Oct 11, 2021
“Just what am I supposed to do now?”
Charles Bock, from Beautiful Children
seen from Saudi Arabia
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Argentina
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Russia
seen from Malaysia
seen from Philippines
“Just what am I supposed to do now?”
Charles Bock, from Beautiful Children
One of the hardest things about daily writing is getting back in, reconnecting with the page and your work....At night/before bedtime/after dinner, once you’ve finished your regular writing session, take ten minutes. By hand, write a list of phrases you want to change—character tweaks, sentence edits, how X character needs to act in scene Y—basically your day’s unfinished work....The next day when you sit down, first thing, enter these notes. Make your changes. This will force you to engage with the manuscript.
Charles Bock, in this week’s Writers Recommend (Poets & Writers, 2017)
Book cover for Random House Trade Paperbacks | Art Director: Paolo Pepe | Designer: Rodrigo Corral and Zak Tebbal | Published 2017
We Need To Talk About Alice and Oliver
Charles Bock’s cancer novel works best when it’s not about Alice or Oliver
“Bock captures how you can feel dropped into an ocean of new clinical vocabulary, each word carrying life-and-death stakes.”
Read the full review on Electric Literature.
I trust in the process of sitting down and working, and I knew that I didn’t need distance when I started because time was going to give me more narrative distance. I knew that I had done it once and it had taken a while. You grow and you change. I had enough distance from the beginning that I could begin. I also knew that I had a book under contract and there was no way it was going to be finished in time, but I knew it would be really good if I had a sense of where things were going. I think for this, it prevented too many flights of fancy. It kept things focused. It also allowed me to go deeper instead of turning it into a wider, crazier book. The people I care about, whose stories need to be told, are here. Who do they deal with? What challenges are facing them? It has to be connected. It’s going to be bigger because my mind weaves things a certain way. That will happen naturally. I believe in my ability to figure things out. I knew that with time that I would get to everything I needed.
The Rumpus Interview with Charles Bock.
Salon talks to Charles Bock, Manuel Gonzales, Charlotte Rogan, Rebecca Schiff & Rob Spillman about their new books.
Read Catapult workshop instructor Rebecca Schiff’s short story “Sports Night” at Catapult.
(via “A guy in my MFA program once described my stories as ‘cutesy’”: 5 authors on the worst words critics have used to describe their work - Salon.com)
Charles Bock’s 2008 debut novel, Beautiful Children, delved into the depravities of Las Vegas. It became a New York Times bestseller and notable book of the year. his new novel, Alice & Oliver, explores a subject painfully closer to home. Fresh Air book critic Maureen Corrigan says:
“Alice & Oliver is both haunting and raw: a rare novel about, in this case, cancer that doesn't try to find meaning in serious illness, but rather gives its random malevolence its full due.”
Hot in April
I’m ready to fill my eye holes with these delights! (more…)
View On WordPress