The Audio Series: Ryan W Bradley

Our new audio series "The Authors Read. We Listen." is an incredibly special one for us. Hatched in a NYC club during BEA week, this feature requires more work of the author than any of the ones that have come before. And that makes it all the more sweeter when you see, or rather, hear them read excerpts from their own novels, in their own voices, the way their stories were meant to be heard.

Last week, we listened as Carissa Halston read from her novella The Mere Weight of Words. Check it out if you missed it. 

Today, Ryan W Bradley whispers sweet nothings in our ears. Ryan is the author of Prize Winners, Code for Failure, and writer and editor of the collaborative poetry project You Are Jaguar. He has also published two chapbooks - Mile Zero and Aquarium.  His writing may be heavily influenced by the jobs he's had pumping gas, changing oil, painting houses, sweeping the floor of a mechanic's shop, working on a construction crew in the Arctic Circle, fronting a punk band, and managing an independent children's bookstore. Then again, it may not be. 

Ryan spoofs on Rod McKuen's poetry style

For those of you who may not be in the know,  Ryan also designs book covers and posters, and just about anything else he can get his hands on. Heck, his designs are so cool, Vol.1 Brooklyn fell in love with this and dubbed it the best cover of 2012! When I mentioned this audio series to Ryan, I kinda-sorta selfishly requested that he read from his unpublished collection of Rod McKuen-esque poems. I've loved Rod McKuen's poetry ever since I stumbled across it in my college library freshman year. And I love what Ryan has done with these. 

Click here to experience Love & Rod McKuen read by Ryan W Bradley. 

With Ryan's permission, here is the first poem in written form:

The Recent Knowledge of Fear

I have decided
poetry is fear.

Every line
wants to get
shorter.

Like our
conversations.

Your breath
sounds so perfect
over the phone.

When will we
meet?

When will you listen
to the poetry


my fear is writing
for you?

I am afraid
of the dial
tone
       and what it means
       for this relationship.

You can totally download an ecopy of Love & Rod McKuen right now! 

Review: At the Mouth of the River of Bees

Read 7/24/12 - 7/28/12
4.5 Stars - Highly Recommended to readers who have a little of the animal in them and love stories that will turn them to mush
Pgs: 300
Publisher: Small Beer Press
Release Date: August 14, 2012

The thing with short stories? I wish the ones I liked were longer. Like full-length-novel longer.

At the Mouth of the River of Bees is bursting at the seams with great short stories, most of which I was reluctant to see end. Kij Johnson's quirky characters made their way through their semi-scifi worlds and had me chasing after them, hopeful and enthralled.

The opening story 26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss - a tale about a woman whose world is changed forever when she buys a travelling magic show involving monkeys - is by far one of my favorite (you can read it here) and sadly one of the shortest.

Magic, incidentally, appears to be the sun around which Johnson's stories orbit. It's the unifying element that's woven throughout each uniquely exquisite piece.

Fox Magic, a dead giveaway by title alone, is about a family of foxes who weave a magical spell around a wealthy man so that he might fall in love with their daughter. In My Wife Reincarnated as a Solitaire, a man's dying wife seems to transform into a rare, living bird at the moment of her death. Ponies warns about the dangers of attempting to fit in, when a young girl takes her pony to a "cutting out" party to have its wings and horn removed. In The Man Who Bridged the Mist, which is vaguely reminiscent of Stephen King's The Mist, we read about Kit and the strange things that happen during the time it takes for him to build a bridge over a river of mist that contains scary, unspeakable things. And in the final story (another personal favorite), The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs in North Park After the Change, we are introduced to a world where dogs have evolved and can speak and think as humans do and the horrible fate that change brings on.

Things are not always what they seem in this collection. Sometimes Kij lets us in on the secret from the start. We read on, knowing what the protagonist doesn't, slapping our foreheads in disbelief  that they can't see what we see. Other times, I get the feeling the joke is on us, that the characters are all in on it and they're just messing with us as they go. Mostly, though, things unravel for us in time with the characters.

