#new narrative

[thelonguepuree]

Storytelling thus becomes performative—'You want what you write to actually cause these things to come to exist, you don't want just to describe them,' Boone writes—an aesthetic act capable of mapping and transforming its own conditions of possibility. The writing doesn't only aim to express the voice of an already existing community, but also to call a potential community into being, one in which we, readers, are invited to participate.

Rob Halpern, preface to Century of Clouds by Bruce Boone

[isla-nd]

I’ve had my first day of university today, getting well and truly stuck into New Narrative writing! Thoroughly enjoying it and if anyone has any recommendations particularly WLW narratives please drop suggestions in my chat box ☺️

My favourite so far has certainly been Sam D’Allesandro’s writing what a talent that was lost so young. Also, it seems to me that a lot can be taken and learnt from the New Narrative movement espescially at times such as these.

[pairodicelost]

He says he likes the way my mind works I perch beside him on a stool getting drunk on cognac that tastes like soap everything about him so warm and untouched and me breathing like a fallen woman ... I forget I’m “in love” with another why does he have to wear a T-shirt his bare arm propped on the bar with just the right amount of muscle never a Mr. Atlas but strong enough to make me feel gorgeous for a moment he utters the phrase “self-referential text.” And suddenly I am that gory decapitated thing 20/20 vision lapping tongue I sniff and listen all the senses intact except the one that matters ... legs crossed beneath the counter my right knee brushing the dark peeling wood I feel a strange psychic connection stirring and this one I know isn’t wearing any panties.

[smallpressdistribution]

On authenticity and community

Writer, editor, and ceramist Robert Glück on questions of authenticity, working beyond your own capabilities, and the value of community.

"My friends’ observations were a language to me, like ideograms; nuggets of bodily experience." -Robert Glück talks w/ Sara Wintz on prose vs. pottery, making, ambition, friendship, and cleaning the bathtub!

[thehouseprimordial]

Kathy Acker at 26th Studio, New York 1990 Photo: Michel Delsol

[jfpark]

Renee Gladman, "The Person in the World," Biting the Error: Writers Explore Narrative, eds. Mary Burger, Robert Gluck, Camille Roy, Gail Scott

I'm sharing this essay, which has influenced me enormously, so it may be more easily accessible to influence others. I encourage anyone reading it to dig into the astonishing work of Renee Gladman, the wonderful book this is collected in, the work of the editors, etc.

[thelonguepuree]

I would make images of people in my stories so they would have the pleasure of seeing themselves. With every person named, life would be tangled in the text. I wanted people to feel they had a stake in this writing and credit it and affirm it and give it a community and social life it could only have if many people saw their representations there, not just one person. Not just myself—since I could now tell about others. Politeness, pleasure, related to people's responses to what you had written. Your text could not begin until people were able to start loving and hating you on account of it. Finally I wanted a text so tangled up with others that it would be their intentions, and not mine, that gave it such place as it would have in a large social history.

Bruce Boone, Century of Clouds