Lauren Groff's Blog

It has been established, by now, that I'm not much of a modern girl (almost wrote gal, but realized it was a little too throw-backy even for me). I see no need for a television, have a relationship with automobiles that is wary at best, and have demonstrated repeatedly that my communication skills were formed for the epistolary age and not the age of email. I have yet to get my iPod nano to work, or whatever it's called, and didn't realize until yesterday that there was a movie app on the iPh...

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(A Bad Poem Taken From Actual Headlines In the Gainesville Sun) Thank goodness! UF has a plan for zombie invasions. Floridians urged to keep an eye on Ida. HIPPY chosen as a U.S. model. Naked biker ends up wearing handcuffs. Local girl, 11, helps deliver sister. Confused fox wanders into Gainesville Kmart. Nightclubs for plus-size weighing in. Deputies: Bogus officer sets up pat-down opportunities. GPD seeks pair of rapists. UF police looking for flasher. Report: Man rips off girlfriend...

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Some very excellent events* coming up: --November 12, Lake City To toot my own horn, I'll be reading at the Columbia County Public Library at 7:00. 308 NW Columbia Avenue, Lake City. Free! I'll even show you pictures of the baby, if you ask. Toot. Toot. *All right, I don't know if this one will be a "very excellent" event, but I will try my best to make it so. --Nov 12-14, Gainesville 2009 (University of) Florida Writers' Festival. Readings and informal talks by Chris Adrian, Chris...

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Off early this morning for Greenville, South Carolina, where I'll be doing a very fun trio of events, invited by the magical Ashley Warlick ("The Summer Before June"; "Seek the Living") and Mindy Friddle ("Secret Keepers"). First, this afternoon, from 2-5 I'll be giving at talk at The Writing Room about what one does after a first draft (it's a bit more involved than this, but...revise, revise, don't fret too much, revise, rewrite, fret, weep, send out, don't fret, begin anew). Tomorrow, I'...

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I am shamed into this post by a very sweet young Latino writer who wrote to me two days ago, whom I intended to respond to and did not--yet--and who wrote again today to say he thought it was mean and inconsiderate of me not to respond to his email. George, I am very sorry. Mea culpa. I didn't intend to be mean. I would like, very much, to blame this whole mess on my very high-energy toddler, or my incontinent dog dying of intestinal cancer, or the five separate houseguests who have stayed ...

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Postcard auction to benefit the lovely Boston organization Grub Street, including postcards by the likes of Pulitzer-winer Elizabeth Strout, lovely lady Lorrie Moore, Steve Almond, Josh Weil, Maud Casey, Peter Orner, Pagan Kennedy, James Franco (that's right! of Pineapple Express--he has story collection coming out soon, I hear) and others. Including me. So if you have a few extra dollars, put on your charity cap and sling that cash in Grub Street's direction.

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Sources tell me that my story, "Sir Fleeting," which came out last year in One Story, is one of the 100 Notable Stories in both of this year's editions of Best American Short Stories, edited by Alice Sebold, and Best American Nonrequired Reading, edited by Dave Eggers. Not quite as great as being among the chosen few actually printed, though still pretty nice. Better, even, than a Fourth of July Parade at noontime in a forgotten Upstate New York hamlet, replete with fire engines and blue cot...

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Tomorrow I'm off to Tallahassee for a reading at The Warehouse (8:00pm), thanks to Erin Belieu and Mark Winegardner and all the splendid, fine folks at FSU (not to mention the lovely Jeannine Groff, who will be taking the munchkin to Sesame Street Live in my absence--just call her 'the sainted one'). Also: check out The Millions this week for a scientifically titrated expose on the absolutely objective Best Books of The Millenium (a mere nine years old). I was on the panel and should be weig...

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I have exactly this much time for reading: between drinking my coffee and brushing my teeth. Between vacuuming and hand-tilling my garden patch during naptime (oh, Florida, you horrid bitch in summer, you sweet gentle flirt the rest of the year). Between feeding the baby one bite of butternut squash-apple mush and feeding him the next; provided, of course, that he doesn't choke. And, because we have never had a television, between the baby going to bed and our eating dinner and collapsing imm...

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You Are Or You Aren't Saying you're semi- tropical's like saying you're only half crazy. The Latter What is scarier: actual alligators, or drunken football fans? I Don't Shop There, Okay? I Just Had To Pick Up A Prescription And Four Bucks Is Hard To Beat The Super Wal-Mart, Waldo Road. Orange and blue mulch. Saplings: plastic, too? Last Night On the porch, sweating, I was bitten thrice, even Though there's a damn screen. Dear Gators I would like to say I couldn't give a damn, b...

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