Interview with Eleanor Henderson

"The following is a reprint of an interview originally published in 2010 at When Falls the Coliseum. Since publication of her debut novel, Ten Thousand Saints, Eleanor Henderson has gone on to publish additional works, teach college full-time, and, I believe at least briefly, venture into the world of bookstore ownership."

~~ from "Eleanor Henderson on Frederick Exley"

Vonnegut and his disastrous car dealership

"Writing is a precarious profession. We are broke, for the most part. We work jobs we often don't enjoy to keep the lights on: Faulkner at the post office, Vonnegut and his disastrous car dealership, every writer you know and their faculty gig. The average author doesn't make enough from their royalties to clear the poverty line. Most books do not even make back their advance, meaning they earn no royalties for the author at all. When Anna Burns won the Booker Prize, she thanked her food bank. Our work is stolen to train the software of multibillion-dollar artificial intelligence companies run by people who believe art is a problem to be solved."

~~ from One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad

sweaters and shoes

Enjoy savings on quality "as new" sweaters and shoes.

they appear to me now as foreigners

"[My father] had always wanted to be buried in Egypt, in the El Akkad mausoleum where my step-aunts and grandfather are buried. And so we take him there. I crawl on my hands and knees into the catacomb. I help ease the shrouded body to the ground, beside the bones of these people who loved him from the day he was born. Outside, dozens of our relatives stand waiting, people I love similarly and who love me and with whom, in another life where we never left, I would have shared the normal bonds of family. Instead, they appear to me now as foreigners because we did leave. And so it has only ever been, for me, the three of us. And now we are two."

~~ from One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad

Glass Half Empty

"When kids are praised from being 'mature,' that often means they're bottling up big feelings or not making messes or not needing a lot of help . . . but kids need to have big feelings, they need to make messes, and they need to be able to ask for help. 'Mature' kids often grow into very anxious adults."

~~ from Glass Half Empty by Rachel Smith

Pomegranates of the Sun

A review of POMEGRANATES OF THE SUN: 1970-2007 - SELECTED POEMS at Goodreads: These are lyric poems that depend upon alliteration, consonance, assonance, and dare, we confess, rhyme. They span decades and consider topics such as Vietnam, war in general, parenting, siblings, love, American history, and more; for example, so far in this book I've learned about the bravery of The First Minnesota regiment on behalf of the union during the American Civil War. The author served in frigid cold on the Korean wall during Vietnam, translates poetry into English from German, practices yoga, writes fiction, and occasionally sings, mimes, and otherwise entertains at homes for seniors around the country.