American Writers

“There exists a great politesse around women’s poetry,” Courtney Queeny writes, “and to write critically is, in some ways, to betray one’s feminine self (the part that’s supposed to blink a lot and sigh into the shadows when the menfolk start talking politics at the dinner [...]

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Great Pattern Changes

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Daniel Alarcón Pirated My Life

Dear CF,
Just got back from hearing Daniel Alarcón—author of War by Candlelight (which I’ve read) and Lost City Radio (which I haven’t, for reasons that will become apparent)—talk about book piracy in Peru. You’ve seen the stands, you’ve read your Calvino: the subject is the fast cheap reproduction of original books and the readers and [...]

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Why Don’t Fetuses Get Free Health Care?

It’s a curious feature of the Republican approach to reproduction that the fetus has the right to life but not to medical care*. The life belongs to the fetus, so the money required to bring that fetus to term—including the cost of the birth—should be calculated not as part of the “expense” of being a [...]

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The Incarnation

A lizard, Carla Fran?!! Is this your novel’s spirit animal, your word made flesh? I confess I find the idea of him terribly nice, although I’m sure it’s less poetic to have large lizards actually in a space that’s shared by your feet.
I have no lizards in my house. Some respectable spiders, an ailing basil [...]

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Where the Wild Things Are

Dear Millicent,
There is a giant lizard living in my office.  Last night I caught sight of the lizard lord: he is about two feet long (mostly tail) and a racer! This means I now do all my writing with my feet curled up onto my chair.   How does one catch a lizard?  My office (and [...]

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Writing Day 2!

Dear CF,
Aw man, I got goosebumps down my arm reading your last paragraph. Fuck it to the firecrackers INDEED! I am dutifully picturing you across from me in a magnificent be-turbaned haze. I just offered you some of my danish. You said you once smacked Joan Crawford for that. But it’s blackberry! I said. You [...]

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Hello Start! I Would Like Instant Discipline Now, Thanks.

Dear Millicent,
Your description of your party reminds me of how I feel on Facebook. Let’s place the party’s strange outcome under the heading “astrological event.”  It wasn’t you, it was the planets (and I also blame the zombies and werewolves).
As for novel month—-it’s November.  Let’s Do This.  I have gone so far as to actually [...]

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Parties

Darling CF,
In the wee hours of November 1, mere minutes before we both set to work on our novels—the mere idea of which, by the way, fills me with impotent terror—I am lying on my couch choosing to think instead about parties. Why there are good ones and why there are bad ones, and what [...]

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Friday Free for All

I love this soon-to-be poster from I Heart Guts so much.  I know Always’s current motto is “Have a Happy Period,” but I Heart Guts has won the crown here.  Other contenders for world’s happiest period: Fussybutt fussystuff, Monthlyinfo.com email reminders, and the best titled T-shirt I’ve seen in awhile “A Womb of One’s Own” [...]

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