Writer, indie publisher, et cetera
Blogging
Oh noes! End of Eyeyshot
Jul 25th
Lee Klein’s brilliant Eyeshot is coming to an end after 10 years on the internets. (via HTMLGIANT)
Eyeshot was definitely a big inspiration for me as Word Riot was getting started, so I’m sad to see it go.
Bookmark this
Feb 16th
Jac Jemc’s The Rejection Collection is hysterical.
Also, she has a piece in Word Riot this month titled ‘Half.’
Bad blogger
Feb 4th
Quick recap on the life o’ Jackie
1) 34th Parallel has an interview with me and the first short story I ever wrote in their 5th issue.
2) I started Bennington’s MFA program in January. Best decision ever. It’s a low-residency program, so I have to go up to Vermont twice a year for 10-day residencies. The rest of the time I work from home and mail in packets of writing and book annotations to my professors.
This is my book list this term:
Rabbit, Run by John Updike
Home Land by Sam Lipsyte
The Stranger by Albert Camus
Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby
Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game by William Kennedy
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Falconer by John Cheever
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
Beautiful Children by Charles Bock
Drown by Junot Díaz
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
Reasons to Live by Amy Hempel
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
The Girl in the Flammable Skirt: Stories by Aimee Bender
Affliction by Russell Banks
Hunger by Knut Hamsun
The Wonders of the Invisible World by David Gates
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson
In the Bedroom by Andre Dubus
In Cold Blood Truman Capote
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Molloy by Samuel Beckett
Black Tickets by Jayne Anne Phillips
3) Word Riot Press news: New version of Midnight Picnic by Nick Antosca arrived from the printer. Galley copies for World Takes by Timmy Waldron are in the works.
4) I have a reading in Mass. coming up:
Dire Reading Series
Friday, March 6, 2009 @ 8 p.m.
106 Prospect Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts
I’m a character
Dec 11th
P.H. Madore wrote a story featuring a bunch of lit folk as characters and I was included. I do weird things like this:
I don’t have an iPhone. I have an iPod touch. I do indeed check my e-mail from it ALL the time. Eerie.
Workshop
Nov 12th
I start Bennington’s MFA program in January. I have to get 25 pages into them by Dec. 1 for workshopping. It’s going well. I’m going to send a novel excerpt, which is probably dumb, but all the promoting for The Suburban Swindle has left me drained and wanting to back off short stories for awhile. I kind of disappear into a novel when I’m in that writing headspace. I like that. I know I’m getting into the right tempo when I start forgetting whether or not an event happened in real life or in the book I’m working on. Those kind of non-memory memories are wonderfully redeeming. If I can trick myself, maybe I can trick y’all.
I haven’t done a workshop session since college and never on any substantial work. Anybody want to scare me with workshopping horror stories or links to horror stories? Just trying to expel the demons.
Oh, and Word Riot Press got name-checked in GalleyCat for picking up Nick Antosca’s Midnight Picnic. I keep wanting to call it Midnight Panic for some reason. I don’t know why. At least one person found Word Riot by googling “Nick Antosca” and “Midnight Panic” so I’m not alone.
As the lit world turns
Nov 1st
Thieves Jargon editor Matt DiGangi blogged about the passing of Zygote in My Coffee.
The comments section has a pretty fiery back and forth between SmokeLong Quarterly’s Dave Clapper and writer P.H. Madore.
Review at bookmunch
Oct 20th
Katherine Woodfine reviewed The Suburban Swindle for bookmunch. Here are some highlights:
‘…there is no doubt that ultimately the most powerful voices are those of the (often anonymous) female narrators – young women who may see themselves as just “some guy’s girlfriend” yet who are nevertheless sharp-eyed, unflinching observers. Though they share the tangible sense of uncertainty and confusion which runs through these stories, their narrative voices are able to offer us flashing instances of clear-sightedness, perhaps best seen in “Persons of Bondage” in which the narrator has a sudden sense of “the scene curved fresh in front of eyes that were holy and were mine.”
‘It is in these thoughtfully judged moments that Corley offers us, finally, the hints of hope and redemption that give these stories their kick.
‘Any Cop?: Whilst it may be raw in places, The Suburban Swindle fizzes over with an irrepressible energy and possibility, hinting at promising things to come.’
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Also, Steve Himmer wrote this on his blog the other day:
‘It’s the voice of Dashiell Hammett’s hardboiled detective, standing around on a stakeout and waiting for something to happen. Corley’s characters are often caught waiting for stagnant lives to change, as dependent upon that change being external as detectives are. They’re like detectives staking themselves out and finding nothing to watch, no more able to change their own lives than The Continental Op can make a suspect appear at the moment he most wants one to.’
No more Bat Segundo
Jul 15th
I’m so incredibly bummed. The Bat Segundo Show, the best literary podcast out there, is ending. Ed Champion says he hasn’t gotten enough donations or funding to keep it going.
Can we actually petition some site to pay Ed for these incredible podcasts and keep it going? Like email Gawker or something? Doesn’t Nick Denton sweat money?
Ed is one of the most insightful reviewers/lit bloggers out there. So, so sad about this.
A Reluctant goodbye
Dec 18th
Ed Champion announced today that he will cease blogging at the Return of the Reluctant so he can focus on writing stories and essay.
Sad, sad day. This is like when MobyLives went away. What’s a litster to do?
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In Word Riot news, the December issue is up and I gave the site a wider format. Enjoy.
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