I remember cracking this open and reading 26 Monkeys, thinking to myself that if the rest of the stories in this collection were anything like this one, I was going to be mush by the time I got to the end. And then I read the last story, The Evolution of Trickster Stories, and it mushed me, totally and completely.

Were there stories in this collection that felt like filler and fluff? Sure. Were those stories forgotten before I had even finished reading them? Yes. But the ones that hit home really hit home HARD and will blow you away and make Kij Johnson and Small Beer Press people to keep an eye on. I promise.

Where Writers Write: Frank Coles

Welcome to another installment of TNBBC's Where Writers Write!

Where Writers Write is a weekly series that will feature a different author every Wednesday as they showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where some of TNBBC's favorite authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen.

Frank Coles is a word pimp and media pro (hehe, his words, not mine!) with nearly 20 years experience working across TV, radio, news media, marketing, branding, publishing and the internet. He's a trad and indie pubbed author and has his own National Geographic and YouTube web channels. Frank has lived and worked all over the Middle East, SE Asia, Europe, and as far north as the pole.

He's the author of Dark Market, Secret Skin, and How to Drive a Tank...and Other Everyday Tips for the Modern Gentleman. 

Frank is a TNBBC newbie, and he's breaking himself in here by showing off his writing space(s):

Where Frank Coles Writes

I've been lucky, for years I worked as a travel journalist and copywriter while learning how to write books. My offices have been wonderfully exotic and occasionally, well,  shoddy crap holes in the arse end of nowhere. Here's the opposite of that. My favourite writing place has to be this jungle house called Leela on the island of Koh Phangan in Thailand.

Note the papasan (bowl) chair for reading drafts in, the bed, and the plastic side-wall that rolls up when the storms disappear. And, oh what storms! Sideways rain and forked freakery. Inspiring? You bet, like an electric shock to the nether regions.

My desk was the kitchen table behind the curtain.

I had three lovely months there with massage, sea and healthy food on tap. A tom cat did find its way in one night and sprayed my face while I slept, but hey, beats the hell out of the other more poisonous things that creep out of the jungle.

On the road your desk is nearly always temporary, and, because of that, often clean and devoid of the usual carnage that makes up my current more permanent desk. Here's another Thai desk. Note the lack of detritus. Cool, huh?

 After a few years in the Middle East I headed back towards my UK homeland and the desks definitely got bigger. Here's one in a 17th Century French farmhouse I looked after for eight months. Low overheads, great food, a ten person dining table to lay out manuscripts on, happy days!

  So what do I write on now? Here's my two-screen beast with its daily pile of to-dos cluttering up the surface as well as all the caffeine, water, spent .45 cartridges and business cards that need throwing out the window. Ah sorry, I mean filing of course.

But my favourite place to write still has to be at my tiny little 10 inch laptop (see the clean Thai pic) or a notepad - a real pen and ink one. You can write with those babies anywhere. Well, almost anywhere. Here are my feet on assignment at the North Pole. Sadly it's only pencil and paper up there. Electronic devices just give up and hibernate, even ink has its troubles.

 But these days, with a young family and a need to stay closer to home, the most exotic place I get to do my writing work is breakfast and a proofread at my local pub. Do the exploring thing while you're young. Definitely. And when the young are a little bit older, do it all again!

Happy writing, wherever you are.

Get jiggy with Frank on Twitter | Google+ | LinkedIn | Facebook

Check back with us next week to see where Christopher Moraff writes.

The Audio Series: Carissa Halston

Oh yeah, baby! We've cooked up a new feature for the blog.

Our brand new audio series "The Authors Read. We Listen." is an incredibly special one for us. Hatched in a NYC club during BEA week, this feature requires more work of the author than any of the ones that have come before. And that makes it all the more sweeter when you see, or rather, hear them read excerpts from their own novels, in their own voices, the way their stories were meant to be heard.

Last week we kicked things off with the author who inspired it all, J. Robert Lennon. Check it out if you missed it. 

Today, we're opening our ears to Carissa Halston. She is the author of A Girl Named Charlie Lester and The Mere Weight of Words. Her short fiction has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Curbside Splendor, TRNSFR, The Collagist, and The Massachusetts Review, among others. She currently lives in Boston where she runs a small press called Aforementioned Productions, edits a literary journal called apt, hosts a reading series called Literary Firsts, and is at work on a novel called Conjoined States.

