Clifford Garstang's Blog, page 182

Marketing

The Shouts & Murmurs column in the New Yorker this week is particularly funny: Subject: Our Marketing Plan. Funny, but painful. "We can send you a list of bookstores in your area once you fill out the My Local Bookstores list on your Author's Questionnaire."

The New Yorker: "Complicity" by Julian Barnes

Our bodies, this story seems to be saying, are in complicity with our emotions. Young love gave the narrator a skin condition; divorce gave him hives. Now, having met a mysterious young doctor, he is intent on her skin, and her own body's complicity with her emotions. They take things slowly, they let their emotions make contact first, getting to know each other, getting comfortable with each other. It is only in the last line, when their emotions are ready, that their bodies are allowed to t...

National Book Award Finalists

Congratulations to the finalists for the National Book Award:

Fiction
Bonnie Jo Campbell, American Salvage (Wayne State University Press)
Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin (Random House)
Daniyal Mueenuddin, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (W.W. Norton & Co.)
Jayne Anne Phillips, Lark and Termite (Alfred A. Knopf)
Marcel Theroux, Far North (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Nonfiction
David M. Carroll, Following the Water: A Hydromancer's Notebook (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Sean B. Carroll, Remarkable Cr...

Literary Salon at WriterHouse

Last night, I had the honor and pleasure of participating in a Literary Salon at the wonderful WriterHouse in Charlottesville. If you don't know about WriterHouse you should definitely check it out. Not only does the organization provide work space for its members, which is a valuable service for many, it also provides an impressive variety of programs, including classes, readings, and talks, some just for members and some that are open to the public.

For last night's salon, I was introduced t...

Red Brick District -- Staunton VA

Big news here in Staunton. Everyone who lives here knows that we are a vibrant arts community -- theater, art galleries, crafts, and music are all a major part of who we are (with, I like to think, a growing writer presence, as well). But visitors may not know this, and so the Arts Council has developed the concept of an Arts and Culture District, to be called the Red Brick District. Check out the brochure.

As part of the launch for the Red Brick District, numerous events are planned for the A...

Review of In an Uncharted Country

Mark Brazaitis, a writer I've read and admired for many years, reviews my book, In an Uncharted Country at Peace Corps Worldwide's Peace Corps Writers.

Book Launch 2.0

I posted this awhile ago, but it has new meaning now . . .

The New Yorker: "The Godchildren" by Tessa Hadley

Chris, Amanda, and Susan, three adults who had been the godchildren of childless Vivien, visit her house for the first time since her death a year before. Chris, an academic, claims not to remember the house of even Vivien herself. Amanda, who has organized this visit so the three can claim items in the house for themselves before a planned estate sale, has the most vivid, although selective, memory, because she kept a journal back in those days. And Susan, a lawyer, remembers, but is disdain...

ASC: The Rehearsal

Last night I saw the opening performance of the American Shakespeare Center's production of The Rehearsal, a bit of meta-farce by George Villiers (and collaborators) that you've probably never seen, at least not in North America.

It's ridiculous and hilarious, and I don't think "brilliant" is going too far. Not that the play is special--it's a silly lampooning of the English theater of the 17th Century--but the staging here and the performances will have you completely in stitches.

Here's the d...

5 Under 35

Here's some cool news. The National Book Foundation has named its 5 Under 35 for 2009, and it's a stellar group that includes my friend Josh Weil with whom I read in Charlottesville a couple of weeks ago. Way to go, Josh!