The Geek's Guide Read-A-Long - Part 2

If you were around yesterday, you might have noticed that Drew, from Raging Biblioholism, and I kicked off our The Geek's Guide to Dating read-a-long review. Part 1 debuted here and covered our initial reactions to the book.

Today, on Drew's blog, he shares our thoughts on Part 2, Chapter 2 - new technologies and falling in love online. 

Be sure to check back here tomorrow at 10am for Part 3!! 

Where Writers Write: Snowden Wright

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 the authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen. 

This is Snowden Wright. 

Snowden’s first novel, Play Pretty Blues, was recently published by Engine Books. He has written for The Atlantic, Salon, Esquire, and the New York Daily News. Author of the e-book How to Get the Crabs, Wright can be found online at snowdenwright.com.

Where Snowden Wright Writes

Sometimes for a writer it’s helpful to be watched, by one’s subject, by one’s influences, and, most importantly, by time.

I work for one hour every morning. On the top shelf above my desk, glaring down at me, is a framed portrait of Robert Johnson, the subject of my first novel, Play Pretty Blues. It’s situated between and above books that either inspired or influenced me while writing this one: Shirley Hazzard’s The Bay of Noon, E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime, Anne Michaels’ Fugitive Pieces, Nancy Lemann’s The Ritz on the Bayou. Also on the top shelf is an hourglass. Although I don’t actually flip it each morning to measure out my one hour, it’s helpful in a symbolic way, reminding me not to quit after, say, 45 minutes.

The chair is from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. While I was an MFA student there, the school replaced the chairs in the classrooms and let students, if they wanted, take home the old ones. It’s fun to imagine which alumni of the program might have sat in it over the years. Richard Price might have been in that chair when he got his first workshop critique.

On the wall behind my computer is a small picture of one of my favorite writers. In it a teenaged Walker Percy, author of The Moviegoer, waits in line to see a movie. He’s the one with his leg kind of jutting out. Sometimes it looks like he might be whistling. His stance gives off just the slightest hint of a punk that I think many future geniuses must have had when young.

My writing space pervades the rest of my apartment in the form of posters for movies based on my favorite books. Here’s one for the little-seen film adaptation of John Updike’s Rabbit, Run. It’s in front of my couch on the wall behind my TV. I can see it every time I watch a movie or unwind at night after work with a drink. 

“Sure, go ahead and turn on Netflix Instant. Go ahead and pour yourself a Scotch,” it seems to say. “But remember, tomorrow morning you damn well better be back at that desk for an hour.”

He Says/She Says: The Geek's Guide to Dating (Part 1)

Read 11/4/13 -11/12/13

5 Stars - Highly Recommended / The Next Best Book

Pages: 208

Publisher: Quirk Books

Released: Now

Reviewed by both TNBBC and Drew Broussard

When Lori and Drew both ended up with copies of The Geek’s Guide to Dating, a brilliantly insane idea struck.  While they both love books and are self-professed geeks, their lives are otherwise almost diametrically opposed:  Boy vs girl – check. Young twenty-something vs late thirty-something – check. Recently single vs long time couple – check. No kids vs kids – check.  

And so a read-along was proposed, with a running email conversation, as they delved into one man’s guide to love in the time of geek.

In this installment, Chapter 1 – discovering and naming your inner geek, talking tech, and the TMI begins…

TNBBC: First thing I want to know is what kind of geek are you?  I’m torn between Social Media Geek and Book Geek. Can I be two geeks at the same time or must I choose just one before I continue?

RB: I, too, am a little torn on the which-geek-am-I front, between Book Geek and History & Politics Geek.  I'd say I lean more towards Book Geek - I diverged from the path of the politician many moons ago - but it's always tough to be split between two.  But it's real life, so why not split the difference?  I say pick your power-ups and run with it - or does this mean that neither of us are True Geeks, for we have not specialized?  

