Category: Literature
Monday Morning Surprise
A friend of mine called while I was out. He left a message (which I thought had to be a mistake) to the effect that apparently my new book, Gravity Box and Other Spaces, made the local (St. Louis) independent bookstore bestseller list of the week ending June 29. Post-Dispatch page here.
Well, not one to be fooled, I looked it up. And there it is. (See link above)
I’m stunned.
I mean, the last thing I expected was for something like this to occur with this book.
Not that I had a list of expectations, mind you. …
News and Such
I have another book out, from Yard Dog Press, The Logic of Departure. More on that later.
I’m having something of a productive year, career-wise.  To recap, the official release party for my first short story collection, Gravity Box and Other Spaces, if this coming Wednesday at Left Bank Books, 399 N. Euclid, St. Louis, MO, at 7:00 PM.
Also, I’ll be doing another program with the St. Louis Science Center at the end of July. More on that when things are firmed up.
But on July 11th, we’ll be celebrating the 45th birthday of Left Bank Books and for that we’ll be doing something wild and crazy and insane—you know, normal fare for Left Bank—called Writers Under Glass. …
Dining Disruptively
This is a cool thing.
Dan Reus of Disruptive Diner contacted me a bit over a month ago and asked me to participate in this. Naturally, I had no real idea what I wanted to say or how I would say, which was compounmded by the format—Pekchuka, which means literally fast talking. I came up with something, which is posted above. I had fun. I’d have fun doing it again.
So……
Obsession Point
I have a friend who likes to engage me on our points of departure. He’s a self-admitted conservative, I am not. He’s a sincere Christian, I’m an atheist. Looking around at the current culture, you would think that should make any conversation we might have problematic at best, impossible at worst.
Yet we carry on the occasional hour, two-hour, sometimes three hour conversation and never once descend into anger or dismissive rhetoric. And yes, we talk about religion regularly. We talk about politics. We talk about meaningful living. It’s the kind of exchange of ideas from different perspectives that seems both rare and uniquely pleasurable. …
Readings
Here’s my stack of to-be-read. At least, partly. These are the books I intend to read. Some I won’t get to. Many are books I have to read. Research, etc. And obviously this doesn’t include books I do not yet own…
We’ll see how much I get through. Clearly, I won’t be bored.…
My Friend Has A New Novel
This is my friend, Nicola. She’s published a wonderful novel and I could not be happier for her. I get to talk to her from to time and I love it. I sometimes feel like I could talk to her for days and never get tired of it. (Of course, she’d get tired of me, so…)
Anyway, here’s a half hour of her talking about her new book and I wanted to share it.
…
Status Update
It’s winter. Officially. Stuff is falling from the sky, sticking to things, and it’s cold.
A couple of things of recent note. This past weekend, one of my coworkers at Left Bank Books got married. She held it in the bookstore, after closing on Sunday, and another coworker officiated. I shot photographs. It was wonderful.
That morning, I went to the gym and had a surprisingly good workout. Last year, I was aiming at doing a thousand pounds on the leg press. I reached 930 lbs before my little abominal abdominal incident put me right back down in the whimpy weights. …
Small Business Saturday
This happens every year. I participated last year at Left Bank Books and I’m going to do so this year.
Here is the relevant page.
Local authors, personally selling favorite titles to walk-in customers. Of course we’ll be selling our own, but we have all chosen a handful of personal favorites to suggest. And if you can’t take a writer’s opinion about what is good writing, then who can you trust?
This is an opportunity to come in and meet, in a less formal setting, some local authors, chat, one-on-one, and boost local business. Look at the line up we have this year. …
Boycotts and Bully Boys
I’m not going to the theater to see Ender’s Game, not because I’m boycotting it or Mr. Card, but because I don’t care enough about it to spend coin on it. Of course, that can be said of 99% of the movies released in the last couple of decades—we don’t go to the movies anymore. It’s a habit we got out of shortly after buying a house. Priorities, y’know?
Not that I don’t eventually see them. (We finally saw The Time Traveler’s Wife this past weekend, long after it’s theatrical release. A couple of weeks back we saw Cloud Atlas at a friend’s house.) …