Show Notes

A 30-minute (ish) mini-episode in which we discuss hybrid reading lists, creating a reading and writing schedule, giving yourself permission to write, book voodoo, fluffing your bookshelves and Booker prize excitement.

Welcome to Read.Write.Repeat.

This month we will be giving away a copy of The Queen of Blood by Sarah Beth Durst and a bunch of adorable succulent bookmarks – we will explain how to enter toward the end of the post.

Kelsey’s Residency Tangent:

• The residency was nine days of living with my cohort and professors and discussing
  

  Blue Lake and literary bliss

  all things literary. It was a lot like existing in an extended read.write.repeat podcast. In short: heaven.

• Lyric Essay–this is an essay that often uses fragments and combines poetry, fiction, research, and other genre blending elements.
  • Check out “Shrikes and the Nature of Aggression” by Lisa O’Neill
• I am a Hybrid
  • Like a Liger! I have moved from a fiction focus to hybrid. This means I can now also write creative nonfiction and poetry.
  • This also means an expanded reading list–
• My reading lists:
  • Craft books-
    • The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop by Stephen Koch
    • The Paris Review Presents the Art of the Short Story
    • Writer’s Notebook Craft Essays from Tin House
    • The Writer’s Notebook II: Craft Essays from Tin House
  • Fiction and hybrid
    • Bright Felon by Kazim Ali
    • The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
    • The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
    • Bluets by Maggie Nelson
    • Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
    • Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
    • The Man Who Lost the Sea: Volume X by Theodore Sturgeon
  • Poetry
    • Breathing The Water by Denise Levertov
    • Locally Made Panties by Arielle Greenberg
  • Short stories (My faves from spring residency)
    • “The Balloon” by Donald Barthelme
    • “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver
    • “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
    • “People Like That Are the Only People Here” by Lorrie Moore
  • Rereading:
    • Family Resemblance: An Anthology and Exploration of 8 Hybrid Literary Genres
    • The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber
      • Alien description from the book– “a placenta with two fetuses – maybe three-month-old twins, hairless and blind – nestled head to head, knee to knee.”
• Reading schedules–
  • On work days I read for four hours and write for four hours.
    

    Make sure to check out Greenberg!

  • On days off I read for an hour and write for an hour
• Article on Hemingway’s writing practices:
  • “For most of his life he read about a book and a half per day…Reading was not an afterthought for him, but was in fact a non-negotiable part of his daily ritual. Generally, Hemingway would write in the morning, working until about lunchtime, and then spend large chunks of the afternoon and evening reading.”
• Also, you must check out this short podcast skit that Kaisha referenced in our show today: Shoot, Whiskey, Older Women.
  • The key to getting writing/reading time–act like a crazy person when you don’t get it!!
• Nick Dybek–When Captain Flint Was Still a Good Man
• Give yourself permission to write
• Engage in the process even if you aren’t producing something or there is no outcome
• Be willing to create something that might never be consumed
• The key is to be consistent, whatever your habit that you are building
• Art is good for the mind and the body
  • Treat it like running or eating healthy–it is just as good for you
• Engage in the process even if you don’t have an idea of the outcome
• If nothing else comes of it, the act of creation is a beautiful thing and something to be cherished. Nothing you have done is a waste of time, even if you never get published.
• Die Hard is essential to your mental health…wait, what?!

Summer Reading

What will Kaisha do?

• Knock out a big book? Last year it was War and Peace.
• Attempt to read the Booker Longlist?–The Booker is awesome—Kaisha wants to be a Booker Prize judge (reading 100 books in 7 months–she’s geeking out).
  • This prize rewards books that have the depth and complexity to sustain so many readings. The judges are looking for a book that reveals more on subsequent readings.
  • To read the entire longlist, Kaisha will have to read 13 books between July 27th and September 13th.
  • Leaves Kaisha a chunk of time before the longlist is announced. How would she tackle this first part of the summer?
    • Fluffing TBR shelves and book droppings.
    • No stagnant books.
    • Kaisha doesn’t keep all her books, gasp!
    • The only two books Kelsey got rid of caused intense rage. It was best for everybody if they left the house to find their forever homes.
    • Bookmarking? Yes? No? Do you write in your books? Book voodoo–if you give away a book that you have marked in, can it be used to cast spells against you?
    • The mark of the Kaisha.
  • Or work through some collections?–
    • Persephone Classics

Another Booker Tangent:

