Books/Mags/Blogs

We do not make light of the events of 9/11. Nobody will forget what happened, and it is inevitable that all aspects of that day will inform the arts. And yet, for novelists, it comes down to “where have you been all these years?” We would argue that 9/11 informs most fiction written since that day. Certainly many novels have addressed the issue. Now that the literary end of the fiction spectrum is appearing in print, the first response suggests novelists were on the sidelines. After three years of near silence about the attacks of Sept. 11, the literary world […]

Before we begin, let us state for the record that we never even considered the possibility of a character who a) lives in Altadena, b) is a gardener, and c) is a sleuth. We can easily imagine any two of the three, but the triple whammy blows our little mind. If you’ve spent more than twelve seconds in Altadena, you understand. Given that it’s pretty much our stomping ground, we do a lot of twelve seconds there. Of course we’re fully supportive of this character, and will be checking out books by Naomi Hirahara. We love a hometown girl making

We continue to work our way through On Writing (this means we should go to the gym more; or workout longer. Ha!), and we’re finding it fascinating (though, in some areas, fantastical — perhaps that is how life really is). Maybe it’s our intimacy with the subject that leads us to think writing for noir (can one write noir without a fontical flair?) publisher Hard Case is a logical fit for Stephen King. Yeah, definitely intimacy. He strikes us as the kind of guy we’d actually be able to talk to at a party. And, yeah, you, the one we’ve

They say that selling your second book is sometimes harder than selling your first. After all, you are a known commodity. People have expectations. You need to rise to a moment that someone else defines. That first book, you didn’t have all that extra baggage. This one, the second, now it’s for real. Yes, yes, yes, all that second book stuff is the essence of drama, but nobody wants to read about your struggles with The Man. Not interesting in the least. We all know that the first book is the stuff of dreams, the triumph of the spirit, and

As we promised ourselves, we have spent the afternoon feverishly hacking. One should never underestimate the fun involved with taking a scene and completely rewriting it. Except for that one bit of really funny dialogue. It is amazing how even the most ruthless moments are felled by sentimental attachment to one’s witticisms*. We were struck by this interesting (and not just because The Herald has one of the more obscure web designs going on) take on reviewing romance novels (British romances) on the same terms as literary novels. As we recently made the argument that romance will not grow without

You know, some days it doesn’t pay to get out of bed. Literally. However, despite the day’s lack of discernible income, we rose and shone. Briefly. Shining takes a lot of out of a person, and we wanted to save our energy in case something interesting happened. Probably that’s not likely, and we’ll start hacking away at the novel in a few minutes (in some regions, this is also known as editing and polishing; we prefer precise description). Yes, despite the fact that we’re clearly past our prime: Masahiro Mita also started young. His first novel, “M no Sekai” (The

We realize that blogs are only on-topic posts* because that is our communication tool of choice. Blogging software makes certain tasks easy — that it has gone off and become a revolution of sorts defies explanation. It appears that all the Web wanted was the killer publishing tool, and the rest would fall into place. Makes us wish we’d paid more attention to 1994. That’s the last time we spend a year being too busy with other things to get rich. Blogs occupy a unique place: they are still ascendent while suffering from backlash. Makes one wonder how the fall

We realize that we need to get over our amusement with Tom Wolfe and his latest book. It’s not his fault that he made it so easy. And it’s not like we don’t like his work. Maybe it’s the part where he says stuff like: Women of Yale, listen up: What most disappoints Wolfe about modern college students is the loss of feminine innocence. When I press him [Wolfe] to pass judgment on college kids, he allowed, “I cannot get used to women talking like men.” Quite possibly, our fascination with this subject is Wolfe’s inability to put himself into

So it’s all night with the thunder. Finally, sleep, and then the parrots started going crazy. We estimate there are over one hundred parrots screaming and terrorizing the neighborhood. Apparently, they’re going to keep doing this until it stops raining and trees regain appropriate leaf cover. The husband thinks it’s time to make little parrots and nature isn’t cooperating. We think parrots are loud and proud and easily riled up by instigator parrots. We are currently listening to On Writing on our iPod (goal: catch up on reading while enjoying the splendors of the treadmill; result: we like loud, fast

You know it’s one of those days when you start heading for the shower in the morning, and start seriously considering the fact that you have to get clean about forty-five minutes before you’re due at friend’s for dinner. And still, you can’t find the energy to stand and do what needs to be done. Oh no, you’d rather beat a dead horse (or beat a dead horse after spending an afternoon catching up on RSS feeds…oh, the feed reader built into Thunderbird is beyond wonderful!). Ron of Beatrice picks up the Mary Bly story, and makes an interesting comment.