The Live Nude Girl In the Devil's Territory Tour Blog

Lolita Lark likes Live Nude Girl...

2009-12-31T11:02:00.002-05:00

...and says so over at the Review of Arts, Literature, and the Philosophy of the Humanities. "Live Nude Girl is intriguing, as much for the insights into clothed vs. unclothed as for the occasional throw-aways. For instance, she tells us that Paul Weston, with his stunning photographs of nudes 'made some of his subjects look like vegetables'," she says. You can check out the whole review here. Thanks, Lolita.

Bookslut!

2009-12-08T09:32:00.005-05:00

Interviews Live Nude Girl! Or rather Elizabeth Hildreth interviews me over at Bookslut. Major thanks to Liz for giving me the opportunity to answer such questions as "I want to talk about your anti-ending ending. I thought I could smell the obligatory “here’s what I learned during summer camp” coming down the road to greet me, when you suddenly jerked on the brakes and were like, here’s what I learned: Nothing. Bye! Well, not nothing, but that the process of modeling for you was a continual search for connections with people, or with ideas, however flawed or incorrect they may be -- thus, ending with Bill Knott’s brilliant “Misunderstood,” poem. Pretend you’re writing, oh, anything, for The New Yorker. Now that some time has passed, can you tack on a nice, epiphanic paragraph to LNG for us? We love them so. Surely one Life-Changing Experience has come to surface?."

Mairead Case reviews Live Nude Girl...

2009-11-13T11:38:00.006-05:00

...in the latest issue of Make/shift. "Take the book's epigraph, from Darian Leader: 'Most people can tolerate being looked at only when they are wearing a mask.' Rooney wears none, whether modeling or writing, and so nimbly that she's impossible to put on any one shelf. That's fucking awesome, so who cares if I wasn't sitting on the edge of my seat the whole time?" she says.

She also reviews Barf Manifesto by Dodie Bellamy, Animal Shelter: Art, Sex, Literature (Issue 1) edited by Hedi El Kholti and Paul Gellman, and That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness by Elisa Gabbert and me. Pick up a copy of Make/shift at one of these fine locations and see for yourself. Thanks, Mairead!

The American Book Review...

2009-09-28T20:17:00.003-04:00

...reviews Live Nude Girl. See? More specifically, Jocelyn Bartkevicius does. The whole review is thought-provoking, but the part that seems the most provocative is when the reviewer quotes Virginia Woolf's "A Sketch of the Past":

Here I come to one of the memoir writer's greatest difficulties--one of the reasons why, though I read so many, so many are failures. They leave out the person to whom things happened. The reason is that it is so difficult to describe any human being. So they say: 'This is what happened'; but they do not say what the person was like to whom it happened. And the events mean very little unless we know first to whom they happened.

I'm a fan of Woolf, and I'm grateful to Bartkevicius for taking the time to consider my book so carefully, but I can't help but disagree a bit with Woolf's assertion. Maybe when Woolf was writing this in 1939 it was more accurate, but now that memoir in particular and creative nonfiction in general have had 70 more years to establish themselves and to go through so many transformations and iterations, it seems unnecessarily restrictive to hold a whole genre to a single task. To say that memoir is and should do only one thing (and that it can be dismissed if it does not) disregards all the things memoir can be and do. But as someone who favors writing that does more than one thing at once--memoir mixed with cultural history, poetry mixed with prose, novels mixed with verse, and so on--it's interesting to think about the opinions of those who suggest that genres should stay within certain boundaries and attempt only certain pre-established goals.

The Art Libraries Society of North America...

2009-09-12T17:56:00.004-04:00

...likes and recommends Live Nude Girl even though I do not "embark upon a Cixousian endeavor to write [my]self," nor do they think I use the book to "represent a project to reclaim [my] life from that of objectification through the act of inscription."

You can read the whole review here, but the bottom line is that "This would be a good purchase for any art library that includes a section for recreational nonfiction reading." Thanks to Rachel Chatalbash for the thoughtful review.

I prefer the term "bedfellow."

