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I love this idea. Haaretz, a serious Israeli newspaper, sent their staff reporters home for one day and had 31 of Israel’s authors and poets cover the daily news.

Read the report of the outcome here.

One of their reporters said:

It would be very difficult to replace journalists with authors and run a newspaper. We are trained; we know how to do it. For them, you know, there is a tendency to elaborate.

The fiction writer and poet’s “tendency to elaborate” is so true. In a future post, I will outline my hapless foray into non-fiction and how it took all my energy to stick to facts and not embellish.

{ via double x }

Finally, a contest for the procrastinator. Glimmer Train has a new contest for “Best Starts”. On their website, they say the purpose of the contest is to encourage new writers to tackle their stories.

As a fairly new writer, I can definitely use the encouragement. I’m in love with starting new things and prone to distraction once the hard work needs to be done. There is nothing like starting a new story — formulating a new idea, finding a voice, creating a character … I begin each new story with stars in my eyes and unstoppable energy. By the time I finish stories, I am weary. Between the start and the finish there is so much self-doubt, so much digging into what I am really intending to say, grammatical changes, and obsessive compulsive behavior.

I suppose it is like any relationship. The initial moments are glorious. All the jokes are funny, every quirk is charming, and there is wonder in everything. Actually committing, to a relationship or a story, takes work.

With that said, I sent in a beginning to a story. It is a departure from my normal style of writing. Instead of lyrical, it is more matter-of-fact. Instead of melancholy, it is humorous. There is sarcasm and wit and a voice that seems like a person much different from me.

I love this old Book Week poster and page out of Sparkle and Spin: A Book About Words, both from Paul Rand.

Short Story Review

Cal Morgan over at Harper Perenniel is doling out 52 free stories every week in 2009. The other night, I read #18 - Aesthetic Discipline by Carolyn Cooke. There are two types of desire in the story. First, the surface and obvious sexual desire between a newly formed couple (the main character and her boyfriend Karim). Second, a stronger undercurrent of desire between a woman and Karim’s exotic family. From the third sentence we know this. She says “His family was eccentric and to me, irresistible.”

This type of desire, for another family, another way of life, reminded me of one of my favorite stories: Roses, Rhododendron by Alice Adams. It follows a very similar arc. Character A befriends Character B, Character A is enchanted with Character B’s family and is only able to see the goodness, Character A eventually realizes that Character B’s family is also flawed, as all families are flawed. I love this as a basic plot, and I am going to attempt my own rendition of it.

Carolyn Cooke  handles it masterfully. One of the true triumphs of this piece is the characterization of the Brazir family, especially the mother. In Roses, Rhododendron, I was also impressed with the concrete details that characterized the Farr family, but a lot of it was done through contrasting the difference between the Farrs and her own broken family, especially her mother, Margot. In Aesthetic Discipline, Cooke resists any comparisons.  As readers, we know very little about the protagonist’s family background. In fact, we really only know two primary things about her. She is a feminist and going anywhere is not her primary motive (she wants to go everywhere). The focus is entirely on the family. As a writer, I believe it would be a natural urge to say “The Brazirs were like this. But I found them weird because my family was like that.” Isn’t desire often driven by exoticism, the different, the new?

And yet, we get all that, with no mention of the protagonist’s family. We get that straightforward opinion - “His family was eccentric …” which helps us, as readers, build an assumption. We assume that her family is in many ways plain, at least from her point of view. Then, we get the desire through the reactions. Her reactions, what she chooses to focus in on and how she reacts to what she sees. She is observant, impressionable, and hungry for some kind of “live this way” rulebook which will guide her to living a effortlessly stylish life.

“Let’s have champagne and lobster rolls and chocolate cake!” Mrs. Brazir would suggest. And we would pack and bring these things. The portions were always very small. No matter how many of us went on the “picnic” there would be one half-bottle of champagne, one lobster roll (and a plastic knife) and one piece of cake. In this way, the Brazirs shared the burden of a guest. This seemed like an essential lesson—to live eloquently, yet economically.”

It is incredible to me how vivid the desire is on the page. With so little grounding on the protagonist’s existing worldview, the reader can still see the pure wonder of her experience with this family, and how she wants, so badly, for it to shape her. I admire Cooke’s ability to do this and cannot wait to read her book The Bostons.

This is my third year as a mother. My two-year-old daughter made me a flower of bold colored tissue paper and a pipe cleaner stem at her daycare. I may stick it through the buttonhole of my cardigan and wear it all day on Sunday.

For every holiday, I always request books. I ultimately selected this book because of the diversity of opinions by writers I admire (Ericka Lutz, Karen Joy Fowler, among others) and the focus on the mother-daughter bond. I can’ t wait to read it.

Because I Love Her: 34 Women Writers Reflect on the Mother-Daughter Bond edited by Andrea N. Richesin

I’ve been hearing a lot about Ruth Reichl, the editor in chief of Gourmet, and her memoir about rediscovering her mother. I am curious about this common story — how a young, hopeful woman becomes an unhappy, older one and how to prevent it in my own life (while still making necessary sacrifices to ensure my child’s wellbeing). I’ll definitely be checking this out at the library.

Not Becoming My Mother: and Other Things She Taught Me Along the Way by Ruth Reichl

And the last one that is getting quite a buzz is this book by Ayelet Waldman. I loved Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, her latest novel. This newer book is centered on mommy guilt, to which I am definitely not immune. The controversy lies in her decision to abort a baby that might have had birth defects. I like to read without passing judgment and I will read this with an open mind, especially since she wrote it with an open heart.

Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace by Ayelet Waldman

Happy early Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there.

Over on the Emerging Writers’ Network, Marcel Jolley posted a short story mix tape. I love that idea. Apparently, Readerville loved it too and added it to their Short Fiction forum.  Everyone has their own philosophy when compiling a mix tape. First, I like to write out the list in different colored gel pen with hearts over the “I”s. I like to include lots of exclamation points on the ones that are really, really good!!!! Then, of course, hours must be spent obsessing about the order. Upbeat to slow? Slow to upbeat? Alternating? This is a compilation of online stories I love. Most of them I read in journals, anthologies, or collections, and was later delighted to see them also available online so I could forward links to friends.

1. The Smile on Happy Chang’s Face by Tom Perrotta
2. Fatso by Leelila Strogov
3. One Kiss on the Mouth in Mombasa by Etgar Keret
4. If a Stranger Approaches You About Carrying a Foreign Object with You onto the Plane by Laura Kasischke
5. At the Cafe Lovely by Rattawut Lapcharoensap
6. Luda and Milena by Lara Vapnyar
7. Her First Elk by Rick Bass
8. A Family Supper by Kazuo Ishiguro (opens as a rich text file)