2/28/15 — OUR MARCH 1, 2015, GUEST BLOGGER IS TOM WOOD

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2/28/15 — OUR MARCH 1, 2015, GUEST BLOGGER IS TOM WOOD

 

I’m sure there is a belief out there that the stereotypical writer is a shy introvert, who lives onTom Wood Journalist caffeine, speaks only to his cat, closets himself in a dark room hunched over a keyboard, and puts words to paper 24/7. Well, our guest blogger, Tom Wood, author of the inventive ‘fictional-true crime’ novel Vendetta Stone, will dispel that idea and give you a sense of how difficult it is to write a second book. When he’s not writing novels and Western short stories he is a freelance sports writer, and actor in the ABC series Nashville and films, such as, The Identical.

 

Talent or Genius? Is There a Difference?

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TALENT or GENIUS?

What is genius? How is it different from talent? Is it a matter of degree, or is it something altogether distinct?
In the past week on Facebook—admittedly not the most elevated forum, though I like to think that most of my friends are fairly bright—I have read that the following people are geniuses: JK Rowling, Prince and Stevie Wonder. I also read that Taylor Swift is extremely talented: she must be, said my friend, an intelligent person, because she is so widely popular. (I had perhaps foolishly, and certainly thoughtlessly, given the opinion that she was ‘completely talentless.’)

For a number of reasons, these comments disturbed me, and forced me to consider—yet again—whether it is possible to make any objective evaluation of the talent of an artist—Aesthetics 101—and also, if it’s possible to discuss the subject without simply getting into a curmudgeonly rant about declining standards, whether there is such a thing as genius, and if so, whether we might be able to define it

DANGEROUS CHARACTERS

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23 FEBRUARY 2015 DANGEROUS CHARACTERS

2/23/15 DANGEROUS CHARACTERS BY SONIA LINEBAUGHElmerGantryCOVER

In 1927 Elmer Gantry was banned in Boston and denounced from pulpits across the USA.
Gantry was a hard-drinking, womanizing, college football player, who grew into a sometimes sober, womanizing, evangelist minister. The denunciations weren’t because ministers were suddenly being held to a higher standard—it was because the fictional Elmer Gantry was a character in a novel by American author Sinclair Lewis.

In 2008, the Swedish novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, knocked American readers out of Thegirlwiththedragontattootheir collective comfort zone. The story seemed to be about a journalist named Mikael, publisher of a Swedish political magazine, but several chapters in, readers’ imaginations got hijacked by “pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander.”

Interview with Joesph D Haske, author of North Dixie Highway

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2/20/15 INTERVIEW WITH JOSEPH D. HASKE, AUTHOR OF NORTH DIXIE HIGWAY HASKEjosephd

Professor of English at South Texas College in McAllen, Haske was awarded the 2011 Boulevard Emerging Writers award for short fiction. His work is featured in journals such as Boulevard, Pleiades, The Texas Review, AleCart, and Fiction International. Last month on Late Last Night Books I reviewed his riveting debut novel, North Dixie Highway, and today I’m honored by the chance to interview him.

Q: Why did you choose rural poverty as the environment for your first novel?

Truth in her Dress

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2/17/2015 – Truth in her Dress
“Truth in her dress finds facts too tight; in fiction she moves with ease.” This quote has stayed with me since college freshman days. I’ve pondered it over the years, both as a reader and a writer.

I think of the quote when I read savage satire where the facts are too tight. And I think of the quote when I read historical fiction that helps me with dates, incidents, and characters difficult to remember. In fiction, they move with ease. The quote works on many levels.

But who said it? A quick google search turned up the author: Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali polymath poet and the first non-European to win the Nobel prize.

Interview with John Neely Davis, Author Bear Shadow

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2/13/15—Interview with John Neely Davis, author, Bear Shadow 

Last month I reviewed Bear Shadow, winner of the Janice Keck Literary Award for Fiction. Today we get to interview the author, John Neely Davis.

