Novel Work

I’ve finally decided to split The Open City into two novels, rather than continue working on it as one project with two distinct threads. Part of the concern was that the single book would be very long, around 700 pages or so. It just didn’t seem feasible to get something like that published, seeing that it would be my first novel. And it would probably take another two years to just get it roughed in. The other things that worried me were more novelistic in nature. The two threads certainly play off each other—and the two novels will still be related—but I’d structured them to alternate in parts rather than chapters. That is, there would be a seismic shift every 100 pages or so, rather than smaller shifts every 20 pages. (Most of the hybrid-historical-novel models I’m using are structured more on the alternating chapters style, such as Aleksander Hemon’s The Lazarus Project and Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated. Junot Diaz’ The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao gives more space to the individual threads instead of alternating, but his threads were separated by only a generation and collide in the end in a way mine wouldn’t.) These seemed too jarring. Just as the story is getting roaring it would jump into another thread. One that’s starting from scratch, essentially. I didn’t really anticipate the historical thread being this interesting or engrossing, which is part of the problem and part of the exciting part. It’s something I feel much more compelled to write, something I feel needs to be done.

Nicole and Maddie flying outside the courthouse.

In any event, I’ve finished a first draft of Part I of what is now titled The Hyphenates of Jackson County, which should be about one/third of the book. The writing of this has gone so smoothly so far. Maybe it’s writing historical fiction, in that I have many sources, photos, and books to draw on when I’m feeling stuck. Or maybe it’s that I’ve been working near-daily as a novelist for almost two years now and am actually getting better at it. Plus a little bit of the family life settling down a bit more, becoming more comfortable as a father, having real office space without radon gas to contend with, and having a nice chunk of property that demands constant physical activity. Let’s say all of the above. But whatever the cause of this good streak, it’s been very much enjoyed. Now it’s just a matter of finishing. And making it great. The rest should take care of itself.

Dispatch from The Hyphenates of Jackson County

“There was something about Jacob that triggered Mrs. Eigler’s mothering instinct. The way he stared blankly into the street when they chatted in the evenings, as if someplace else; how he merely smiled in silence when at a loss for words, his mind grinding. Women often fell towards mothering Jacob. From the way his hair flopped over his forehead to the cowlick spiking up in back, Jacob unaware until a woman was there to tamp it down for him; and in how he dressed, not quite sloppily, but merely hinting at neatness with an informal comportment.”

Personal Rejection Notes, Requests for More, and Other Nice Versions of No Thanks

Crazyhorse for “How to Die Young in a Nebraska Winter”; Lake Effect and StoryQuarterly for “The Housekeeper”; Michigan Quarterly Review, Indiana Review, and One Story for “These Things That Save Us”; Barnstorm for “From Indiana.”

Just Finished

Kapitoil by Teddy Wayne. This novel is nearly very good. It’s a book driven almost entirely by the voice of its narrator, which is something I don’t usually enjoy that much beyond the first few pages. Yet, protagonist Karim Issar is very compelling. A programmer from Qatar who strikes it rich in Manhattan while doing some pre-Y2K debugging, Karim is the kind of uninitiated character who so effectively provides context to the culture he’s being introduced to. The main problem I have with Kapitoil is that the secondary characters are flat and ineffective as foils. They can’t challenge Karim, which leaves the main character two-dimensional in important ways as well. It looks like much of Wayne’s background is in doing short, satirical pieces for magazines, so maybe this is telling in that the novel shines when it is merely a matter of voice and gags, but falters on the level of extended plot. This one is really worth picking up, however. Highly recommended.

Should I run for office? Do I look like a county chair?

Now Reading

American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser.

The Underworld Sewer by Josie Washburn.

The Book of Genesis illustrated by R. Crumb.

Up Next

The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris.

And big props to my friend and colleague Nabina Das, who has been named an Associate Fellow for the City as Studio 2010 initiative in Delhi. Awesome work!

Have you been so busy procrastinating you’ve forgotten to do your Christmas shopping? Not sure what book to get for your favorite (grown up) reader?

