“Maybe this is a writer thing, having pages and pages of stuff written that has not yet cohered into a completed arc, which, when you finish it, would be a laurel on which you could rest.” A writer considers Chekhov’s dictum.
The gun goes off in the end
Eat, Pray, Leave
Have you ever traveled halfway around the world to the once picturesque town of Ubud in Bali hoping to experience a psychological transformation á la Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love? Unfortunately, you’re not alone. Here’s a look at how great books have ruined some really great places. Our own Nick Moran has written about some good places gone bad, as well.
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Living Like Fitzgerald
Looking for a new summer home? Something with an impressive literary pedigree? You're in luck! Now you can buy the house where F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gastsby for the low, low price of $3.8 million.
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“Gundersonia, land of the really free.”
Recommended Reading: Return to Oakpine author Ron Carlson’s short story, “How Things Have Actually Changed Since We Did Secede from the United States.”
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Should’ve Read The Lease
“On the day I moved in, without giving it any thought, we started to refer to one storage space—there are three, two low-ceilinged ones on either side of the pitch-roofed room and one closet—as ‘the bad area.’ We had barely walked in, we (at least I) had forgotten the ghost, and here we were—‘the bad area.’” Amie Barrodale writes at The Paris Review Daily about life in a haunted apartment.
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W Memoir on the Way
The Decider will be offering his version of the Presidential memoir with Decision Points (sounds like a thriller, no?) due on November 9. (One week after mid-term elections)
A Cure for Writer’s Block
"Don’t discount the two greatest cures for [writer's] Block: plagiarism and suicide." Joshua Cohen dispenses some curious advice to writers at Ask the Paris Review.
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Next Up: Volcanic Vodka
What's cooler: bourbon aged at sea, or beer made from barley launched into space?