Bad Advice Wednesday: Keeping Happy and Healthy on Tour
categories: Bad Advice / Cocktail Hour
7 comments
Last book tour I found myself getting depressed at times, a dark feeling overcoming me. I’ve talked with a number of friends including Dave who have felt the same: you’re alone out there, and the great events (big turnouts, smart media, a feeling of partnership with your hosts) don’t always balance out the inevitable bad ones (Oh! We forgot you were coming!). But also, may I repeat: you’re alone. Alcohol, as always, is helpful and harmful in equal measure. Food, the same. Even a great meal and martini alone for the fifth night in a row is no boon. But neither is an ascetic sandwich and early to bed. Up at dawn! To the airport! To the next city! Find the hotel! Grab a shower, and with luck a nap! Find the bookstore or college or library! And then: it’s show time! And repeat. Continue reading →
Guest contributor: Bill Lundgren
Lundgren’s Book Lounge: “Something Rich and Strange,” by Ron Rash
categories: Cocktail Hour / Reading Under the Influence
Comments Off on Lundgren’s Book Lounge: “Something Rich and Strange,” by Ron Rash
Ron Rash
In the literary world “regional” often implies diminishment. This despite the indisputable truth that many of our most brilliant writers never left a very small world in their fictional creations; think Garcia Marquez and the mythical world of Macondo and Latin America or Faulkner and the characters and stories from Yoknapathawpa County, Mississippi or Jim Harrison’s tales from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Calling these writers “regional” as a form of criticism is absurd; their genius lies in bringing us, their readers, stories from a small world that expose universal truths, meaningful to any reader, anywhere.
Brad in This Week’s New Yorker
categories: Cocktail Hour
1 comment
After losing several battles during the civil war, Brad decided to dedicate himself seriously to fiction.
Brad Watson, fellow bearded writer and friend of Bill and Dave’s, has a short story this week in a magazine called The New Yorker (an Ecotone rival). It’s called “Eykelboon,” and here he talks about it.
Nina’s issue should arrive in our mailbox today. True confession: I never read it. But this week I will make an exception.
And here is the link to the story.
We’re Number Two
categories: Cocktail Hour
2 comments
We are a little crushed here at Bill and Dave’s. The results are in and we came in second in the National Endowment for the Trivial’s much-watched and hotly-contested “Funniest Bill and Dave in History” Award. The good news is that we beat Hewllett and Packard soundly. The bad news is that we lost to these two clowns:
A Perfect Storm of Junger, Miles and Gessner
categories: Cocktail Hour
Comments Off on A Perfect Storm of Junger, Miles and Gessner
What do Kathryn Miles, Sebastian Junger, and David Gessner have in common? Why, this video of the history-making, tag-team reading during Writers’ Week of “Bigger than Shakespeare, or How I weathered the Perfect Storm.”
Writers’ Week Day 4
categories: Cocktail Hour
1 comment
Great reading last night by Kathryn Miles and Patrick Philips.
This morning at 10 Patrick Philips will discuss craft for poets in the Azalea Coast Room .
Then I will talk with Kathryn Miles about her book, SUPERSTORM. How did she come to write it? How did she sell it? How did she make it so damn good? Your questions will be answered today at 12:30 (also in the Azalea Coast Room).
At 2 the BFA readers will take the stage.
The day will be capped off with a reading by the inimitable Brock Clarke in DeLoach Hall 114!
Bad Advice Wednesday: Come out and See two Great Readers
categories: Cocktail Hour
Comments Off on Bad Advice Wednesday: Come out and See two Great Readers
Writers’ Week is rolling along thanks to yesterday’s rock star duo of Chantel Acevedo and Belle Boggs. Standing room only.
Tonight we have the Buckner Keynote Reading in the CIS (not CSI) Building 1008. This will star two of my favorite writers and people, Patrick Phillips and Kate Miles. Patrick will read his brilliant poems, and Kate, aka Kathryn, will dazzle us with passages from Superstorm, of which World Famous Writer David Gessner said: “The Big One is coming. This book will sweep into town, pick you up, and carry you away. Like a great and gripping novel, Superstorm takes us moment-by-moment through the days building up to and climaxing in the largest storm the world has ever seen, while making us care deeply for those in the storm’s path. It’s a thrilling book. Pick it up, read it, and be transported.”
Here is Kate’s op-ed that was in the NYTimes last week: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/opinion/our-failing-weather-infrastructure.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
Getting Outside Saturday, Book Tour Edition
categories: Cocktail Hour / Getting Outside
1 comment
Portland, Maine
Lundgren’s Book Lounge: “The Happiest People in the World,” by Brock Clarke
categories: Cocktail Hour / Reading Under the Influence
Comments Off on Lundgren’s Book Lounge: “The Happiest People in the World,” by Brock Clarke
Brock Clarke at Books and Books, Miami
Brock Clarke is one of the funniest writers I have ever read, but to categorize him as a humor writer would be a huge disservice. Beneath the humor is a sly and wry commentary on contemporary culture that will linger long after the laughter has abated. Clarke’s latest novel, The Happiest People in the World will certainly tickle your funny bone but it will also make you ruminate on the absurdity of a society obsessed with security and the underlying paranoia that results when everyone seems to be watching everyone else–and taking notes.
