Where When It Rains by John F. Duffy

 

Where When It Rains by John F. Duffy

#fridayreads: 9/11 edition

Fight for Your Long Day is more of a War on Terror than 9/11 novel, but I'm sure that the good folks at interlibrary loan would want you to access a copy. If purchases are more to your pleasure, then shipped paperback copies of Auggie's Revenge and Fight for Your Long Day remain available at reasonable prices. There are also affordable copies of Auggie's Revenge at Apple Books, on eBay, and for Kindle as well as at Bookshop and Smashwords.

What do you teach?

"Upon my return to the US, he / asks my occupation. Teacher. / What do you teach? / Poetry. / I hate poetry, the office says, / I only like writing / where you can make an argument."

~~ from "He, Too" in Customs by Solmaz Sharif

The Brother from Another Planet

"and we the privileged few / from metal folding chairs in the dark / peep-a-show the world presents The Brother from Another Planet / you tell the white boy made it / the audacity / to think that / black people were universal slaves / when we are fucked on earth / thats all / just fucked up on earth"

~~ from "Princess Cruises" in Big Bank Take Little Bank by Paul Beatty

every drawn curtain

"To recall Ethel Rosenberg's green polka-dotted dress / To call your father and say, I'd forgotten how nice everyone in these red states can be / To hear him say, Yes, long as you don't move in next door / To recall every drawn curtain in the apartments you have lived"

~~ from "The Master's House" in Customs by Solmaz Sharif

broken but unhealed

"white boys steady leanin in / truly believin this is the best movie theyve ever seen / but none of em asked josh gibson to slo-dance / across the color line that / falls in an iowa field / broken but unhealed"

~~ from "Daryl Strawberry Asleep In A Field of Dreams" in Big Bank Take Little Bank by Paul Beatty

East West Literary Forum

Nina Kossman's East West Literary Forum is one of the most intriguing translation journals publishing award-winning writers from Russia, Ukraine, Chechnya, and beyond. Polina Zherebstovna's "Zaina" is a Chechnyan short story is a recent publication that held my attention. It was first published by a Russian-language house in Switzerland, and its author began writing what became an acclaimed diary of the war in Chechnya when she was only nine years old.

Eclectica Magazine's 30th Anniversary

 

Eclectica Magazine's 30th anniversary anthologies are taking shape.

Rick Steves's On the Hippy Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer

In the early a.m., I finished Rick Steves's On the Hippy Trail: Istanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer, and I'd describe it as a fun, glossy memoir or travel narrative. Others would say that it is primarily a collection of journals. In any event, the journey from Southeastern Europe through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Nepal occurred in 1978, only a year before the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Reading it reminded me of reading several of Paul Theroux's travel narratives early in the pandemic after only having read one of his brother Alexander's novels previously. It's good to get away, and travel writers offer an opportunity to do so when we're anchored in domestic environs.

Kathmandu

 

~~ from On the Hippie Trail by Rick Steves

the Poet Laureate of Generation X

"Tonight, I'm thinking that Michael Robbins is the Poet Laureate of Generation X. / I wonder if that's been said before or how often about Robbins or any other writer"

~~ Alex Kudera on Goodreads, August 16, 2026

A revised version:

"I'm thinking that Michael Robbins may be the Poet Laureate of Generation X. I wonder if that's been said before or how often about Robbins or any other writer."

~~ Alex Kudera, August 26, 2026

A second revised version:

"I'm thinking that Michael Robbins may be the Poet Laureate of Nixon babies. I wonder if that's been said before or how often about Robbins or any other writer."

~~ Alex Kudera, August 26, 2026

In India, time is like bubble gum

~~ from On the Hippie Trail by Rick Steves

 

John Keene

Enjoy this engaging discussion between John Keene and host Mark de Silva. It's at various points, intellectual, intense, animated, spirited, warm, and even joyful. You won't want to miss the writing life or this show.

serious lit

Dmitriy Kogan's serious-lit published an early masterpiece.

The Guicciardini Way

Alexandra Naughton's Be About It Press published "The Guicciardini Way," an excerpt from A School of the Future.

Hugh Blanton's review of Auggie's Revenge

Hugh Blanton smiles and laughs like he enjoyed the novel, and he offers insight into the book as well. There are several ways to acquire an affordable copy as an e-book or paperback.

Michael Robbins lists deceased musicians

 

~~ "Not Fade Away" in The Second Sex, a collection of poems by Michael Robbins

they haven't ended

"But never attend / to happy endings—because if stories are happy, / they haven't ended."

~~ from "Ric's Progress" in The Back Chamber by Donald Hall

Rick Harsch, rare edition

Rick Harsch's signed second novel in "fine" or "as new" condition is a rare find.

Walkman

"You gotta make your own / spark, like those red lamps / on the ocean floor / that illuminate their prey / right before they attack."

~~ from "In Time of Plague" in Walkman by Michael Robbins