Shome Dasgupta's Blog, page 12

Ben Loory, On Reading

"Reading is useless unless it's the equivalent of having someone shove you out a window."


{ Ben Loory's fables and tales have appeared in The New Yorker, Wigleaf, and The Antioch Review. His book Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day is coming July 26, 2011, from Penguin Books .}

John Dermot Woods, On Reading

"I read to disrupt myself. The more I read, the less sure I am that I get it. That's the healthiest thing I can imagine. But we're wired to abide by systems, and systems are often what save and maintain us. There's something about the rapture of reading that allows the system to fall apart, or at least allows us to see the system, and thereby dismantle it. Reading moves me very far from the comfortable world that I know and largely control."


{John Dermot Woods is the author of the novel The Complete Collection of people, places & things . He writes stories and draws comics in Brooklyn, NY. He edits the arts quarterly Action,Yes and organizes the online reading series Apostrophe Cast . He is a professor in the English Department at Nassau Community College on Long Island. For more information, visit his website here .}

Steve Himmer, On Reading

"Reading has always been my grab bag of the world, and a way to indulge my obsessive curiosities. I've become fascinated by a country, and read everything of its literature I could track down. I've latched onto a subject like Arctic exploration or mushrooms or hermits and consumed every book on the topic for no reason other than satiating my wonder. I read to ask and be asked questions, to imagine and understand the world in new ways, and whether that happens through fiction or poetry or history or memoir doesn't matter as much as feeling like a book and its author are as curious about the world as I am."


{ Steve Himmer is the author of The Bee-Loud Glade and the editor of Necessary Fiction.}

Ani Smith, On Reading

"I read because it is the healthiest and most inexpensive way of temporarily escaping the awfulness of being myself, and with every book a tiny bit more of me is changed, I hope, for the better."


{ Ani Smith is an American writer living in London. Her chapbook, this love is office lighting (great and harsh but always off when no one's there), is forthcoming from Mud Luscious Press . She co-edits We Who Are About To Die .}

James Greer, On Reading

"I don't read so much as re-read. And I re-read promiscuously. I won't let go of a novel, for instance, until I think I've extracted its essence. Until I can draw a map of its fictional world -- in my head at least, I'm a poor cartographer -- I'm not convinced I've understood anything about the thing at all. I'll do this whether I'm writing -- I'm always writing -- or not. It's as silly to say that reading influences writing as to say that drinking orange juice influences gardening. The two are unrelated. But I can't do without either."


{James Greer is the author of The Failure (Akashic, 2010) and Artificial Light (LHotB/Akashic, 2006).}

Sean Ferrell, On Reading

"Writing without reading is like flying without an airplane. You could probably do it, but you have to work like hell and failure is both likely and tragic. Reading is a writer's engine. Reading is a writer's wings.

Reading wraps a writer in the comfort of knowing he is not alone. In reading, you find yourself in another's words. You find so many great thoughts holding hands that they drape over you and become your own. In reading, you find yourself cherishing the idea that working hard, alone, in a solitary craft, makes you feel more connected than anything you might do in a crowd.

Reading lets a writer find her blade-thin path. You find your thoughts, only not. You find your loves, or almost. This book, that poem, those plays, they say what you would say… but not quite. In reading, a writer can find that her voice hasn't been heard. In reading, a writer can find her place in the choir."


{ Sean Ferrell is the author of Numb . For more information, visit his website here .}

Grady Tripp | Writing

Vernon Hardapple: Why did you keep writing this book if you didn't even know what it was about?

Grady Tripp: I couldn't stop.

Wonder Boys
Directed by Curtis Hanson
107 minutes
IMdb

Jordan Castro, On Reading

"In 6th grade, I noticed similarities between punk rock and politics, so I became obsessed with politics. In 8th grade, I noticed similarities between politics and literature, so I became obsessed with literature. In 10th grade, I noticed similarities between literature and drugs, so I became obsessed with drugs. In 11th grade, I noticed similarities between drugs and rap music, so I became obsessed with rap music. Now, I still don't know anything about anything but I read all the time to explore it.

If reading means anything to me, I think it means meaning can be found in anything, but will be found in something, so it might as well be reading.

Or, no – I don't know.

I think I might've just made that up.

I don't think I feel able to write anything 'true' about reading because, to me, reading is not concerned with 'truth.' I enjoy reading as a means of exploring, I think, not defining. Ideally, I think I'd enjoy life in this manner too. I really don't know. I just typed 'I think I'm just retarded' then deleted it and thought a little about Stephen Elliot in a manner like I meant to think about something else but 'accidentally' thought about Stephen Elliot instead."


{ Jordan Castro (b. 1992) is the co-author of Cute (Thumbscrews Press, 2011) and two other chapbooks. He is the author of Supercomputer (Deckfight Press, 2011) and two other e-books. He maintains a blog and a twitter account .}

Tania Hershman, On Reading

"Reading is my comfort and my stimulation, taking me away and bringing me home. Being read has shown me how each reader reads alone, in their own way, and each reader puts themselves inside the word of worlds according to their own selves. Reading constantly changes my writing, I am inspired by shapes and arrangements of words on the page - and yes, for me, it is the printed page, it may always be. I can't imagine being a writer without reading. If I haven't read for several days the thirst starts to well up."


{ Tania Hershman is the author of The White Road And Other Stories . For more information, visit her website here .}

An Interview With J.A. Tyler

With My Eyes Closed: An Interview With J.A. Tyler can be found at Outsider Writers Collective .

And if you haven't yet, please check out his latest book, A Man Of Glass & All The Ways We Have Failed , which is available at Fugue State Press .