TNBBC: Our inability to decide which geek we are may not be such a bad thing, now that I think of it. Does our flexibility and movement between geekiness that mean that we’re more likely to find a compatible mate? I mean, I’ve been married for 15 years, my hubby’s a sports and First Person Shooter gamer all the way, but he’s doesn’t fit the Gamer Geek mold at all. As for me, I’ve always been a Book Geek but only really grew my Social Media Geek wings over the past 5 years or so. I think it’s totally possible, and most likely more healthy, to mix and match your geekinesses.

 And now this has me wondering, do true ‘Geek opposites’ attract? I mean, a guy and a grrrl that fit one particular geek type only.  I think the answer to that is yes. The fiery flames probably burn hard and fast when geeks of the same type hook up. Cause, I mean, how many times can you talk JUST games, or JUST books, or JUST science before you both want to run screaming towards the hills? Yes?

RB: I think you're spot on about the better compatibility when one is a bit more flexible with their geekiness - and that sometimes people aren't exactly the geeks they might seem to be at first.  Of course, that's the fun of it, right?  Discovering the reality beyond the initial interaction? 

I've definitely had some of those burn-hot-and-fast relationships.  To add a geek type not included here, I went to school with a bunch of theater geeks (was arguably one myself, although I'd still rank Book and PoliSci over it) and if ever there was a place for burn-hot-and-fast, same-geek relationships... it's in a theater.  

I was a little nervous at first when I realized it was a dude-based book - years of sensitivity training at the hands of my sister and my close female friends, I suppose - but I really liked the way he addressed it and sort of said "this is still for you girls! just in a different way!" without it being sexist or condescending or anything.  Because I know plenty of Geek Grrrls who, already, would love this book but who will undoubtedly ask "but isn't it for guys?"   How did you react to that realization?

TNBBC: I think I’m going to dig the whole ‘Geek Grrrl getting insight into the dating geek mind’ thing. Though some of the references are over my head – like Hal Jordan and Parallax? And MMO? And NPC?

RB: I'm doing pretty well on the reference front (nerd knowledge: Hal Jordan was the first human Green Lantern, Parallax was a baddie who he became for a while, NPC is non-player-character... MMO I think is massively multiplayer online?  )  although there've been times where I've paused and had to search the mental rolodex. Example: I'm reading along and Ceti Alpha V sounds SUPER familiar, why does it sound so familiar, can't place it, uhhhhhhh let me just google it.  And then, oh, right, it's the planet they marooned Khan on in Star Trek.  And I am ashamed to've forgotten.  

TNBBC:Thanks for the definitions, by the way. While not distracting enough to pull me out of the content of his book, some of those references are just so far beyond my reach. I didn’t even think about googling it. I turned to my 10 year old son instead. I have a feeling much of the book is going to cause me to stop and scratch my head when the gamer and comics word-plays get chucked at us. Then again, I may surprise myself. I seem to have absorbed quite a bit of odd-gamer-and-superhero-knowledge over the years…

 I have high hopes for this book. It’s definitely sucked me right in from the start.

RB: I'm curious what you think about this online dating stuff.  You've been married for 15 years (which, awesome, by the way) so I'm guessing you probably look at online dating with about as much confusion as I do.  I mean, I went on a couple of dates with a girl who I met on Tumblr - which was a huge and terrifying proposition for both of us and our friends, who were all thinking one or both of us was gonna get murdered - but beyond that... My friends, when I split up with my girlfriend a couple of weeks ago, encouraged me to download Tinder (which is basically Hot-or-Not turned into an app) and it just felt kind of horrifying.  Addictive and so very 21st-Century... but I deleted it within days.  And so many friends talk about how online dating is de rigueur now, but I just can't get behind it.  Not saying I'm not going to Facebook-stalk a potential date, but I'm also not really interested in not meeting someone in person.  Call it the hopeless romantic in me, I suppose.

 All this said... I love the tips and tricks of this chapter, both for online and for IRL.  I honestly didn't think I'd be necessarily learning too much but I think it's Eric's really open tone that's making the book far more accessible than it could've been. He made a reference to how buying a girl a drink is super chivalrous but also potentially sends off weird signals - and I've never really thought about that flipside of it.  Again, too stuck in the chivalry bit.  And as a terribly shy individual (I just mask it really well), it's never bad to hear more tips on how to talk to somebody... 

