I confess that I have read more about Jonathan Franzen than I've actually read of his work (I read a couple essays from How To Be Alone but have passed up many a discount-rack copy of The Corrections), but it seems like the last few years have seen a couple critics quietly building him up to be this generation's literary whipping boy. Well, Michiko ( Read more... )

There's always so much to write about, but I have a problem with getting overwhelmed by the wordiness of my own thoughts and then not writing much of anything. Not here, at least. I've gotten into the habit of writing in my paper journal every day. It's easier because I don't feel as much of a need to fill myself in on all the context of a ( Read more... )

( 'The flat tax, a fence, and the return of the McRib': cultural commentary from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution )

Every Friday afternoon I leave work with the excitement and relief of the wee version of me finishing the eighth grade -- as though I have a seemingly endless number of warm days ahead before I have to bother myself with social courtesies again. As though I'll spend the time figuring out a way to make people stop asking me things like, "Are you ( Read more... )

Last night, through a couple clicks through Livejournal communities, I found the blogs* of a couple girls (women? ladies? female beings?) around my age who have published or who are about to publish their novels for the young adult market. One of the writers turned 24 just as she finished her book tour. There's a lot of stuff I could say here that' ( Read more... )

Over the weekend, I decided to start writing yet another novel, mostly because I don't want to lose the still-buzzing writing momentum I gained while doing this textbook project, but also because I like doing things that seem ridiculously difficult. When I wrote "yet another novel" in that first sentence, I should have bolded, italicized, and ( Read more... )