Pro Se and Poe Try

What do I do when I have too much to write? I spend more time reading of course -- as though I need to exhaust myself reading, but oh there's just so much out there. I just finished Joyce Carol Oates' The Faith of a Writer (amazon link) and was duly impressed. I've never particuarily liked her writing although I appreciate her experimentation. I've found her prolific if not exactingly rigorous. But nevertheless, this is worth the read for its insights into the craft of building worlds with words. A quote offering a slightly new spin: "Yet is is perhaps not failure the writer loves, so much as the addictive nature of incompletion and risk."

That put aside, next comes a 1995 Derek Attridge book titled Poetic rhythm: an introduction [sic]. (The hardcover I have lacks the nice Bridget Riley adorning the paperback -- check out her painting if you don't know it. She's one one of the greats.) I'm so addicted to this stuff, dissecting, analyzing -- don't be fooled, treating literature with the eye of a surgeon does not diminish the creative imagination. Virginia Woolf spent hours with such dissections of stories she liked as a method to learn.

Finally I'm still working through Lisa Moore's Alligator and Andrew Steinmetz's Wardlife. (review by Carmine Starmino here).

News Updates

Hi all readers,

The news here is Garbage Head has been shortlisted for the Expozine Awards 2005 !!

See this link for more information.

I also read from the book in Montreal, Zeke's Gallery, and at the Gladestone Hotel, Toronto. Both were a success, the house at Zeke's was packed. Thanks everyone who turned out for the events. Kate at Kate's Book Blog wrote a nice little piece on the Toronto event. Thanks Kate -- it's always nice to discover someone liked your book.

I'm still reading like a maniac, although I must admit my reviews have been eating up time : I wrote on Tomi Hafkenscheid's photographs most recently. When I have a moment I'm polishing a couple short stories with both the sand blaster and meat grinder. Recent books included Francine Prose's The Peaceable Kingdom -- just not my style. I like things that are punchier, more architectonic, more structured. I just started Laurie Moore's Alligator -- two chapters in I am enjoying her writing style in this much better than in her earlier short stories. It appears at first glance each chapter is a character -- thank god some repeat so the device does not take over the narrative.

Tonight in the narrative class I'll present students with this great line by Ring Lardner, certainly one of my favorites:

Are we lost Daddy I arsked tenderly.
Shut up he explained.