TNBBC:I did have some initial reactions to the online dating that Eric was referring to. Any guy I’ve ever dated was someone I knew through friends or school or work. I never did the online dating thing, and 20 years ago, I don’t even think that was a thing. The internet was barely born back in the mid-nineties (oh my god am I aging myself?!?!) WebTV and online chat rooms were just really getting going and they were goofy and not completely serious. I count my lucky stars sometimes that my husband and I met young and stuck it out for the long haul.

 Now, believe it or not, my dad met and married two women over the years via online chat rooms, which completely blows my mind. The man could barely punch in a website address or log into his email account when he first started using the computer and yet he’s falling in love online! Hell, if he can do it… right?

 I just find the whole thing kind of terrifying, to be honest. Online stalking jokes aside, you can learn too much too easily about people online, not to mention how EASILY ACCESSIBLE everyone is. Create a second email account, use social media sites, delete your sexts as soon as you send and receive them, and voila, you’ve got a girlfriend on the side that your wife will never know about. Online EVERYTHING has forced today’s couples to be 100% more trusting and forgiving than ever before.

 Why do I feel like I am sharing way too much right now???

Check back tomorrow, on Drew's blog - Raging Bibiloholism, for Part 2: Chapter 2 – new technologies and falling in love online.


Drew Broussard reads, a lot. When not doing that, he's writing stories or playing music or acting or producing or coming up with other ways to make trouble.  He also has a day job at The Public Theater in New York City.

Eat Like An Author: Courtney Elizabeth Mauk

When most people get bored, they eat. When I get bored, I brainstorm new series and features for the blog, and THEN eat. And not too long ago, as I was brainstorming and contemplating what I wanted to eat, I thought how cool it would be to have a mini-foodie series where authors share the things they like to eat. Photos and recipes and all. And so I asked them, and amazingly they responded, and I dubbed it EAT LIKE AN AUTHOR. 


Last week, Caleb J Ross gave up a peek into the least distracting meal ever. 

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This week, Courtney Elizabeth Mauk shares a cool vegan recipe:

Vegan Secret Ingredient Chocolate Chip Cookies

I love baking, and teaching writing workshops out of my apartment means having a steady stream of people to bake for. These cookies are based on a favorite recipe, the “secret ingredient” a product of poor planning.

A little background first:

All my baking gets done with my prized possession, a purple KitchenAid mixer. It’s been a long-standing tradition in my family to give KitchenAids as wedding presents; I got mine when I graduated from my MFA program. I’m not sure if that means they’d given up on me marrying (I didn’t meet my husband until three years later), or if I “married” my writing. Either way, I got my mixer.

 

I’ve been vegan for six years. I could go on and on about my reasons, but I’ll just say that it’s an ethical and deeply personal choice and leave it at that. In my second novel, Orion’s Daughters (Engine Books, May 2014), the characters, members of a commune, are vegan. I do a lot of twisting and exaggerating and perverting and a little bit of mocking of their belief system, but being vegan is central to who I am.

Non-vegans often express concern/fear/disbelief about vegan baked goods, but the truth is that baking without animal products and making it taste good is really, really easy. So even (especially) if you aren’t vegan, you should give these a try. Maybe a whole new world of compassionate eating will open up to you…

Vegan Secret Ingredient Chocolate Chip Cookies

(adapted from The Joy of Vegan Bakingby Colleen Patrick-Goudreau)

4 ½ teaspoons Ener-G Egg Replacer (A vegan baker’s best friend; available at Whole Foods and other such places)

6 tablespoons water

These combined are the equivalent of 3 eggs. You could probably use a “flax egg,” too (1 tablespoon of flaxmeal plus 3 tablespoons of water equals 1 egg), but I haven’t tried it.

