Rejection Collection - Tin House

Can someone tell me how one of the most beautiful literary magazines in the world, with an obvious attention to aesthetics, can send out a rejection slip as plain and ugly as this? It came last week from Tin House for my story "This Is What He Does." I was hoping for something 4-color glossy, on a nice thick card stock.

The best thing about the DFW New Yorker story...

one paragraph break in three columns of text.

Now, I haven't read it yet, so I could be wrong.

Why should I care about Barbaro?

Yesterday, I received the following email from CNN Breaking News:

-- The Associated Press reports Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro was euthanized this morning, according to one of the horse's co-owners.

This is breaking news? A horse died and I'm supposed to care? Sure, he was a famous horse. Some people won a lot of money off him and some people lost a lot of money when he publicly broke his leg. But "breaking news?"

I was bothered by it (by the fact of the "importance" of it) but I was going to leave it alone, until Jane Smiley wrote about his death for the Washington Post. Smiley writes,

Yes, to those who don't care about horses, terrible things are happening all over the world these days, and they demand from many people an unprecedented level of endurance, but we horse lovers say: This, too? That this beautiful and innocent animal should also die?

Yes, Jane this animal too should die. Any other horse would have been put down directly following the Preakness, but people seem to care. I find it a little more startling that some estimated 8000 cattle have died in the Colorado snows of the last several weeks. Barbaro was a celebrity, a horse, but a celebrity still. And I really have about as much interest in his death as I do in Britney Spears crotch shots.

Professor Ford

I finally finished Richard Ford's The Lay of the Land, but I am not yet prepared to give you my full assessment. A book that long requires some time to digest, and probably also requires a review of relative length.

In the meantime I see that Ed Champion has interviewed Ford, or he was at least there to record his dispensation of words of wisdom (LINK). In addition, Ford has given excellent interviews for Bookworm and Between the Lines.

Ford tends to come off as if he knows a few things, as if he's got most things in writing and life all figured out. You may not agree, but he has some thoughts that every writer should give a listen to.

I'll get to my reader-response sort of review in due course. In the meantime I've taken up AM Homes's Things You Should Know.

Friday Dump

The Libby Trial is proving to be much more exciting than I would have imagined. If anything, it's proving that the goings-on at the White House are as nasty and dirty as we thought:

It is unclear whether the first week of the trial will help or hurt Libby or the administration. But the trial has already pulled back the curtain on the White House's PR techniques and confirmed some of the darkest suspicions of the reporters upon whom they are used. Relatively junior White House aides run roughshod over members of the president's Cabinet. Bush aides charged with speaking to the public and the media are kept out of the loop on some of the most important issues. And bad news is dumped before the weekend for the sole purpose of burying it.
With a candor that is frowned upon at the White House, Martin explained the use of late-Friday statements. "Fewer people pay attention to it late on Friday," she said. "Fewer people pay attention when it's reported on Saturday." A Spin Through VP's PR Washington Post

Hard-Worn? No doubt.

This picture graces an article about Jim Harrison in the NY Times, Pleasures of the Hard-Worn Life.

I've read very little by Harrison, but there's a plenty of reason to like him, like this graph:

“In other words,” he went on, “you have to write this kind of story to avoid it imploding in you.” And yet four days after finishing “Returning to Earth,” he started another book, a comic novel called “The English Major” — about “all those preposterous people who major in English in college,” he said — and, even rationing himself to a page a day, quickly finished it. “My mind can’t stop running fictively,” he said, explaining that he was turning out books these days faster than his publisher could cope with them. “But that’s O.K. Maybe I’ll just write some novels and leave them to my daughters, so they’ll have something when I cack.”

Nat'l Book Critics Circle Nominees Announced

I'll take this list as a sign of positive things:

The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai
Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
What is the What? - Dave Eggers
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
The Lay of the Land - Richard Ford

It would be easy to talk about what's missing from this list (The Echo Maker, The Dead Fish Museum) but these are all books that were well received and well reviewed. I might even call them 'important' books. It means nothing about the future of these books. Lord knows we could look at past nominees and even winners and wonder what in the world that circle of critics was thinking.

If anything it at least means more sales for these book, and that is a good thing.

McCarthy, Eggers up for critics awards (AP)

On the Effects of Sleep Deprivation

I know that I went to bed thinking that I had something valuable to post, but after spending much of the night awake with a vomiting toddler I've lost it.