2009-07-20T20:15:00.005-04:00

The lovely latest issue of Provincetown Arts arrived in the mail today, and page 31 contained a nice write-up of Live Nude Girl, as well as a picture of the cover, which you can see here......occupying the third spot from the bottom of the page, just below Lawrence Shainberg's most recent novel Crust, and just above Liz Rozenberg's novel Home Repair.

Since you can't really read it in the above image, here's the write-up:

Kathleen Rooney, a former Fine Arts Work Center writing fellow, visited briefly on a stop on her national tour publicizing Live Nude Girl: My Life as an Object, an account of her career posing in life drawing classes. She modeled for two years in sessions at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. The allurin cover is a drawing by Jim Peters of a nude, naked but for a scrap of underwear. The woman's face is turned and her arms are raised as she fixes her hair, unaware of the viewer's gaze. If bird-watchers are platonic voyeurs, then Paul Valery was right when he said, "The nude is for the artist what love is for the poet."

British people are smart.

2009-06-22T21:49:00.011-04:00

It can be difficult to know what to make of reviews, and maybe even more difficult not to fall into the habit of deciding that critics who like your books are incredibly intelligent and perceptive, and that people who dislike them just don't understand you, or your project, or possibly anything at all. At the risk of walking straight into that trap: Roz Kaveney totally gets me. Or at least she's written an astute review of Live Nude Girl in the Times Literary Supplement of June 19. I can't seem to find it online, but here's a picture of the copy that my friend Ernie faxed to me this afternoon: Not pictured? The triple exclamation point to the left of the arrow. Thanks, Ernie! (Incidentally, all you readers at home can pick up a copy of Ernie's poetry collection here.)

"One of the likable things about Rooney is that she is aware of the physical limitations of actual bodies as well as of the ways in which they can be idealized," Kaveney writes in a portion of the review that you can't really see in the snapshot. Thanks, Roz.

Think. Art! Think. Art!

2009-06-20T08:57:00.010-04:00

The weather in Chicago last night was what meteorologists like to call severe, but the greenish sky followed by humid darkness and heavy rain only added to the spookiness of the Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble's interpretation of one of the photo shoot scenes in Live Nude Girl: See? Even though we were in a well-lit art gallery... ..they made it feel just like a campfire ghost story: Thanks again to Laurie Glenn for hosting and for fostering the Spirit of Surrealism, pictured here... ...and the spirit of community and collaboration. Thanks again to the Chicago Danztheatre, and to S. L. Wisenberg for inviting me!

When I say Think, you say Art!

2009-06-18T23:36:00.016-04:00

Check it out, it's "me" posing for an art class! Or at least it's me as portrayed by Denise Parkhurst of the Chicago Danztheatre ensemble... ...at the Th!nkArt Salon series, hosted by the inimitable Laurie Glenn, pictured below, all the way to the right: Chicago Danztheatre also interpreted scenes from Sandi "Cancer Bitch" Wisenberg's book, and as you can see, they were not shy about sitting on the couch right next to unsuspecting salon-goers... ...because letting yourself be held back by the fourth wall is like, so lame. Sandi and I each read a tiny bit from our respective books, The Adventures of Cancer Bitch and Live Nude Girl, but to call it a reading would be inaccurate. Neither Sandi nor I had ever had an actual theatre troupe read our whole books, pick out selections, and then act them out in a gallery full of people before, and for that, we are super-grateful and impressed. Because I have this picture from an event earlier today during which I helped chaperone a field trip of interns to the Federal Reserve Bank... ...I'll go ahead and say it: thanks to Laurie and Chicago Danztheatre for making us feel like a million bucks. If you missed it tonight, there's one more chance to catch the show: tomorrow, 1530 N. Paulina, Chicago, IL from 5:30-9:30. Hope to see you there.

LNG makes today's Daily Pick List...

2009-06-16T13:52:00.003-04:00

...on Jim Agnew's Literary World. You can check it out alongside other picks (including, but not limited to, Glenn Beck's Common Sense and The Joy of Pickling) here.

Thanks, Jim! And thanks to University of Arkansas Press's eagle-eyed marketing director Tom Lavoie for pointing it out.