1 cup vegan butter (I use EarthBalance sticks)

¾ cup granulated sugar

¾ cup firmly packed brown sugar

4 plus teaspoons vanilla

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

3 tablespoons chickpea flour (the secret!)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

12 oz. package of nondairy semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Whisk Ener-G Egg Replacer and water until thick and creamy and egg-like. Set aside.

Cream the butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla. Add egg replacer mixture and thoroughly combine.

In a separate bowl combine flours, baking soda, and salt. Add to wet mixture and blend. Stir in chocolate chips.

DO NOT TASTE THE DOUGH. I’m sorry, I know that’s the best part of making cookies, but trust me: chickpea flour makes the dough taste icky but the cookies taste awesome. You just have to be patient.

Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a baking sheet. Bake 10 minutes.

Makes about 2 dozen cookies.

The chickpea flour is what happens when you realize you don’t have enough conventional flour mid-process. It’s a happy accident. Chickpea flour makes the cookies slightly chewy and adds a flavor that I think of as butterscotch and my students have compared to peanut butter. It also boots the protein level. You can add more or less chickpea flour for texture and taste.

Baker’s tip: drink a glass of sangria while working. Good for writing, too. 

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Courtney Elizabeth Mauk's second novel, Orion's Daughters, will be published by Engine Books in May. She is the author of Spark (Engine Books, 2012) and an assistant editor at Barrelhouse. Her work has appeared in The Literary Review, PANK, Wigleaf, and Five Chapters, among other venues. She lives in Manhattan, where she teaches at the Sackett Street Writers' Workshop and Juilliard. More information can be found at www.courtneymauk.com

The Audio Series: Claudia Smith Chen

Our 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.


This week, Claudia Smith Chen reads an excerpt from her new collection of short stories Quarry Light, which is now available from Magic Helicopter Press. Her fiction has  appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, including Norton's The New Sudden Fiction: Short Short Stories From America And Beyond, Lone Star Noir, The Mississippi Review online, New World Writing, Failbetter, Sou'wester, Night Train, and others,  Her flash fiction collection The Sky Is A Well And Other Shorts was reprinted in Rose Metal Press's book A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness; Her second collection of flashes, Put Your Head In My Lap, is available from Future Tense Books.  

Click on the soundcloud file below to experience Quarry Light as read by Claudia Smith Chen:

The word on Quarry Light:

Girls sleep on the balcony overlooking the water. Men wait by the bonfire, green bottles in the sand, coral necklaces. A rat scratches behind the walls a father has painted and left. A man sends his daughter a friend request. A woman thinks her heart should be beating fast, but it isn’t. A man draws a woman pictures she doesn’t want, of her hair wound around her neck. She sleeps in a closet with the dog she found on the porch.

In the stories of Claudia Smith’s debut collection Quarry Light, women search for life after darkness and breath after violence. They listen to the song with the line about the cat in the dark. Their mother swims in quarry water the coolest, deepest green they have ever seen.

"Claudia Smith's QUARRY LIGHT is a remarkable collection rife with strange doings, comings and goings, beings of the sort uncommonly troubled and beautiful, in equal measures. The writing is elegant, sharp, sublime. The stories are frightening and heartbreaking. One doesn't want to mention names, but she brings to mind other sorely missed southern women writers whose remarkable work we all still read with awe."--Frederick Barthelme
*lifted with love from goodreads

Giano Cromley's Guide to Books & Booze

Time to grab a book and get tipsy!

Back by popular demand, Books & Booze, originally a mini-series of sorts here on TNBBC challenges participating authors to make up their own drinks, name and all, or create a drink list for their characters and/or readers using drinks that already exist. 

Today, Giano Cromley discusses his fifteen year old protagonist's first experiences with alcohol:

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            When you're fifteen, alcohol is a precious commodity. Acquiring it can involve processes as laborious as gleaning crude oil from a bunch of sticky black sand. Because of this, Kirby Russo can't afford to be choosy when it comes to his drinks -- which he stubbornly refers to as cocktails, though they bear little relation to the artisanal, small-batch concoctions that are so much the norm these days.

