Just another writer
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Dewey Decimal Project: 892.1 GIL Gilgamesh
For a long time, I had managed to confuse in my mind Gilgamesh and Beowulf, most likely because of the earliness of the two narratives. I did puzzle about how I had managed to miss the flood story in Beowulf, not realizing my mistake. But then, I have a long history of this sort of…
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Dewey Decimal Project: 882 EUR Iphigeneia at Aulis
Greek literature gets its own decade in the 800s and I decided to pull this one off the shelf since (a) I’ve heard the title before (thanks to an assortment of operas whose titles I’ve heard even if I’ve never seen/heard any of them) and (2) it was reasonably short. Many of the classic Greek stories…
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“Saint Anthony in West Hollywood”: The Story Behind the Story
My newest story, “Saint Anthony in West Hollywood” is up now at The Rappahannock Review. I began with a vague notion of a saint in the modern world, or perhaps someone who was delusional and just thought he was the saint, leaving the truth purposefully indeterminate. I had no idea which saint or where. Then…
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Writerly resolutions: April status
I continue to make decent progress on the novel. till perfect on my goal of working on the novel every day. I’ve cracked the 85,000 word mark on the novel and chapter 26 is currently at 6,800 words and counting. I think my guess that it will hit 10,000 words is not too far off. Thanks…
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Dewey Decimal Project: 871 VIR The Eclogues of Virgil
And now I’m moving on from Spanish/Portuguese to Latin in the literature part of the Dewey Decimal System. (As an aside, it’s interesting to note the cultural biases implicit in Dewey. the 800s—literature—follow a similar structure to the 400s—language—with a decade each for German, French, Italian, Spanish/Portuguese, Latin and Greek with all other languages crammed…
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Dewey Decimal Project: 863 VAR A Writer’s Reality
After Eco, I decided that I would definitely give a similar book by Mario Vargas Llosa a shot. Vargas Llosa is probably the most important influence in the novel I’m working on right now and it’s always interesting to see what a writer has to say about their craft. This book is based on a series…
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As of today I’m as immune as I’m going to get to Covid. Now what?
So it’s now two weeks since my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine so I’m fully immune apparently. Not that it keeps me from feeling anxious at the grocery store when other customers crowd me or I have to watch people pull their mask down to inspect the salad (🤷🏻♂️). I could start attending mass…
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Dewey Decimal Project: 853 ECO Confessions of a Young Novelist
If I weren’t already a fan of Eco’s writing, I would pick this up for the ironic title alone—Eco was 48 when he published his first novel The Name of the Rose, and 79 when he published this slender volume. Eco playfully explores the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction and gives some insight into his own creative…
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Dewey Decimal Project: 843 KRI Powers of horror : an essay on abjection
The 840s put me in French literature, I spotted Kristeva’s name on the spine and, having read Desire in Language during my MFA, I decided I’d read this. I’d forgotten that I hated Desire in Language, finding her writing incoherent and her uncritical acceptance of Freudian theory laughable. I also had read another Kristeva book along the way on…