Tag: Paris Review

July 2022 Reading List

John Winkelman

What I read in July 2022

July was another excellent month for reading. I finished half a dozen issues of The Paris Review, as well as the some translated prose and the second and third books of John Scalzi’s Interdependency trilogy. And all that without feeling rushed. So even though July was exceptionally busy there were enough quiet moments to sink my teeth into some really good writing.

Books and Journals

  1. Andrés Neuman (Jeffrey Lawrence, translator), How to Travel Without Seeing [2022.07.06]
  2. The Paris Review #219 [2022.07.06]
  3. The Paris Review #220 [2022.07.08]
  4. The Paris Review #221 [2022.07.15]
  5. The Paris Review #222 [2022.07.19]
  6. Ana Simo, Heartland [2022.07.21]
  7. John Scalzi, The Consuming Fire [2022.07.23]
  8. John Scalzi, The Last Emperox [2022.07.26]
  9. The Paris Review #223 [2022.07.29]
  10. The Paris Review #224 [2022.07.31]

Short Prose

  1. Christine Lincoln, “What’s Necessary to Remember When Telling a Story”, The Paris Review #219 [2022.07.02]
  2. Tom Bissell, “Creative Types”, The Paris Review #219 [2022.07.04]
  3. Alexander Kluge (Isabel Fargo Cole, translator, “In Medieval Angelology, There Are Nine Orders of Snow”, The Paris Review #219 [2022.07.06]
  4. Amparo Dávila (Audrey Harris & Matthew Gleeson, translators), “Moses and Gaspar”, The Paris Review #219 [2022.07.06]
  5. Adam O’Fallon Price, “A Natural Man”, The Paris Review #220 [2022.07.08]
  6. Fleur Jaeggy, “Agnes”, The Paris Review #220 [2022.07.08]
  7. Jean-René Étienne and Lola Raban-Oliva, “Formentera Storyline”, The Paris Review #220 [2022.07.08]
  8. Harry Mathews, “Berenice’s Tale”, The Paris Review #220 [2022.07.08]
  9. J.M. Holmes, “What’s Wrong with You? What’s Wrong with Me?”, The Paris Review #221 [2022.07.09]
  10. Patrick Modiano (Lorin Stein, translator), “The Hat”, The Paris Review #221 [2022.07.11]
  11. Chris Knapp, “States of Emergency”, The Paris Review #221 [2022.07.11]
  12. “Laura Francis” & Alexander Masters, “Love, Death & Trousers: Eight Found Stories”, The Paris Review #221 [2022.07.11]
  13. Anne Carson, “Eddy”, The Paris Review #221 [2022.07.14]
  14. Julie Orringer, “Neighbors”, The Paris Review #221 [2022.07.15]
  15. Caleb Crain, “Envoy”, The Paris Review #221 [2022.07.15]
  16. Ann Beattie, “Ruckersville”, The Paris Review #222 [2022.07.17]
  17. Isabella Hammad, “Mr. Can’aan”, The Paris Review #222 [2022.07.17]
  18. Sigrid Nunez, “The Blind”, The Paris Review #222 [2022.07.17]
  19. Duncan Hannah, “Diaries, 1970-73”, The Paris Review #222 [2022.07.17]
  20. Antonio Di Benedetto, “Ace”, The Paris Review #222 [2022.07.19]
  21. David Sedaris, “Letter from Emerald Isle”, The Paris Review #222 [2022.07.19]
  22. Peter Mountford, “Pay Attention”, The Paris Review #223 [2022.07.25]
  23. Katharine Kilalea, “OK, Mr. Field (Part 1) Summer”, The Paris Review #223 [2022.07.26]
  24. J. Jezewska Stevens, “The Party”, The Paris Review #223 [2022.07.28]
  25. Duncan Hannah, “Diaries, 1973-1974”, The Paris Review #223 [2022.07.29]
  26. Karl Ove Knausgaard (Damion Searls, translator), “Fate”, The Paris Review #223 [2022.07.29]
  27. Joy Williams, “Flour”, The Paris Review #224 [2022.07.29]
  28. Chia-Chia Lin, “Practicing”, The Paris Review #224 [2022.07.29]
  29. Rachel Cusk, “Justice”, The Paris Review #224 [2022.07.30]
  30. Joanna Novak, “The Wait”, The Paris Review #224 [2022.07.30]
  31. Katharine Kilalea, “OK, Mr. Field (Part 2) Autumn”, The Paris Review #224 [2022.07.31]

Another July In the Bag

John Winkelman

New arrivals for the week of July 24, 2022

The first part of 2022 seemed to drag, the days and weeks plodding by as if time itself were feeling an inescapable ennui. Then Memorial Day arrived and all the things which hadn’t happened since 2019 suddenly happened all at once, three years worth of events packed into a couple of months as everyone did everything everywhere. And suddenly July is over and in fifty days Autumn will arrive, suddenly and, given how hot the world is anymore, unnoticed except for the changing of the leaves. I felt no FOMO for two years because there was nothing to miss out on. Now so many things are happening that missing an event seems a luxury.