            Kirby consumes his first drink in Chapter 1, shortly after returning home and finding the house empty -- a perfect excuse to relax after a week spent surviving the lawless Thunderdome that was computer camp. Upon opening his parents' liquor cabinet, Kirby notes that the trick is to find the bottle that's most nearly half-full, which makes it harder to notice when some is missing. On this particular day, Kirby selects a bottle of Black Velvet. Does he like the taste and character of this liquor? Probably not. It's just the one that's least likely to get him busted. Since Kirby is fifteen (and what fifteen year old really likes the taste of whiskey?) he adds a generous amount of ice and a splash of orange juice to cut it. If you were being generous, you might call this drink A Poor Man's Whiskey Sour. This is the beverage he's consuming when he finds out that his life has been completely upended.

            The Poor Man's Whiskey Sour works well when you're stealing liquor in small quantities, for those times when you're being a fifteen-year-old epicure. But there are times when you need to get your hands on a large amount of booze and you can't be picky. The second drink in The Last Good Halloween owes a major debt to one of those old soda pops we used to order when we were kids which we called a Suicide -- basically a squirt of every type of soda mixed together. Kirby, on the eve of an epic road trip which aims to restore his tattered family, combines a small amount of every liquor in his mom's liquor cabinet into a Mr. Pibb bottle. The resulting mixture is more medicinal than enjoyable. In good conscience I can't recommend this drink except under the most dire circumstances. As it turns out, this beverage turns out to be just the tonic Kirby needs, as it helps him stave off a panic attack just before he confronts his missing stepfather.

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Giano Cromley was born in Billings, Montana. The Last Good Halloween is his first novel. His writing has appeared in The Threepenny Review, Literal Latte, and The Bygone Bureau, among others. He is a recipient of an Artists Fellowship from the Illinois Arts Council. He teaches English at Kennedy-King College and lives on Chicago's South Side with his wife and two dogs.

Wayne Franklin's Would You Rather

Bored with the same old fashioned author interviews you see all around the blogosphere? Well, TNBBC's newest series is a fun, new, literary spin on the ole Would You Rather game. Get to know the authors we love to read in ways no other interviewer has. I've asked them to pick sides against the same 20 odd bookish scenarios. And just to spice it up a bit, each author gets to ask their own Would You Rather question to the author who appears after them....

Wayne Franklin's 

Would You Rather

Would you rather write an entire book with your feet or with your tongue?

I should say “my feet,” because my tongue tends to get me in more trouble. However, it’s exactly that quality about my tongue that will likely lead to better stories. Plus, the lack of opposable thumbs on my feet is a touchy subject for me.

Would you rather have one giant bestseller or a long string of moderate sellers?

Fortunately, I have a day job that I love: a producer, director and editor of commercials and documentary films. That means I’m not really focused on how many copies my books will sell, but how many people will be entertained by reading them. If I must choose, I’ll go with the long string … because I could use it as garland at Christmas, assuming the string is strong enough.

Would you rather be a well known author now or be considered a literary genius after you’re dead?

I published my first novel this year at 43. As a result, the second option is looking more likely than the first.

Would you rather write a book without using conjunctions or have every sentence of your book begin with one?

And what’s wrong with beginning a sentence with a conjunction? Or a question, for that matter?

Would you rather have every word of your favorite novel tattooed on your skin or always playing as an audio in the background for the rest of your life?

I have to go with the audio. As a father who works from home, I’ve become adept at tuning things out. Plus, the tattoo might get in the way of the map to Dry Land currently tattooed on my back. (Nothing brings the house down like outdated references to Costner in Waterworld.)

Would you rather write a book you truly believe in and have no one read it or write a crappy book that comprises everything you believe in and have it become an overnight success?

I have to go with the former, which might explain some things about my current career trajectory.

Would you rather write a plot twist you hated or write a character you hated?

A hated character can always be redeemed, but a heinous plot twist can never be untwisted.