Order a subsrciption to ONE STORY. Now!

My sister-in-law who is lovely and smart and generous gave me a subscription a few months ago. Every three weeks a short story arrives in the mail. The packaging is simple and comforting. It easily fits in my purse – perfect for reading emergencies. And each story is different and magical in its own way.

Check out ONE STORY online. I love it even more after reading their mission statement:

“One Story is a non-profit literary magazine that features one great short story mailed to subscribers every three weeks. Our mission is to save the short story by publishing in a friendly format that allows readers to experience each story as a stand-alone work of art and a simple form of entertainment. One Story is designed to fit into your purse or pocket, and into your life.”

My favorite is the WHY…

“We believe that short stories are best read alone. They should not be sandwiched in between a review and an exposé on liposuction, or placed after another work of fiction that is so sad or funny or long that the reader is worn out by the time they turn to it.”

Your shopping woes are over!

Fa la la la la, la la la!

Sarah Wones Tomp

WRITING ON THE SIDEWALK

I really enjoyed this story. It’s about a woman, Sally, who’s a cancer survivor. She joins a Breast Cancer Survivor team that is climbing Mt. Everest. If you can beat cancer you can do anything, right? Even climb the world’s tallest mountain!

The story kicks off as Sally is close to the summit, but struggling to push upward. The group’s climbing guide, Ellikka, urges Sally to get going! The story alternates between Sally’s struggles on the mountain, her remembrances of having cancer, and how the disease affected her relationships with her sister, students (she’s a teacher), and ex-husband.

Sounds grim. No! I found the story hilarious!

We’re also told that the story is published posthumously; the author, Sheila Schwartz, recently died of cancer after years of fighting the disease.

You can read an interview with her husband on the One Story website.

If you want to publish short stories you need to read literary magazines. So says this blog posting. The writer makes some great points. And I love the contrast between aspiring writers and aspiring rock stars.

For the past few years I’ve subscribed to One Story. I wanted to read newly published fiction that isn’t in The New Yorker.  I’ve really enjoyed the magazine, but plan to let my subscription lapse and sign-up for Ploughshares. I just want to try something different.

Last year, while leafing through an issue of Ploughshares in my local library, I stumbled upon a story that really blew me away. It was called “Only Child” by Alix Ohlin. That story spurred me on to find other Ohlin stories (in Five Points, One Story), to read a good part of her short story collection (I plan to read it all), and to read her novel, The Missing Person, which I enjoyed.

biblemesh.com is a new way to learn the bible and network with friends

I decided to shake things up and not read last week’s New Yorker short story. Instead, I read the most recent offering from One Story – a story by Robert McCarthy called “Stag.”

I’ve been a One Story subscriber for a couple of years now. I like the concept: each month they send me one story in an easy-to-carry little booklet.

I’ve had mixed feelings about the stories, but mostly I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read. They tend to be less experimental – less odd in their structure – then a lot of the New Yorker stories. Some of the subject matter is off-beat (those are actually the ones I tend to like), but they’re told in a good old-fashion story telling way. Some of my favorites are “Hurt People,” “The Tennis Player,” “Sir Fleeting,” “Harriet Elliot,” “We Bluegills,” and “Safe Passage.”

Unfortunately, “Stag” didn’t blow me away. That may be because of the blue-collar nature of the story. I’m not really a blue-collar fiction aficionado (expect, of course, for Raymond Carver).

I also found the whole scene with the deer strange. If a deer breaks into your home and you successful escape the room with the deer, why would you go back in? And, would you really wrestle the deer to the ground and break its neck? Me: I’d be calling someone on the phone.

But what do I know? The author says he based the deer episode on something he read in a newspaper. And that brings me to one of my favorite parts of One Story – the online author Q&A. So if you want to read what the author has to say about his piece, go here.