Thus I am exhausted in the midst of plenty and in desperate need for some quiet time and solitude.

Two new books arrived at the house this week.

First up is K.S. Villoso‘s The Wolf of Oren-Yaro, which I picked up on a whim, as Villoso has been a speaker on several genre podcasts over the past couple of years.

On the right, from Two Lines Press, is Xu  Zechen‘s Running through Beijing, translated from the Chinese by Eric Abrahamsen.

In reading news I burned my way through The Last Emperox, the eminently satisfying conclusion to John Scalzi‘s Interdependency trilogy. I haven’t binged a series like this since last summer, and it felt pretty good.

I rounded out the month with a steady run of The Paris Review, and am slightly less than halfway through my backlog. I just finished the Spring 2018 issue, and expect to be caught up to present around the end of the year.

I still haven’t written anything, but I do have some ideas on how to expand a short story I wrote last fall into a full novel, including sufficient worldbuilding to possibly turn the novel, once completed, into a series. Time will tell. It always does.

Coincidences and Timing

John Winkelman

New arrival from the week of July 17, 2022, and Pepper

I have two information-dense personal projects going on right now – the “Bottom of the Top” posts, and my deep dive into all the back issues of literary journals which have been slowly accumulating in my house. This means that I am encountering, in a time-shifted way, many musical and literary works for the first time. The Bottom of the Top project starts in 1977 and runs through 1997 in five-year increments. My stack of old lit journals goes back at least five years, and many of the pieces therein were originally written one to a hundred years prior, though the older works tend to be outliers.

Only one new book arrived in the past week – Robin McLean‘s collection of short stories titled Get ’em Young, Treat ’em Tough, Tell ’em Nothing, published by And Other Stories.

In reading news I am caught up through the end of 2017 in my stack of back issues of The Paris Review. This led me (with reference to the notes at the top of this post) to encounter New York artist Duncan Hannah, whose memoir 20th Century Boy was excerpted in issue #222 who was a contemporary of Andy Warhol and and active participant in the Scene in New York City from the 1970s on. I had not heard of Hannah before reading this excerpt, and immediately added his book to my list of upcoming purchases.

Then I did some more research and discovered that Duncan Hannah died a few weeks ago, on June 11. He was 69 years old, which doesn’t seem that old to me, from the vantage point of 53.

I also had a lot of fun reading Ana Simo’s Heartland, which I would happily put on the shelf next to Michelle Tea‘s Black Wave and Rita Indiana‘s Tentacle. With that complete, I have shifted gears back to more mainstream genre fiction and burned through John Scalzi‘s The Consuming Fire, the second book in the Interdependency trilogy, in two days. I am now reading the final book in the series, The Last Emperox. As with everything else I have read by Mr. Scalzi, these books are a lot of fun.

In writing news, a whole lotta nothing over the past week. That seems to be the state of things this summer.

No Down In My Down Time

John Winkelman

New books for the week of July 10, 2021

Today is the last day of my two-week break from work, the first break since ConFusion in January, and the first full-on vacation since the Christmas holidays. I enjoyed not having to work for two weeks, but the minutes, hours and days were so quickly filled with tasks, chores, and Things To Do that those two weeks included almost no rest at all. Last Tuesday I managed to get some time to myself, about three hours in which I walked around the neighborhoods, visited a cafe and a couple of bookstores, and wrote for a little while. And that was the only down-time, the only real relaxation, in the entire two weeks.

In other words, I need a vacation.

Earlier this week Zyra and I drove to Detroit, where we stayed in a moderately terrible hotel and ate fantastic food at a variety of excellent restaurants. We also, at the suggestion of one of our friends from the East Side, hit The Book Beat, a fantastic little bookstore in Oak Park, Michigan with an eclectic and surprisingly deep selection of books and magazines. Highly recommended, would visit again. While there, I picked up a couple of books:

First up is Nomadology: The War Machine by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, published by Semiotext(e). I think I owned a copy of this small book once upon a time, back in the 1990s. I am not sure what became of it. Probably lost in one of my many moves over the past quarter-century.