Would you rather use your skin as paper or your blood as ink?

Blood as ink. In fact, I’m surprised the NSA isn’t requiring us all to do this, so our books will be indelibly marked with our DNA.

Would you rather become a character in your novel or have your characters escape the page and reenact the novel in real life?

I would much rather be a character in my novel. That world is much more fun and magical than our own.

Would you rather write without using punctuation and capitalization or without using words that contained the letter E?

I’ll have to go with the lack of punctuation. By the way, this question would have created a serious existential crisis for E.E. Cummings.

Would you rather have schools teach your book or ban your book?

Ban it! Bans are much better for marketing.

Would you rather be forced to listen to Ayn Rand bloviate for an hour or be hit on by an angry Dylan Thomas?

Is suicide an option? If I must choose, I’ll go with Thomas. An angry, drunken Welshman is far more preferable than listening to Rand recount the talking points of every neo-con on my Facebook newsfeed.

Would you rather be reduced to speaking only in haiku or be capable of only writing in haiku?

The temptation to answer

This one in haiku

Overwhelms my need to write

Would you rather be stuck on an island with only the 50 Shades Series or a series in a language you couldn’t read?

50 Shades. I could never use the other as fire starters or toilet paper without worrying it might be a classic.

Would you rather critics rip your book apart publically or never talk about it at all?

Coming from the advertising world, I have to go back to the old adage of “any publicity is good publicity.” Plus, it’s far better to boldly try and fail than to never try at all.

Would you rather have everything you think automatically appear on your Twitter feed or have a voice in your head narrate your every move?

Should I be worried that both of these are already true of my life? No, seriously, should I?

Would you rather give up your computer or pens and paper?

This one’s too easy. Pens and paper are only tools for creation. The computer not only serves as a writing tool, but is also my primary means of communications, a treasure trove of research and my window to the world when I’m locked in my windowless basement for 16-18 hours at a time. (No, I am not in prison. However, with the name Wayne, it’s only a matter of time.) Plus, thanks to lack of practice, my penmanship has become illegible even to me.

Would you rather write an entire novel standing on your tippy-toes or laying down flat on your back?

It depends. Am I writing a mystery or a steamy romance?

Would you rather read naked in front of a packed room or have no one show up to your reading?

Doing the former would result in the latter.

Would you rather read a book that is written poorly but has an excellent story, or read one with weak content but is written well? 

This is tricky. I’m a fan of wordplay, but I’m also a lover of strong narrative. Ultimately, a good story will linger longer with me than good style, and story affects people more deeply. I have to go with content.

And here's Wayne's response to Caleb J Ross's question from last week: 

Would you rather get drunk in a dive bar with J.K Rowling or attend a church service with Chuck Palahniuk?

 I'm not sure getting drunk with Jo would be wise, as I'm not entirely certain all those spells and potions are fictional. However, I think Chuck would dig my church. Better yet, I'd invite Chuck to meet me and my pastor in a bar. (My pastor always picks up the tab.)

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Check back next week to see how MP Johnson answer's Wayne's question:

 Would you rather be forced to kill off your favorite character or to make your least favorite character your protagonist?

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Wayne Franklin grew up in the suburbs of Mobile, Alabama, the son of a mechanic from rural Escambia County and an office manager from Fairhope – the inspiration for Decent Chance. Despite this undeniably Southern background and the fact that he is the creator of the blog real-southern.com, Wayne still has no discernible accent. 

A career commercial director and editor, Wayne co-founded the Sidewalk Film Festival in Birmingham and is the co-producer/director of the award-winning documentary Duke & The King. He is currently co-directing a new music documentary about legendary Newgrass pioneer Sam Bush and writing Midway Mouse, the sequel to Midlife Mouse.

When not writing, blogging, producing, directing or editing, Wayne does his best to not fail miserably as a husband and father to his wife and two kids.

Where Writers Write: B J Hollars

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 the authors roll up their sleeves and make the magic happen. 

This is B J Hollars. 

