Two craft notes in one day--a record. Asked where my ideas come from, I shrug, "I don't know." Asked whether I start with plot, or a character, or a setting, or a description, I usually respond, "None of the above." What comes to me first is a line, a sentence. And from that line come…
Craft Note: Ten Alternate Uses for a Pencil
Sometimes word games like this can inspire interesting combinations or turns of phrase. Here are ten off-the-cuff suggestions: aerating tool for a very patient gardener tossing caber for Edinborough Barbie ceremonial scepter for the mayor of an eponymous town in upstate New York impromptu mustache when balanced on curled upper lip baton for a diminutive…
Talking Paul West on Mark Seinfelt’s “Word Patriots”
I'm happy to have had the opportunity to join Mark Seinfelt and Jason Charnesky on Mark's "Word Patriots" program. In this installment, we discuss the early work of novelist Paul West. All three of us worked with West in the 80s and 90s, and listening to our exchange transports me back to the seminar table…
Seinfelt to Host Bill Gass on “Word Patriots” Webcast
Mark Seinfelt will host one of America’s foremost writers, whose innovative works of fiction include Omensetter’s Luck, Willie Masters’ Lonesome Wife, In the Heart of the Heart of the Country, Cartesian Sonata and The Tunnel, on the November 21 edition of his Word Patriots webcast on WebTalkRadio.net. Maximum Fiction received the following press release concerning…
I Add a Bit of Myself to Housebreaking the Muse
Hot on the platen of my Smith-Corona Coronet, a chapter serving to "sign" the work begins to emerge. Who is this Ed Desautels, anyway? [If you keep clicking the photo, you'll eventually find a size you can comfortably read.]
Ed Desautels' Maximum Fiction 