Next up is Black Mountain Poems, an anthology of work from the Black Mountain poets, edited by Jonathan C. Creasy. I picked this up because of my interest in the works of Paul Blackburn, specifically his beautiful “Matchbook Poem” which I return to again and again.

In reading and writing news, not much happening, because too much is happening EVERYWHERE ELSE. I did start Ana Simo‘s wonderfully strange Heartland, which arrived at the house from Restless Books a few years ago. And I’m still working my way slowly through my stack of The Paris Review, which is an absolutely wonderful experience.

I find it depressing to say that, since I head back to work tomorrow, I may finally have time to do some reading and writing. Selah!

So This is What Down Time Looks Like

John Winkelman

New arrivals for the week of July 3, 2022

It looks a lot like work, except without the work. All of the things I hoped to accomplish (reading and writing, mostly) have fallen by the wayside as the hundred other tasks and chores which I have put off for the past six months have reared their ugly, dirty, dusty heads.

I have added several new books to the library over the past week.

First up is volume 7 of The Long List Anthology, which collects the finalists for the Hugo Award for short fiction.

Next up is Ocean Vuong‘s novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, which I picked up from the best bookstore in the city, Books and Mortar.

Next is Progeny of Air, Kwame Dawes‘ first book of poetry, which was published in 1994. I grabbed this from Argos Books, which I have not visited in about a year.

I also picked up Listening to the Fire: The Poetry of Fountain Street Church, which was published in 1998. I would have overlooked this one were it not edited by my old friend and co-worker from the bookstore days, Linda Rosenthal. I don’t remember when Linda left the bookstore but I was still there when this collection was published, and I am a little embarrassed that I had not heard of it until now.

In reading news, I finished Andrés Neuman’s brilliant How to Travel Without Seeing, which I first picked up back in 2016, and immediately stuck on a shelf and spent the next five years eyeballing uncomfortably, as if I had committed a small sin by not reading it immediately.

But I have read it now, and my life is much the richer for it. How to Travel Without Seeing is a travelogue of sorts, notes taken by the author on a book tour through nineteen (!) Latin American countries. Neuman is a brilliant writer and I will likely return to this book more than once over the coming years.

I am still working my way through back issues of The Paris Review, and have reached calendar year 2017, so I am only five years and change behind the present. This is another case where I regret not reading these journals as they came out, because much of the prose and poetry herein is simply remarkable. I have already added some books to my lists for later perusal, and will likely continue to do so throughout the rest of this exercise.

In writing news, I haven’t accomplished much, thanks to the specific mental/emotional hangover of having a break from work for the first time in six months.

June 2022 Reading List

John Winkelman

What I read in June 2022

I finally made it through all of the back issues of Poetry Magazine I have been collecting for the past decade. Forty-some issues, read and appreciated and ready to be archived. Now I am working my way through back issues of The Paris Review, and enjoying the experience. I will likely let my subscription lapse at the end of the year, or go to digital-only, which gives me access to the entire online archives, which is an AMAZING resource. But no more physical copies.

Books and Journals

  1. Poetry Magazine #219.2 (November 2021) [2022.06.01]
  2. Poetry Magazine #219.3 (December 2021) [2022.06.03]
  3. Poetry Magazine #219.4 (January 2022) [2022.06.05]
  4. Hurley, Kameron, Future Artifacts: Stories [2022.06.05]
  5. Voices 2022 [2022.06.06]
  6. Poetry Magazine #219.5 (February 2022) [2022.06.06]
  7. Poetry Magazine #219.6 (March 2022) [2022.06.07]
  8. Poetry Magazine #220.1 (April 2022) [2022.06.09]
  9. Poetry Magazine #220.2 (May 2022) [2022.06.09]
  10. Poetry Magazine #220.3 (June 2022) [2022.06.09]
  11. Hariharan, Githa, Almost Home [2022.06.17]
  12. The Paris Review #215 [2022.06.18]
  13. The Paris Review #216 [2022.06.23]
  14. Monáe, Janelle, The Memory Librarian [2022.06.26]
  15. The Paris Review #217 [2022.06.26]
  16. The Paris Review #218 [2022.06.29]
  17. Poetry Magazine #220.4 (July/August 2022) [2022.06.30]