He is the author of Thirteen Loops: Race, Violence and the Last Lynching in America—the winner of the 2012 Society of Midland Authors Award—and Opening the Doors: The Desegregation of the University of Alabama and the Fight for Civil Rights in Tuscaloosa, as well as collection of stories, Sightings.  He teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

Where B J Hollars Writes

This is where I used to write, back before I took Truman Capote’s lead and took to the bed, instead.  I imagine Capote being a lot better at it—rarely spilling coffee on his crotch or getting his legs tangled up in the sheets.  Me, I’m not so good at it, at least not yet. 

But after my son was born, writing in bed became a necessity.  It was a means of survival, mainly because it was the quietest place in the house.  For the first year of my son’s life, I used headband style earmuffs to block out the noise, which meant that while the rest of the world bobbed heads with Dr. Dre’s Beats pressed to their ears, I always looked like I was on my way to the firing range.  In truth, I might’ve had better luck writing there.  Still, the earmuffs worked for a while, at least until my son’s high-pitched wails hit the frequency that allowed him to penetrate the technology that kept deer hunters from going deaf.  Rest assured, while wearing those earmuffs, you can fire off a 12-gauge shotgun a foot from your head and be fine; just don’t stand too close to a four-month old.

And this is where I reallyused to write, back when I was in grad school.  Note the same desk, the same lamp, even the same brick.  The computer has changed, of course, as have the knickknacks.  While the old writing space was littered with a radio, a notebook, an index cardholder, and a framed postcard, all of those things are gone now.  They’ve been replaced with what you see in the first photo: a mug full of pens, a couple of books, and a Joe Namath bobble head.  But just to the left of Namath you’ll see a new knickknack: a framed photograph of my son and me lying on the living room floor.  The photo (complete with finger-painted border) was a gift I’d received for my first Father’s Day in 2012.  It reveals a young boy who used to be me with an arm around an even younger boy that used to be him.  But we are not those people now.  Back then, he was just some four-month old with a banshee scream who could pop the earmuffs from your head.  And I was just some punk dumb enough to think there was actually a need for those earmuffs.

We’re both a year older now, and I, a little wiser.  Or at least wise enough to know that the earmuffs were a mistake.  I should’ve known better than to try to write through his first months, back when those banshee screams were still music to my ears.  I wish someone would’ve told me that the work would wait, but the diaper wouldn’t, that words wouldn’t abandon me just because I pushed a swing. 

I admit that for a while there I feared fatherhood would be the end of everything.  That it would consume me, kill the writing, reduce life to toy trains and talcum powder.  But that’s not how it turned out.  Fatherhood’s had the opposite effect on my writing, mainly by giving me someone to write for.

A year from now, this desk will still be here, and so will that picture of us on the living room floor.  Probably, Joe Namath will still be there, too, bobbing his head like he’s blaring music from Dr. Dre’s Beats.  My loyal crew of lamp and brick will remain as well, though the knickknacks won’t save this desk from its fate.  Within a few months time, this desk is destined to become a finger painting station. And that’ll be fine, too. 

I’ll just take once more to the bed, curl up with my coffee, and then, abruptly spill it all over my crotch.  

Eat Like an Author: Caleb J Ross

When most people get bored, they eat. When I get bored, I brainstorm new series and features for the blog, and THEN eat. And not too long ago, as I was brainstorming and contemplating what I wanted to eat, I thought how cool it would be to have a mini-foodie series where authors share the things they like to eat. Photos and recipes and all. And so I asked them, and amazingly they responded, and I dubbed it EAT LIKE AN AUTHOR. 


Last week, Les Plesko shared his current fascination with veggies in a can. 

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Today, Caleb J Ross shares a meal that is perfect for writing without distracting...

Aunt Caleb’s Author Surprise

If I had every day my way I’d start each writing session with a cigar and a Scotch. Though that’s not technically a meal, and it does present a false image of me as a pompous, tweed-elbowed cretin, it does reflect just the sort of simple, limited collection of imbibables I desire.

