, deep philosophy and visceral emotion. There is nothing like it being published right now. The Afflicted Girls: Nicole Cooley: 9780807129463: Amazon.com: Books Paperback: 50 pages, Hardcover: 64 pages; Louisiana State University Press, First Edition (April 1, 2004) Nicole Cooley Amanda’s Bio: Amanda Harris is a writer and gym rat living in Flushing, NY. When she’s not working on her own stuff, she’s either posting on Fictionaut or editing her own magazine, The Miscreant. ****************************************************************************** TWO FOR TUESDAY: Karen Stefano You Were Born For Greatness: Spiritual Guidance From The Angelic Realm by Jacob Glass If life is absolutely perfect and you feel amped and deliriously happy every single moment of your days, then you probably don’t need to read the book I’m about to describe. But if you’ve ever experienced a loss that has left you staggering, or perhaps been gutted like a fish by someone you had expected to love forever, or if you’ve ever just felt a teensy weensy bit of ennui, I suggest that you read Jacob Glass’s latest book, You Were Born for Greatness: Spiritual Guidance From the Angelic Realm. Glass is a spiritual teacher and author lecturing and writing on spirituality and New Thought metaphysics. His messages are potent with truth and compassion, his words dedicated to guiding readers to a more peaceful life. And, he is really fucking funny as he calls you on your shit. You Were Born For Greatness offers daily spiritual guidance with lessons prompted by The Course In Miracles, a well known self-study curriculum about spiritual transformation. The Course In Miracles is a fantastic text, but it can feel heavy at times, demanding a bit more work than a person in “the dark place” might be willing to do, and that’s why this book fills a void. I call it The Course In Miracles Lite. Each lesson quotes an excerpt from The Course In Miracles and then Glass gives his own take on what that quote means in daily life. Here’s an excerpt from Lesson 14: “One of your main problems is that you often line up with your perceived limitations rather than lining up with your Greater Self… Every limiting story you tell about the past, present or future activates that same limiting vibration within you and keeps you in that old energy pattern. Every time you whine, criticize, bemoan, grumble, murmur and complain you are blocking and denying your own good by affirming limitation… You must practice sowing seeds in your life through your WORDS. You need not speak the most positive amazing life-affirming words anyone has ever said. You need only speak words that encourage, soothe and uplift even slightly and this will start activating the higher vibrations within you…” If you want more peace and joy and good in your life, this book is for you. Paperback: 192 pages; Createspace Publishing: (first edition, April 27, 2014) You Were Born for Greatness: Spiritual Guidance from the Angelic Realm: Jacob Glass: 9781499276947: Amazon.com: Books Jason Glass Middle Men by Jim Gavin I bought this collection on a recent trip to Vermont and devoured every last morsel of it on the flight home to San Diego. And then I couldn’t help myself: I sat down and read it again. Each of Gavin’s stories is dryly funny, depicting men with dreams squarely at odds with the realities of their lives. There are toilet salesmen, not-quite-good-enough basketball players, and epic fuck ups. There are liquor stores, cars that need coaxing before they’ll start, and many satisfying trips to Del Taco. Many well drawn scenes are simultaneously heart wrenching and hilarious. Every single scene is delivered with wit and intelligence. Here’s an excerpt from the title story, “Middle Men”: “As a boy, Matt Costello often wondered what his dad did when he left the house in the morning. The old man was in sales, he knew that, and from the brochures and catalogues stacked in the garage, he knew it had something to do with toilets…Years later, while half-assing his way through college and trying to decide what to do with his life, he finally asked his dad how he got into the plumbing industry. The old man, with his usual modesty and good humor, explained that when he returned from Vietnam in 1969, his only goal in life was to work someplace with air-conditioning.” And Gavin has a gift for dialogue. In “Bermuda,” the narrator purposely gets lost, his goal being to arrive late to the club and miss the band with the guitarist he fears his girlfriend will be attracted to:   “You just went in a circle.”             “I’m a little lost.”             “What’s wrong with you tonight?”             “Nothing.”             “It might be nice if you told me I looked nice.”             I never thought she cared about that kind of thing. I loved that about her.             “You look nice.”             “Fuck you,” she said quietly, in a resigned voice.   My advice: read this book. Paperback: 256 pages; Simon and Schuster, reprint edition (February 11, 2014) Middle Men: Stories: Jim Gavin: 9781451649345: Amazon.com: Books Middle Men Jim Gavin Karen Bio: Karen Stefano is a Fiction Editor for Connotation Press. Her own work has appeared in The South Carolina Review, Tampa Review, The Santa Fe Literary Review, Metazen, Lost In Thought, Epiphany, and numerous other journals. Her story, “Seeing” was nominated for the XXXVIII Pushcart Prize. Her debut collection of stories, The Secret Games of Words will be released in January, 2015. To learn more about Karen, visit www.stefanokaren.com. I’ve been reading two stellar books simultaneously. I often do this, especially when they are different genres, like poetry and memoir, or fiction and biography. Here are my two picks: UnknownChris Hosea I also want to extend my deepest sorrow and support to the Simonds’ family. Our neighbors across the street from our farm in Macedon lost their elder son, Cliff, recently. Sail on, my friend. Thanks for some fantastic childhood memories.            ]]>