There are a number of things that have either just passed or are coming up that I’ve been putting off posting, so here goes.
First off, the Story Prize is this week! In fact, it’s this Wednesday at NYU. The Story Prize is an annual award given to the best collection of short fiction, and it’s the brainchild of Larry Dark and Julie Lindsey. What makes it fun for the audience is that each author reads from their work (always good) and Larry Dark follows that up with a pretty penetrating question and answer. It’s this Wednesday at 7:30, and for more information and tickets, you might want to check out thestoryprize.blogspot.com. The blog is also worth checking out for its insights on the authors in the collection.
Secondly, the reading last week with Jeffrey Eugenides and Chang-rae Lee was excellent, and worth commenting on. I think what really made the reading more valuable for me was how the writers seemed to play off of each other in the Q-and-A, something that doesn’t always happened. The two writers were very familiar with each others work, and that really came across. They also had some great things to say about making your narrative tone match the character’s personas, and the amount of effort that it takes to get a novel to really get off the ground. Both authors spoke about their uncertainty during the drafting process and how many times they thought that their projects were simply not going to get off the ground.
Finally, the tenth issue of Asian Cha is out, and I reviewed for it, but it features a poem of our very own Jean Sung, which can be found here.
Rutgers-Newark MFA: Blog 