So, lollipops for everyone.
In other news, I'm still looking for an agent. That involves a lot of waiting. The full manuscript of my novel is being read by two publishers and two agents right now. It isn't being represented or bought by anyone however. Yet. You ever notice that when you say yet, it's almost like spitting? Yet!
There's a bareness on our walls now. Books used to be there but now it's simple color. Green abounds. All the shelves of books I used to own have been condensed to one. One shelf of books that I couldn't bear to part with or that I need for reference or fuel or to read late at night and lament that I'll never write that well. At least not yet.
I've been reading more e-books on my iPad and really enjoying it. There's nothing to fear there. You touch the screen and words appear. You swipe your finger and the page turns. In a book good enough, the medium always disappears. The medium is ancillary.
My daughter is nearly three. She wears yellow and dances and tries my patience. She's in love with apple juice popsicles and Cinderella. Tonight her cheeks are red and she's slow with fever. I feel that heaviness pillow my limbs and wonder at the things that jump between people. Her knees are bulbs of moonlight. In the middle of the night, she cries at things I'm not allowed to see. I love her so much it scares me.
If you haven't read Tom Franklin's Poachers you're missing out.
I'm reading Shya Scanlon's Forecast and thinking how strange it is, possibly prescient. One of the interview slots I'm running for Dark Sky Magazine will feature Shya, so look for that. Also, I'm reading John Wray's Lowboy and Zora Neale Hurston and Nam Le's wonderful-so-far The Boat.
But, you know, Pushcart. There's no chance, right? Why even think that way. Well, why the fuck not?
As I watched her drive away, listening to my breath hiss through the hot ember of a cigarette, I thought she'd be back. I thought she would turn around. I thought, and I recall this specifically, why the fuck not?
We are so often ill-informed We are so often blind.
Also: doesn't the seething ember in the picture look like a brain? Is it burning with bliss?
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15 comments:
Shit, man. Congrats. That's two now, right?
Yep, two. I want to say for what that's worth, but I still think it's cool. Thanks for the stop-by, Court.
In the old days, the good old days of yore, the ones I bore folks to pure tears with during my nostalgic rants, you, Brad, would be following the usual path taken by writers we think of as among America's best, and in time you would join them.
I don't know if any of that remains now. (Although I am your truest believer in your literary future.)
That you are reading on a iPad is interesting and revealing. My wife has an iPad, and she reads now everything but one newspaper on it. I like the way it looks when she's reading on it, especially the cool flipping of the page with your finger.
But I'm not able to read seriously on a Kindle, an iPad, or even a computer monitor. It's all like TV to me. So I'm sticking with the dead tree version.
Funny. While I was reading Franzen's Freedom with a book, my wife was simultaneously reading it on her iPad. I looked at the same page in both formats once, and there's no difference ... except what it feels like, the tactile part of reading.
I hope you know to tell your agent / publisher contacts that this is your second Pushcart nomination. Those folks are seldom very secure with their literary instincts (odd, isn't it?), and are always more amiable when someone else makes the first quality call.
You are the best writer I have come across on the web, and maybe I'm going to go public.
It's burning with brain pain. (the ember) I guess it all depends on how your day has gone.
Mucho mucho congrats Brad!
I think it's way cool. I told my mum. (!) She said a push-who? I said: it's a way cool thing....
I am getting an I-Pad. Somehow, some wise. I made the mistake of walking into an Apple store and now I think there's no going back....
Donigan, I love the image of you reading Freedom in paper, and your wife sitting there, reading it on an I-Pad! :)
Congrats, Ghille!!!
-Frog
That's exciting news regarding the Pushcart nomination. Congratulations!
A full manuscript in the hands of four different people must feel promising. It's no hyperbole when I say I can't wait to get my hands on a published copy. Best of luck.
Thank you very much, Don.
Rose, you're going to love the iPad. I use mine for just about everything. With an external Bluetooth keyboard, it's replaced my laptop for everything except tracking changes in Word.
Frog! Wow, it's been a long time. Thanks for still reading. I miss you guys. Perhaps I'll drop back in soon.
Thank you, Hunter. I'm always appreciative when you read and comment.
Great image, beautiful post. Why the fuck not indeed.
Thanks, Ethel!
If anyone else is reading this, Ethel has a book coming out. Go check it out: Cut Through the Bone
All the shelves of books I used to own have been condensed to one.
oh, my!
i hope with all that space, it clears your headspace for your own words.
i know you can fill the few shelves with what comes out of your own acute catalog of perceptions.
congrats, my friend!
Sue! Always a pleasure to see you here. I cleared my head in some ways and in others it filled up with snot. Oh well.
Bravo, Brad!
And kudos to all the mags who push the Pushcart, spurring writers on.
Thank you, Jan. I appreciate you stopping by to comment.
Yep, two. I want to say for what that's worth, but I still think it's cool.
It's worth a lot, actually. Sixty-something queries didn't yield me a single "sure, send it over."
Congribulations!
Thanks, Patrick. We'll see what happens.
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