Short Prose

  1. Hurley, Kameron, “The Judgment of Gods and Monsters”, Future Artifacts: Stories [2022.06.02]
  2. Hurley, Kameron, “Broker of Souls”, Future Artifacts: Stories [2022.06.03]
  3. Hurley, Kameron, “The One We Feed”, Future Artifacts: Stories [2022.06.03]
  4. Hurley, Kameron, “Corpse Soldier”, Future Artifacts: Stories [2022.06.03]
  5. Hurley, Kameron, “Levianthan”, Future Artifacts: Stories [2022.06.03]
  6. Hurley, Kameron, “Unblooded”, Future Artifacts: Stories [2022.06.03]
  7. Hurley, Kameron, “The Skulls of Our Fathers”, Future Artifacts: Stories [2022.06.03]
  8. Hurley, Kameron, “Body Politic”, Future Artifacts: Stories [2022.06.04]
  9. Hurley, Kameron, “We Burn”, Future Artifacts: Stories [2022.06.04]
  10. Hurley, Kameron, “Antibodies”, Future Artifacts: Stories [2022.06.04]
  11. Hurley, Kameron, “The Traitor Lords”, Future Artifacts: Stories [2022.06.04]
  12. Hurley, Kameron, “Wonder Maul Doll”, Future Artifacts: Stories [2022.06.05]
  13. Hurley, Kameron, “Our Prisoners, the Stars”, Future Artifacts: Stories [2022.06.05]
  14. Hurley, Kameron, “The Body Remembers”, Future Artifacts: Stories [2022.06.05]
  15. Hurley, Kameron, “Moontide”, Future Artifacts: Stories [2022.06.05]
  16. Hurley, Kameron, “Citizens of Elsewhen”, Future Artifacts: Stories [2022.06.05]
  17. Hariharan, Githa, “Seven Cities and AnyCity”, Almost Home [2022.06.07]
  18. Freudenberger, Nell, “Found Objects“, The Paris Review #215 [2022.06.09]
  19. Hariharan, Githa, “Two Cities of Victory”, Almost Home [2022.06.12]
  20. Martin, Andrew, “With the Christopher Kids“, The Paris Review #215 [2022.06.13]
  21. Hariharan, Githa, “Toda Cafe Blues”, Almost Home [2022.06.14]
  22. Szalay, David, “Lascia Amor e siegui Marte”, The Paris Review #215 [2022.06.15]
  23. Bachelder, Chris, “The Throwback Special, part 3”, The Paris Review #215 [2022.06.16]
  24. Hariharan, Githa, “Mapping Freedom”, Almost Home [2022.06.17]
  25. Hariharan, Githa, “Speaking in Haiku”, Almost Home [2022.06.17]
  26. Hariharan, Githa, “Trailblazing in Andalusa”, Almost Home [2022.06.17]
  27. Hariharan, Githa, “Looking for a Nation, Looking at the Nation”, Almost Home [2022.06.17]
  28. Hariharan, Githa, “Bittersweet Danish”, Almost Home [2022.06.17]
  29. Hariharan, Githa, “Seeing Palestine”, Almost Home [2022.06.17]
  30. Hariharan, Githa, “Almost Home”, Almost Home [2022.06.17]
  31. Bischel, Peter, “Two Stories”, The Paris Review #215 [2022.06.17]
  32. Sorrentino, Christopher, “Apparition of Danhoff”, The Paris Review #215 [2022.06.18]
  33. Hale, Benjamin, “Don’t Worry Baby”, The Paris Review #216 [2022.06.18]
  34. Zevi, Anne-Laure (Angel, Mitzi, translator), “Nom”, The Paris Review #216 [2022.06.18]
  35. Teicher, Craig Morgan, “Four Stories”, The Paris Review #216 [2022.06.19]
  36. Beach, Jensen, “Migration”, The Paris Review #216 [2022.06.20]
  37. Gombrowicz, Witold (Bhambry, Tul’si, translator), “The Tragic Tale of the Baron and His Wife”, The Paris Review #216 [2022.06.21]
  38. Johnson, Dana, “She Deserves Everything She Gets”, The Paris Review #216 [2022.06.21]
  39. Monáe, Janelle and Johnson, Alaya Dawn, “The Memory Librarian”, The Memory Librarian [2022.06.23]
  40. Bachelder, Chris, “The Throwback Special, part 4”, The Paris Review #216 [2022.06.23]
  41. Monáe, Janelle and Lore, Danny, “Nevermind”, The Memory Librarian [2022.06.24]
  42. Cusk, Rachel, “Freedom”, The Paris Review #217 [2022.06.24]
  43. Arthurs, Alexia, “Bad Behavior”, The Paris Review #217 [2022.06.24]
  44. Nugent, Benjamin, “The Treasurer”, The Paris Review #217 [2022.06.25]
  45. Kroll-Zaidi, Rafil, “Lifeguards”, The Paris Review #217 [2022.06.25]
  46. Monáe, Janelle and Ewing, Eve L., “Timebox”, The Memory Librarian [2022.06.26]
  47. Monáe, Janelle and Delgado, Yohanca, “Save Changes”, The Memory Librarian [2022.06.26]
  48. Monáe, Janelle and Thomas, Sheree Renée, “Timebox Altar[ed]”, The Memory Librarian [2022.06.26]
  49. Campbell, Bonnie Jo, “Down”, The Paris Review #217 [2022.06.26]
  50. Gladman, Renee, “Five Things”, The Paris Review #217 [2022.06.26]
  51. Murnane, Gerald, “From Border Districts”, The Paris Review #217 [2022.06.26]
  52. Léger, Nathalie, “Barbara, Wanda”, The Paris Review #218 [2022.06.27]
  53. Martin, Andrew, “No Cops”, The Paris Review #218 [2022.06.29]
  54. Barrodale, Amie, “Protectors”, The Paris Review #218 [2022.06.29]
  55. Beattie, Ann, “Panthers”, The Paris Review #218 [2022.06.29]
  56. Sharma, Akhil, “The Well”, The Paris Review #218 [2022.06.29]

