Literary Magazine Review

Check out my review of Sonora Review's double issue, number 55 and 56, just posted at The Review Review. You'll find out about their tribute to David Foster Wallace and how the winners of their annual short short contest fare.

As I mention every couple months here on Unreliable Narrator, The Review Review hosts a siteful of great reviews of your favorite literary magazines and interviews with lit mag editors. There is also a section called Writers Speak where you can read personal reflections on the importance of lit mags by writers like Jenna Blum and Dan Chaon. If you're a writer interested in writing reviews for the site, contact Becky Tuch. She's a one-woman dynamo, the sole engineer behind this site, and she's always looking for new reviewers and essayists. Tell her an Unreliable Narrator sent you.

Mid-Summer Malaise

While the days start getting shorter, my book queue grows longer. Just can’t get into reading the novels I’ve started (Ghosts, by César Aira and Desperate Characters, by Paula Fox). Haven’t thought much about adding to this blog lately. The novel I’m currently writing has been on hold over the past few weeks as I filter critique comments, consider revising the first few chapters before moving forward, and finishing up a couple other writing projects I’ve started.

Even the DVDs I’ve been watching haven’t been very thrilling. I take that back: I just started watching Steven Soderbergh's The Limey, and it’s much better than I remember—great simple story of a British man who travels to L.A. to find his daughter’s killer. Well told in an overlapping, elliptical style that compliments the story. Nice to see old-timers Barry Newman, Terence Stamp, and Peter Fonda looking dapper. Good nasty fun.

But Friday I’m heading out of town to Martha’s Vineyard for a week. I’m packing books, a manuscript a friend just sent for me to read, and my laptop loaded with my writing. While away, between lounging on the beach, enjoying great food, and trying out the local watering holes, I plan to get my creative mojo back. And if not, I’ve plenty to keep me busy.

In the meantime, check out the trailer for The Limey:

Writing Group Plugs

Two weeks ago the new book of poetry, New Eden, A Legacy, by E.B. Moore (which I had pre-ordered earlier this year), arrived in the mail. E.B. Moore is in my writing group, so it was a delight to receive a fellow writer’s work delivered to my condo’s doorstep (okay, mail room—no actual steps in front of my door).


Poet and novelist Ann Killough says, “New Eden is a wonder. The story of Moore’s great-grandmother’s disastrous 19th-century exodus West from her Old Order Amish community in Pennsylvania is detailed in a sequence of short poems and letters.” I’m familiar with Ms. Moore’s work as a novelist, as she has been working on a beautifully crafted, lyrical narrative that covers some of the same themes, locales, and time period as New Eden. I can’t wait to immerse myself back into her stories. She also designed the lovely cover image.

New Eden is published by Finishing Line Press, out of Kentucky. Get your copy while supplies last.

Upcoming Books

E.B. Moore is not the only writer in my group to come out with a book. Actually, two others are set to release novels in the coming year.

While its U.S. publication date is six months away, I figured it’s not too soon to tout Randy Susan-Meyers' The Murderer’s Daughters, to be published by St. Martin’s Press in January 2010.


The Murderer’s Daughters concerns two young girls who witness the murder of their mother at the hands of their father, and the effects of this act throughout their adult lives. Great hook. The book’s garnering a lot of interest in the publisher world. It's positioned to be a major hardcover next year and is also being published in France, Germany, Holland, Israel, and the UK. Can you say international book tour? Read my interview with Randy from this past March.

Pre-order it now!

Here’s the Dutch cover:


Then there's Iris Gomez’s novel, Try To Remember, to be published in May 2010 by Grand Central Publishing (Hachette Book Group). I’m relatively new to Iris’ work, but have been blown away by everything I've read. Her writing is lyrical, evocative, and honest.

Try To Remember is about a Colombian teenager living in the strangely evolving cosmopolis of 1970s Miami. She desperately tries to love her increasingly mentally ill father as he drives her family into poverty, and towards possible deportation. Another great hook. Keep an eye on amazon--the book should be available for pre-order later this year.