The Mere Weight of Word released this June by Aqueous Books

Carissa and I came *thisclose* to meeting each other a few weeks ago when she read at the Moravian Bookshop in Bethlehem, PA. And I'm sorry I missed it because her book is unlike most others. I wish I could be all you-heard-it-here-first with this one, cause you know, she's been touring this book like mad and doing readings since its release, so there's a good chance you may have already seen or heard bits and pieces of it. But in a way I think I'd be partly right because today, she's sharing a specially-recorded-for-us excerpt:

Click here to experience The Mere Weight of Words read by Carissa Halston.

The word on The Mere Weight of Words:

When Meredith hears her estranged father has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she says nothing. When Eliot, a long-time friend of her father’s, calls and asks her to see him, she hangs up. But once she runs out of ways to say no, Mere agrees to visit her father, reasoning that he’ll soon lose all memory of their estrangement. He’ll forget her paralysis. He’ll forget their fights. He’ll forget that he ever stopped loving her mother and be the person Mere adored. She leaves her house certain she’ll say something she can’t take back and arrives at his knowing he’ll someday forget she visited at all. In language honest and heartfelt, Carissa Halston presents Mere’s life with and without her father, and shows how Mere fills his absence with worry, wit, and words.

*lifted from goodreads, with love

Indie Spotlight: Sandra Brannan

Last year, at the 2011 Book Blogger Con, Tara (BookSexyReview), Erica (Harper Perennial) and I subjected ourselves to the horribly embarrassing and torturous Author Speed Dating segment. Embarrassing for what the poor authors had to put themselves through, and torturous to the bloggers for having it done to us. 


Some of the authors looked absolutely terrified to be sitting there with us. Others felt that this-is-my-15-minutes-of-fame-and-dammit-you-better-give-me-your-attention and were actually quite rude and pushy. 


While we agreed that the event could have been vetted and planned better, there were a few authors who made it all worth while for me; pitching their books comfortably and naturally, catching our attention, and making lovely conversation with us. Sandra Brannan was one of those memorable authors. She was pitching her novel Lot's Return to Sodom and even brought some rock candy, in lieu of business cards. I can still recall the story she shared with us about the motorcycle gang...


Today, I'm thrilled to be sharing a guest post of hers, and helping her celebrate the upcoming release of Widow's Might  - the third installment in her Liv Bergen Mystery series - which drops on August 7th:

What I Know Now That I Wish I Knew Then…

Writers ask me for advice, seeking the holy grail of an answer about how to get published, the secret to making that very important leap from writer to author. Pages and pages of blogs and books are dedicated to the subject, yet the secret continues to elude us, right?

The answer is certainly that there really is no secret. Understanding it’s a little bit of luck and that there’s no substitution for hard work will help a writer muster the patience publishing that first novel requires. Every writer has control of his or her destiny to a point and then it becomes Destiny’s decision on which of us becomes published authors. So ‘what I know now that I wish I knew then’ about three commonly given words of advice is this…

> Write what you know. 


 We’ve all heard this over and over and over, but what I didn’t know is how basic that concept applies to what I know. Like most people, I find other people interesting yet can’t imagine what I have done would be even remotely interesting to anyone else. But as I go across the country, I’m realizing how abnormal… strike that… not normal I really am. I thought everyone applied for a concealed weapons permit, handled explosives and drove heavy equipment at one time or another, ate what they hunted, and traveled with a survival kit, bolt cutters, and snake stick in the back of their vehicle. Now that I’m worldly, I understand my idiosyncrasies and instead fancy myself ‘western rural sheik’.


> Read. 


 Read books, not just in the genre you’re writing, but in all genres. Most of us want to fit in while standing out. It’s human nature. To gauge the business of books, time must be devoted to what books are selling so you’ll know how to best position yourself for an agent and publisher. I had no idea the power of reading until I had the honor of being a judge for an international association and read 30 books in a row, only to be so motivated to take a week off to write what I believe was my best novel to date.


