January 2012
2 posts
3 tags
WatchSession 25
Megan Levad reads a great set of poems in Lively Words Session 25. It’s awesome and filled with real bird sounds in the woods.
Several of the are featured in a recent issue of Fence.
Recorded at the Vermont Studio Center last May. Check it out.
“The central question driving literary aesthetics in the age of the iPad is no...”
– From a timely and pertinent article in the New York Times.
November 2011
4 posts
“I’m put in some exotic box…I’m like Cheech Marin. I’m the colorful...”
– From a NY Times article about fiction writer Dagoberto Gilb, who is back at work after recovering from a stroke in 2009.
the series i've been waiting for: writers who got... →
citizenkerry:
I’m so tired of reading about remarkable people and then finding out they’re only 26. Good for them, bad for me. I know that their lives have nothing to do with mine, but the point is: I don’t hear very often about awesome people who got their start later in life. And sometimes it seems like if you aren’t exactly where you want to be by age 33, then tough luck to ya. (Although,...
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October 2011
6 posts
3 tags
“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did...”
– Steve Jobs.
From a collection of his quotes on the Wall Street Journal page.
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“So often I hear a writer say, ‘I have to make myself write.’ I...”
– From literary agent Betsy Lerner’s blog. She rules.
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“Publishers are terrified and don’t know what to do”
– Dennis Loy Johnson of Melville House
From a New York Times article on Amazon’s push to publish authors while cutting out traditional publishing houses
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“He didn’t hide anything in his journals. In real life, he did, both in his...”
– Kathleen Russo, wife of Spalding Gray, on the experience of reading his personal journals. In a New York Times article.
September 2011
1 post
3 tags
WatchSession 24
There’s so much to like about Carl Adamshick’s poetry. I’m not the only one who thinks so. His collection Curses and Wishes won the 2010 Walt Whitman Award. Check out this reading we recorded in May at the Vermont Studio Center. It’s gold.
August 2011
1 post
3 tags
WatchSession 23
Nina Alvarez reads a wonderful and strangely beautiful excerpt from her novel-in-progress in this session. Nina one of the great people I met during my residency at the Vermont Studio Center in May and I’m excited to feature her work here. This reading is the second of a series I recorded in Vermont. I’ll be posting more in the months to come.
June 2011
1 post
3 tags
WatchSession 22
After taking nearly a year off, Lively Words is bringing back the goodness. And the 2011 literary goodness starts with Christina Olson, a fantastic poet I met while I was in Vermont last month. Her first book of poetry, Before I Came Home Naked, won the Spire Press annual contest and was published last year. I’m excited to present Christina’s reading as the opening to a set...
July 2010
1 post
3 tags
WatchSession 21
After a restful first half of the summer, we’re fortunate to get back into the swing of things with an excellent session featuring poet and friend Connie Voisine reading in Southern New Mexico. The reading was recorded last fall and it has aged rather nicely over the intervening seasons. Connie reads a few poems from her fantastic collection Rare High Meadow of Which I Might...
April 2010
1 post
3 tags
WatchSession 20
Of all the literary events sponsored by my graduate program in Las Cruces, NM, the fall benefit reading is one of my favorites. Proceeds from tickets sold for the event go directly to one of the local food banks. Last year’s event was excellent all around. It featured top-notch readings by Antonya Nelson and Robert Boswell, and it became a kind of homecoming event for alumni of...
March 2010
1 post
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WatchSession 19
This session features poet Terri Ford reading her work lakeside in Minneapolis. It’s the second part of our series in that city and it’s fantastic. Huge thanks to Jacquie Moody-Fuller for putting together the Minneapolis sessions. Check out her great project How I Found You.
January 2010
1 post
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WatchSession 18
Last summer we asked our friend Jacquie Moody-Fuller in Minneapolis to capture a few readings for us. Jacquie knows how to get things done. She sent back readings featuring Heather Herrman and Terri Ford. In this session, Heather Herrman reads an excerpt of her novel-in-progress “Kiss the Pretty Green Girl Good-bye,” a look at what promises to be a compelling story based in...
December 2009
1 post
WatchSession 17
The poetry wave continues with Roxane Beth Johnson, who reads from her collection Jubilee, which won the 2005 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry. It’s great stuff. The late September morning we met to record this session, we’d intended to set up at the new rooftop garden at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, but that didn’t quite work out. (Who knew the place opened...
November 2009
1 post
3 tags
WatchSession 16
As the Lively Words project marches forward, we’re determined to bring literary goodness to every single park and open space in North Berkeley. It wasn’t one of our original goals but we’re glad to run with it. For Session 16, poet Dorine Jennette and I headed into the Berkeley Hills and set up the camera near Indian Rock Park, a popular place for tourists and locals...
October 2009
1 post
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WatchSession 15
Once, while attending one of Robert Boswell’s readings in Santa Fe in the early ’90s, I heard someone declare that Boswell was one of the boldest writers our country had. With the recent publication of his excellent short story collection The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards, it’s safe to say that statement still holds true. When I saw him in Berkeley in August, we...
