This post isn’t going to say what you think it’s going to say. You probably think it’s going to say that I think writers should read all the classics and all the award winners and all the “important” books. But I don’t believe that to be true. I’ve always been a reader. I hesitate to — Read More
Tag: jeffrey eugenides
First drafts
Now that my book is done, I’ve resumed working on a novel I started while I was waiting on edits. And, I have to say, despite all I’ve learned over the last year, I still have familiar feelings of insecurity as I dig into this new book. I know lots of writers feel this way. I’ve — Read More
Writer envy
The latest issue of Poets & Writers magazine features an article about Judy Blume. She just released a new, for-adults book called In the Unlikely Event (which is currently sitting in my Amazon cart). A particularly intriguing part of the article: Blume suffered an existential funk in the early 1980s after reading Dad (Knopf, 1981) by — Read More
Spotlight on: Jeffrey Eugenides
Jeffrey Eugenides is one of those writers who leaves my jaw on the floor every time. I consider him so far out of my league that envy isn’t even in the cards; just admiration and awe. Eugenides is a literary writer who is also popular–in other words, a rarity. He wrote The Virgin Suicides in 1993 (which — Read More
Advice to young writers, from Jeffrey Eugenides
Jeffrey Eugenides is one of my newly-declared favorite writers. I love his style, his stories, his characters, everything. Books I read in the past couple years and already want to read again: Middlesex, The Marriage Plot, and Virgin Suicides. So, when I saw a column in The New Yorker featuring his advice for new writers, — Read More