> Write. 


Most of us put so much of our time, effort and emotion into that first book that we think it deserves our utmost attention. Sometimes we edit it dozens of times, only to wonder why we can’t get an agent’s attention. We muse that surely they’re simply being shortsighted and will eventually come around to recognizing this beautiful story, right? Try this. Write that first novel and move on to a second. Then a third. Maybe even a fourth. By the time you’ve written three of four novels and you go back to the first to reread, I can almost promise you’ll see what the agents are seeing. I wrote ten novels before getting published and I am so grateful I never sold my first, second, even third novel. No one could have told me that back when I wrote my first. Ask my husband… by the way, honey, you were right, I was wrong.

Sandra Brannan debuted as an author in 2010 with In the Belly of Jonah, the first installment of her acclaimed Liv Bergen mystery series. The novel was chosen as an Indie Next List Notable by independent bookstores and librarians across the country and went into a second printing just one month after its release.

Sandra’s success in the literary world led to her being named one of the top 25 most fabulous women by Black Hills Magazine. In 2011, the e-book version of In The Belly of Jonahlanded Brannan on the top 100 mysteries list nationally.

The second book in her mystery-thriller series, Lot’s Return to Sodom, released June 1, 2011 and revolves around the legendary Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota. Picking up right where Lot’s left off, Sandra releases Widow’s Might on August 7, 2012. She’ll follow those with Noah’s Rainy Day in 2014.

You can connect with Sandra on twitter and facebook.

Thanks to Marissa DeCuir Curnutte of JKSCommunications - Literary Publicity for making this guest post available.

Review: In Red

Read 7/11/12 - 7/21/12
3.5 - Recommended to readers who don't mind not knowing where the story is taking them
Pgs: 158
Publisher: Archipelago Books

Whoever has been everywhere and has seen everything, last of all should pay a visit to Stitchings. 


That's the first line of Magdalena Tulli's novel, In Red, and it seems innocuous enough at first glance. Go, see the world, do all the things in life you've dreamed of, then come chill with us, but only then - it appears to be saying.

And why, exactly, do you think anyone would say such a thing about their own town? Perhaps they think you won't be terribly impressed. Or the opposite, they know it's the best town you'll ever visit so they want to save it for last? Or maybe, just maybe, that first line is a warning to the weary traveler. Stay away - it implies. Danger - it suggests.

Let's pretend we are that weary traveler. It would appear there are only a few ways into this imaginary polish town - by sleigh if it's winter time, by boat or by train in the spring. None of them appear to be very favorable, as the book warns us that we will fall victim to pickpockets and street urchins at each point.

The town itself seems to change and flicker right before our eyes. There is war, and then there is not war. It is under German possession, and then... it is not. It is an industrial town with prosperous family-owned businesses, and then those businesses are vacant, destroyed. It is winter, and then it is perpetual spring. It is starving and poor, and then it is rich with counterfeit money. It is a town that is, and that is not.

What are those red strings that float in the air. There, do you see it? Make sure one does not land on your shoulder, it appears to bring death to those it touches. Keep your heart beating at all times, it seems that death is not allowed to rest here. Be wary of your neighbors, the crowds on the streets, because they cannot be trusted and may not trust you. Don't try to leave, the schedules for docking and departing are illegible, changeable, they only appear to bring travelers in. They are empty otherwise. If you were to try to leave, something will end up calling you back before you got away, anyway.

This is a book that I've had to let percolate for awhile. I was never one hundred percent certain of what was taking place. Tulli seemed to enjoy toying with me, as a cat with a mouse. Just when I thought I was getting my bearings, she would swat me on the back of the neck and spin me around, and I'd find myself slightly disoriented again.

After reading In Red cover to cover, I still struggled to reconcile that first line. Is it heavy with foreshadowing or have I misread it? Is it a subtle warning to those who might be considering a visit to Stitchings? Is the book what I've made it out to be? Or is Tulli playing with smoke and mirrors? Perhaps you'll just have to trust me. Or maybe, it would be best for you to read it for yourself.