78 square miles surrounded by reality

2009-06-14T22:30:00.012-04:00

As the nickname above might lead one to believe, Madison, Wisconsin is almost unreal in its physical beauty and wholesome-yet-progressive atmosphere. How do I know? I was just there today to read with Sandi Wisenberg aka Cancer Bitch at A Room of One's Own feminist bookstore: Like Sandi, I read behind a lectern, but since I've posted plenty of podia pics here in the past, I offer you instead this photograph of me posing in the style of the statue "FORWARD" on the grounds of the Wisconsin State Capitol building overlooking State Street. And here is 50% of our beautiful audience, lit from the side:
And here is some of the weird reality that surrounds Madison's 78-square miles, the ad for the Roast Beast sandwich at the Beefaroo restaurant attached to the Road Ranger station where we stopped for gas: Thanks to Sandi for hatching the plan for this reading, to A Room of One's Own for hosting us, and to Beefaroo for offering a sandwich so beefy you have to tie it down. Sandi and I will also be reading at the Th!nkArt Salon on Thursday, June 18 and Friday, June 19. Hope to see you there!

Mr. Obama's Neighborhood

2009-06-11T22:49:00.005-04:00

As part of their 70th Anniversary celebration, the Hyde Park Art Center is hosting "70 Days for 70 Years". They started on April 5 and are continuing through July 4 with "70 days of exciting and creative events," one of which was the "Live Nude Girl Reading and Discussion with Kathleen Rooney and Krystal Meisel" which took place tonight. In addition to being an artist's model and a kickass event partner, Krystal is a brilliant photographer whose work you can see and learn more about here. Thanks to Crystal Pernell for hosting us at the Art Center, and to Chicago Public Radio for recording us!

Llalan Fowler reviews LNG on Vernacular

2009-06-01T13:02:00.002-04:00

If you follow this link, you’ll see that this review was posted back in April, which sounds even farther away now that it’s the first day of June, but still. I’m sorry I missed it when it first appeared, and—because I am a completist and want this record to reflect that—am psyched to have the chance to post it now.

Thanks, Llalan, for reviewing it in general, and in particular for saying things like: “Rooney’s own writing is reflective but not to the point of egotism, and scholarly but never dry or overwhelming. The quick switches among the essayistic passages, the more personal reflections, and the quote-heavy, research-driven sections catch hold of the reader and dispel any doubts that there is nothing to say on the subject. However, few if any besides Kathy Rooney could have written this book. It is a smooth, fast-moving, engaging read that is constantly surprising the reader. One might argue whether the book itself is naked or nude.”

Signing off

2009-05-27T03:59:00.003-04:00

A week after the final reading of the book tour, and a couple of months removed, now, from the days when we were on the road for weeks at a time, it seems profitable to reflect upon the experience. I didn't know Kathleen Rooney very well when I called to ask if she might be interested in joining forces. I asked her because (1) I enjoyed and admired her writing, (2) our books were coming out around the same time, and (3) she seemed like she would be a hard-working tour partner, and that if we worked together, we could introduce more readers to each other's work.

What I hadn't anticipated was how extraordinary a tour partner Kathy would be. She was quite frankly better than I was at almost every aspect of putting the tour together. Her organizational skills are unmatched by anyone I've ever met, and she proved to be very good at implementation, too. Most of all, I was impressed by her skill with people. Her network is vast, and it's not a superficial vastness. In city after city, we were greeted by her many friends, and I felt lucky that some of that goodwill and enthusiasm could extend to my book, as well.

My greatest admiration for Kathy would probably extend to her reserves of energy and strength. I couldn't match her drive, her stamina, nor her will for optimism. I admire all three, and wish I could match them.

In addition to the things I thought the tour would offer -- the opportunity to connect with more readers, the opportunity to interact with booksellers and critics, the opportunity to get to know other writers -- the tour also provided me with an opportunity to reexamine and reevaluate what kind of writer I want to be, and what role I hoped writing would play in my professional life. On grounds of my personal life, the tour proved to be ill-timed. Right around the beginning of the tour, I learned that I had been laid off from my teaching position at the university where I had been working, and I felt the heaviness of the loss throughout the tour. My wife had given up her teaching post so I could take the one I had now lost, and I spent the weeks on the road in daily worry about whether one of us could find something that would provide money enough for us to live, and, perhaps more importantly, health insurance, since our youngest child was born quite premature and therefore has a suspect immune system.