The truth is I don’t generally eat when I am writing. All the chewing, hand wiping, mouthfeel sensations, it all distracts. I am very easily distracted. In fact, I’ve already vacuumed my office twice and snipped eight nose hairs since starting this paragraph. And now I’m wondering, if I could let eight nose hairs go undetected for who-knows-how-long, how many more might there be?

Nutritional value aside, fuel is fuel, whether for the body or the mind. Below is my secret family recipe for a dish so good even Paula Deen would…I don’t know…something about racism.

Aunt Caleb’s Author Surprise

1 Cigar (Kuba Maduro, Drew Estate)

1 cigar punch

1 Highball cup, glass

2-3 ice cubes, small

2oz Scotch (Caol Ila or Laphroaig)

Method

1.       Add ice cubes to highball.

2.       Pour Scotch over ice.

3.       Drink vigorously for 25-35 minutes.

4.       Next, turn your attention to the cigar. Use cigar punch to remove pencil-sized plug from end of cigar. Important: do not use a cigar cutter. The large ring gauge of the Kuba Maduro complicates the wrapper integrity and may result in leafy residue on the lips and teeth.

5.       Light end of cigar with whatever the hell flame you have handy. Some chefs will insist on matches or butane torches only. Those chefs are weirdoes.

6.       Write masterpiece.

Serves one.

Aunt Caleb’s Author Surprise is not only a writer’s meal. Readers can enjoy as well. Perhaps while reading Caleb’s eugenics and homing pigeon novel, Stranger Will. Don’t forget dessert: drink another glass of Scotch and read Caleb’s The Metamorphosis-meets-a-home-appliance-factory-line novella, As a Machine and Parts.

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Caleb J Ross's fiction and nonfiction has appeared widely, both online and in print. He is the author ofCharactered Pieces: stories, Stranger Will: a novel, I Didn’t Mean to Be Kevin: a novel, Murmurs: Gathered Stories Vol. One, and As a Machine and Parts. He is an editor at Outsider Writers Collective and moderates The Velvet Podcast, which gathers writers for round table discussions on literature. 

The Audio Series: Nancy Spiller

Our 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.


This week, Nancy Spiller reads an excerpt from her memoir Compromise Cake: Lessons Learned from My Mother's Recipe Box (Counterpoint/November 2013). It's a thought-provoking holiday read that makes you hungry for your childhood. Nancy is a writer and artist living in Los Angeles. A fourth generation Californian and native of the San Francisco Bay Area, she was a staff writer at the San Jose Mercury News and Los Angeles Herald Examiner and editor at the Los Angeles Times Syndicate. Her articles and essays have appeared in numerous publications, including the Los Angeles Times, Salon.com, Cooking Light, and Town & Country. She is the also the author of the novel, Entertaining Disasters: A Novel (With Recipes), and teaches in the UCLA Extension Writers' Program.

Click the soundcloud bar below to experience Compromise Cake: Lessons learned from my mother's recipe box, as read by author Nancy Spiller:




The word on Compromise Cake: Lessons learned from my mother's recipes box:

When Nancy Spiller discovered her late mother’s teaching credential buried in the midst of a long abandoned recipe box, she felt compelled to investigate the lingering mysteries of this troubled woman. Marguerite Lenore Soult had taught for only one year before marrying, having four children and a life surrendered to mental illness, divorce and social withdrawal. Spiller realized that she had probably been her mother’s best and only student in the kitchen they had shared.

Compromise Cake explores Spiller’s life in the suburbs of Northern California in the 1960s, learning to cook by her challenging mother’s side, as remembered through the recipe box’s mid-century and heirloom offerings. It touches on lineage, and industrial changes; it is a meditation on men, women, marriage, community and the nature of compromise.

What emerges is a portrait of a woman whose own desires for a career were tragically stifled by the conventional pressures to be a wife and mother, but found expression through her daughter, an author, artist and teacher. This is a memoir that weds Spiller’s story to the universal of all mothers and daughters, and what, as they say, is baked into the cake.
*lifted from goodreads, with love.