Book Giveaway: Little Century

Since July 2010, TNBBC has been bringing authors and readers together every month to get behind the book! This unique experience wouldn't be possible without the generous donations of the authors and publishers involved.  

I am excited to bring you next month's Author/Reader Discussion!

We'll be reading and discussing 

Little Century with author Anna Keesey

In order to stimulate discussion, 

Farrar, Straus, Giroux have agreed to give away 7 copies 

 US and Canada residents only.

(sorry, international folks!)

Here's the Goodreads description:

In the tradition of such classics as My Ántonia and There Will Be Blood, Anna Keesey’s Little Century is a resonant and moving debut novel by a writer of confident gifts.

Orphaned after the death of her mother, eighteen-year-old Esther Chambers heads west in search of her only living relative. In the lawless frontier town of Century, Oregon, she’s met by her distant cousin, a laconic cattle rancher named Ferris Pickett. Pick leads her to a tiny cabin by a small lake called Half-a-Mind, and there she begins her new life as a homesteader. If she can hold out for five years, the land will join Pick’s already impressive spread.

But Esther discovers that this town on the edge of civilization is in the midst of a range war. There’s plenty of land, but somehow it is not enough for the ranchers—it’s cattle against sheep, with water at a premium. In this charged climate, small incidents of violence swiftly escalate, and Esther finds her sympathies divided between her cousin and a sheepherder named Ben Cruff, a sworn enemy of the cattle ranchers. As her feelings for Ben and for her land grow, she begins to see she can’t be loyal to both.

Little Century maps our country’s cutthroat legacy of dispossession and greed, even as it celebrates the ecstatic visions of what America could become.

This giveaway will run through August 10th. 

Winners will be notified here and via email on August 11th.

Here's how to enter:

1 - Leave a comment stating why you would like to win a copy.

2 - State that you agree to participate in the group read book discussion that will run from September 15th through the end of the month. Anna Keesey has agreed to participate in the discussion and will be available to answer any questions you may have for her. 

 *If you are chosen as a winner, by accepting the copy you are agreeing to read the book and join the group discussion at TNBBC on Goodreads (the thread for the discussion will be emailed to you before the discussion begins). 

 3 - Your comment must have a way to contact you (email is preferred). AND you must be a resident of the US or Canada!!!!

Good luck!!!

Where Writers Write: Amber Scott

Welcome to another installment of TNBBC's Where Writers Write!

Where Writers Write is a weekly series that will feature a different author every Wednesday as they showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where some of TNBBC's favorite authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen.

Attention paranormal romance lovers. Have you met Amber Scott yet? She's a die hard, completely hopeless romantic and author of Wanted: Dead or Alive, Soul Search, and Fierce Dawn, among many others. 

As a happily married mother of two, Amber bangs out the love stories in her head between naptimes and laundry. Though her books will not reverse the signs of aging and cannot shrink your thighs, she does promise that they will take you away from it all. 

Amber is no stranger to TNBBC. We met for the very first time in NYC during the Indie Book Event in 2011, and then she shared her top 3 favorite reads with us here on the blog in December. Today, she shares a story about her muse, Milla, and what it took for them to get a writing routine down: 

Where Amber Scott Writes

If my muse, Milla, had a song to sing, it would be Janet. Miss Jackson if you’re nasty. And she’d sing…“Anytime, anyplace, I don’t care who’s around…”

Milla isn’t a fussy kind of muse. She doesn’t need clean, though I prefer tidy. She doesn’t need atmosphere, though I do love a good coffee next to the keyboard. She doesn’t need silence. In fact a body humming bass thump is excellent by her.

“Let’s do this.” Yeah. As in…NOW!

In the beginning, I had a hard time with a write when and where you can concept. I’m a tidy and scheduled sort of person. I straighten magnets on refrigerators. I color code my plot cards.

I fold underwear.

In the spirit of my organized nature, in those early years, I had created a routine with lots of parameters in place in order to write. My first born would be asleep. Music would be playing softly. My writing tiara would sit high on my head, glinting in the office lamplight. Oh, the hours of quiet space I had.

Then I had baby number two. And routine flew out the window. (Or maybe hid under the sofa due to all that wailing. Mine. Not hers.)