Shorter Days Are Also Long Days

John Winkelman

Books which arrived in the week of June 19, 2022

With the summer solstice behind us the days are slowly getting shorter but the work never ends and so I have resigned myself to the sight of the late afternoon shadows lengthening ever so slightly earlier every day. And summer has just begun.

Two new bookish things arrived in the past week. First up, from Two Lines Press, is a special edition bilingual chapbook which contains the first part of Jazmina Barrera‘s Linea Nigra, printed by Impronta Casa Editora. This little book is gorgeous, and has reaffirmed my opinion that chapbooks are absolutely a viable mode of publishing, for prose as well as poetry. The full version of Linea Nigra arrived at the house back in April.

Next is the latest issue of The Paris Review, which will go on the bottom of the stack of my back issues, through which I am steadily reading.

In reading news I am on issue #217 of The Paris Review, with (does the math) [N] more to go until I am caught up to present. The most recent issue came with a note that the Winter 2022 issue will be the last issue of my subscription, and I admit I am conflicted about letting the subscription lapse, if only because, poetry and prose aside, the interviews in The Paris Review are AMAZING!

I am also reading Janelle Monáe’s remarkable The Memory Librarian, and may well have it finished by the time this post goes live. I can’t say enough good things about it. Beautiful queer cyberpunk with a strong helping of bio- and neuro-punk on the side. Highly recommended.

In writing news, nothing to report. Maybe next week.

It’s REALLY Hot Out

John Winkelman

Monarch Caterpillar on Milkweed

Like, seriously hot. The middle of the week hit the upper 90s by the thermometer, and over 100 by heat index. With that kind of heat any activity which requires any kind of energy is exceptionally difficult.

No new books arrived in the past week, so I have included a photo of one of the five (as of this past Monday) Monarch caterpillars currently munching their way through our small patch of milkweed. With the severe decline in the population of Monarchs overall, every one of these small beasts is precious.

In reading news, I have finished the first of the two dozen or so back issues of The Paris Review taking up space on my shelves. The past couple of weeks have been much busier than usual so I am not keeping up with my usual reading pace. Plus, much like the computers with which I have worked for well over half of my life, my brain doesn’t work so well when it is overheated.

I did manage to finish Githa Hariharan’s beautiful essay collection Almost Home. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the study and contemplation of cities and the experiences of immigrant, refugees, and those on the receiving end of colonialism.

With Almost Home complete, I have picked up Janelle Monáe‘s collection The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories From Dirty Computer. I have been looking forward to this one since I first heard of it at ConFusion 2022, back in January. The reviews are favorable so I have high hopes.