In a world populated by meme machines… Meme machines who are a lot more susceptible to being indoctrinated with rather bizarre ideals than most of them care to ever believe, let alone admit i.e. see Millgrams experiments, we are all exposed to and influenced by biased opinions on a daily basis… These biased opions, all corporate advertizing, stereotypical ideals and one sided stories all seem to captivate and blind us to the diverse and complex reality that we were born into. And because of this, we need to remember the importance of remaining open, so as not to become oblivious to real and obvious truths… But probably more importantly, we should be aware of these issues, so that we do NOT become a slave to a system that takes advantage of the natural processes that ultimately make us behave in the ways that we do. Otherwise the people with the knowledge of how to do this will give into the corporate system’s promise of great rewards, who in turn will manipulate our minds, telling us what we should give, and not give, consent for. This is when we “honestly” stop thinking for ourselves and become nothing more than part of the “herd.” WE MUST SEE THE COMPLETE PICTURE TO BE ABLE TO MAKE UP OUR MINDS ABOUT TRUE FREE CHOICE!!!

Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories. Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice — and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

Chimamanda Adichie: The Danger Of A Single Story

About Chimamanda Adichie:

In Nigeria, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Half of a Yellow Sun has helped inspire new, cross-generational communication about the Biafran war. In this and in her other works, she seeks to instill dignity into the finest details of each character, whether poor, middle class or rich, exposing along the way the deep scars of colonialism in the African landscape.

Adichie’s newest book, The Thing Around Your Neck, is a brilliant collection of stories about Nigerians struggling to cope with a corrupted context in their home country, and about the Nigerian immigrant experience.

Adichie builds on the literary tradition of Igbo literary giant Chinua Achebe—and when she found out that Achebe liked Half of a Yellow Sun, she says she cried for a whole day. What he said about her rings true: “We do not usually associate wisdom with beginners, but here is a new writer endowed with the gift of ancient storytellers.”

For more information about Chimamanda Adichie, please click here.

As Emerging Writer reported, the lovely Dermot Bolger is teaching a novel writing class at the Rathlin Island Literary Festival in September. If you can’t make it out in that direction, check out his article on writing a novel in yesterday’s Irish Times. Some good advice on finding time to write – as he points out, writers write in short bursts – so no excuses about being too busy.

Also, here are some New York literary links I’ve been perusing lately:

Backspace writers’ group (thanks Ed Ass)

Bomb magazine

One Story

As Emerging Writer reported, the lovely Dermot Bolger is teaching a novel writing class at the Rathlin Island Literary Festival in September. If you can’t make it out in that direction, check out his article on writing a novel in yesterday’s Irish Times. Some good advice on finding time to write – as he points out, writers write in short bursts – so no excuses about being too busy.

Also, here are some New York literary links I’ve been perusing lately:

Backspace writers’ group (thanks Ed Ass)

Bomb magazine

One Story

Novel Work
Doing the final work on the rewrite of Part I. It’s taken since March to get to this point, but I feel much more comfortable with what I’m doing now. Having gone from 100-pages of a third-person POV focusing on one character to 115-pages of a first-person narrator (who is a minor character) writing through the POV of three other characters, it feels like a pretty big accomplishment just to make it back to this point. Still not quite where I need to be, probably, but I’m getting there. Expanding the POV and playing with the notion of a first-person narrator acting as an omniscient third-person narrator has been very freeing in terms of character development. It came about from two main catalysts, the first being my agent’s suggestion that I had been writing the novel as if it were a really long short story—meaning, among other things, that I was locked too strictly into the limited POV of one character, ignoring potential angles other characters could add to the story. Second, was the need to kind of energize the voice, giving the voice of the story an angle within itself by allowing the narrator to have a stake in things, biases, etc. Basically, taking advantage of the big canvas I’m working with. The work seems to be much better and more interesting too. I’m looking forward to starting on Part II soon!

Dispatch from The Open City
“The animal pushed its pink nose out the sleeve to sniff the air, its rat nose twitching as Michael watched with disgust from a few feet away. Michael rubbed the knot on the back of his head, he ran his fingers through his hair, then reached back, realizing that books too can be weapons, tapping the bindings of the volumes near him until he found a thick one.”

