Get rad with me on Saturday Nov 8 at The Radvocate Reading Show at the Media Arts Center. I’ll be reading with a gang of San Diego writers and signing copies of Forest of Fortune after the show.
Ottessa Moshfegh in BOMB
Fascinating interview with Ottessa Moshfegh about her process in BOMB Magazine
When I read a novel, I want my sense of self to disappear. Take Bukowski’s Womenfor example. I don’t feel that he’s trying to impress me, and I feel I can adopt Chinaski’s psychology, digest it, and still be surprised and excited by it. The questions it raises for me, at least the last time I read it, aren’t questions about craft or authorship. I’m not wondering how Bukowski wrote the book. As soon as I start wondering about that, the book is dead.
I’m really looking forward to reading her novella McGlue, to be published later this month by FENCE Books.
Escorts to the underworld. #diadelosmuertos (at Tecate, Baja California)
For its 48th installment, The Floating Library embarks on a journey back in time — several journeys actually — to the deaths of every signer of The Declaration of Independence in Damien Ober’s debut novel:
It seems that a swift and terrible plague known as “The Death” is sweeping through the colonies and killing two out of every three people. Though no one knows for certain how the disease is spreading, the doctors racing from signer to signer to stop the devastation suspect the Internet is to blame. Yes, thatInternet.
The easiest way to pigeonhole Doctor Benjamin Franklin’s Dream America is to call it a work of counterfactual fiction—a story that takes the facts as we know them (the names of the signers) and mixes up a few things (Internet plague). In other words, Ober has written a “What if?” story for the ages.
Blood & Meatballs
Thanks to Adam Cushman for inviting me to participate in Trop’s Sleeper Celluloid: Real Reviews of Fake Movies. My contribution is “Blood and Meatballs,” a look at Too Many Sergios Alex Cox’s fictitious homage to spaghetti westerns starring Jim Carrey. Yes, that Jim Carrey…
Hostess with mostess @michellecary316 #LitCrawlLA (at The Noho Arts Center)
Can’t stop. Won’t stop. #LAbound #Surfliner #MorningOffice
From the case files of the perv detective.
Lit Crawl LA: NoHo
it I’ll be reading at The Rumpus presents A Scream Without a Mouth: Stories of Reaching Out on Wednesday October 22 at the North Hollywood Arts Center. The event takes place at 8pm sharp and features Antonia Crane, Corrie Greathouse, Douglas Kearney, Wendy Ortiz, Kyle Sawyer, Jerry Stahl and yours truly. I had a great time at this event last year and I’m thrilled to be a participant this year.
UPDATE: A Scream Without a Mouth received a mention in this very nice write up in the Los Angeles Times.