On to the Next

I've been giving a lot of thought to my next project, another novel, as of yet untitled. I've been sitting back, mostly, doing some research, and just generally shoving things into my brain in the hopes that they will soon boil over. 

In the meantime, a preview:

Los Angeles, 1939:

I wrapped them so carefully. It was the least I could do, it was all I could do, and so I tucked their little limbs tightly against their bodies and swaddled each one up tight in the newsprint, so tightly that they might still believe, at least for a few moments longer, that I still held them close. We cry when we are born—I did, I’m told. My first did not; she was too young, but the second wailed. It was a painful cry. He was shocked, I think, shocked and outraged at the world he’d been forced into so abruptly. That first maternal embrace is just a salve, an attempt to make up for what’s been lost. But the world never again provides that level of comfort, nor safety. At least I did not lie to them and tell them that it would. Every embrace outside the womb is a failed attempt to slip back inside.

I've heard men say all sorts of things about children, about women, about women giving birth to children, but what they say is easy to laugh away. Their words are soap bubbles, glossy and chimerical, gone with the faintest gust of wind. They mean nothing to me, and though they may not be aware of it, their words mean little more to themselves. Self-righteous posturing over brandy, with no real danger of ever having to mean it.

Women, though. What women say can wound me, although I don’t know that I’ve ever let on, not in decades. They can judge me, and I know it; anyone who has lent her body to another and then, after that painful, joyful indignity, gone on to watch it toddle out into the world knows more of life than me.

But I wouldn’t have been allowed to watch; the brandy-men wouldn’t have had it. And while they know nothing, they own everything, tyrannical children banging away with their toys. And so I sung them into drowsy, laudanum-laden sleep—for I am not a heartless mother—just once, only once, before laying them into their trunk bed and firmly, quietly, closing the lid.

I'm Suddenly Starving

If only there were an easier way to get some Chinese street food than dropping hundreds of dollars for a 12-hour plane ride. I'm overdue for a visit.

Recent/Current/On Deck

Recently Read:

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, Dorothy Sayers

Command and Control, Eric Scholosser

Currently Reading:

Hitler's Furies, Wendy Lower

Iron Curtain, Anne Applebaum

Amulet, Jason Bayani 

All She Was Worth, Miyuki Miyabi

Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh

On Deck:

Murder Must Advertise, Dorothy Sayers

Airmail: The Letters of Robert Bly and Tomas Transtromer

(I keep waiting for the paperback of the Bly/Transtromer letters, running my hands over the hardcover every time I'm in Books Inc, where they always have a copy. I think I'm going to have to cave sooner rather than later, while my rudimentary Swedish is still not-quite-stale and I have a frequent buyer card to redeem. Friday field trip!)

A West-Coastish Salon

I had the pleasure of attending a literary salon this past weekend at the home of the lovely Rashaan Alexis Meneses, where I met all sorts of new writers and reconnected with others whom I hadn't yet seen since returning to this side of the Atlantic. 

Jason Bayani read from his new book of poetry, Amulet. I've gotten about halfway through the copy on my desk, and if you like poetry at all, you really should check it out. And you should go watch him read on his own website.

Melissa R. Sipin recently won the Glimmer Train short story contest, and her list of publications is truly one to envy. I'm not a short story writer; I love listening to those who can pull it off, and Melissa's got it down. She read to us from both stories and poetry, most notably her untitled response to Typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan, which you can find on her website.

Gretchen Schrafft has maybe the best author picture I've ever seen. She writes about New England, toils at the San Francisco Writers' Grotto, and read us a piece of a short story with one of the most gorgeous images I've heard in a long time involving a child, a coat, a closet, and the sea.

Since I'm not teaching these days, I don't get to talk about reading and writing nearly as much as I'd like. And even when I WAS teaching, I didn't always get to talk about it with people who were completely willing to be a part of the conversation. Events like these are lifeblood.

Tracking a Tale's Migration

Tehrani's analysis determined that "The Wolf and the Kids" probably originated in the first century, and that the version featuring Little Red Riding Hood branched off about 1,000 years later. "This is rather like a biologist showing that humans and other apes share a common ancestor but have evolved into separate species," Tehrani said.

Love this kind of thing. Makes total sense to me that stories could be traced via their retellings and reproductions and the strange genetic mutations that happen along the way. I'd love to see some sort of visualization juxtaposing linguistic changes, genetic changes, and folktale changes along the Silk Road. I'd put money on some interesting correlations.

The actual study is here. Check it out.