Here’s her cover:


Thanks to Iris for supplying me with her book's description, and to both Randy and Iris for supplying their cover images.

The Separation Anxiety Blues

My writing group is taking a break. It was a good run, but I’m ready to give it a rest for a while. For the last meeting they critiqued 35 pages of my new novel. I had rushed to finish that much to hand out. It has some problems, some first-draft woe. Such as lack of characterization and long scenes where I lovingly describe apartment interiors and the finer points of videocassettes. My hapless protagonist is getting sucked into the potentially lucrative but certainly questionable business of pornography. So apartments and videocassettes (it’s 1994) play a huge role. Okay, not so huge, but it’s only a first draft. I’ll save the chapters’ worth of living room, bedroom, and kitchen description for my book of linked stories on indoor living.

My group, called Council, or Mini Council, or Secret Mini Council, is an off-shoot of a Grub Street novel workshop where many of us met, first hand or by a couple degrees. The Mini Council is an extension of this class, in many, but certainly not all, ways. Every other Thursday we met at a member’s home in JP, after having read up to 100 pages of one or two writers' work.


Two weeks is a perfect length of time to read 100 pages. For me, anyway. I’m a sort-of slow reader. And we’re reading with an editorial eye for structure, syntax, dialogue, pacing, plot, character, all that good stuff. So this adds a layer of…reading to the reading. I always come away with some points to make, some helpful (hopefully) suggestions. But I’m amazed at what the other Mini Council members bring to the discussion. Details about motive or structure I just never considered, never imagined, had no idea existed. It always makes me want to go back and read the pages again. I’m still learning, still building my critical eye.

With the Mini Council on hiatus I can concentrate on other reading. Such as a literary journal that I’m supposed to be reviewing for The Review Review website. I’ve had this issue for a few months now, and I still haven’t finished it. Granted, it’s a double issue, thick with review-fodder such as a 100-page tribute to David Foster Wallace. Also, I tend to ignore reading for pleasure more when I’m in Mini Council. Actually, that’s not true. I just do less of it.


But at the moment I’ve fallen out of the reading habit. I’ve lost that readin’ feeling. Must. Get. Back. And I will. I’ve got about three books started, and I just have to finish those up, and move on to the next. Soon I’m off for a week’s vacation, and that’s when I’ll break this cycle of non-reading. I get a lot done down there (away from here) and so will be sure to pack plenty covers, soft and hard. I may even bring my laptop to get some writing done.

I miss the Mini Council already. But it will be back in the fall, in some form. I may join in the games, or I might take another Grub class. Or, I may lay low and just do the writing. Who can say? I like being coy. I’m the coy narrator. Actually, coy narrators drive me bats. Don’t do this at home, kids.

Pulp Fiction Hell

Today I listened to a wonderful podcast of a story by Phil Beloin, Jr., Hardboiled Hell, posted on welltoldtales.com. I'm familiar with Phil's oeuvre, so I thought I had an idea what to expect with this podcast. But nothing prepared me for his very new twist on an old pulp fiction trope: "A hard-drinking hep cat falls for a sexy gal he met in a jazz club. But things turn weird -- real weird -- after she brings him home for the night."

The only thing familiar is the setup. What happens next you'll have to discover for yourself. The podcast features a game reading by Andy Catt, with help by Sherry Wine, and is presented complete with campy sound effects and moody music which all help generate a perfect atmosphere for Phil's twisty, unexpected piece. Hearing this podcast took me back to Saturday afternoons when I was a kid listening to Mystery Theater on the radio.

Phil's short crime fiction has been published on numerous sites in the past few years. Check out an interview I did with Phil last year for this blog, from which you can access more of his work.

I highly recommend Hardboiled Hell. It's not for the squeamish. In a good way.