Clifford Garstang's Blog, page 157

re:Joyce!

Do you find Ulysses intimidating? Frank Delaney proposes to help with that. Check out the weekly podcasts in which the Irish novelist will guide us through it -- sometimes sentence by sentence. So here it is:

Frank Delaney: Author of Ireland, A Novel.

The New Yorker's One Over 40 - The Rumpus.net

The New Yorker's One Over 40 - The Rumpus.net

The New Yorker: "Extreme Solitude" by Jeffrey Eugenides

The June 7th issue hasn't arrived. I've complained (again) to The New Yorker. I've finally given up waiting and have read the story online (or, to be honest, I was going to read it online but it's a little long so I printed it out, which is exactly what I do not want to have to do).

The story is a good one. Very good (although, as is often the case, it seems, I don't love the ending).

It's the 80s. Madeleine meets Leonard in an upper-level semiotics seminar at Brown and they begin to date. She'...

"On the Outskirts of Normal" by Debra Monroe

Check out this article about Debra Monroe's new memoir: "On the Outskirts of Normal": White mom, black daughter in small-town Texas town - Our Picks: Books - Salon.com
It sounds great to me. For one thing, I'm interested in adoption (see my story "White Swans" about a Chinese adoption in In an Uncharted Country). But also, what Malone is talking about brings another element to the discussion, and even advocates of adoption disagree. The book looks like a fascinating read.

Sewanee Writers' Conference

I got a bit of very good news last week when the Sewanee Writers' Conference offered me a fellowship. I love Sewanee. I've been to a lot of conferences and it is my favorite (with Bread Loaf a close second). Not only is the faculty first rate and the other writers generally very talented (admission to the conference is extremely competitive), but also the staff are the nicest people in the world. Really.

I first went to Sewanee in 2004, the year after I received my MFA. It was my first big con...

Cranky; The New Yorker; Hudson Prize

It's Friday morning and my computer is misbehaving, which is making me cranky.

Also, The New Yorker is beginning to piss me off. People are already talking about the Summer fiction issue (June 14 & 21), but I still have not received the June 7 issue--it's now a week late--so I haven't reviewed the week's story yet. I don't want to read it online or print it out. That's why I have an over-priced subscription to the stupid magazine that really doesn't do anything for me. I might as well drop the...

VQR Unveils iPad Edition

Here's some news from Publishers Weekly: VQR Unveils iPad Edition

And here's the same news, direct from the horse's mouth: VQR Now Available for the iPad

James River Writers Conference

The James River Writers Conference is now open for registration. The conference is October 8 & 9 and will be at the Library of Virginia in Richmond. This year the conference also features workshops on the afternoon of Thursday, October 7. I'll be giving one of those workshops and I'll also be on panels on Friday and Saturday.

This is a terrific, intimate conference, and I urge interested writers to sign up early--it always sells out. It's fun, it's informative, and it's also a great way to hel...

Young blossom

SWAG Reading Series: Bloomsday!

I recently formed the Staunton - Waynesboro - Augusta Group of Writers (SWAG), a subchapter of the Blue Ridge Writers Club, which is a chapter of the Virginia Writers Club. The goal of the group, as I see it, is the elevate the profile of writers in Augusta County, Virginia, including the cities of Staunton and Waynesboro. We aim to do that through public readings, primarily, although we plan to hold other events as well.

The first reading will be at 7PM on June 16, 2010, which happens to be B...