I do want to point out the links to the right to the News Resources and Literary Resources pages of Satoriworks. These make great homepages so you can click directly to the Drudge Report or the NYTBR, depending on your preference.

And you haven't yet, sign up for the newsletter. If you already get it, forward it on to others with similar interests.

I will get back to more thorough and thoughful posts.

Rejection Collection - Baltimore Review

A two-sider today from The Baltimore Review received today for my story "Riverside." There's not much to say about the slip of paper on it's surface--it's the b-side that makes this probably the best rejection I've received.

So, now it's time to review the journal's content and see if I don't have something that might suit them a little more.

See, all we need sometimes is a little encouragement.

Rejection Collection - Iowa Review

Here's a rejection I received from The Iowa Review back on 12/11/06 for my story "The Auction." While there's not much to be said about the aesthetics of this one, the language (including the use of "precludes") gives it a little more merit than others.

How much do you read?

I want real numbers here. How many hours a week do you spend reading? I'm not talking about newspapers or online, but time spent sitting, book in hand, immersed in the text.

I was trying to give myself some resolution on reading. Clearly, I do not spend enough time reading (and, what is 'enough' really?). As much as I love books and reading, and given how long my to-be-read list is, it's crazy that I'm not devoting much time to it. So, how much time is reasonable? An hour a night? That sounds plausable, achievable, but is it enough? Do I really have that time, with everything else I should be doing? How do you find the time to read?

So, tell me, how much time do you spend reading?

Season in Hell for only $644K

From Forbes.com:

A Season in Hell (Une saison en enfer)
By Arthur Rimbaud, published in Brussels in 1873.
Price: $644,000
A landmark of French poetry inscribed by Rimbaud to his lover and literary mentor Paul Verlaine. One of only three known signed copies.

A little out of my price range, unfortunately, but I'd be glad to trade for my lousy Louise Varese translation.

When your Presidential Candidacy depends on your book

From Poltical Wire:

Huckabee's Candidacy May Depend on Book
On Hardball last night, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) said his possible presidential bid may depend on how his new book, From Hope to Higher Ground, is received.Said Huckabee: "I'm going to make a decision about that in a few weeks. Let's see how the book does. If people like the message of this book, there's a good reason. If they hate it, then probably, I get a different answer."
Political Insider: There's room for a "Huckaback."
From Hope to Higher Ground: 12 STOPS to Restoring America's Greatness Buy it from Amazon.com

Reasoned yet risky.

A stinger of a review

NY Times:
Just a Bunch of Kids Who Kidnap and Kill
“Alpha Dog,” starring Justin Timberlake, has “the same entertainment value you get from watching monkeys fling scat at one another in a zoo,” writes Manohla Dargis.

Ouch.

Dems to Denver

As much as I've tried to plug my ears to things political lately, I've let some good news slip in. The Democrats have chosen to hold their 2008 convention in Denver. As much as folks around here are going to grumble about it, the idea is a good one for the Dems. Focusing on the emerging Democratic West shows a changing party, a shifting Democratic demographic as well as less dependence on the traditional Dem strongholds of the liberal coasts.

It's also a good excuse to clean up the city, but they're already complaining about it on talk radio.

And maybe I'll have to get off my rear and volunteer for this thing.

Rocky Mountain News: Democrats tip hat to emerging West

I want my $85

Sobol prize canceled (AP)
"No further manuscript submissions will be accepted," award organizers announced Monday on the Sobol Web site (http://www.sobolaward.com). "All writers who have submitted manuscripts will receive a full refund of their entry fee ($85) and our copies of the manuscripts will be destroyed and deleted from our system."

No, I wasn't crazy enough to pay $85 to enter a contest and I'm glad they realized that most people wouldn't either.

So this is the new year

A new year and a time for resolutions. My resolution each year is to be a better person, to do better at everything I do. This includes writing, or the effort I put into it. I bought myself a timer and am going to try to write a minimum of an hour a day. That may not sound like much, but with full time work and spending time with my toddler and taking care of a pregnant wife stealing an hour to myself is pretty tricky.

An hour should, on most occasions, generate about 500 words. So, even giving myself one night off a week, I should be able to produce 3000 words a week. That should really help to pick up my pace on "the project." Right now I'm at about 150 hand-written pages with about an average of 300 words a page, so I should be somewhere in excess of 45,000 words. And still not halfway through the thing. If I can write more often I can probably get the first draft completed in less than a year from when I started.

Just think what I could do with two hours a day.