MoodyTunes

Strange, strange feeling to learn that Barry Hannah died yesterday.
When I re-started my writing life in 2006, I found one of those Books Every Writer Should Read lists somewhere on the Internet. The list was sorted by titles, and a book called “Airships” was at the top. I thought I’d start from there and work [...]

This weekend I’ll be leading a fiction workshop for high school creative writers as part of the Nashville Young Writers’ Workshop program. It’s a day-long event with workshops, readings, panels, etc., all for the young folks out there. It’s heartening to see so many students dedicating a Saturday to creative pursuits…last I heard, over 125 [...]

Congratulations go out to Lorraine Lopez, whose story collection “Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories” was named a PEN/Faulkner finalist yesterday.
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I found an interesting article at The Guardian, via The New Yorker, yesterday — they (Guardian) asked a bunch of writers to send in their random tidbits of writing advice.
Margaret Atwood, Richard Ford, Joyce Carol Oates, Anne Enright, Neil Gaiman, and others responded. It’s a fun list of lists to read over if you’re [...]

I’ve seen a lot of “artisan” goods lately. Artisan cheese. Artisan bread. Artisan beer. I haven’t thought about the term “artisan” much, but my impression is that artisan products/wares/foods are marketed as such because they are hand-crafted with loving care by actual humans, as opposed to mass-produced by soulless machines. Makes sense. There’s Wonder Bread, [...]

Though I was born in Minnesota, I didn’t hang around long enough to learn to accept snow as a fact of life. It still feels special. A day off from school, maybe, or simply a day or two a year with magical flakes falling from the sky. That might be happening today in Nashville…rumor has [...]

Richard Ford, in his introduction to Barry Hannah’s story collection “Airships,” uses the phrases “what’s-real-at-ground-level” and “what is the matter at hand” when describing Hannah’s stories, how they work, and why. As in, Hannah has a unique and twisted way of getting to what is central and what is real — the matter at hand. [...]

I can’t put anything coherent together, so I’ll make a list of things I’m doing. Maybe something will come of it…I am:
- reading Manuel Puig’s “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” Robert Penn Warren’s “All the King’s Men,” and Paul Lisicky’s “Famous Builder.”
- for fun, watching episodes of “Stella” on Hulu.
- criticizing writers of TV shows [...]