Mark Sarvas's Blog, page 16

THOSE WHO CAN'T ...

Interested (or desperate) parties will have not one but two opportunities to study novel writing with me this summer.  First, there's the return of my Novel I class at UCLA Extension - it's actually already filling up, to my vast surprise, so do consider signing up if you're interested.  I'm a veteran now, I can assure you you'll be in good hands.

And for any readers I might have in or around Nebraska (come on, I know you're out there), I will be teaching there as well in June as part of the a

EVENT: MICHAEL SLEDGE

I'm back at work, taken down mid-update by a seriously vicious cold bug.  I've got a large amount of backlogged posts that I want to share with everyone before I head off to NY for BEA (reports forthcoming), but before I forget, I've added a new event to the readings sidebar - Michael Sledge will read from his novel The More I Owe You at Skylight Books.  It's a fictionalized rendering of Elizabeth Bishop's 17 year sojourn in Rio and comes just on the cusp of what is sure to be Bishop-mania...

DEPT OF GOOD CAUSES

I've been a fan of One Story long before I had the pleasure of moderating a panel in Australia with Hannah Tinti, where I found her as intelligent as she in generous.  So, as I prepare a legitimate Marginalia round up for you all, I urge urge urge you to check out what she is doing with The One Story Literary Debutante Ball: A Celebration of Emerging Writers.  It is a seriously good literary cause, and I hope you will give it your support, as I plan to.  Plus it sounds like a great evening.  ...

EVENTS UPDATES

Many interesting new readings added to the sidebar, including Saturday's VIS-A-VIS, a day of French and American writers.  Click through and have a look ...

GUEST REVIEW: THE WAY OF THE WORLD

THE WAY OF THE WORLD
Nicolas Bouvier
NYRB Classics
328 pages

GUEST REVIEW BY ANDREW WINER

Early on in The Way of the World, Nicolas Bouvier's masterly account of a road trip across the Balkans and Asia that he undertook in 1953 with his painter friend Thierry Vernet, Bouvier asserts that "traveling provides occasions for shaking oneself up but not, as people believe, freedom." That he and Vernet, still so young at the time, somehow possess enough wisdom to forfeit agency to the exigencies of...

THE LETTERS OF SYLVIA BEACH

Regular readers know of my love of great literary correspondences.  As I dig out and prep my PEN posts and tend to other business, I'll be sharing a few random letters from Columbia University Press's lovely The Letters of Sylvia Beach.  Like this one:

October 8, 1929
Paris

Dear Hemingway,

Joyce would telephone to you if you had one.  He asked me to ask you and Pauline to go to their house this evening at about nine.  He hopes you will excuse the invitation coming at the last minute, but the...

A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

From $500K a year to a mere $13.5 teaching Shakespeare ... 

So when Buslik turned 50, in 1997, he sold his business (for several
million bucks) in order to pursue that passion. With a recommendation
from a pal who was an assistant dean, he got into the English Ph.D.
program at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In return for his work
as a TA, the school waived his tuition.

EVENT UPDATE: PETER CAREY

Folks, I am mortified.  Nothing like this has ever happened to me before - I'm usually bulletproof in this regard - but somehow I became convinced that the Peter Carey event at the Hammer Museum was Wednesday night.  It's not.  It's tonight, May 4.

Which is great, except that I am still in NYC, only flying back late this afternoon.  I plead considerable personal disarray and hope all concerned will forgive me, but please do get over to the Hammer tonight, where I am certain Mona Simpson will l...

NY EVENT REMINDER: MARISA SILVER AT MCNALLY JACKSON (with TEV)

Hello all.  Just a quick reminder to my NY readers - if you're in the neighborhood (and even if you're not), come check out Marisa Silver tonight at McNally Jackson, where she'll be reading from her new collection, Alone With You.  She and I will entertain you with a brief Q&A and perhaps a song and dance afterward.  Details here.

ALEXIE OUT, HITCH IN

Live in NY where PEN World Voices is unfolding as I type.  Last night brought Shirley Hazzard in conversation with Richard Ford, summary to follow but she was all you imagine her to be.  (Favorite moment:  when she spoke to "the great gift of the English language.")

At any rate, I am performing a Public Service Announcement here to let you know that Sherman Alexie, who was set to deliver the Fifth Annual Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture, has had to drop out of the festival for...