I had long treated my writing as a purely artistic prerogative, believing that teaching would provide income and time enough to let me write whatever I wanted, even if what I wanted was only to write unremunerative short stories and poems, and even if it meant only publishing books on small presses. But going on tour, and interacting with writers who have found ways to make a living largely on the strength of their writing, made me think that it might be possible to do the same, especially since my aesthetic interests had recently turned more sharply toward the novel and toward reportage.

The other example of a writerly life I saw on tour and admired was that of the writer who chooses a concurrent career path that is completely outside any traditional writerly career path -- writer/physicians, writer/attorneys, writer/civil servants, writer/special effects technicians -- career paths that enable writers to become what Dana Gioia called "Spies in the House of Commerce."

My own post-In the Devil's Territory work has been driven by frequent investigative trips to Haiti, where I have been working on a narrative nonfiction book and a novel. In the Devil's Territory was a book largely concerned with the world of my childhood, but now I feel like I want to create pieces of writing that engage more fully with the world outside myself. In Haiti, where there is a breakdown in the rule of law, and where what is at stake daily is literal life and death, I have seen how closely intertwined public policy can be with human misery. And I have also seen how people with basic, ground-level skills -- nurses, dentists, physicians, agriculturalists, structural engineers -- can ease human misery in specific places, and vastly change the quality of the lives of people. I want my writing to begin to more broadly engage both of these matters, micro- and macro-, and also to achieve a broad enough audience that what is discovered might have some traction beyond the pleasures of literature.

I also want to begin to cultivate at least one of these extra-writerly disciplines on my own, as a means of liberation from dependence on the academy, as a means of deepening the knowledge base that informs the authority of my writing, and, most importantly, as a means of making possible a front-line human response that I can offer independent of my work as a writer. Toward that end, I'm going to spend some time in the next year exploring some of those disciplines in preparation for choosing one as a parallel career path.

It is no exaggeration to credit the people I met on tour, and most of all Kathy, as catalysts for varieties of active reflection that will no doubt shape the kind of writer I will become, going forward. Traveling to 25 cities, meeting hundreds of people of diverse inclinations, eating and drinking at many tables, enjoying conviviality, engaging in occasional arguments about things that matter, and pushing past physical and psychological exhaustion to achieve a marathon of interaction with other people (an area that, I'll admit, is far from my strength), all of it I'll count among the most valuable, extraordinary, and life-shaping experiences of my life.

I am extraordinarily grateful to everyone who opened their home to us, to everyone who came to a reading, to everyone who bought a book, to everyone who followed the blog, to my family for being gracious about my long absences, and most of all to Kathy for being my better in so many ways on a 25-city tour the likes of which very few people are ever able to experience. I feel very lucky.

With warm wishes,

Kyle Minor
May 27, 2009

The Live Nude Girl in the Devil's Territory Tour...

2009-05-19T10:25:00.031-04:00

...is over. And can I just say that if I have to sign one more naked torso with a Sharpie, I'll poke myself in the eye? Kidding! We love our fans. Some of them are here……and here: But as all good things must, the 25-city traveling literary circus that was our tour has come to an end, and it's hard to think of a better way for it to have done so than at the Book Cellar (thanks, Suzy!) in the company of Zach "Featherproof" Plague… …and Gina "Other Voices" Frangello: I was so excited, I wore a dress that matched my book cover:

It's kind of pleasing that something so fun and awesome ended at the (relative) beginning of something else so fun and awesome: the Pilcrow Lit Festival—be sure to check it out all week long, including tonight at Innertown Pub for the Quickies Reading Series, where I’ll be reading a story from Rose Metal Press’s A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness alongside tons of other fantastic writers including RMP’s Geoffrey Forsyth whose short short chapbook In the Land of the Free is not to be missed.

Also, even though the tour proper has reached its conclusion, stay tuned to the blog, which will continue to meet your one-stop-shopping needs for all future Live Nude Girl and In the Devil’s Territory news.