Short Story Work
Put the finishing touches on a draft of “Never, Ever Bring This Up Again” and submitted it to the Esquire Fiction Contest just before their deadline. They mandated the title, by the way. I kind of like how it ended up, but it was a little frustrating to have to send off this version. With the generous help of one of my readers (Travis) it became apparent that the story should be set in the main character’s office building rather than his apartment. I’ll have to do a rewrite before the year is over.

Dispatch from “Never, Ever Bring This Up Again”
“The girl didn’t run when she saw Andy walking towards her, but held to the door handle dumbly, kind of pinching her legs together, bending at the waist. She wore old tennis shoes, the laces gray and dingy, and had a skinned knee, a bloody spot turned black on her dark legs. Up close, Andy assured me later, there was a dovish quality to her eyes. The girl had orange irises that flashed desperation.”

Kind Rejection Notes and Near Misses
Indiana Review for “How to Die Young in a Nebraska Winter.” McSweeney’s and One Story had previously sent very nice personal emails rejecting “The Current State of the Universe.” These near misses can often be misleading, but hopefully a big publication is on its way soon.

Just Finished
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano, translated by Natasha Wimmer. After reading this novel, it makes me think that maybe 2666 was mostly finished after all. Bolano definitely has a propensity for ending narrative threads in an abrupt and ragged manner. Probably another “ambitious but failed novel,” but Bolano is just so pleasurable to read I didn’t really care. Great book!

Now Reading
Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing by Lydia Peelle. About half-way through and really enjoying it, despite some reservations. In her Times review, Maria Russo notes that the collection is “remarkably consistent in pacing and tone,” which seems to be its biggest failing, in my eyes. Each story is great, but they all seem to hit the same notes and almost all are written from a first-person POV. Peelle is obviously adept at finding and inhabiting a character’s voice, which is a highly enjoyable aspect of her work, it’s just that when each story reads and feels the same, they kind of lose their power, I think. I’m hoping the second half of the collection offers a little more variety.

Up Next
White Noise by Don DeLillo

Also, please check out my story “The Uninvited Guests”  on the website of Johnny America if you haven’t yet.

• For a lover of short stories, what better heaven than someone who deigns a single short story worthy of a review? Five Star Literary Stories has been doing this for a while: they invite an editor of a literary journal to submit a story from their archives, recent or not, and introduce it; Five Star assigns an editor, who reviews it; a link to the full story is included. The reader is introduced, quite possibly, to a new story, a new writer, a new journal, and a new reviewer–all in a few quick keystrokes.
• Then my friend Sage Marsters (write that name down–her Pushcart Prize is just the beginning) tells me her story A Psychic, A Seizure, A Chair (how’s that for a title?) has been reviewed at The Delicate Rhino–which aims to, among other things, “record the experience of reading that story which got into your muscles.”
• Cliff Garstang offers many things at his Perpetual Folly blog: including capsule reviews of every short story published by the New Yorker. (Cliff has his own collection, In An Uncharted Country, coming out soon on Press 53.)
• I’ve been making a point of plugging the commitment of indies Dzanc and Press 53 to the short story–but let’s give it up as well to Harper Perennial and Fifty-Two Stories, their story-a-week site featuring selections from upcoming collections from current writers like Alex Burnett and Dennis Cooper–and rediscovered collections from Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Crane, Cather and Melville.
• Electric Literature is a new player on the litmag scene–making a big splash with a debut edition featuring Michael Cunningham, Jim Shephard and Lydia Millet; and a serious commitment to paying writers real money. Check them out. And by taking them up on their variously affordable options (paperback, Kindle, ebook and Iphone), prove them correct on their gamble of paying good writers good money for good stories. (Thanks to Book Fox for first bringing my attention to this new venture.)
• Perfect for summer-shortened attention spans: the August submission period for WW Norton’s projected 2010 anthology of “hint” fiction. Yes, there’s sudden fiction, quick fiction, flash fiction–and now hint fiction: stories of 25 words or less that tell a complete story, yet hint at a larger one.
• A reminder… LA’s live introduction to the best of new West Coast short fiction: the New Short Fiction Series, which this Friday features the stories of Jill Glass.
• Each month, The Short Review presents a new set of reviews devoted exclusively to short story collections–which this month includes my review of the anthology Visiting Hours.
• Finally, don’t forget a number of worthy short-story blogs: from The Short Review, American Short Fiction, and One Story among others.

