Flannery O’Connor reads A Good Man is Hard to Find
I wrote about this story, indirectly, a while back. Here's an excerpt: A new story by Alice Munro in the current New Yorker had the Hound up part of the night, and just when she had begun to think that Munro couldn't zing her anymore. The twist in plot took her completely by surprise. Cheeky,...
Bhanu Kapil: from Ban En Banlieue
Where is the body in the poem? This is a question I have been asking a lot lately, and will continue to ask as I embark on a collection of essays about poetry. This is not a question the reader will have to ask of Bhanu Kapil's work though. The body is right there, in...
Jacob Wren on Leanne Simpson: Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back & Islands of Decolonial Love
Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back: Stories of Nishnaabeg Re-creation, Resurgence and a New Emergence, Leanne Simpson (ARP Books, 2011) Islands of Decolonial Love: Stories and Songs, Leanne Simpson (ARP Books, 2013) There is a short sentence I keep coming back to, only seven words: how to live as if it...
Chelsea Rooney: from Pedal
I twisted a cap off a bottle and threw it into the fire. We watched the sparks. The beer went down like water. The firelight pumped like a red heart in the night. I said, “Let’s bring Sally to the beach tomorrow.” Smirks didn’t respond, didn’t move, didn’t look at me. I could imagine them...
Lynn Coady: Four Questions
Frankie Barnet: Place plays a significant role in your work. Stories like "Wireless", "Hellgoing" and "Another World" all seem to have an interest in exploring and critiquing cosmopolitan aspects of city life, as well as differences between city and country life. You yourself are from Cape Breton but now live in Edmonton. How important is...
Malcolm Sutton in Conversation with Alisha Piercy: Bunny and Shark
Malcolm Sutton (MS): Your new novel, Bunny and Shark (BookThug 2014), centres on a Playboy Bunny who is thrown out, in a most dramatic and violent gesture, by her long-time lover. This happens to her at a critical moment in her life: when her power over men is diminishing as her body becomes less desirable...
A Few Of My Favorite Things: Children’s Books
Who Built That? Modern Houses, Princeton Architectural Press, 2014 My three year-olds are technically way too young for this, but I bought it for them anyhow because we already look at houses when we're walking and this will make it more fun. Gorgeous book. Gift appeal: wide Brown Girl Dreaming, Jacqueline Woodson, Penguin 2014 Yes,...
Frankie Barnet on Shelly Oria: NEW YORK 1 TEL AVIV 0
NEW YORK 1 TEL AVIV 0, Shelly Oria. Bond Street Books (2014) “I think, who is this person? That me who isn’t Israeli and isn’t American, isn’t gay and isn’t straight— who is she?” (26). New York 1, Tel Aviv 0, Shelly Oria’s debut collection of short stories, is a book about intersections...
Daniel Zomparelli: In praise of three great first books
Misadventures by Nicholas Grider A Strange Object Press Short Fiction Grider writes a book that is about form, about structure just as much as narrative. He takes characters who wouldn't normally be able to tell a story but makes the narration work. His stories give you just enough clues to let you settle into the...
Rachel Zolf on Juliana Spahr: The Transformation thinks wit(h)ness
This essay was originally written as part of Laynie Browne's project to curate essays on the "poet's novel" in mid-2013.A The Transformation, Juliana Spahr. Atelos, 2007 Thinking thought usually amounts to withdrawing into a dimensionless place in which the idea of thought alone persists. But thought in reality spaces itself out into the world. It...
Kate Sterns on Ian McEwan
The Children Act by Ian McEwan Review by Kate Sterns London. Trinity term one week old. Implacable June weather. This echo of the famous opening to Dickens’ masterpiece, Bleak House serves as the beginning to Ian McEwan’s latest novel, The Children Act. The reference signals, or ought to, that the reader is in for a...
Michael Turner: “Encore”, Encore: Attributions, Adverbs and Attitude from James Purdy’s 1957 Short Story
"Encore", Encore: Attributions, Adverbs and Attitude from James Purdy's 1957 Short Story Merta told her brother Spence said, wearily attentive she said her brother said she continued, anxiously stepping in front of him to detain his going Spence said, a kind of cold expressionless tone in his voice she repeated, almost without emotion Spence said...
