Two jolts

Ok, so I definitely felt those two earthquakes, though they were such quick, sudden jolts that I wasn’t sure what they were. The first woke us up (yeah, so we’re lame, and we went to bed early, and it was a Friday night, big deal.) but seemed somehow like it came from the roof, not [...]

It’s not you, it’s me. Or is it?

I’m in the process of compiling a list of books I read this year. In previous years, I’ve been much better about keeping track of what I’ve read, but this year, not so much. Which could be a symptom of how busy I was, or how involved I was in my thesis…Or the fact that [...]

Forecast: Rain. Bleh likely.

Ever since I returned to San Francisco from Boston on Saturday night, it has been raining. It’s been dark, foggy, wet, and generally unpleasant. It’s the kind of weather that makes you want to sleep in. It’s the kind of weather that almost ensures that you will sleep in, because there’s little difference in the [...]

Spastic about submitting

Everyone seems to be in the mood to send out submissions to lit mags these days. I guess it’s the semester break, or time off around the holidays. I myself am on a mission to send out two of my thesis chapters as a stand-alone essays before I get bogged down in some new job. [...]

Lit magazine mysteries

The day before I left for Boston, I got three pieces of unexpected mail from three different literary magazines.
Two were copies of literary magazines. Except that I don’t remember subscribing to either of them. For a brief and narcissistic moment, I imagined that I was being sent copies of these magazines because they had secretly [...]

Until I Give Up

Dear John Irving,
Your latest novel, Until I Find You is a complete bore, and I couldn’t take it any longer.
To wit:
1. Disbelief, not suspended. A four-year-old just doesn’t have thoughts like the one who is, unfortunately, the main character of this endless tome.
2. Plot…Is there one? Um, by page 100, not a darned thing has [...]

Congratulations, you’re an MFA.

That’s what my thesis chair said at the end of my defense. Which was nice.
The defense was anticlimactic, but I think I was expecting that. My two readers and I sat down in a tiny conference room and had a pleasant conversation about my book. Mostly the reaction was positive, and then there were a [...]

Thesis D-day

So, I’m defending my MFA thesis today. People keep asking me if I am nervous, which makes me wonder if I should be. I am, in fact, quite unconcerned about the whole thing. I suppose I should look over my final product one more time to prepare myself, but I keep putting it off. It’s [...]

Mired in John Irving

I bought John Irving’s Until I Find You a month or so ago, and it was such a hefty paperback that I have been saving it for this trip to Boston. I have had trouble finding large chunks of time to read recently, and I figured with a book so long, it would be nice [...]

I’m in Boston…

and it is COLD. Well, not cold by Boston standards, but cold by my standards. It’s 30 degrees. I’ve been living in California full-time for just six months and obviously I have become a cold wuss already.
Anyway, I’m settled in here, despite the cold — I’m staying in a hotel this time, rather than [...]