Me and You and Everyone We Know: Could this movie be any more captivating? I don’t think it could be. From when the father sets his hand on fire to the end, the rising sun, I was completely taken. It’s quiet and gorgeous and fucked up and I love everything about it. So true to life and honest are those dark, disturbing portrays of the children–so filled with need, so wanting love. If you haven’t seen this movie yet, I hope you will see it soon.

L.I.E.: There was some great acting in this film that follows the lives of teenagers living along the Long Island Expressway. Ultimately, though, it was almost unbearably bleak. By the end I was filled with seeping despair and ready to jump onto the expressway from the overpass myself. I don’t know what else to say about it.

The Best of Youth: A lovely, tragic, heartbreaking, heartwarming, and sprawling Italian drama, which follows the lives of two brothers from the 60s to 2000. I yelled at Nicola to kiss Mirella when they are walking together toward the end of the film and when he did, it was so worth it. What a great kiss!

Your First Novel arrived in my mailbox yesterday and by last night I had finished reading it. I have already written my first novel and yet I found this book useful–indeed, invaluable.

Dennis Lehane is winningly honest as he dishes out tough love in his inspiring foreword, leading into the first half of the book (written by novelist Laura Whitcomb) which focuses on the craft of novel writing and is filled with helpful hints, book recommendations, and exercises.

The second half of the book (written by agent Ann Rittenberg) focuses on the business side of publishing your novel. I devoured this section as even though I had what I thought was a clear understanding of how things worked on this side, I was not comprehending it as clearly before I read this book, as I am now that I have read it(also, I love that there are so many Fitzgerald references–perfect for my latest obsession). This section also offers reading recommendations, web site links, and much insider knowledge.

If you are writing your first novel (or your second, third, fourth, fifth, and even if you have already published a novel) this book is for you–as it leads you from inception to publication and beyond. You might find–as I did–that after reading this book you feel better about your work because you realize how much you are doing right by yourself and your work in the potentially intimidating writing life.

In short, where in the past I might have felt anxiety, after reading this book I feel empowered. And that is the strength of being informed.

Oh MAN! You will not want to miss this The Night I Met Neil Gaiman and Confirmed I am a Dork, by Robin Slick

Thanks to Ellen for the link.

capote is about as good as it gets for me. Watched it last night and remain speechless about what this movie means to me other than it started a bit of an ugly little fire in my writing heart. Poor Allen just wanted to get to sleep last night but I kept on raging long after the movie was over.

Oh man. I saw this on mediabistro. It’s too good not to share.

Here’s a great review of Ellen Meister‘s book: Per Contra Review

I had the pleasure of hearing Linera Lucas read Police Story at Tin House.

Here’s what I’ve watched recently:

Transamerica: Loved it. Felicity Huffman was superb and the story heartbreaking, heartwarming, funny, poignant. At the end, I worried how things would work out between Bree and her son–I hoped he was not beyond hope.

Junebug: This movie was outstanding. All of the characters were great and real, but Amy Adams was completely captivating. What I loved most about this movie was that it was not afraid to be quiet.

Friends with Money: This movie is funny and tragic. Ultimately, it unexpectedly hit home with me–on several different levels. Although, I’m wondering if all you have to do is put Catherine Keener in a movie and I’ll like it? She’s always spot on.

It’s always a treat to read the year’s Iowa Short Fiction Award winner–and this year it was doubly so as this year’s winner–Things Kept, Things Left Behind–was written by the kind and talented, Jim Tomlinson. What a thrill it was to see Flights, which appeared in the issue of SmokeLong Quarterly for which I was guest editor, as part of the collection.

Each of the stories in this collection is handled with great care and finesse, creating a whole that leaves the reader feeling both satisfied and heartbroken.

Basically, these are not easy stories to read because of the sadness and deep hurt they depict, and yet after reading them you will feel hopeful, despite the tragic beauty of the world–best exemplified in the character LeAnn:

Sometimes she thinks of herself as a howl. The wail of a coyote, maybe, or a lone banshee, a shriek dying away in the night without reaching ears. Piercing, like something wrenched raw from an orphaned soul. A hollow thing, haunted, a sound that lives on, still shrill in memory long after its echo dies out.

If I were asked to compare Tomlinson’s world to that of another writer, I would choose Andre Dubus–as both so beautifully, and skillfully, portray that which is damaged and brutal in life, that which is violent and beautiful. Much like Dubus’s stories, these are stories of families broken or cobbled together, of people on the edge, of anger, of betrayal, and above all else, of desperation and shame.

I hope you will buy and read this collection (and also suggest to your library that they order a copy), as you will not regret it. Not by a long shot.

I am still making my way through the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald. I finished Flappers and Philosophers the other day, which I enjoyed. My favorite stories (and they are the most well-known from it as well) are “The Ice Palace,” “Bernice Bobs her Hair,” and “Benediction”–all featuring young women at a certain cross-roads in her life.

Fitzgerald made quite a good living selling stories, and truly they are entertaining–though some of them seem a bit outdated in their delivery. Mostly, though, they are beautiful, moving things.

Next, I will read The Beautiful and Damned.

Are you a teacher? If so, Ellen Meister has a special promotion just for you.

Five years ago, we woke up in a campground on Dungeness Spit on the Olympic Penninsula in Washington State.

The day before we had come through the Strait of Juan de Fuca on a ferry from Vancouver Island. That night we ate some famous Dungeness crab at a small restaurant. The waitress told Allen that the locals eat it cold and so that’s what he did.

We had already been on the road for a month and a half and the campground was one of the nicest we had stayed at. Still, the night of September 10th, 2001 found me restless, unable to sleep. I imagined I heard mountain lions outside our tent. I felt endangered.

The next morning was beautiful. Allen built the fire and I made oatmeal and coffee on our camp stove. I was writing on my computer when a ranger came and told us what happened.

He was young. We thought he was fucking with us.

No way.

We listened to the radio in the car, tried to call our families. Got through to some, didn’t get through to others.

You know how it was. Some of you were at the gym and saw it on television. Some of you were at work and heard about it from coworkers. Some of you were in school and unaware of what was going on.

Some of you were in backwoods camping like the fellows we met on a trail a few days later, who were blase about the whole thing when we talked to them.

Yeah, we heard, they said.

They had not yet seen.

Still, what to do that day? We were away from everything, one, that we loved–except for each other and except for nature. And so we hiked.

And this photo is of me. And this is what I saw.

It wasn’t until much later that day, when we were at Radio Shack looking to buy a radio we could listen to in our tent, that I saw what happened on a wall of televisions. I had heard about it all day on the radio, but not yet seen it. My mind had visualized something, but it was not that.

How could it ever be that?

Today, I offer you this image of peace–a hike up high, a cloudless sky, the air is clear. There are mountains all around you. In fact, you are above them.