• Has Kaisha ever made it through an entire longlist?
• She picks the books that she thinks will be shortlisted and reads those first. That is why she chose not to read this book, she didn’t believe it would win (and she was right):
  • Booker book that was written in a pseudo-Old English–
    • The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth
    • It sounds pretty cool and Kaisha did eventually read it.
    • Here’s more info on the book and Kingsnorth, who is an excellent case study in never giving up as a writer.
  • Kaisha only wants to read the books that win–she’s competitive–she wants to get it right
• She’s read some great books through the longlist. The competition has a wide breadth of book types, even some speculative fiction. Nothing Epic though, and no literary fantasy so far.
  • My theory is that a lot of literary speculative fiction is too short for the competition, or too long. I have encountered some literary fantasy, but it has been in short story form.
    • Kelly Link is a great example of this. I have her book, Pretty Monsters, sitting on my TBR shelf.
• One speculative piece that was a novella did make the Booker longlist. Kaisha says that it was one of the best reading experiences she has had in awhile. She also warns us not to google it. Spoilers will ruin the experience.
  • Side note: it took me a bit of digging to figure this one out. I would have asked Kaisha, but at two in the morning, it would probably have been rude to text her. Kaisha got the title right, but the author name wrong. Unless I misheard her, which is a possibility (Too many days on the firearms range as a cop has left me a tad hard of hearing). I thought she said Weir. What did you all think?
  • Here’s a link so that you can buy the book: The Many by Wyl Menmuir
  • Here’s a little bit more on Menmuir. I am excited to get to know this author better!

The Literary Gauntlet:

• Just when you thought we were finished with this podcast, we went off on another Tangent: sleep and Proust.
• Love doesn’t even begin to describe how we feel about In Search of Lost Time. (Just so you know, I linked to my copy of Swann’s Way–the first volume in the series–so that we can be book twins if you decide to buy a copy).
• We know that Proust may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but we think he’s fantastic. Just don’t read him like you would Dean Koontz. Read him like you would eat an ice cream sundae or enjoy a rainstorm while cozied next to the fire.
• We reference the first part of Swann’s Way, and here’s an excerpt from that:

For a long time I used to go to bed early. Sometimes, when I had put out my candle, my eyes would close so quickly that I had not even time to say “I’m going to sleep.” And half an hour later the thought that it was time to go to sleep would awaken me; I would try to put away the book which, I imagined, was still in my hands, and to blow out the light; I had been thinking all the time, while I was asleep, of what I had just been reading, but my thoughts had run into a channel of their own, until I myself seemed actually to have become the subject of my book: a church, a quartet, the rivalry between François I and Charles V. This impression would persist for some moments after I was awake; it did not disturb my mind, but it lay like scales upon my eyes and prevented them from registering the fact that the candle was no longer burning. Then it would begin to seem unintelligible, as the thoughts of a former existence must be to a reincarnate spirit; the subject of my book would separate itself from me, leaving me free to choose whether I would form part of it or no; and at the same time my sight would return and I would be astonished to find myself in a state of darkness, pleasant and restful enough for the eyes, and even more, perhaps, for my mind, to which it appeared incomprehensible, without a cause, a matter dark indeed.

I would ask myself what o’clock it could be; I could hear the whistling of trains, which, now nearer and now farther off, punctuating the distance like the note of a bird in a forest, shewed me in perspective the deserted countryside through which a traveller would be hurrying towards the nearest station: the path that he followed being fixed for ever in his memory by the general excitement due to being in a strange place, to doing unusual things, to the last words of conversation, to farewells exchanged beneath an unfamiliar lamp which echoed still in his ears amid the silence of the night; and to the delightful prospect of being once again at home.

• Additionally, check out the graphic novel version, if you are as much a Proust nerd as us! I bought this for Kaisha and myself last Christmas. What? Don’t you buy yourself Christmas presents? No? Oh, well, ahem, my husband bought if for me under my direction, then…

Connect and Win!!

• Don’t forget to enter our giveaway for July. This month we will be giving away The Queen of Blood by Sarah Beth Durst and some adorable succulent bookmarks! To enter, rate us and leave a review on Itunes, and then go to the giveaway tab on our website and let us know how to get in touch with you if you win. A winner will be drawn at random on July first.
• If anything sparked an idea for you, or you have thoughts or ideas about what we should discuss next. Let us know.  Fill out our survey for a chance to win cool prizes!

Connect with us:

• Instagram
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Pinterest

Thanks for listening to Read Write Repeat! Talk with you next time!