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@irenemcgarrity
New Year, New Me
It’s that time of year where people start planning their New Year’s resolutions. Sometimes they are concrete–drink more water. Other times they are existential or spiritual–be a better person; develop a gratitude practice. For many years, always in the throws of some version of eating disorder, my goal was to stop it. I would imagine the previous year’s transgressions–bingeing and…
Documentary: Q Lazzarus and Her Story
You’ve probably heard the song “Goodbye Horses.” It plays during the infamous Buffalo Bill dance scene in The Silence of the Lambs. But you’ve probably never heard of the singer–Q Lazzarus. A search on Spotify will pull up exactly one song–“Goodbye Horses.” A Google search yields a couple of versions of “White Lines,” which was apparently the B-side to goodbye horses. One YouTube commenter…
Repetition, It's a Love Hate Thing
If there is one word I would choose to sum up my experience of parenting thus far, it’s repetition.
New Flash Nonfiction
Since giving birth to my daughter two and a half years ago, I’ve been constantly fascinated with the experience of motherhood–from breastfeeding to navigating bedtime routines, it’s all been a lovely, messy, mind-blowing adventure. As such, I’ve found myself writing some short nonfiction pieces about my experiences. My very short essay, “The Breast Crawl” was recently published in issue 240 of
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Writing and Childhood Trauma
Writing and Childhood Trauma
Junot Diaz recently wrote this powerful, moving essay about his childhood experience of sexual assault. Although many writers tend to shy away from this subject, some heroes like Roxane Gay delve into it. Male stories of sexual trauma, though, are pretty rare. That Junot Diaz, a writer I admire, and a man, was willing to come out in this essay seems pretty important to me.
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Mediocrity and Other Realities of the Writing Life
Mediocrity and Other Realities of the Writing Life
If given the choice, would you rather a reader hate your story or feel indifferent about it? Most writers would choose the former, hands down. A hated story, at least, sticks with the reader (whether they want it to or not.) A mediocre story, on the other hand, barely registers as more than a mild annoyance. In most cases, mediocre stories are those that have not been fully rendered. Perhaps the…
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Three Minute Fiction Slam
Three Minute Fiction Slam
Writers cut their teeth on local open mics and slam competitions. Because writing is such a solitary activity, and because opportunities to share one’s work publicly are few and far between, these local platforms are invaluable to writers. The New Hampshire Writer’s Project sponsors an annual Three Minute Fiction Slam. The slam is “a fast paced literary competition that challenges writers to…
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I'm Back!
I’m Back!
I suppose every blogger has an obligatory, “It’s been so long since I’ve blogged” post. Here’s mine. Except instead of six months or even a year, it has been over two. Why? Lots of reasons, the most significant of which is the birth of my daughter. She is now a little over two, though, so it’s time to get back into writerly things in earnest. So, what have I been up to besides working and…
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Tired of just scraping by? Put propositional logic to work for you! Use these simple steps to convince your friends that they have no choice but to h...
Review: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Review: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I’m a total Murakami fangirl, so I was thrilled to finally get the chance to read this. This book is more straightforward than his dreamy, magical novels (Wind-up Bird Chronicle; Wild Sheep Chase.) In Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki, Murakami only alludes to the parallel words that he foregrounds in 1Q84, but…
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Unreview: Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon
Unreview: Bleeding Edge by Thomas Pynchon
Another epic Pynchon adventure, Bleeding Edge takes the reader into New York city in the early 2000s around the time the dot-com bubble pops. We have a female protagonist who, like Oedipa Maas from The Crying of Lot 49, is an interesting mix of street smart, gritty, insecure, and nurturing. We also have lots of little winks from page via Pynchon, including funny names, like hashslingerz.com,…
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Quotes: On Being Really Human What passes for hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human, since to be really human [...] is probably to be unavoidably sentimental and naïve and goo-prone and generally pathetic. --David Foster Wallace Infinite Jest
Reflections: Dayjobsville
Most writers have these things called day jobs. We have day jobs because we need to make money. The most I’ve ever been paid for my fiction is $5 and the most I’ve ever been paid for my non-fiction is $50.00. Sporadic freelance gigs, and the rare but cherished acceptance from a literary mag are great, but not lucrative. So we live big chunks of our lives in Dayjobsville.
The kind of day jobs…
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Short Stories: "A Pursuit Race" by Ernest Hemingway
One of my all-time favorite Hemingway short stories is one most people haven’t heard of. In “A Pursuit Race”* William Campbell is in a pursuit race with a burlesque show. This means he’s trying to stay slightly ahead of them as they travel from town to town. He’s the advance man, and as long as he’s slightly ahead of them, he gets paid and doesn’t have to actually do any work. He uses the…
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Thomas Pynchon on David Foster Wallace
For those of you who are interested in the work of Thomas Pynchon, David Foster Wallace, or both, check out this article. It came out a few years ago, shortly before the release of Pale Kings, Wallace’s posthumous novel. Thomas Pynchon has a lot of really interesting things to say about David Foster Wallace and the connections between them.
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Snippet: Documentation Procedes Experience in Don DeLillo's White Noise I’m co-teaching a course this semester called Digital Identities and Participatory Culture. In class, we’ve been discussing some really interesting themes related to living a life online.
David Foster Wallace's Formative Reading List
David Foster Wallace’s Formative Reading List
irenemcgarrity:
An abridged version of David Foster Wallace’s most formative literary influences. In addition to the actual titles of books are some interesting DFW microclods taken from D. T. Max’s Every Love Story is a Ghost Story.
Originally posted on Flavorwire:
The newly released big biography of David Foster Wallace, entitled Every Love Story is a Ghost Storyand written by New Yorker scr…
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