The American Literary Review nominated “Miss Thailand Country Band” for a Pushcart.
I wrote that story ten years ago with a prompt from writer, Jim Heynan: Write about something that is off-limits.
“Ready for Glory” is up at Carolina Quarterly, and a few words about my DUBLINERS Project.
Carolina Quartly has published my story, “Ready for Glory,” on their website this week. This is the first I’ve published from an ongoing project I’ve been working on as part of my Ph.D, which is to “adapt” (I put quotes because I’m still trying to figure out what that means) the stories in James Joyce’s DUBLINERS to stories about present day Detroit.
It’s exciting to have “Ready for Glory” out first, because it is based on the first story in Dubliners, “The Sisters.” Take a look if you wanna.
The second story, based on “The Encounter” has also already found a home. News about that is coming soon.
The first few were easiest because they are about childhood, something I love to write about, and because they are in first person. As the project progresses, it gets trickier, but I’m also embarking on the challenges that have drawn me to the project in the first place: to learn how Joyce uses point of view. With every story, I’ve been enjoying finding parallels with early 20th century Dublin and early 21st century Detroit. There are more than I’d imagined.
New story out: “Miss Thailand Country Band”
The last story from my MA thesis (2010) from Miami of Ohio has found a home! It’s based loosely on some experiences I had playing in a cover band on Khao San Road in Bangkok.
You can read “Miss Thailand Country Band” in the latest issue of UNT’s American Literary Review, which also features work by their contest winners and a pretty awesome photo gallery. My friend Raina has a n essay in there too. Check it out.
While you’re at it, enjoy this photo of me singing in a Thai cover band:
And another one…
My creepy story, "Trespassers," is now live on the Sequestrum website. It won runner up in their New Writers contest.
It's about Detroit in the wintertime, so a good one to read while you're sweating in August, especially sweating in Atlanta August, like I have been.
Enjoy.
New Story in a New Litmag
I’m honored that “Theresa Scott” was published today as one of the first two stories ever to appear in Sinking City, a sharp new online magazine put together by the MFA students at the University of Miami.
“Come Go With Me” on Bibliophilopolis.
Twitter alerted me that this site has featured my story today. Apparently it’s part of a series called “Deal Me IN,” during which the author takes on a 52 short story reading challenge. I have been wanting to do some sort of reading challenge involving journals, but this one is a neat idea: he lines up 52 stories to read the following year, assigns each a card, and then draws his next selections from a deck. I really appreciate how this author is promoting work that appears in journals because, you know, it gets published but we have our doubts about how many people will actually read our stories.
You can read what the author wrote about my story, here.
Steve Almond Takes Us to Town
Most of the time, writing requires a lot of chugging along, and a lot of resistance towards hating other people. Especially people who do well in the field. It’s because we have this illusion that when other people get things, those things must have fallen in their laps without any effort. Of course we know deep down this isn’t true (more likely, we resent the fact that we haven’t made the time to work as hard as other people), but this ridiculous idea translates into our own entitlement and prohibits us from enjoying other people’s work. Even when that work is really, really good.
In a recent article from Poets and Writers, Steve Almond tells the truth about how jaded we’ve become as writers.
He says,
…entitlement is the enemy of artistic progress, which requires patience and gratitude and, above all, humility. You don’t grow as a writer by writing off other people’s efforts. You grow as a writer by respecting the process.
The more we write, the more we understand how hard that process actually is. The more we write, the harder it is to write. It’s so easy to get discouraged, and discouragement makes it hard to appreciate what other people are writing.
(I’m speaking for myself, anyway.)
Let’s just acknowledge that we’re discouraged and try not to take it out on other people.
Grace and peace to you, other hardworking writers…
Oil for the Writing Lamp
I’ve been listening to and enjoying a lot of New Yorker fiction podcasts lately. If you aren’t familiar with them, they work like this: an author who was published in the New Yorker at some point reads and discusses another author’s story, which was also published in the New Yorker at some point. Editor Deborah Treisman conducts wonderful interviews at the end of the stories. Most run about 30 minutes, which makes them great for dog walks or housework, or short commutes. For me, these have been a post-MFA staple.
I’m sharing this one, where Jennifer Egan reads Mary Gaitskill’s story, “The Other Place,” because I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m a big fan of Egan, ever since she came to Tallahassee and I heard her discuss her writing process, which was to write out the entire novel by hand on legal pads and then craft it while she typed it up. I’ve tried this. It doesn’t work for me at all, but I love the idea. Listening to her, though, makes the writing life seem “possible,” and that is always refreshing.
The story she reads forces the reader into dark and ugly spaces (surprise! if you are familiar with Gaitskill at all…), but it does so with a wild amount of understanding and compassion. Let me use the word “masterful” when I describe this story. And Egan’s insights are smart.
Here are some other stories/discussions I love:
Boyle Reading Barthelme
Erdich reading Oates
Oates reading Ozick
Short Story Breakdown
I made this when I was teaching students how to approach reading in a literature class that focused on the short story.
I am not usually a visual person, but more of an audio learner (charts make me queasy). That said, the essence of this “map” is that it starts by looking at the story in the broadest sense and moves down to the narrower, more detailed aspects of the story. It moves from genre to structure to language.
By posting it here, I suppose I am asking what it leaves out. Should a discussion-based literature course examine a story in a more encompassing and maybe effective way?
This is how I tend to read. How do you read? How do you teach your students to read?
Flash Fiction Piece Up at Hobart
I’ve loved the stuff they publish at Hobart for a long time, so I’m super excited to be a part of their work today. You can read my story, “Final Warning,” on their website.
Cheers.
Nora Bonner 