September 2009
1 post
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WatchSession 14
The only thing better than encountering Antonya Nelson’s fiction in the New Yorker is seeing her read it in person. I caught up with her in Berkeley in early August after she and her husband Robert Boswell finished teaching at the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference. In this session, she reads an excerpt from the great short story “Or Else.”
August 2009
1 post
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WatchSession 13
While the stories of Midge’s wonderful short story collection Forgetting English confidently forge into exotic geographical territory, the hearts of these stories remain firmly anchored in the mysteries of character and the interesting ways people make their way in the world.
You couldn’t have asked for more summer-like weather on the late-June day Midge and I met up at...
July 2009
1 post
3 tags
WatchSession 12
Having great neighbors is one thing, but having great neighbors who are also great writers is another thing altogether. I was lucky enough to live across a driveway from Augustus Rose and Nami Mun in North Berkeley for a while before they went off to Michigan a few years ago.We’ve all moved on from that neighborhood, but recently we got together there again to record this...
May 2009
1 post
3 tags
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Session 11
I first became interested in Ann Cummins’s work when I met her during the ecstatic blur that constituted my first trip to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference several years ago. And when her bold novel Yellow Cake came out I realized we had both grown up in New Mexico. So when Lively Words got going last year, I knew I had to ask her to record a session.
If you’ve...
February 2009
1 post
3 tags
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Session 10
I wish I could say that I flew out to Indianapolis this month to catch Andrew Scott reading a nonfiction essay in his backyard, but alas, it’s not true. I didn’t trek through the snow that fine day and hold the camera, but Andrew’s wife Victoria Barrett did. And for that, I’m completely thankful. What came back was winter gold.
In grad school, Andrew and I...
January 2009
1 post
3 tags
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Session 9
Tucked into a residential neighborhood in North Berkeley, the Berkeley Rose Garden is one of those beautiful public spaces you might stumble upon by accident. It’s a great place to browse the dozens of varieties of roses on display or take in the excellent views of the bay. In fact, it’s the first place that came to mind when I started thinking of interesting places to...
December 2008
1 post
5 tags
Watch
Session 8
We’ve got the beginnings of a pattern going here—we like to record sessions during holidays. First it was Steve Caldes on the 4th of July. Now it’s Megan Morrone on Thanksgiving.
It wouldn’t necessarily be accurate to say that having Megan read on camera was part of the terms for inviting her and her family over to our house for turkey and side dishes. But I...
October 2008
2 posts
3 tags
WatchSession 7
Petaluma, CA is famous for many things. About 30 miles north of San Francisco, it was once the egg capital of the country, and hosted world arm-wrestling championships for more than 50 years. It’s the hometown of actress Winona Ryder, and it serves as the setting for Michael Ondaatje’s novel Divisadero.
I mostly think of it as the home of a couple of great friends and a...
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WatchSession 6
The amazing lawns of the Bread Loaf campus in Ripton, VT are outdone only by the quality of the writers who congregate there for twelve days each summer. I was lucky enough to visit for a few days this year and see many old friends and make a few new ones.
Rus Bradburd was there with his wife, the poet Connie Voisine, and their ridiculously cute daughter Alma. Rus graduated from the MFA...
September 2008
1 post
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WatchSession 5
I first met David Schweidel at a party in Las Cruces, NM in the early 1990s, when he and Robert Boswell started collaborating on a nonfiction book that would eventually be called What Men Call Treasure: The Search for Gold at Victorio Peak. Published by Cinco Puntos Press last month, it’s about one man’s quest to find a legendary stash of gold buried inside a hill in south...
August 2008
2 posts
3 tags
WatchSession 4
There’s something intriguing about seeing a poet read his work in a credit union parking lot at night. In Session Four, Travis Brown takes us there, while his poems transport us to scenes of the Midwest and beyond. This is the final part of a two-reading series in Portland, OR, choreographed and videotaped by Travis and Jill Stukenberg. Watching this session, I kept waiting for...
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WatchSession 3
Let the record show, we’re willing to try new things at Lively Words. Three sessions into this project and we start taking out the walls and peeling off the roof.
Rather than fly up the coast to Portland, Oregon to videotape fiction writer Jill Stukenberg and poet Travis Brown reading their work, I sent the camera through the mail. What came back was gold.
Jill reads a story...
July 2008
2 posts
3 tags
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Session 2
From Mark Latiner’s kitchen in Richmond, CA you can see the north end of the San Francisco Bay, the refineries crowding Richmond Point, and, further out toward the coast, Mount Tamalpais and its redwood groves and oak woodlands. Mark and I hung out in his garden one Sunday in July as the sun started to break through the fog.
It seemed a long way from the Nob Hill neighborhood...
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Session 1
On July 4, Steve and I sat down in the backyard of his North Park neighborhood house, where he’s growing a small patch of corn, tomatoes and pumpkins. He took a break from buying groceries and moving furniture, planning for a birthday party for him and his girlfriend that would take place the next day. He’d recently built a bench out of 2x6s and cinder blocks. “This...