So I finished my “quick edit” on the book a week ago, after finishing it and not looking at it for 24 hours. I’m making myself not read it for a least two weeks so that I can do another read-through and edit relatively fresh-minded. And you know what? It’s actually pretty hard. I haven’t so much wanted to tinker with it as read it. I want to read my own book! I hope that’s not another indication of delusion.

In the vein of not thinking about it, I have been reading a lot, watching SYTYCD, having dinner with my Papa Bear and friends and spending way too much time on Facebook. I haven’t worked any on the essay that I wanted to go back to, not yet. So basically, I’ve been giving my creative juices a big ol’ break.

Speaking of SYTYCD, I’ve been enjoying it immensely (and will even more next week, when the Top 20 are paired up), but I’m very, very angry about one thing. Why did Natalie get cut without even a chance to dance for her life? She’d done everything right up till that point, had even been asked to demonstrate (with Brandon) the dance she got cut on. What’s with that? I smell some sort of conspiracy or cover up, but haven’t been able to find anything online, just other people really upset and angry over it. Did she get offered a contract at the last minute and rather than explain that she had, they cut her? I don’t understand. Were they being accused of favoritism because she’s Katee’s former roommate? They’ve been really hard on favorites who tried out and almost made it in other seasons, but why cut her? She didn’t dance the routine that badly, and even if she had, it was her first mistake (televised anyway). I guess that’s enough rumination there.

Some great stuff:

Video of Toni Morrison talking about post-Obama writing.

Awesome journal, One Story.

I’m like the last person to discover Texts from Last Night. Kinda painful. And glorious.

Hey, do you remember in elementary school when there would be paper drives? You’d go around to your neighbors’ houses, maybe with your little brother’s red wagon, to collect all the newspapers they had.

Well, I was thinking we’d have a comment drive. To collect all the comments that must be floating around out there, piling up in the rooms of your mind, in the basements and closets. Let’s clear them out and get a conversation going… about all the books we’re reading and lives we’re living and the writing we want to do and the way we have to light a candle before we can get any real work done…

–Great idea!

–I didn’t like that book.

–Hey!

–Wonder if I can find a red wagon.

–Anybody out there agree with me that she’s wrong about that?

–Just taking a look.

You can use only your first name. You can make up a name. You can use all your names, like me. You can think of it as a place to practice your tweets!

I also remember that the class that had the most papers won a prize. Was it an ice cream party? Maybe we should have a prize. Or more than one prize.  Or a prize on the first of each month.

For the most comments for the month. And commenting on older posts will count too. Cool.

And the prize…. How about a subscription to my favorite literary journal—One Story. We’ll be supporting literary journals. Win, win, win.

So thanks for stopping in and let’s start clearing out our brains and collecting those comments.

From Le Sirenuse, a hotel in Positano, Italy, that, in the dark green leather stationary folder, includes a bookmark.  Imagine that.  In a place as beautiful as this, that tiny nudge to pick up a book and read.

Only after I take in the bookmark do I move to its quote from John Steinbeck: “Positano bites deep. It is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you are gone.”

This quote is from a 1953 Harper’s Bazaar article, in which Steinbeck also wrote “We went to the Sirenuse, an old family house converted into a first class hotel, spotless and cool, with grape arbors over its outside dining rooms. Every room has its little balcony and looks over the blue sea to the islands of the sirens from which those ladies sang so sweetly.”

I’m here at the Sirenland Writer’s Conference, with Dani Shapiro, Jim Shepard, Peter Cameron, Hannah Tinti, Robin Black, and the sirens–flying high above heads, hovering low around purses and discarded shoes, always singing sweetly.

