News & Events
Golems! A Musical
Charles Orr's poster for the hypothetical play Di Goylemim
Charles Orr’s Hypothetical Library is one of my favorite projects on the internet. Orr, a brilliant book-jacket designer, partners with authors, asking them to provide flap copy for a book they could write but never actually will. He then designs a cover for this book, and together they seek a blurb from another real author. In complex and fruitful ways, the Hypothetical Library blurs the distinction between the real, the potentially real, and the pure dream of fiction.
It’s an honor and a great pleasure to have a hypothetical novel newly out on the Library: Golems! A Musical, a campy yet semi-theological story of the Second Avenue theater. Orr designed both a jacket for the novel and a hypothetical poster for the play within the novel, Di Goylemim. And Michael Chabon has been kind enough to provide a blurb for the project.
Please go take a peek!
The Fall of the House of Walworth
I’m delighted to have had the chance to review Geoffrey O’Brien’s wonderful new book, The Fall of the House of Walworth: A Tale of Murder and Madness in Saratoga’s Gilded Age, for today’s Los Angeles Times. As I mention in the review, when I first learned of the Walworths’ lurid family saga, I wished someone would write a good, juicy book about it. (In all seriousness, it puts the Beecher-Tilton scandal—of which I’m a huge fan, if one can be a fan of a 150-year-old lawsuit—to shame.) I can’t think of a better writer to take on the project than Mr. O’Brien. 22 August 2010.
Thanks to Joe Donahue and WAMC!
What a pleasure it was to appear on WAMC’s live talk show The Roundtable. As a regular listener, I already knew what an insightful and affable interviewer Joe Donahue is, but it was wonderful getting to meet and talk with him in person. Thank you to Joe and to Sarah LaDuke for inviting me on, and to Ray Graf, Alan Chartock, the WAMC staff, and Murray the dog for making me feel so welcome. Thanks also to any WAMC listeners who are here visiting my website for the first time! It’s nice to meet you.
You can listen to my interview with Joe on your computer by clicking here. If you’d like to take a look at my contribution to Charles Orr’s Hypothetical Library, the hypothetical novel Golems! A Musical, it should be up any day now. In the meanwhile, go check out the site; Orr has done some beautiful design work for some truly wonderful authors.
Live on WAMC’s show The Roundtable
It’s an honor and a pleasure to announce that I’ll be doing a live interview on WAMC/Northeast Public Radio’s wonderful local talk show, The Roundtable, this Wednesday, August 11th! I’ll be speaking with the show’s host, Joe Donahue, at 11:10 in the morning. Joe and his partner/producer, Sarah LaDuke, are my favorite talk radio hosts; I listen to their show almost every weekday, and love learning about local politics, artists, and booksellers.
With any luck, my contribution to the Hypothetical Library (one of my favorite projects on the internet right now) will be live by then, and that’s what we’ll talk about. Even if it’s not up yet, we’ll probably still talk about it, because I think Charlie Orr is doing such interesting work with the project.
WAMC broadcasts live from Albany, with towers all over the Northeast. You can go to their website to find the call numbers for the station nearest you; you’ll also be able to listen live or listen to the archived podcast later on wamc.org.
Thanks & a preview
Thanks to everyone who came out to hear me, Stacey D’Erasmo, David Gates, and Tracy Daughtery speak about Donald Barthelme in Madison Square Park last week. What an honor and a privilege to have the space to consider his work; and it sure was enjoyable getting to read that paragraph from “The Zombies.”
August will be an exciting month for me: I have a few pieces coming out, and have been invited to do an interview with Joe Donahue on the Roundtable, my favorite radio show, which broadcasts from WAMC, Northeast Public Radio. (I’m also inordinately fond of WFUV’s show Vin Scelsa’s Idiot’s Delight and, of course, of WNYC’s incomparable Leonard Lopate Show; but as an upstate girl, Joe Donahue and Sarah LaDuke are the hosts I listen to every morning.) I’ll post dates and links when I have them, so please check back soon!
Various good Thomas Israel Hopkins news
A coincidence?
Thomas Israel Hopkins, keeper of the famous Mimeograph 2.0 Paradigm, now has three new stories out in journals: “Elephants of the Platte” in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet Issue No. 25, “The Man in The Moon Is A Lawyer” in the Indiana Review’s Issue #31.2, Winter 2009, and “Sleepwalking,” in Quick Fiction’s Issue #16—which has, on its cover, an illustration of a small boy, brown haired & brown eyed just like the author’s son, wearing a stripey shirt (as said boy often is), and performing one of that child’s favorite activities: drawing a turtle. Can this be a coincidence? Well, I suppose it can. But I’m still quite proud.
A New Greek Testament
Ellinika Grammata has just come out with a Greek translation of The Testament of Yves Gundron, with a beautiful new (and, I dare say, really Hellenic-looking) cover. (I mean, look at those horses!) Please tell your Greek friends to look for it!
I Dare You to Read These Blog Posts
This week, my friend novelist Jessica Anthony is the guest blogger on Powell’s book blog. I’ve been enjoying all her smart, goofy, irreverent posts, but I’d particularly like to draw your attention to the entries for Wednesday, August 19th and Thursday, August 20th: a two-part conversation, on the topic of writerly dares, with the brilliant, funny, and did I mention very handsome Thomas Israel Hopkins. And while you’re over there, check out Jess’s novel, The Convalescent!
Facebook, Finally
Only a few years behind the curve, I’ve created a Facebook page on which to post information about publications and events. If you’d like to receive news about upcoming thisses and thats, please go to Facebook and sign up to be a fan. You can also sign up for my mailing list by typing your e-mail address into the appropriate box on any page of this website.
Cynthia Hopkins & Gloria Deluxe
Cynthia Hopkins & her amazing band, Gloria Deluxe, will be playing at the Bard Spiegeltent on Saturday evening, July 25th, at 8:30. Alt-country meets Weimar cabaret! Don’t miss this show!
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