Before I bid you 'bye for now, here is a picture of Clark "Vince is Back" Harding who flew in all the way from L.A. in time to attend this reading in a turn of events that thrilled my love of things coming unexpectedly full circle: Kyle and I crashed at his place on the very first night of the LNGitDT tour, and last night, he crashed with Martin and me. Such symmetry. He also bought a copy of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City at the Book Cellar last night so he could re-read it, and he highly recommends you do the same. Thanks, Clark, and thanks everyone, everywhere, for everything.

LNG in the June 2009 issue of Esquire!

2009-05-11T12:20:00.011-04:00

A gentleman wrote to Esquire's Stacey Grenrock Woods that "I finally convinced my girlfriend to let me take pictures of her naked, but in every one she looks awkward. Is there some kind of pose or trick to make them look sexier?" In order to provide him with the necessary answers, SGW quoted yours truly. The column's not available online, but you can see it pictured to the left here, and pick up the whole issue in a bookstore near you. While you're already there picking up a copy of Live Nude Girl, of course, and In the Devil's Territory while you're at it. Further reasons to get this issue of the mag include, but are not limited to: 1) Megan Fox on the cover, 2) a 10-page feature on how to be a more skillful drinker, and 3) a What I've Learned questionnaire answered by Christopher Walken. Thanks, Esquire!

The Erotica Readers and Writers Association…

2009-05-03T22:34:00.002-04:00

…just posted a great review of Live Nude Girl. Reviewer Rob Hardy says “It is, as you’d expect, poetic on many pages, but it is also funny, the work of an amused and alert writer who has a point of observation on the model’s stand that is unique and is seldom so deeply considered…” You can check out the whole review here.

Open Correspondence from the Senator

2009-04-22T19:26:00.005-04:00

Last week, Jeremy Schmall sent me a copy of his high-concept (it comes in a file folder!) chapbook Open Correspondence from the Senator in the mail because he said he would when we met him in Brooklyn. I read most of it on the train today and really enjoyed it and its high production values, courtesy of x-ing books. And, because I said I would, I took it to work and read a tiny bit of it there—see? It blends right in. Thanks, Jeremy!

Interview with Kyle Minor at Hardboiled Wonderland

2009-04-17T19:51:00.003-04:00

Jedidiah Ayres and I talk touring, Kathleen Rooney, postevangelical literature, Lee K. Abbott, polygamy, murder, Cormac McCarthy, Chekhov, Greenpoint, and the G Train, at Hardboiled Wonderland.

All Travelers Are Lost: Recommendations from Across the Land

2009-04-14T23:00:00.002-04:00

In his essay “On Lullabies,” Federico García Lorca talks about the difficulty of attempting to describe his travels, and about “trying to avoid the sort of ugly erudite data that tire out audiences; it is emotional data I shall try to emphasize.”

On the tour, I got to see a lot of people I love, and to meet a lot of new ones: These people in turn told me about a lot of things that they liked that they thought that I would also like—to read, to watch, to hear, to drink, to eat, to use, to do, etc. Here, because lists and geographic regions are two of my fave ways to organize information, is a list of some of that data, a haphazard and organic look at what came up when we were where:

In LA:

To Read:
Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century, nonfiction by P.W. Singer
Feed, a YA novel by MT Anderson
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, a novel by Shirley Jackson (read it; loved it)
The Haunting of Hill House, a novel by Shirley Jackson (read it; loved it)
Double Takes: Pairs of Contemporary Short Stories, an anthology edited by T.C. Boyle
Pride of Baghdad, a graphic novel by Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon
Pretty much anything by T.C. Boyle

To Ride:
The Metro (rode it; loved it)

To Visit:
The Museum of Death
In San Francisco:

To Read:
Effi Briest by Theodore Fontane
A Miracle, a Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers by Lawrence Weschler
Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: A Life of Contemporary Artist Robert Irwin by Lawrence Weschler
Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder: Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology by Lawrence Weschler
The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo by Peter Orner
Esther Stories by Peter Orner:
In Portland: To Read:
“Detroit Arcadia: Exploring the Post-American Landscape,” an article by Rebecca Solnit in Harper’s (read it; loved it)

In Seattle:

To Read:
Ouisconsin: the Dead in Our Clouds, poetry by Bryan Tomasovich
All About Lulu, a novel by Jonathan Evison:
In Bellingham:
To Read:
Valley of the Dolls, a novel by Jacqueline Susann

To Watch:
The Naked Kiss by Samuel Fuller
Shock Corridor by Samuel Fuller

In Tacoma:
To Read:
“Writer, Reader, Words,” an essay by Jeanette Winterson (read it; loved it): "The serious writer cannot be in competition for sales and attention from the ever expanding leisure industry. She can only offer what she has ever offered; an exceptional sensibility combined with an exceptional control over words." Yes.

