So THIS arrived in the mail with my short story The Texas Project inside. The publication of this story means a great deal to me, because the first draft was no less than a turning point in my writing life. I’d spent a semester of crashing and burning in Kevin Canty’s fiction workshop at the University of [...]
Archive for the ‘Writing Life’ Category
My Life as Laura Ingalls Wilder: An Overwrought Acceptance Speech
Posted: 02/13
Fine, so I haven’t won any awards. But with the Oscar’s on tonight, it seems time to revisit my thanks for everyone who has supported My Life as Laura since publication. That no one really wants to hear the acceptance speeches is a given. I know. They are boring and come across as pretentious, but [...]
Talking Laura Ingalls and Laurapalooza on Author Feast
Posted: 01/13
Here’s a link to my most recent interview on Author Feast, “an online show where writers of diverse backgrounds and writing styles talk about their work and the publishing industry.” My host, Luke Abaffy was most congenial. He lives in Brooklyn but he also knows what it is to live in a Midwestern town. We [...]
Blood Meridian Drinking Game: Fun for the Whole Hellmouth
Posted: 01/13
Although a week has passed, I’m still working through my Blood Meridian PTSD. For those unfamiliar with Cormac McCarthy’s Apocalyptic Anti-Western—let’s just say that if unless you are stone, the book will flatten you. Whatever Laura Ingalls and the Little House books are, “the kid” and Blood Meridian are not. The Ingalls family goes west [...]
Being My Own Book Publicist: In Review
Posted: 01/13
When My Life as Laura came out in October, 2011, I wrote an essay for Hunger Mountain about how I planned to promote the book, though I be but a wee grad student on a small press. The book had only been out three weeks, so I was basing my post on articles I had [...]
My Life As Laura News
Posted: 10/12
My Life as Laura is featured this week on the Ohio University web publication Compass. Although this post is just a wee bit shadowed by the news that PODUS was in my hometown of Athens, Ohio, last night. A friend of mine was interviewed by the BBC and I am so jealous. This was my [...]
For Anyone Who Survived the Sun-In/Toni Perm Debacle
Posted: 08/12
An excerpt from My Life as Laura is up at Weird Girls, an up and coming web series self-described by the creators as “the Goonies meet Poltergeist… except with girls.” What’s not to like, right? The site also features a weekly essay that focuses on the issues of preteenessence (I just made that up and [...]
Review of My Life as Laura at New Pages
Posted: 08/12
Whoa. I know. Two posts in two days. But a fellow Press 53 writer just pointed out to me that My Life as Laura was reviewed by New Pages. Yay! And thanks! If you haven’t browsed around New Pages before, it’s a great resource for deciphering the writing world. There’s info on lit mags, contests, [...]
Report From Laurapalooza 2012
Posted: 07/12
In case you are a Laura Ingalls Wilder fan who has been living in a collapsed dugout somewhere, there is a place for you in the world, which would be the Laurapalooza conference in Mankato, Minnesota. I have just returned from the world’s premiere Laura event and I’m typing this as I descend into LaGuardia [...]
How I Searched for Dorothy Parker and Found Dim Sum
Posted: 07/12
One of my favorite connections I had with Laura growing up, was that my Pa was also from New York State. I was born in Buffalo before whisked away as an infant to the land of azaleas and grits. I always liked saying I was from New York, because then people would assume The City, [...]
