All Blog Posts Tagged 'life' (67)

Culture and harshness in Central Europe: Adam Lebor's Writing Life

Political writing at its best highlights the unexpected changes in parts of our world that are hidden to us. That’s true of writing about the corridors of power in our own capital cities, but it’s even more of a factor for a writer like Adam Lebor whose work – fiction and nonfiction – has captured the dynamism and double-dealing… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on June 29, 2009 at 5:55pm — No Comments

Stranger than zinc bars and literary fiction

Foreign correspondents are always more enthusiastic about Beirut than about Amman. Just like critics prefer “literary” fiction to crime novels.

It seems to me they’re both wrong, and for the same reasons.

Visiting reporters always rave about Beirut. Mainly because there’s a very un-Middle Eastern nightlife there. Zinc bars. Beautiful girls in spaghetti-strap tops beside the zinc bars. Booze, dance clubs, DJs.

They’re not really interested in the broken-down… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on June 25, 2009 at 10:05pm — No Comments

Warm Guns and Whingers: Happy-Guru Eric Weiner's Writing Life

What’s happiness? A large income, Jane Austen said. Absolute ignorance, according to the delightfully morbid Grahame Greene. Or John Lennon’s less delightfully morbid warm gun. Whatever else it is, happiness is done to death. But where it is? That’s something new. The genius of Eric Weiner’s New York Times… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on June 10, 2009 at 7:11pm — No Comments

Look out, God--Here's Shalom Auslander's Writing Life interview

“Fuck,” said God. …That’s a line from one of the short-stories in Shalom Auslander’s “Beware of God.” I live in the Middle East, so I feel like I hear God saying “Fuck!” almost every day. (If He doesn’t, then He’s not reading the newspapers.) “Beware of God” nails faith and the faithful as only a genius of satire can do. A very angry genius of satire, I ought… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on June 5, 2009 at 10:25pm — No Comments

Acid attacks, crucifixions and a new Patricia Cornwell: Caro Ramsay's Writing Life interview

Caro Ramsay’s debut “Absolution” is one of the most disturbing thrillers you’ll ever read. It features a beautiful woman who’s the victim of an acid attack and a series of disembowelments in the “Crucifixion killings” of young women. Caro’s also from one of the roughest neighborhoods of Glasgow, where she sets her… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on May 24, 2009 at 10:02pm — No Comments

The Queen of Quirky: The Writing Life interview with Tama Janowitz

Tama Janowitz has always been great at first lines (Remember her Slaves of New York opened with this: “After I became a prostitute, I had to deal with penises of every imaginable shape and size.”) Her new novel, they is us, will be out… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on May 21, 2009 at 7:42pm — No Comments

Early Morning Conspiracies: The Writing Life interview with David Liss

David Liss is the author of classics of historical fiction from his Edgar Award-winning debut A Conspiracy of Paper, which was rooted in his academic studies, through the fabulous tale of the Portuguese Inquisition and the Amsterdam commodities exchange,… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on May 18, 2009 at 1:16am — No Comments

The Writing Life interview: Gregg Hurwitz

Gregg Hurwitz is the kind of guy other guys would like to be. Hollywood handsome, an accomplished athlete with a tremendous academic record, successful in his chosen field. He’s also the kind of writer other writers would like to be. His thrillers are intricate, thought-provoking, and breathlessly paced.… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on May 8, 2009 at 7:21pm — No Comments

The Writing Life: Warwick Collins

The riskiest thing for a writer to do is to try to enter the head of a great genius by making that genius the narrator of a novel. Why? Because if you aren’t a genius of at least similar proportions, it won’t ring true. Think of the tedious melodrama that passed for the life of Michelangelo in “The Agony and the Ecstasy”. When that genius is the greatest writer of all… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on April 28, 2009 at 6:53pm — No Comments

Life is Messy. Fiction Is Neat

A big reason I love reading novels is that things wrap up at the end. The bad guy is caught or killed or at the very least driven away from our hero and his/her loved ones. Everything is explained, and there is closure for those involved. They may have lost loved ones or several pints of blood or their sense of security, but we know they will recover and go on. Unless you're into noir, order is restored.

