Now that Spring has sprung in my neck of the woods, I’m pondering what I might cut down, burn, plant, fix, and build, which—because I am more reader than farmer or carpenter—turns my mind to books. So here’s a few books, essays, and stories I’ve enjoyed during my winter hibernation that I think might interest …
A lot of people are talking about a short story in The New Yorker right now. A short story. If you care at all about writing and literature and the seemingly inexorable Western slide into voluntary aliteracy, this seems like a good thing. But so maybe “Cat Person” isn’t for you. Some people want to read …
Ten stories you can read if you don’t like men with hairy bellies and cats Read More »
This is a post for men. This is not a post for women. If you are a woman, I respectfully request that you stop reading immediately. I’m fixing to explain a couple of things, and I certainly don’t want to fall into the sin of mansplaining. So skedaddle, ladies. That includes you in the back. …
So I’m eating pineapple and considering this year’s Pulitzer Prize winners and these are not unrelated, because both activities aim at healthfulness. The truth is I’d rather be eating Krispy Kreme and reading Neuromancer, but my cholesterol has taken a slight uptick. It puts me in mind of my mortality, yet even as I approach …
The good people at Image Journal have named me their artist of the month. I like being reminded that writers are artists, and I’m honored to be included among the many fine artists—of all stripes—who have been similarly recognized by Image in the past. Here’s an excerpt from the kind things they say about me: …
It doesn’t come with a parking spot, but it’s still pretty darn nice Read More »
Some of you may like my latest essay on the Good Letters channel at Patheos. It covers everything from Oliver Stone to a young Whittaker Chambers, with a slight dose of literary criticism mixed in. Here’s an excerpt: I’ve been reading recently published short fiction—in journals, in anthologies. It seems that everyone took Baxter to …
Finally, fiction from me that doesn’t involve death or melancholy or predestination or anything else likely to induce heavy drinking. It’s all dialogue, and I wrote it years ago whilst sitting utterly uninspired and bored in a large corporate bureaucracy. And the good people at Work Literary Magazine saw fit to publish it. Here’s an excerpt: …
“They would try to make me into a moron who liked television and new cars and frozen food. Don’t you understand? Psychiatry is worse than communism. I refuse to be brainwashed. I won’t be a robot!” “But, Ignatius, they help out a lot of people got problems.” “Do you think that I have a problem?” …
I recently discovered a delightful poem by David Kirby in Five Points, and thought I’d share a snippet of it with all of you: … and you’d think that’d settle it, that the opera lovers of Tallahassee would let go of their plow handles and wipe their sweaty brows with their bandanas and say, “Well, …
I realized this morning that part of the reason I haven’t written here in so long, the reason I balk at the thought of it, is that I got the most hate-filled letter I’ve ever received, back in July, in the form of a comment someone tried to post here. The writer claimed I was …
I’m happy to announce that every couple of weeks I’ll be writing essays for Good Letters, the blog over at Image. Some of you will recognize Image as one of my favorite literary journals, and so you’ll know how honored I am that they asked me to join them. My first essay went up a …
I took some time off writing here because I didn’t have anything to say. The truth is I went through a spate of those long, dark soul-nights, the kind where you don’t sleep except for a few snatches of time, and always you feel either feverish or dead, and mostly you wish you were the …
Adam Roberts begins a five-part manifesto on why you should be reading poetry: “I remember, as a young person, being posed the question, ‘what kind of music do you like?,’ and coolly, sensibly replying, ‘everything but classical!’ Now, as a graduate student and adjunct professor, when I ask my students what they like to read, …
“She felt justified in getting anything at all back that she could, money or anything else, as if she had once owned the earth and been dispossessed of it. She couldn’t look at anything steadily without wanting it, and what provoked her most was the thought that there might be something valuable hidden near her, …
