Essay About Love and Literature

While we're on the topic of love, this humorous essay from the New York Times is worth a chuckle or two. As it aptly points out, "Anyone who cares about books has at some point confronted the Pushkin problem: when a missed — or misguided — literary reference makes it chillingly clear that a romance is going nowhere fast."

It’s Not You, It’s Your Books

Write me a "love" story!

I remember once, many, many years ago, there was a groop assignment to write a short story about sex. And I remember that MJ very deeply and very seriously did NOT want to write a story about sex, until we reminded her that it didn't have to be about GOOD sex...

Since then, I have wondered about the wisdom of having given that assignment, for as proud as we all were of MJ for taking on that challenge and running with it to wholly new and unexpected places, there is now, and forever, imprinted in my memory, an image of Chinese takeout being used for inappropriate purposes in the depths of a darkened movie theather.



So, in that spirit, or really, in any spirit, and in tribute to MJ, a new assignment:


StoryQuarterly
announces the SQ Love Story Contest

Open to fiction and nonfiction entries, the contest offers a
First Prize of $2,500, a Second Prize of $1,500, a Third Prize of $750,
and ten Finalists each will receive $100.
Deadline for entries: March 31, 2008.
For complete details, please click here.

Progressive Reading Series 3: Benefit to Save Rent Control

Those of you who live in the Bay Area might be interested in this event ...

"Maybe politics in this country would be in a better place if people drank more, read more, and had more of a good time. A simplistic argument, yes, but it was this philosophy that lifted the Progressive Reading Series off the ground. On Saturday, March 15, the literati are out in force for intellectual fun and a cause: saving rent control in California. The lineup includes local superstar Amy Tan, punk-rock poet and comedian Bucky Sinister, Lebanese writer Rabih Alameddine, and novelist Jerry Stahl — whose career-igniting memoir, Permanent Midnight (and its 1998 Ben Stiller-starring film adaptation), delves into the harsh yet hilarious realities of drug addiction and television writing." [From Flavorpill]

I'm a Stahl fan and Amy Tan's no slouch either, so I might go.

groop therapy

Groop met late last night for a session examining a first chapter by Marika. Since the work is written in the mystery tradition, there was discussion of genre. Some baulked at the term, others embraced it, but it was agreed that critique of the work itself was important whether certain conventions were in play or not.

This prompted a meta-debate about the project of critique in general. Then such practical matters as narrative voice, pacing and how best to introduce the victim in a whodunnit were considered. Yes, writerly work is being accomplished.

As critique wound down, however, Nick brought up suicide. We've lost a number of friends and acquaintances to what is estimated to be the 15th most common cause of death in the world (just after diarrheal diseases) and by some strange coincidence my latest entry to the AJ Episodes discusses it (something I didn't realize last night).

This sobering topic was adroitly derailed when, in an act of conversational jujitsu, the discussion turned to Ben's blue belt ceremony.

Obamathon

Political fiction from Michael Chabon:

"To support Obama, we must permit ourselves to feel hope, to acknowledge the possibility that we can aspire as a nation to be more than merely secure or predominant. We must allow ourselves to believe in Obama, not blindly or unquestioningly as we might believe in some demagogue or figurehead but as we believe in the comfort we take in our families, in the pleasure of good company, in the blessings of peace and liberty, in any thing that requires us to put our trust in the best part of ourselves and others. That kind of belief is a revolutionary act. It holds the power, in time, to overturn and repair all the damage that our fear has driven us to inflict on ourselves and the world."

Writing Exercises

My notes from the first meeting of groop in 2008 can be re-purposed as writing exercises. Your submission of 350 words or less is due February 28. The winning short short story or beginning of a short story or beginning of a novel or poem or diatribe or autobiography will be posted to the website and will receive a secret prize (to be disclosed when we also reveal our get-rich-quick can't-believe-no-one-else-is-doing-this scheme in a few weeks.)

1. Start a story with the line: "One day, my grandmother decided that I should collect bells." (Jen)

2. White lies. Your thoughts? (Unattributed)

3. How do you put leaves on the poet tree? (Nick)

I look forward to your submissions.

In other headlines: Ben Delivers Delicious Narrative Voice and Nick Forgiven for Forgetting Stack

Episodes update

Romance and philosophy on the Mediterranean Sea, this month in AJ Episodes!