Auggie's Revenge at The Oakwood Register

Auggie's Revenge is featured at the top of page two of the local weekly, The Oakwood Register, August 10 edition.

Here's a quotation of mine from the article:

“J.K. Rowling and Stephen King are not living the lives of regular writers. For most writers, it’s a tough business that requires a great deal of perseverance and an ability to see past rejection. I haven’t tried it yet, but I feel self-publication is a valid option in the contemporary book market, and some of the most famous literary works of all-time were originally self-published or published as very small print runs by obscure presses.”

To read the entire article, follow the center-right link that looks like the front page of the newspaper and turn to page two once the pdf opens.

Auggie adds another five-star review

It was nice to see another five-star review for Auggie's Revenge.

Mike Leone's first book

Word on the street is that the writer Michael Leone's first collection, The Real Natasha, arrives from Braddock Avenue Books in September and is available for preorder. I grabbed a copy as soon as I heard the news.

Interview in American, British, Canadian Studies

American, British and Canadian Studies Journal, an open-access journal out of the University of Sibiu in Romania, published an interview with me on Fight for Your Long Day. Once you get to the site, click "Download Full Text PDF."

vivid, moving, shocking

In her annual blog on the academic novel at The Chronicle of Higher Education, Ms. Mentor called Auggie's Revenge: "vivid, moving, and sometimes shocking."

On Brexit lit

My contribution to the Daniel Dragomirescu's Contemporary Literary Horizon compilation of statements on the Brexit vote:

In many different ways and in different periods of history, the writer stands beyond the needs of any individual state or nation. We, as contributors to literature everywhere, know that a single day's vote, a "Brexit," cannot capture all of the nuances of all of the literatures to come out of, pass through, or in otherwise relate to England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, or elsewhere. Indeed, literature will remain a transient, and we will celebrate it for that reason, whether we are thinking of James Joyce's discovery of Italo Svevo's novels in Trieste or all the famous migrations before or after--Kundera in France, Hemingway in Cuba, Bolano in Spain, or some of today's great European writers--Aleksander Hemon, Joseph O'Neill, to name a couple--who make part or all of their lives in the United States. The state may demand of us everything--our time, allegiance, taxes, prayers, and more--but, as writers, we always live beyond such temporal concerns, recognizing the humanity we share. Best to England, best to Europe, and, of course, best to Daniel Peaceman, living beyond the borders as always.

Alex Kudera, American novelist of Fight for Your Long Day and Auggie's Revenge

 

 

(Although I did not return to Ha Jin's The Writer as Migrant to prepare this statement, I read Ha Jin's  extended essay in 2009 and would consider it an influence among many other books on my thinking about Brexit and how it relates to literature and the lives of literary writers.)