When that routine derailed, I had a really hard time recovering. Having two little ones pushed my writing space and routine to the outer reaching limits and ultimately, my muse and I had to come to terms with the fact that ideas wait for no naptimes.

Milla was handing them over, doing her muse part. I had to figure out a way to get them on paper…er, laptop. The write when you can plan came to life. I assimilated. Fast.

Hard.

Now, my office is my laptop, there is no real routine, and we travel. We hit the café with author friends. We stake a claim on a friend’s sofa. Laptop comes to the doctor appointments, oil changes, all of it. In bed, on the floor, at the airport, a-writing we shall go.

The last thing I ever want to do is ignore my muse. For one, I’ll go nuts. For another, no matter how good they look with her skirt, I never want to be on the receiving end of those steel-toed boots.

Check back with us next week to see where Frank Coles finds his authorly mojo. 

The Audio Series - J. Robert Lennon

Oh yeah, baby! We've cooked up a new feature for the blog.

Our brand new audio series "The Authors Read. We Listen." is an incredibly special one for us. Hatched in a NYC club during BEA week, this feature requires more work of the author than any of the ones that have come before. And that makes it all the more sweeter when you see, or rather, hear them read excerpts from their own novels, in their own voices, the way their stories were meant to be heard.

Kicking off the series is the one, the only, the inspiration behind the whole kit-and-caboodle, J. Robert Lennon! For those of you who don't know, he  is the author of a story collection, Pieces For The Left Hand, and seven novels, including Mailman, Castle, and Familiar. He directs the Creative Writing program at Cornell University

Familiar releases Oct 2, 2012 by Graywolf Press
Photo of J Robert Lennon by Lindsay France

Lennon and I had a great conversation about audio books - more specifically: the Iambik Audio version of his novel Castle and his feelings about hearing someone else narrate his story - at the Graywolf Press booth during BEA that bled over into an after party when we found ourselves face to face again. It's amazing what a little beer and brain-picking can accomplish. 

I'm extremely excited to premiere Lennon reading from his upcoming October release Familiar in this especially-recorded, for-your-ears-only, you-heard-it-here-first excerpt!

Click here to experience Familiar read by J. Robert Lennon.

The word on Familiar:

*A haunting, enigmatic novel about a woman who is given a second chance—and isn’t sure whether she really wants it

Elisa Brown is driving back from her annual, somber visit to her son Silas’s grave when something changes. Actually, everything changes: her body is more voluptuous; she’s wearing different clothes and driving a new car. When she arrives home, her life is familiar—but different. There is her house, her husband. But in the world she now inhabits, Silas is no longer dead, and his brother is disturbingly changed. Elisa has a new job, and her marriage seems sturdier, and stranger, than she remembers. She finds herself faking her way through a life she is convinced is not her own. Has she had a psychotic break? Or has she entered a parallel universe? Elisa believed that Silas was doomed from the start, but now that he is alive, what can she do to repair her strained relations with her children? She soon discovers that these questions hinge on being able to see herself as she really is—something that might be impossible for Elisa, or for anyone. In Familiar, J. Robert Lennon continues his profound and exhilarating exploration of the surreal undercurrents of contemporary American life. 

*lifted from goodreads, with love

Review: I Don't Mind if You're Feeling Alone

Read 7/7/12 - 7/11/12
4 Stars - Strongly Recommended to fans of poems that do not look like poems
Pgs: 121
Publisher: Yes Yes Books

Looking for intense, intimate poetry? Look no further than Thomas Patrick Levy.  His collection - I Don't Mind if You're Feeling Alone -  has it in spades.


What you'll find here is not poetry so much as blasts of concentrated, unfiltered thought, scribbled out seemingly in the moment, words rushing and tripping over each other, competing with each other.  What you'll find is an abundance of corn in a town that doesn't know how to use it all. Corn that infiltrates the very breath and life of a young couple. You'll find a stalker who is so taken with someone that their car, the only thing easily accessible to him, becomes the object of his passion and rage, becoming a near-replacement of their body. You'll find obsessive notes to Scarlett Johansson, written out as if in one big rush of breath, void of all punctuation, that make desperate and crazed pleas to the actress. The Scarlett Johansson letters are by far my favorite. I spoke these out loud to myself, one evening when I was home alone, just to hear the crazy come out.


