On March 11th, Kyle Minor and Jason Diamond spoke about a host of topics at Community Bookstore. You can read the first part, in which they discussed religion, the structure of Minor’s collection Praying Drunk, and literary communities here. This half of the conversation focuses more on Praying Drunk, along with looks at Minor’s novel-in-progress and first collection, In the Devil’s Territory. Plus: Barry Hannah.
On March 11th, Jason Diamond and Kyle Minor spoke at Community Bookstore. Topics ranged from Minor’s new book Praying Drunk to religion to the internet’s effect on the writing community. What follows is the first part of their conversation; the second part will follow tomorrow.
We All Sleep in the Same Room, the debut novel from Paul Rome, follows the life of Tom, a labor lawyer in his forties living and working in Manhattan. He lives an enviable life: happily married, father to a child, and in the prime of his career. And then, piece by piece, he being to make a series of decisions that cause his life to unravel. That contrast, between a publicly heroic face and a collapsing inner life, propels this […]
I’m rarely moved to immediate action, but for I went right away for John Mortara’s “Small Creatures / Wide Field” from The Newer York Press. Hypertext madness in a broken-down house, with odd mythological creature inserts and cheeky choices? Yep. With a killer design on the beta version of Creativist, the sibling to Atavist? ALL IN. John Mortara is a writer, poet and teacher who now lives in Massachusetts. We both went to the same small, regional college for grad […]
Many of us wonder aloud what makes a modern poet. Casey Rocheteau has lived to tell the tale. In addition to her life as a PhD student, Rocheteau has emerged as one of the braver and more vividly talented writers of verse in American life. Her work is at once a manifestation for her passionate scholarship into American history, her surrealist wit, and a style that reads and sounds like a well-read, joyful invocation of Toni Morrison, William Faulkner, and […]
The image macro. Internet poetry. How can are these concepts impacting and changing poetry? That question is impossible to answer at this point–but one thing is for sure–it’s definitely rewiring the way people interact and read poetry. One of the people on the forefront of this is Michael Hessel-Mial. He’s the editor of an “influential” poetry Tumblr called Internet Poetry. Yes, some of the submissions he selects only gets a few notes, others get 40,000. He mostly selects text and […]
Jamie Iredell is equally skilled at writing heartfelt nonfiction and far more surreal works that defy quick classification. He can also tell you, on sight, what size jacket, pants, and hat you wear. The man has talents that extend far beyond the realm of writing; he’s also a remarkably congenial guy, a gripping reader, and someone whose participation in the literary community takes many forms. Iredell’s new collection of essays, I Was A Fat Drunk Catholic School Insomniac, touches on subjects […]
It’s hard to shake the stories in Kelly Luce‘s collection Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail. Most of them are set in Japan; those that aren’t tend to be connected to said nation in some other way. The deceased character at the center of “Rooey,” for instance, possessed a fondness for Japan for an early age. Sometimes, as in “Pioneers,” Luce sharply portrays characters’ daily lives, and the ways in which they can be disrupted. In others, especially […]