MJT: John, Bear Shadow is introduced as a prequel to your debut novel, The Sixth William. Other than geography, what is the connection between the two stories?John Neely Davis - Photo

 

2/10/2015—BOOK REVIEW: WHAT THE ZHANG BOYS KNOW BY CLIFFORD GARSTANG

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2/10/2015—BOOK REVIEW: WHAT THE ZHANG BOYS KNOW BY CLIFFORD GARSTANG

In social psychology, the proximity principle says that people tend toWhat the Zhang Boys Know cover form interpersonal relations with those who are close by. What the Zhang Boys Know by Clifford Garstang confirms that principle and also tests it severely by gathering a multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-generational group of people as residents in a Washington, D.C., condominium building called Nanking Mansion. A Chinese father and his two sons, an African-American lawyer, a painter, a sculptor, a gay aspiring poet, and an unemployed woman who’s selling her jewelry so she can eat are among the people trying to make their way in this minimally refurbished building in a neighborhood that’s just beginning to turn around. 

Book Review: ‘Claire of the Sea Light’ by Edwidge Danticat

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danticat2/7/15 — REVIEW: EDWIDGE DANTICAT’S CLAIRE OF THE SEA LIGHT

I spent a few days in Haiti last week without leaving home. My tour guide was Edwidge Danticat, and the mode of transportation was her magnificent novel, Claire of the Sea Light, which brought Haiti’s sights, sounds, smells to my senses, while introducing me to the people and their incredible courage, perseverance and hope. It was a remarkable journey, one I won’t forget for quite a while.

ON ADDING TO THE WORLD’S BABBLE

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2/04/2014 – ON ADDING TO THE WORLD’S BABBLE

It is easy to throw words down on the page. But how much more difficult it is to choose which of these words are worth keeping, worth sculpting, worth sharing.

2/1/2015 GUEST BLOGGER CLIFFORD GARSTANG

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MORE THAN MERE SETTING

When we first study creative writing, we’re told that the principal elements of fiction are plot, character, and setting. My sense is that teachers of writing spend a good deal more time on plot and character than they do on setting. Perhaps that’s justified. After all, the plot of a novel or short story is essential, whether it’s an action-packed thriller or a psychological drama. Without the plot there is no story. And it is widely recognized that plot and character are inextricable. Plot—a convincing plot, anyway—arises from character, and the reader learns about the characters in a work of fiction from observing how those characters react to the complications that develop in the plot.

But what about setting?

AUTHOR CLIFFORD GARSTANG IS GUEST BLOGGER ON FEBRUARY 1

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01/29/2015   AUTHOR CLIFFORD GARSTANG IS GUEST BLOGGER ON FEBRUARY 1

For author Clifford Garstang, the setting in a story is crucial. As heClifford Garstang said in an interview here last month, “[Setting] is part of the reason I read fiction. I want to be transported, not only to whatever the story is but also to the place.” As you would expect, setting plays an important role in Garstang’s award-winning writing, including In an Uncharted Country, a collection of short stories, and What the Zhang Boys Know, a novel-in-stories. In Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet, a collection that Garstang curated and edited, each story takes place in a different country. As our guest blogger on February 1, Garstang will explain why the best fiction uses setting as more than just a backdrop.

Agnar Mykle’s Lasso Round the Moon–and a Rant against American Parochialism

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Agnar Mykle’s Lasso Round the Moon—& a Rant about American Literary Parochialism

“So much of American fiction has become playful, cynical and evasive,” says novelist Joy Williams, and she goes on to deplore its “inconsequentialities”. I agree. And because I am ever more bored by the contemporary American novel, which strikes me, to add some adjectives to hers, as increasingly myopic, solipsistic and parochial, not to mention uninspired—especially the hip sacred cows like Jonathan Franzen, George Saunders, and Miranda July—I find myself ‘playing truant’ whenever I can, running for refuge to Latin America or Europe, where writers have not yet learned to turn out the MFA novel, which generally comes in one of two flavours: either flawless technically but deadly dull, dealing with domestic melodramas (Richard Russo, Jane Smiley) or else ‘quirky’, linguistically imaginative (July, Saunders, Shteyngart, Safran-Foer) and yet shallow and pretentious.

HYPE: ARE YOU BEING SERVED?

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23 JANUARY 2015 HYPE: ARE YOU BEING SERVED?

1/23/15 HYPE: ARE YOU BEING SERVED? BY SONIA LINEBAUGH

“The Intellectual Situation (The Hype Phase)” is a 2008 essay by the editors of n + 1 magazine. According to the writers, the hypeHouellebecq 1-23-15 cycle starts when “the ginned up enthusiasm of publicists combines with word of mouth (and blog) to create so-called buzz.” After the release date, “backlash surges alongside the ongoing hype.” Then follows “backlash-to-the-backlash.”