To Listen To:
Centro-matic (listened to it; loved it)

In Minneapolis:

To Read:
Exposure, a novel by Kathryn Harrison

To Watch:
The Danish Poet, a short film
Belly

To Listen to:
Laura Nyro
Wendy Waldman

To Drink at:
Kochanski’s Concertina Bar on the south side of Milwaukee (formerly Art’s Concertina Bar)
Grumpy's, near the Loft, which featured prominently in the short story Rebecca Kanner read (drank there; loved it):
In Milwaukee:

To Read:
Ada, Or Ardor by Vladimir Nabokov
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
The Dark Half by Stephen King

To Watch:
Along Came Polly

In Chicago:

To Read:
Dark Horses: Poets on Overlooked Poems, an anthology edited by Joy Katz and Kevin Prufer
The Bodyfeel Lexicon, poems by Jessica Bozek
Lady Chatterley’s Lover, a novel by D. H. Lawrence
Specs, a literary magazine
You Must Be This Happy to Enter, short stories by Elizabeth Crane (read it; loved it)

To Watch:
Metropolitan
Gossip Girl

In Boston:
To Read:
Slice, a literary magazine
The Normal School, a literary magazine
How Sassy Changed My Life: a Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time by Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer

In Provincetown:

To Read:
The Man Who Loved Flowers, a short story by Stephen King from the collection Night Shift

To Drink at:
The Governor Bradford (drank there; loved it):

In Providence:

To Read:
Last Days, a novel by Brian Evenson:

On the Winding Stair, short stories by Joanna Howard

To Look at:
The art of Ben Watkins

To Listen To:
Keith and the Girl

In New York:
To Read:
Sometimes My Heart Pushes My Ribs by Ellen Kennedy (read it; loved it)
The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution, nonfiction by Denis Dutton
Chilly Scenes of Winter, a novel by Anne Beattie
Gigantic Sequins, a literary magazine
The Agriculture Reader, a literary magazine
Official Correspondence from the Senator, a chapbook by Jeremy Schmall
Recessionwire.com
Jeremy Hoffeld in New York, a blog by Jeremy Hoffeld in New York (read it; love it):

To Watch:
The Cross and the Switchblade
WALL-E
Ratatouille

To Look at:
The art of Judy Pfaff

To Listen To:
GG Allin

To Drink:
Negroni: 1 part gin, 1 part sweet vermouth, and 1 part bitter (normally Campari), recommended by Brendan:
Kombucha recommended by Tao Lin:
To Attend:
The In the Flesh Reading Series
Lit Crawl NY

To Wear:
Other people’s stylish glasses, like Jeremy here, wearing Jeremy's glasses:

In Baltimore:
To Read:
Megillat Esther, by JT Waldman

To Learn How to Cook:
Almond-crusted tomato sandwiches

To Visit in Memphis:
The Crystal Grotto
The Peabody Hotel, containing the ducks

In DC:

To Read:
How Soccer Explains the World: an Unlikely Theory of Globalization by Franklin Foer
Books from the small press Beothuk

“Rod Blagojevich Writes 25 Things About Himself on Facebook” on McSweeneys by Sean Carman (read it; loved it)

“Maybe You Can Go Home Again” by Sean Carman at the Inside Higher Ed blog (read it; loved it)

To Learn How to Cook:
Shweji, a Burmese dessert:
To Visit in NYC:
The Grolier Club, America's oldest and largest society for bibliophiles and enthusiasts in the graphic arts

In Chicago (again):
To Attend:
Theatre productions (especially Sketchbook) by Collaboraction

In Fayetteville:
To Read:
Night of the Gun, a memoir by David Carr
The Last Fine Time, a memoir by Verlyn Klinkenbourg
Linebreak, a literary magazine