Levy doesn't make it easy for the reader. Much of what he says is coded and hidden behind other words, spoken in riddles that dance across the page. Or, at least, that's how it felt to me. After I stopped trying to make it all make sense and just let the words wash over me, I discovered that his language speaks more clearly to the heart than the head. 


Some of the lines within his poems really zinged me. You know the feeling... when you read a line and immediately the goosebumps grow on your arms, and you get that electric feeling through you? Lines that speak to some unfamiliar part of you? Like:

"I want to keep this warmth in small jars"
"In the night I want to hold the shape of your toes"
"We are a parking lot of ruined insides"
"Everything is a drained battery or your heavy cheeks or a pair of boots"
"Like a puddle I come together around your toes"


I think Levy's collection is one to simply be read. Don't fight to understand it. Speak the lines out loud and let their meanings come to you on their own. Poetry is only scary if you make it that way. It's truly beautiful and heart wrenching stuff, when you let it talk to you...

Where Writers Write: Greg Olear

Welcome to another installment of TNBBC's Where Writers Write!

Where Writers Write is a weekly series that will feature a different author every Wednesday as they showcase their writing spaces using short form essay, photos, and/or video. As a lover of books and all of the hard work that goes into creating them, I thought it would be fun to see where some of TNBBC's favorite authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen.

This is Greg Olear. He is The Nervous Breakdown’s senior editor and the author of the novels Totally Killer (Harper, 2009) and Fathermucker(Harper, 2011). He teaches fiction writing at Manhattanville College. And he recently birthed The Weeklings, a website that boasts a single post a day, every day. 

Greg is certainly no stranger to TNBBC. When I was fairly new to this blogging thing, there was this interview. And of course the reviews for Totally Killer and Fathermucker. Then there was this awesome post where he cast my chart. And finally, our bloggish buddy-dom came to a head when we met face to face for the first time at his KGB reading in NYC. (Poor Greg had to deal with my typical New York City nervousness with the subway system).

Today, he visits us once again and shows us where he finds his writing mojo:

Where Greg Olear Writes

I write in a variety of places. My desk is where I crank out most of the essays I’ve done for The Weeklings, my new blog project.

When I work on my fiction, I like to go someplace with fewer distractions and free air conditioning. University libraries are ideal, especially in the morning, especially in the summer. You know how many college students are at the library at 9 am on a random morning in July? None. It’s just me and the guy changing the lightbulbs.

Also, there are bathrooms, and bathrooms mean graffiti. I love graffiti. Not the graffiti that defaces subway cars and houses—that’s odious—but the bons mots stressed-out students write in ballpoint pen on library desks and bathroom stalls. That sort of graffiti is just as full of life and energy and pain and longing and heartbreak that any of the books on the racks.

   Check back next week to see where Amber Scott gets her writing done!

Indie Spotlight: J.R. Wagner

While TNBBC focuses intently on small press and self-published literary fiction, we enjoy hearing from authors of all genres when it comes to the writing process. 

In today's spotlight, J.R. Wagner, author of the not-yet-released YA series The Never Chronicles, outlines the importance of developing your characters, no matter how small or insignificant they may be to the overall story line. I don't know about you, but I get all kinds of confused when I'm reading a sci-fi/fantasy novel that features a cast of umpteen million characters. Unless the book has a character guide or the author creates unique and memorable back stories for each one, I know I'll never be able to keep them all straight. 

Wagner takes a moment here to discuss fate vs. coincidence, why he despises stock characters, and how he rescues his own characters from becoming "extras"....

Getting into character 

In my soon-to-be released novel, Exiled, characters are not in short supply. As a writer, it can be difficult to get into the mind of each character as you are writing them.  My first question when writing a new character is not what they look like or how they talk as some would think.  I want to know the character’s back-story.  Every character I’ve ever written has an interesting back-story.  The main characters usually have a history that somehow intertwines with the other main characters or, at the very least, the plot. 