WhenI search Amazon for novels I get 750,111 results, 6992 of them hyped as best-sellers. French author Michel Houellebecq’s (pronounced WELL-beck) “Suomission” is one of them, an instant out-of-stock bestseller at $44.96 for the paperback edition in French. The ginned up enthusiasm comes from the media in general, not a few well-connected publicists.

REVIEW OF JOSEPH D. HASKE’S NORTH DIXIE HIGHWAY

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NORTHDIXIEHIGHWAY1/20/15  Review of Joseph D. Haske’s North Dixie Highway  A prologue explains that no single “Dixie Highway” exists, but instead the term applies to roads south that reach as far north as Canada. Haske’s story lives in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Publisher Texas Review Press offers, in part: “Weaving multiple storylines with vivid description of characters and landscape, Haske’s debut novel brings new life and a unique voice to the fiction of rural America. North Dixie Highway is a story of family bonds, devolution, and elusive revenge.”
Author reviewer Larry Fondation adds (in an Amazon editorial review) “It may be fueled by alcohol and anger, but it’s based on love and loyalty: avenging the dead, defending the living.”

Travel By Book To Florida

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1/17/2015 – TRAVELING BY BOOK TO FLORIDA

It’s a bleak winter day in Maryland, and my feet ache to walk the hot sands of a South Florida beach. It’s time to reread some of my favorite Florida authors.

You might think I’m talking about Ernest Hemingway or Marjorie Rawlings. Yes, they lived and wrote about Florida, but I never could get into The Yearling. Anyway, their books just don’t evoke the same feelings of nostalgia as my favorites.

INTERVIEW WITH CLIFFORD GARSTANG, AUTHOR OF IN AN UNCHARTED COUNTRY AND WHAT THE ZHANG BOYS KNOW

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1/10/2015—INTERVIEW WITH CLIFFORD GARSTANG, AUTHOR OF IN AN UNCHARTED COUNTRY AND WHAT THE ZHANG BOYS KNOW

I discovered Clifford Garstang through his excellent blog “Perpetual Folly.” I wasClifford Garstang looking for information for a SheWrites.com blog post I was writing about literary magazines, and Garstang had the information right there when I needed it. So I started reading his blog and realized that his writing is both engaging and provocative. His collection of short stories, In an Uncharted Country, won the Maria Thomas Fiction Award and the IPPY Gold Medal for Best Regional Fiction–Mid-Atlantic 2010. His novel in stories, What the Zhang Boys Know, won the 2013 Library of Virginia Award for Fiction. Most recently, Garstang served as curator and editor of Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet, published in 2014.

Suspending Disbelief: A Tricky Road for Readers, Writers

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1/07/15 — SUSPENDING DISBELIEF: A TRICKY ROAD FOR READERS AND WRITERS

Thaw2I was watching one of the earlier Inspector Morse mysteries, on PBS the other night, thoroughly enjoying John Thaw’s rendition of a crotchety, alcoholic Morse, when quite suddenly I turned away in disgust. Amidst a complicated series of seemingly unexplainable events, Morse abruptly announced that the murdered drug dealer wasn’t the murdered drug dealer but a doppelgänger who in fact had been killed by the drug dealer. Never mind that Morse had never met either the real victim or his double or the absence of any clues that might have led him to his conclusion. It was the worst kind of deus ex machina, and it totally destroyed the experience for me.

LOST – AND FOUND – IN TRANSLATION

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1/04/2015 – LOST – AND FOUND – IN TRANSLATION

One of the great joys of literature is a chance to enter the world of another person, particularly one who would otherwise be completely inaccessible. So I was excited about reading Lady Murasaki’s classic novel The Tale of Genji, and immersing myself in the world of high courtiers during early 11th century Japan. Instead I endeTale of Genji Coverd up wondering if I should simply stop reading anything translated from another language.Tale of Genji Waley

LATE LAST NIGHT BOOKS, a blogzine about fiction “because so much reading, writing, and living happens after-hours”

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12/20/14

ALL OF THE BLOGGERS AT LATE LAST NIGHT BOOKS WISH YOU HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND SAFE TRAVELS.

Scroll down for the most recent posts. We’ll be back on January 4 in the new year.

“Little girl, big date!”

For the text of this 1949 New York Central ad…