April is National Poetry Month!

Find readings in your area!

And if you think that National Poetry Month is just a ploy by the publishers to sell more books, we've got sites for you too! Go here and here!

Knitting and Reading

My motto is: If I'm not reading I'm knitting and if not knitting I'm baking and if I'm not baking I'm reading and if...And so it goes. I'm the Young Adult Services Coordinator at my local library in New Jersey and I have been knitting for soooo many years. I love to knit for my self and family, especially the kids who are 22, 20 and 16. I'm currently reading The Virgin's Lover by Philippa Gregory but my teen book group is reading My Sisters Keeper and finished The Curious Incident in January. I just finished knitting Marilyn for my daughter and we are both starting summer tops. I baked a chocolate pudding cake for dessert tonight and don't worry, the house is a mess! Thanks to this group. What a wonderful idea!

Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story

"Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story" is one of my favorite short stories. Told in a unique fashion, it begins in first person then quickly switches to third as a defense mechanism, it's a love story as heartfelt and heartbreaking as any ever told.

Here is a link to the story, which I found online and here is a link to Russell Banks reading an abridged version on the NPR show, This American Life.

Enjoy!

Best of....

Hi all, I'm grounded from posting at my site but I decided that it doesn't mean I can't cause a ruckus over here!

I am pretty obsessed with end of the year lists. I especially like the ones that move on from the LARGE BIG SELLERS (Plot Against America) to the smaller lesser known titles and authors. Not that the LARGE BIG SELLERS don't deserve the acclaim (I'm loving Roth right now) but they tend to over-shadow some equally deserving books.

Here are a few:

Critical Consensus The "Best of 2004" Meta-List

Recommendations from Ron Charles of the Christian Science Monitor

I just found this one today:

THE YEAR IN BOOKS 2004 from PopMatters

Has anyone read any of these books?
Any recommendations for your "Best Books of 2004"?

I found that I didn't read many books that were published in 2004 (those hard covers are damn expensive.) Of the books that I read in 2004 I would say that The Bone People by Keri Hulme was one of the best.

I'm looking forward to "talking" with all of you!

Wendy (www.thebookishgirl.blogspot.com)

Lorrie Moore

A new short story by Lorrie Moore is in this week's New Yorker. Not something to be missed!

Ploughshares

Ploughshares is a really great literary journal that just so happens to have archived pretty much all of its stories, poems and articles online. They also generate a random list of selections from previous issues everyday. It's worth checking out.

PS: I teach "Bloodlines" by Catherine Ryan Hyde in my creative writing classes. Enjoy!

Writers At Work

For decades The Paris Review has cornered the market on insightful, compelling, essential author interviews. The book series of the interviews, known as Writers At Work, is a must for all who hold literature and writing dear.

Think I'm being a little over the top? I'm not! And to prove it, The Paris Review is undertaking a major project to get all of the interviews online! This is amazing.

They call it the DNA of Literature. The interviews from the 1950s are currently online, including gems with masters like William Styron, Isak Dineson and William Faulkner.

The project should be completed by Summer 2005. Check back often!

An Interview with A Master, About A Master

Awhile back, when I was working for Washington Square and going to NYU's MFA program for Creative Writing, I did an interview with Charles Baxter about William Maxwell's masterpiece, So Long, See You Tomorrow.

Read it here.

Links