Read This: Murphy

I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a sucker for animal stories, and Hyeondo Park’s online mini-comic Murphy does a marvelous job of storytelling. Follow the link. It’ll take you all of two-three minutes to look at, maybe, and that’s all the time Park needs to break your heart. I kinda get teary even just typing about it, to be honest. I think I’m going to leave the computer and go hug my cats now.

5 October 2006 | read this |

Laura Zigman Explains Her Faction

I’ve been a fan of Laura Zigman since I interviewed her way back when, so I’m glad to turn the site over to her briefly so she can tell you about her latest novel, Piece of Work, and how it illustrates the success you can have by “writing what you know.” (This essay originally appeared on the Warner Books website.)

People often ask authors if the stuff in their novels—the good stuff, the juicy stuff, the stuff most likely to get them into trouble—is true. And when asked, most authors will say that they’ve made everything up; that nothing in the book is autobiographical. One of the reasons they say this is because they don’t want to get in trouble, which is completely understandable. Another reason they say this is so that they can appear to be fabulously imaginative: it’s much harder, these alleged fabulously imaginative fiction writers would argue, to make stuff up than it is to simply write things down that have actually happened to you.

Not for me. I think recalling and dredging up and writing about painful and embarrassing events that have actually happened—bad blind dates, bad relationships, bad break-ups, acting like a completely insane obsessive-compulsive jealous suspicious (but almost completely justified) boyfriend stalker—and things that have been survived—gigantic narcissists; bad sadistic bosses behaving like complete lunatics—is much harder. But then, I’m biased. Because that’s what I do. I write about things that have happened to me.

What I also do is admit that I write about things that have happened to me.

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4 October 2006 | guest authors |