Not to mention the climbs up thousands of steps into the small mountain towns for pasta and fagioli from the gardens out back and complimentary homemade liqueurs.  And then the climb down, in the cooling afternoon, the sun illuminating only a small sliver of the sea.

Well, you can only read one book at a time, right?  Maybe not. 

There’s the book I’m reading.  That for me is the one I take to bed at night.  The one I read after dinner.  It’s the book I want to read just because I do–for fun.  Right now that book is Tim Winton’s Dirt Music. 

Then there’s the book I’m reading for my writing.  At the moment this is Leslie Bennetts’ The Feminine Mistake–a must-read for every woman (more coming on this one).  I take this with me when I’m off to a solo lunch or to a waiting situation–doctors, children, airplanes.  I’ll read some in this one after dinner before I allow myself the book I’m reading. 

Several years ago, when I spent more time in my car and before the advent of One Story, I would choose a book that I wanted to read, but that wasn’t high on my list, and I might just leave it in my car.  It was my car book.  It was the one I would read while waiting.  If it stayed in my car too long before I finished it so that it bothered me that I was still reading it, then I might elevate it to the book I was reading–so I could speed things up a bit.

Then there’s the book on CD for long trips in the car, the book of poetry that I keep by my chair, the book in the bathroom…

If my math is right, and so often it is not, I could be reading 5 books at a time, plus a One Story story. 

Let me know how you read.

Dedicated to l.r.–thanks. : )

[There's often more behind the discovery of an album than just the music.  Here's S. Ziggy Zagami's review of Santogold's eponym album 'Santogold'.  If you would like to share your One album - One story, we'd love to post it.]

Review by By S. Ziggy Zagami.

I hear her while I am at the movies, while I am watching TV and I heard her the other day while I was shopping, although admittedly I was in HMV and it shouldn’t have been surprising. The first single

“L.E.S Artistes”

presented itself with a strong beat reminiscent of 80’s pop and is indicative of the rest of the album (it was ranked #2 Best Single of the Year by Rolling Stone and the album was ranked #6 in the 50 Best Albums of 2008).

However, what really attracted me to Santogold in this song is her voice which sounds like a restrained yell. When this song was getting a lot of air time I was working on a HBO miniseries and on one particular day had stalled a truck mounted generator on a steep hill. It was a busted old truck with a shit gearbox and I just could not find a low enough gear to make it up the hill. Sitting there trying to be calm and get going again as swiftly as possible, my insides felt like they were performing their own brand of restrained screaming. And I remember later that day hearing another Santogold single,

“Lights Out”

which has a smooth jive that will just melt your worries away.

As Santogold sung “Darling/Don’t got to worry, you’re locked in tight”, my previous anxiety was dispelled. Certainly, there are a number of songs on this album which will soothe your troubles, such as:

“Say aha”

an unrelenting pop song with perhaps a tinge of punk influence and easy hook to sing along to “say aha”.

“Creator”

has also definitely picked me up while exhausted on a drive home, with its mash-up of hip-hop and dance music that combine well for this fun song.

I first heard a sound bite of her on the radio where she described how her vocals would at one instant be soft and quiet and then the next she’d be yelling at the top of her register. This difference in oft changing tone and pace appealed to me. It reminds me of a friend who once exclaimed that a particular album was “music for people with ADD”. I often find that this is the type of music I am drawn to as I posses somewhat of a very short attention span, possibly an undiagnosed ADD.

So anyways, what can I say about Santogold and her self-titled debut album – it’s a funny name that a lot of people seem to struggle with. Her real name is Santi White and Santogold was supposedly a nickname given to her by a friend. Santogold’s music  is clearly inspired by 1980’s pop trends. She admits that she “felt that a lot of pop music from the ’80s had a depth to it” and that shes hopes “to bring back some more good pop songs.” Santogold is also inspired by New Wave, Punk and Reggae music, including performers such as the Pixies, Bad Brains, Blondie, Devo, Grace Jones, Fela Kuti, James Brown and Aretha Franklin. It is surely this diverse mixture that would sum up her sound and get her compared to her contemporaries, such as M.I.A. However, while people may want to pigeonhole artists like Santogold and M.I.A as creating a certain genre of music, the words to describe this genre certainly fail me, as it seems clear their eclectic mix of tastes has led them to create music that is entirely their own.

