Katharine Beutner's Blog, page 11

Terror & denial

One of the most fascinating first-person narratives I've read recently: Jessica Stern's WaPo op-ed about how trauma shaped her professional career and her personality. Stern asks: "Why does the threat of violent death alter some of us, even if subtly, forever? Why does it make us unusually numb or calm when we ought to feel terrified?" Well worth reading, and I imagine Stern's forthcoming memoir will be too.

Why I loved 'The Passage'

(If you want to remain totally unspoiled about The Passage, do not read this post or the linked reviews.)

It will surprise no one who's read Alcestis that I've thought about death often in the last few years. Partly this is an occupational hazard of writing about the underworld; partly it's related to my own life, as my father was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2003 and died in late 2008, while I was working on the last revisions of the book.

If you read this blog regularly, you also know that I...

Still awesome: Kelly Link's blog tour

Remember to visit Gwenda Bond's post with all the entries archived. Today's is about generating and loving your very own story ideas, and contains some great exercises that I am now planning to incorporate into my workshop class this summer.

Historical fiction and truth

Kate Pullinger, whose The Mistress of Nothing will soon be released in the US, wrote a great post last week about historians who dismiss historical fiction (in this case, Antony Beevor and Niall Ferguson):

According to reports, Niall Ferguson says he never reads historical fiction because it 'contaminates historical understanding'; Beevor says he thinks that historical novelists ought to mark in bold type 'the bits they made up'.Nice to see two such hardy fellows claiming their...

Kelly Link's amazing writing, and a few other things

I'm having one of those desperate OH GOD I HAVE TO FINISH THIS SECTION dissertation days, which means my brain is all scattery, which means — you guessed it — links.

First, the fabulous Gwenda Bond, describing and collecting the posts in Kelly Link's amazing blog tour in support of Pretty Monsters. Links to Kelly's tour posts are appearing all over Twitter, with very good reason. They're intense and beautiful pieces of writing, and I agree with Gwenda and Colleen Mondor (see the comments on...

The MFA experience

Apparently today is "talking about MFA programs" day in the blogosphere, and I'm happy to join in. I wrote up a post about my own MFA (MA, really) experience a few months ago, but the question of what participants in MFA programs actually get from their two years of journeyman study is always an interesting one.

Tayari Jones on Twitter pointed to one of these two posts by Danielle Evans about MFA programs. In order of posting: Stupid conversations about MFA programs, and Smart conversations...

Something like a con report

Wiscon! I went, I met a bunch of wonderful people, I had a seven-day-long migraine. Thank god for marathons of Law & Order on hotel cable when one isn't up to anything more strenuous than lying down with an ice pack. (Ice machines: also a thing to be thankful for.) When there are gaps of time in the con report below, just picture me listening to the familiar tones of Sam Waterston in a darkened room.

I got to Madison later on Thursday than expected thanks to some goofiness on the part of...

Going conning

What is it about half-weeks before a trip that makes them so odd, even when you're not missing school or work to travel? I'm not leaving for Wiscon until Thursday morning, but I still feel rushed. Partly this is self-induced dissertation pressure; it's weird to realize that Wiscon will consume the last few days of May and drop me into June. I'm starting to build some real momentum on this chapter, but I've been enjoying thinking to myself, oh, it's still May, I have so much time. In fact...

Sprung

I cannot believe it's the middle of May. My friends: what happened to this spring? I mean, I know what happened — my book came out, I traveled around a bit, I wrote another giant dissertation chapter, I started the next novel (just a wee bit), I started yet another dissertation chapter. But despite all those very good reasons for busy-ness I still feel like this semester has just gone FWOOSH.

Here are some things I learned this spring, in no particular order:

Thing 1: Sarah Waters is...

BookBanter podcast interview now up

A few weeks back, I did an interview with Alex Telander of BookBanter, and it's now available on the site as a podcast — BookBanter's 30th episode, in fact. Alex also wrote a short review of Alcestis, which you can read here. The interview was great fun, and I hope you'll enjoy listening to it, too. You can also follow BookBanter on Twitter.

I'm still dissertating away over here, with occasional breaks to think about Killingly, my next project — and Twitter's been surprisingly helpful for...