In writing news, other than journaling I haven’t done a lot. Too many other things going on in my life which are sapping my energy and competing for time. I don’t really expect the rest of the month to be any slower but I hope to make progress transcribing my poetry from two months ago.

So that’s it for this week. Work is crazy right now, as it always is in June as the next-to-last quarter of the fiscal year winds up and everyone heads to their own wherever for vacations. I have the first two weeks of July off, which I hope to use for more than recovery time. We will see how things shake out.

June, All At Once

John Winkelman

Voices 2022

I almost made it through the week without adding anything to the library, but at the last moment I attended the reading for the 2022 Dyer-Ives Poetry Contest. The winners and runners-up are collected in Voices, the annual magazine of the Dyer-Ives competition.

The event was wonderful! Over a dozen of the contestants read their pieces. They ranged in age from 7 or so to probably the late fifties, though the readers definitely skewed young, with all except maybe two being under thirty. The high school students had some of the most powerful poems, and the adult winner wrote a very pointedly anti-capitalist poem, which warmed the cockles of my aging heart.

I didn’t recognize anyone at the event, other than the coordinator Kelsey May, who I met in my capacity as editor at The 3288 Review, when we published a couple of her poems back in 2019. The readers made me feel, well, old. Then again, I consider this a good thing, because if after three years away I only saw the same people as in the Before Times, and they were all Millennials or Gen-X-ers, then something would be very wrong with the poetry community in Grand Rapids.

Yesterday evening Zyra and I wandered downtown to the Festival of the Arts and attended the Love and Peace Jam at the Calder stage. It was fantastic! Several local and regional poets, including Dyer-Ives Finalist Naiara Tamminga and Lansing poet Laureate Masaki Takahashi read and performed, and for the first time I had the privilege of hearing our own poet laureate Kyd Kane read her work at a live event. The event was coordinated by The Diatribe, with Foster (a.k.a. Autopilot) and Kyd Kane hosting.

In reading news, I am caught up to 2022 in my backlog of issues of Poetry Magazine. It still feels good to read such a variety of poetry in such a volume.

I am almost finished with Kameron Hurley‘s excellent collection Future Artifacts, which arrived recently from Apex Book Company. I really like Hurley’s work. Her writing is lush and gritty and I sometimes detect echoes of writers like Jack Vance and Robert Howard.

So now that I am reading poetry and short fiction, my next reading project is to work through all of my back issues of The Paris Review, which is a quarterly instead of a monthly, so I should be able to put a sizable dent in the backlog by the end of the year. The Paris Review publishes short fiction and nonfiction, poetry and interviews, so this should be an interesting, varied,  and enjoyable project.

In writing news, I am still typing up my poems from April. I would make much faster progress if my handwriting was not so terrible. One more thing to work on, I guess.

Poetry Resurgent and Resplendent

John Winkelman

Newly arrived in the week of March 20, 2022, and Poe

Early Satuday afternoon I drove to Garfield Park just south of downtown Grand Rapids, where I was interviewed as part of An Oral History of Poetry in Grand Rapids. I haven’t really been involved with the poetry community for a few years, thanks in no small part to the COVID pandemic, so this was a wonderful reintroduction to The Scene.

As part of the interview my interviewer Toni Bal asked me to read a poem. I brought “Back-Road Labyrinth,” which I wrote in 2018 or 2019. This was the first time I had read a poem in about three years, the previous being “36 Views of New Orleans” at The Drunken Retort in (I think) 2018. Now that I have read it, maybe it is time for me to send it out to be published.

I donated most of the print run of The 3288 Review to the project, from the Caffeinated Press archives which occupy three banker’s boxes in my office closet.

The new issue of The Paris Review was the only arrival this week. Poe is earning her keep as a book rest, atop her panda blanket as she watches the porch for squirrels and birds.

In reading news, I finished Patrick S. Tomlinson‘s Gate Crashers. It was a lot of fun, with engaging characters and an interesting plot. Gate Crashers was Tomlinson’s first book, and it is a little rough around the edges. He mentions in the author’s note that he wrote it in response to the ending of the movie version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and it shows in the sense of humor and turns of phrase. Then again, there are worse influences to wear on your sleeve than Douglas Adams.

I am currently reading I am the Brother of XX, written by Swiss author Fleur Jaeggy and translated from the Italian by Gini Alhadeff.

In writing news, I didn’t do much this week other than edit the poem I read for my interview. But I feel better than I have the past few weeks, so perhaps the changing of the month will bring renewed energy and I will be able to get back in the saddle.