To Watch:
Meet Me in St. Louis
Ordinary People

To Wear:
Your scarf over your head when a winter storm blows in suddenly and you’ve forgotten your umbrella:

In Memphis:
To Read:
The Book Thief, a YA novel by Markus Zusak
The Territory of Men: a Memoir by Joelle Fraser
The Man Who Turned Into Himself: a Novel by David Ambrose

To Watch:
The Visitor

To Listen To:
Cry Softly, Lonely One by Roy Orbison

To Visit:
Stax Museum of American Soul Music

In Edwardsville:

To read:
Cradle Song, poetry by Stacey Lynn Brown

To Wash With:
Milk Milk soap from Fresh

In Champaign-Urbana:
To Read:
Anything by Richard Powers, but especially The Gold Bug Variations and The Echo Maker

In Bellingham again:
To Read:
Blessing of the Animals, a collection of essays by Brenda Miller
Cool for You, poems by Eileen Myles
American Husband, poems by Kary Wayson
No Sweeter Fat, poems by Nancy Pagh
Body Language, short stories by Kelly Magee
“On Difficulty in Poetry,” an essay by Reginald Shepherd (read it; loved it)
“Captivity,” an essay by Sherman Alexie
Sayonara Mrs. Kackleman, a kids’ book by Maira Kalman

To Eat:
Ritter Sport Dark Chocolate with Marzipan

To Know About and Maybe Try to Go to Sometime:
Hedgebrook: a rural retreat on Whidbey Island for Women Writers

In Chicago again:

To Read:
Inside a Red Corvette: a 90s Mix Tape, a poetry chapbook by Becca Klaver of Switchback Books from Greying Ghost Press (read it; loved it)
a / long / division a poetry chapbook by Hanna Andrews of Switchback Books from Tilt Press (read it; loved it):
The Man without Qualities, a novel by Robert Musil

In Ann Arbor:
To Read:
Big World, short stories by Mary Miller, from Short Flight/Long Drive Books
The Sicily Papers, a travel memoir by Michelle Orange, from Short Flight/Long Drive Books
Walking Dead, a zombie comic created by Robert Kirkman
Murder (a violet), poems by Ray McDaniel
Saltwater Empire, poems by Ray McDaniel
Anything by Mike Alber

To Watch:
Quarantine
Let the Right One In

To Eat:
Grilled peanut butter sandwiches with garlic salt

To Visit:
Big Jar Books in Philadelphia (which I can’t totally tell if it exists)
Detroit

In Chicago again:

To Read:
Cinema Muto, poems by Jesse Lee Kercheval
This Must Be the Place, poems by Alice George
Bestiary, poems by Elise Paschen
Strange Trades, poems by Kristy Odelius
Ender’s Game, a novel by Orson Scott Card
Wisecrack: Feminism & Comedy, a literary magazine
The Fifth Child, a novel by Doris Lessing (read it; loved it)

To Watch:
Silent films from Wisconsin Bioscope

In Carlsbad, California:
To Read:
Hardboiled novels by Ross Macdonald
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, a novel by Agatha Christie
Why Did I Ever?, a novel by Mary Robison
Reader’s Block, a novel by David Markson
Wittgenstein’s Mistress, a novel by David Markson
Cloud Atlas, a novel by David Mitchell
Deer Head Nation, poems by K. Silem Mohammad
My Life, poems by Lyn Hejinian
Candy in Action, a novel by Matthue Roth
A Harper’s article about the NYC sewage/wastewater system (something about the Big
Flush)
Hit Wave, a chapbook by Jon Leon (from Kitchen Press)
Telling It Slant: Avant Garde Poetics of the1990s edited by Mark Wallace and Steven
Marks
Haze, poems by Mark Wallace
The Temporary Worker Rides a Subway, poems by Mark Wallace (read it; loved it)
speculations descending therefrom a poetry chapbook by K. Lorraine Graham (read it; loved it)
Telling the Future Off by Stephanie Young
Books from Tougher Disguises Press
Books by James Meetze
Accidental Hedonist, a food blog
The Traveler’s Lunchbox, a food blog by Melissa Kronenthal

To Watch:
“Kittens Inspired by Kittens” on Youtube (watched it; cracked up)
The Haunting (the 1963 version)
Gidget