On the reality side, life is a mess. Crises don't come neatly one after the… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on April 27, 2009 at 9:58pm — No Comments

The Writing Life: Thomas M. Kostigen

Thomas M. Kostigen is the most important environmental writer in the U.S. That’s not only because he’s trekked through the Amazon to record how we’re destroying it, or because he climbed into the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island to…smell how badly it stinks. Or because his ground-breaking New York Times bestseller… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on April 24, 2009 at 4:28pm — No Comments

The Writing Life: Christopher G. Moore

Readers love to discover an author whose work suggests they’re a kindred spirit. Novelists, engaged in the often lonely work of writing, enjoy it even more. That’s how I feel about Christopher G. Moore, whose path is in many ways similar to mine (as you’ll see in this interview). Based in Bangkok, he’s the creator of one of the most striking sleuths in crime fiction: Vincent Calvino seems a distillation of all the most intriguing expats you’ll ever meet… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on April 19, 2009 at 2:34pm — No Comments

Maybe It's Just Me...

But I'm seeing a lot of sad stuff lately. The hospital was the big sad stuff: people dying, people crying, that sort of thing. Kind of to be expected.

But also sad was McDonalds in the morning, where old people congregate these days now that the corner diner is gone. Eavesdropping on their conversations, there seems to be a frantic desire to do something useful, anything. I heard a woman go on for several minutes about how her grandson wanted her to bring him a Subway sandwich for… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on April 17, 2009 at 2:00am — 4 Comments

The Writing Life: Matt McAllester

I’m starting a new feature on my blog today—a series of interviews with authors about what it’s like to be a writer. I’ll be asking them the questions readers often ask me, and I’m intrigued to know how they’ll answer them. Be sure to follow this blog so you’ll see what these fascinating writers have to say in the coming months.

It’s a great pleasure to begin this series with my friend Matt McAllester. A Scot, he’s been one of the most… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on April 16, 2009 at 3:23pm — No Comments

What Do You Call Crazy?

I witnessed an event yesterday that reminded me of CATCH 22. A psychiatrist asked a patient if she would consider a life-extending but invasive process. She at first said no. He asked why and she said it was prolonging an inevitable decline and she didn't want that. He talked with her for some time and then asked again if she would consider the treatment. She said she would consider it. He then informed her that she was competent, since she'd given the "right" answer. His word.

So,… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on April 16, 2009 at 1:44am — 4 Comments

People Watching

I'm spending my days in a hospital this week, so I'm doing a lot of observing. You might call it eavesdropping, but I have to be there, and I can't close my ears, so there.

Anyway, it's great fodder for drama, the juxtaposition of tragedy (illness, death, emergency) with the daily routines of life (gossiping, laughing, teasing). I have never been able to comprehend how medical people do it, but I greatly admire those who are good at it.

Then there are the snippets you get… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on April 14, 2009 at 10:17pm — 1 Comment

My Wish for Your Christmas

We talk about peace on earth, but that's a joke, as is good will to men. We wish folks happy Hanukkah or Kwanzaa knowing that they have heartaches that won't go away just because it's the holiday season. So what genuine wish can be sent out?

I'm not sure how I'd say it in person, but the wish I have for every person is that he or she finds a passion in life that makes all the rest of it worthwhile. For some it's family, and their faces light when they speak of their children, spouse,… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on December 24, 2008 at 9:00am — No Comments

That Jeremiah Johnson Feeling

What must it have been like to go for months without speaking to another human being? Were the trappers of the old west crazy to choose that sort of life, or were they more sane than most? Thoreau wasn't alone at Walden, but he recommends even that much solitude for those who want to decide what matters. I don't necessarily want to shun the company of others, but I wonder what long periods of solitude might bring.

I'm sure you talk to yourself, but then, I do that anyway. I'm betting… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on December 23, 2008 at 10:42pm — 2 Comments

The Answers to Life's Questions

The problem with living is that you learn some things as you go, but new questions keep popping up. You understand the playoff process that leads to the Superbowl, but you can't understand why some perfectly good teams can't get there. You learn the basics of healthy living but can't explain why some people who ignore them completely seem to do just fine. And if you're an educator (or maybe a parent), you learn that you may control a child's behavior but you can't change the way he… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on December 17, 2008 at 9:41pm — No Comments

Writer's Block? You've Got to Be Kidding

Writer's block is not a problem for this girl. I have so many ideas I can't get to them all. They remain in my computer under file names like "Carrie" or "Trauma girl" or even "started novels." Most of them will probably never see an end, simply because of two very large problems: Life and Writing.

First, Life doesn't want you to write. Life wants you to do stuff: dust, visit, pay, go, help, eat, shop, watch, chat, scrub, make, transport, sew, mow, and grow. There's more of course,… Continue

Added by Peg Herring on September 24, 2008 at 10:45pm — No Comments