writerly birthdays

Lee Konstantinou, Aharon Levy, and Fred Siegel are several writers celebrating their birthdays this week. To the best of my knowledge, not one of them has tackled the theory of how to properly conduct a birthday bash between Christmas and New Year's Eve, and that their names suggest Jewish and Greek Orthodox holy days is not the only reason why.

If you do google any of the folks above, look for satiric futurism, weird dreams, and dwarves and Russian adolescents stuck in dry comedy or the dryer. If you'd prefer to bing these fellows to see if their scribble suits your fancy, that's fine by me. And if kicking the reading habit is one of your new year's resolutions, so be it.

In any event, you're not dead yet.

Happy 2010.

ou est le don? sur le contemporary horizon bien sur...

It's official! USK's poet-in-residence, Don Riggs, has been translated into Romanian and is available both online and in the print version of a journal edited by the good Daniel D. Peaceman in Bucharest. Follow this link for more details:

http://contemporaryhorizon.blogspot.com/2009/12/lyric-horizons-don-riggs-united-states.html

Dr. Daniel invites you to join his global literary community; you can send him your poetry, your spiritual vibrations, and even your cash to help him in his bilingual project.

the first of bolano

December is undoubtedly a month of Bolano. Do you require proof? Here is your quotation of the day, an excerpt from "Vagabond in France and Belgium":

The dead are at peace, thinks B stretching out in the bed. As if she had read his mind, the girl says that no one who has passed through this world is at peace. Not anymore, not ever, she says with total conviction. B feels like crying, but instead he falls asleep.

More Roberto Bolano in English translation arrives early next year: http://www.amazon.com/Monsieur-Pain-Roberto-Bola%C3%B1o/dp/0811217140/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_a

Roberto Bolano: The Last Interview: And Other Conversations looks good too: http://www.amazon.com/Roberto-Bolano-Interview-Other-Conversations/dp/1933633832/ref=pd_cp_b_2_img.

It'll be interesting to learn how well this cult of Bolano translates and endures in the English language. In a world of fierce competition and low sales numbers, it is impressive that so many of his titles appear within months of each other and sell all at once. Chris Andrews and Natasha Wimmer deserve a lot of credit for the less recognized part of the deal. Translation?