Why is this important? In my middle school writing class, I was told about ‘stock characters’ –those characters that have no relevance or influence in the overall progression of the plot. They talk in one-liners, they have no depth and they generally get in the way. I likened them to the Storm Troopers from George Lucas’s Star Wars.  I despise stock characters.  Everybody has a story.  Nobody should be just an ‘extra’.

The ‘extras’ in my story all have rich back-stories that may come into play in the future. Think about it, each person you interact with has, either intentionally or unintentionally shaped or shifted your life in one way or another.  That man who stepped out in front of you as you exited the subway the other day causing you to spill your coffee all over the baby stroller (fortunately empty) resulted in you being late for work.  Who was that guy? Was it intentional?  Fate? Chance? Coincidence? Let your imagination decide. 

My imagination tends to stray away from coincidence and toward intent.  To do that, I must know why that particular character has decided to step in front of you at just the precise moment your $7 coffee was off balance. He knows you or knows of you but you don’t know him. How can that be? You’re important; you just don’t know it yet. He, this coffee-spilling instigator, knows that each event in your life will impact the next and eventually lead to THE event.  The one you aren’t aware is coming yet. He’s been assigned to watch over you, not to interfere. As a result of his seemingly benign actions, this man you don’t even know and couldn’t even describe will be punished.

Things don’t just happen. Events lead up to THE event regardless of how insignificant THE event is.  The question becomes, why as this character chosen this path?  Is it because of something in his or her past? Someone in his or her present?  When you look at the face of a man –look at his eyes, the wrinkles around them, the hollowness of his pupils, the redness of his lids, you can see a story there…a back-story. The very way in which he carries himself –upright, slouched, slumped, can convey the burden that is his life story.

Every person has an interesting story inside them. Some life event that is out of the ordinary.  A great exercise in socialization, observation and mere intrigue is to find that story in a complete stranger. Go ahead. Sit next to the lady at the bus station whose single focus is wrapping that ugly pink yarn around her knitting needles and talk to her.  Dig. Find her story.  More than likely, you’ll be intrigued…and these are realpeople.  Imagine what you can do for someone whose only existence depends upon the perpetuity of your own mind. 

Imagine what that depth can do for a story. The readers begin to question. They question the character’s motivation for his or her actions.  They question his or her intent and most importantly, THEY’RE QUESTIONING.  They care enough about this character to give them more than a peripheral glance.  If they know you, if they’re familiar with your writing style, they’ll quickly learn that every character is more than they appear and in the backs of their minds, they’ll wonder what role they have yet to play or have already played that’s resulted in the present situation. 

From the woman behind the counter serving tea with a hint of lavender to the boy outside sweeping the snow from the cobblestone street with his painfully inefficient broom that drops bristles in its path, give them depth. Give them history.  Know why she nods knowingly at your protagonist and continues about her work. The readers may never need to know but, in order to create that web of events that each impact the next (otherwise known as reality), I believe this is essential.

Bio: J. R. Wagner was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania during a blizzard. A competitive cyclist, triathlete, mountain biker and adventure racer, he once received a medal for saving a woman’s life during the kayaking section of an adventure race. And the adventure is hard to miss in his debut novel Exiled (Live Oak Book Group, June 5, 2012), the first book in J.R.’s young adult fantasy series The Never Chronicles. He’s got a day job to keep him “grounded”; J.R. helps run his late father’s Downingtown, Pennsylvania floor-covering business.

J.R. first started writing at 10 years old with his sequel to “Return of The Jedi” – the self-proclaimed “Star Wars geek” had lofty aspirations of working with George Lucas on filming the project. In 1990 he began filming his version of “The Lord of The Rings” in his parent’s basement, but the plug was pulled after he nearly burned down the house. Since then the storyteller has also written a full-length science fiction screenplay, a thriller novel and a second screenplay.

After graduating in Kinesiology from Arizona State University, J.R. returned to Downingtown, where his creative fires were re-stoked by his two beautiful daughters. J.R. also endearingly considers his wife Lisa his muse. It was during their trip to Maine he began writing Exiled.