Santogold’s hopes surely have come true, she has managed “to bring back some more good pop songs” over the past year.  You’ve most likely already heard her on commercials and films. Maybe you didn’t know it was her, maybe you’re already all over her or maybe you think she is too pop or too kitsch. But it is clear that you will be taking notice of her in the future.

They say if you want to be a better writer you should read more. (They being successful writers.) The good news is, even with a yucky economy, there are several inexpensive ways find reading material. First, of course, is the library. One of my new favorites is DailyLit.com.

Today I finished reading The Count of Monte Cristo via DailyLit, which emails about 500 words to you per day (about the size of an email or blog post). That title was free. As soon as I was done, though, I signed up for another, Letters to a Young Journalist by Samuel Freedman. That one cost me $7, but since I’ll be able to read it on my new iPhone (which Santa is delivering on Jan. 10, the second my current contract expires) I consider it money well spent. Plus, no trees will die, I won’t have to carry around anything extra and it won’t collect dust on my shelf.

Then, this afternoon, One Story reminded me that they’re still around. Have you heard of them? Once a month they will snail-mail you a short story. And, right now, you, or one of the people on your gift list, can get 18 of them for $18 if you enter this code when subscribing:H8DEC4. Even better, after two months – if you decide their service isn’t for you, cancel without paying a dime.

So, no more excuses! Grab a story– whether it is encased in a hard cover, a glass screen or a cardboard jacket– and get to reading. Even if you’re not practicing to be a writer when you grow up, filling your head with the written word is good exercise for your brain – and who can’t use that?

Last night I read Beanball by Ron Carlson. It was issue number 99/100 of One Story Magazine. The story struck me in several ways. It was beautifully written and full of characters with remorse about their pasts and guarded hope for the future. It was about the eternal hope that goes along with baseball. It was also about human greed.

I don’t want to give too much away, but I felt the story was going along fine until it got about 75% through. It seemed that the plot took a fantastical direction that wasn’t needed. A simple, straight forward ending would have been stronger, truer to the characters and world created in this story. I seem to remember from workshops in college that being simple and straight forward is the way to go. I just felt this story fell flat in it’s complicated and crisscrossing plot. In the end it was all to neat and tidy.

My favorite journal is One Story.  That’s what it is.  One story.  At a time.  Brilliant.  Every three weeks, one story arrives in my mailbox.  I always keep a story in my purse.  Or my pocket.  I’m never without something to read.  One Story is the brainchild of Hannah Tiniti and Maribeth Batcha.  The first story was published April 1, 2002.  I just received Story #109.  They publish each author only one time.  They also post an interview with each author on their website.

Some other great short stories I’ve read this year (all available online!): 

• “Found Objects” by Jennifer Egan in The New Yorker
• “The Lie” by T.C. Boyle in The New Yorker
• “The Dinner Party” by Joshua Ferris in The New Yorker
• “Free Radicals” by Alice Munro in The New Yorker
• “Deep Holes” by Alice Munro in The New Yorker

This Friday–October 10, 8pm, at the Beverly Hills Public Library–the New Short Fiction Series will feature the stories of Bay Area writer Tom Barbash, a writer to watch out for. Barbash is the author of the novel The Last Good Chance (which Publisher’s Weekly called “a taut, intricate vision of ambition, corruption and love”); and the bestselling non-fiction work, On Top of the World: Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick and 9/11: A Story of Loss & Renewal. His criticism and interviews have been published in the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The Believer. His stories have been published in Tin House, Story, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and One-Story. He is a former Stegner Fellow at Stanford; and a member of the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto, which counts Peter Orner and ZZ Packer among its members.

Check out…

• “The Break” (Tin House)
• “Scratch” (Big Ugly Review)
• Q&A in One-Story
• a video of Barbash reading from On the Road