Busy
Apologies for the lack of posts. As you can see, I’m working through the final edits of the new book The Blondes (to release this spring ’12), and also working through the first days with the new baby (released this fall).
“The Blondes” is coming…
Yes, it’s grammatically awkward, but I can’t help tipping my hat to the campaign Alfred Hitchcock used with The Birds. My new novel, The Blondes, is indeed almost here. I saw today that Random House/Doubleday has officially posted the cover! And you can read more about it on the publisher’s page.
“It could be the most terrifying book I have ever made.”
“OK” Computer
And this is what my computer looks like after one novel has been written, rewritten, then edited and rewritten again on it. So far, I seem to be averaging about one laptop per book. As you can see, I wore off 5 of the letters and, like my mind, this thing is just a mess. But I’ve finished a whirlwind spree and am almost ready to hand the novel back in to my editor.
The toils will be on display in book form in the spring (2012) when The Blondes releases from Doubleday Canada–although I can guarantee the product will look much prettier than the machine on which it was created.
Books by women all men should read
I would be remiss if I didn’t blog about this here, on my author site, as it seems to be tearing through the internet world — the past day or two at least. Over Memorial Day weekend Esquire posted, or rather re-posted, a list of 75 Books All Men Should Read, containing a sole female author. On Joyland’s Facebook and Twitter, Brian Joseph Davis and I wondered if we could crowd-source 75 books or more by women that both men and women felt men should be reading? Many other writers, readers and editors jumped to the cause. Here is that response.
It has since been picked up by The Atlantic, LA Times, The Huffington Post, Book Forum, The New Yorker Book Bench and Entertainment Weekly. Who knew this off-the-cuff thing could pick up such steam? A few final thoughts of mine are here.
My first reading at 2nd Draft
Please join me for my first New York reading of 2011…
Wednesday, May 11, 2011, 7:30 pm
The 2nd Draft Reading Series
Roots & Vines Cafe, 409 Grand St (@ Clinton), Manhattan, New York
Readers: Emily Schultz, Fiona Maazel, Amanda Stern
Visit the 2nd Draft Series Facebook page for updates or more info, or their blog.
Feeling new with The New Quarterly
Spring is here and with it a feeling of new beginnings. I’m no longer in Toronto, but my story about people living in the battleground neighborhood of Parkdale is about to be published in The New Quarterly, an issue called Something About the Animal. Perhaps my most Stygian story to date, in the end it’s about surviving the long winter.
This story began as a networked narrative–two neighbors who do not know one another, and how they each cope with violence–but in the end I rewrote the piece so that their storylines were separate, passing briefly and treading the same themes, but never quite touching. This felt more authentic to me for exploring the lives of city dwellers.
F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “To have something to say is a question of sleepless nights and worry and endless ratiocination of subject—of endless trying to dig out the essential truth, the essential justice. As a first premise you have to develop a conscience and if on top of that you have talent so much the better. But if you have talent without the conscience, you are just one of many thousands of journalists.”
Based as it is on real-life crimes that occurred in Toronto, I’m still trying to decide if my story “A Talent for Sleep” falls into the former or the latter category…. But after five years of struggling to tell it, it’s time to put it to bed. My hat is off to editor Kim Jernigan and the editorial staff at TNQ for suggesting finishing scenes and polishing touches. Whatever this story is, it has certainly been made much better by their good work.
A sample of “A Talent for Sleep” is up now, but you can read the full story in print soon. Just look for #118 on newsstands.
For their online Who’s Reading What column, The New Quarterly ask contributors for recommendations. Mine include Stuart Ross, Natalee Caple, and Lynne Tillman, but I admit I also agree with many of the books touted by the other contributors in this issue.