I counted, and I’ve been in my office a total of fifteen minutes since sometime in April. I’ve been home maybe five days. DC, New Orleans, Atlanta, Detroit, DC, DC, DC. I suppose they’d all be nice to visit, if I didn’t have a family in the middle of Kansas. Their voices, when I hear …
“Like legitimate art, legitimate criticism is a tragicomic holding action against entropy.” (John Gardner, On Moral Fiction, p. 6)
Listening to a local film critic’s tired dismissal of the new film, Edge of Darkness, I was struck by the need, in film, literary, and art criticism just as much as in theological or architectural or epicurean criticism, for a foundational sense of what makes something good. All else flows from that. For some critics, this …
My friend John Miller brings the smack on modern vampires. This may be a good way to sum it up: if your bloodsucker needs hair gel, he’s really just a big thirsty sissy with bad teeth. In general, vampires ought to be scarier than personal injury attorneys. Though both species deserve a stake through their …
This in memory of Peggy Rabb, who I knew only a little and a little while, but who was all kindness to me. In our first conversation we talked about things I have written and things she has written and writers we know, and she told me where she would be buried, and she spoke …
I just found out I scored a mention in the 2010 Pushcart Anthology for my short story, “Name,” which was published last year in Image. And the good people at Ruminate nominated my story, “The Glass Child,” for a Pushcart this year. If you’re still looking for Christmas gifts for your more discerning loved ones …
“The seed of our destruction will blossom in the desert, the alexin of our cure grows by a mountain rock, and our lives are haunted by a Georgia slattern because a London cut-purse went unhung. Through Chance, we are each a ghost to all the others, and our only reality; through Chance, the huge hinge …
You know he’s neck-deep in work when he busts out the quotes Read More »
I’ll not forget the charming maid Who asked if I had been flambéed And, seeing I knew little French, Proceeded without pause to drench My clothes with liquids dark and strong, And purred I wouldn’t feel it long, Then closed the door and dropped the latch And asked me if I had a match. What …
So what do I have in common with Annie Dillard, Ron Hansen, Kathleen Norris, and Valerie Sayers? We’re all in Image Journal’s 20th-anniversary anthology, Bearing the Mystery. You should buy a copy.
I still get surprised when complete strangers call my office, give only a first name and some financial- or insurance-sounding affiliation, and then ask me to call them back. No information. No “Hey, we met at the ice-cream social and I just wanted to follow up on something you said,” or — the more likely …
If you’re looking for a counterweight to my usual cheeriness, you might get yourself the latest issue of Ruminate, which has my short story, “The Glass Child.” Here’s the opening paragraph: This is the blood, David tells himself. He twists open the bottle and pours its dark content into a blue plastic cup. The label …
Sometimes the words don’t seem like they’ll get close to the truth of anything, and so I just stop writing. That’s not completely true; I’ll write fiction perhaps, because those people in the stories inside my head haven’t yet worked themselves into corners where the words are like sunfaded fabric or covered-over grass or the sigh …
Some of you may enjoy my latest Wall Street Journal essay, about modern friendships. In a nutshell: though I have more Facebook friends than my four-year old Isaac, I’m pretty sure that’s a poor indication of who is more loved.
Okay, here’s the thing. “Literally” doesn’t mean “really.” It’s not a word that you put in front of some other words to show that, unlike the rest of your lackluster sentence, this is the part you really totally completely, like, absolutely mean. And it doesn’t mean figuratively, or metaphorically. “Literally” means that it actually happened. So …
I have an arrangement with myself, which is that I can only have a Starbucks hot chocolate (two-percent milk, no whipped cream) on cloudy days, or on Sundays when I catch the early service at a different church, or on Mondays when the thought of going to work presses me down onto my bed like …
I’m in the midst of a writing frenzy at present, so for your reading pleasure I present an excerpt from Flannery O’Connor’s “The Nature and Aim of Fiction,” which may be found in the volume of her speeches and essays, Mystery and Manners. This came to me some weeks ago courtesy of Adam DeVille, who …