To Listen To:
“It Never Rains in Southern California” by Albert Hammond (listened to it; cracked up)
Something Cool by June Christy
Wanda Jackson (listened to it; cracked up/squirmed with discomfort)
Keith Jarrett
The Pernice Brothers

To Eat:
Persian Cucumbers (especially in drinks) (ate/drank them; loved them)
Bee Pollen (ate it; felt healthy)

To Floss With:
Crest Mint Glide

To Write With:
Stablio Point 88 Fineliner pens

To Consider as a Potential Future Pet:
Parrotlets

To Someday Name a Cat:
Pianoface (but Lorraine gets first dibs)

In Carbondale, IL:

To Read:
The Only World, poems by Lynda Hull (read it; loved it)
Transparent Gestures, poems by Rodney Jones
The Unborn, poems by Rodney Jones
Things That Happen Once, poems by Rodney Jones
Carolina Ghost Woods, poems by Judy Jordan
My Psychic, poems by James Kimbrell
Isabella Moon, a novel by Laura Benedict:
Calling Mr. Lonelyhearts, a novel by Laura Benedict
Town Smokes, short stories by Pinckney Benedict:
Dogs of God, a novel by Pinckney Benedict
The Wrecking Yard, short stories by Pinckney Benedict
Reveries of the Solitary Walker by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Anything by the poet Jack Gilbert
I Am Legend, a novella by Richard Matheson
Hell House, a novel by Richard Matheson
Grimalkin and Other Poems by Thomas Lynch
The Night the Ghost Got In, a short story by James Thurber
Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in Modern Horror Film by Carol J. Clover
Leaving Iowa, by Michael Meyerhoffer

To Watch:
Feasting on Asphalt on the Food Network by Alton Brown
L’il Pimp (a Laffs from the Hood Production)
Count Yorga
Planet of the Vampires
Pick-Up
Killer Shrews
The Giant Gila Monster
It’s Alive
Phantom of the Paradise

To Attend:
Duff’s Reading Series in St. Louis

In Indianapolis, IN:
To Read:
Modern Love, a fiction chapbook by Andrew Scott, from Sunny Outside Press
Freight Stories, a literary magazine for contemporary fiction

To Join:
Andrew’s Book Club, a book club for short story collections, run by Andrew Scott

Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School...

2009-04-11T18:56:00.011-04:00

...has some rock-solid rules for their monthly Figure Drawing Spectacular: 1. This is a participation-only drawing class. No looky-loos! 2. Respect your model. Don't make gross comments. Don't ask her out. 3. No messy or stinky mediums. How do I know? Thanks to Carol Guess (whose prose poetry collection Tinderbox Lawn is not to be missed), who sent the flier all the way from Hamsterdam to Chicago, where it looks really nice on the fridge. Thanks, Carol!

The April issue of ARTnews...

2009-04-06T15:37:00.004-04:00

...has a write-up--with pictures!--of Live Nude Girl in their "Art Talk" section. Sharing real estate there are Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, and Yoko Ono. Not bad. Thanks to Ann Landi for the write-up and to Beth Rooney and Salvatore Del Deo for the images.

One Hundred Things I Loved About Touring the United States with Kathleen Rooney (Part One: The First Fifty)

2009-04-04T11:33:00.001-04:00

1. Riding the Metro from the Green Line at the airport to the Blue Line to the Red Line to Hollywood, a surprisingly fun hours-long trip that allowed us to take in a whole lot of the city, including plenty of the parts where people tell you not to go. My favorite was South Central, where people were nicer and more helpful than almost any other place in any other city in the world. Michael Moore was right about South Central Los Angeles. It's a vibrant community, not a hellhole, and I liked it plenty.

2. Not Touring the Museum of Death (a relief!)

3. Standing on Cowboy Gene Autry's Walk of Fame star.

4. Meeting a bookstore employee at L.A.'s Skylight Books, remarking upon how friendly she was, liking her intensely, learning later that she was the fiction writer and anthologist K. Kvashay-Boyle, who I had already admired on the page.

5. Kicking it with Clark Harding, screenwriter and Antarctic explorer.

6. Talking shop with Joshuah Bearman, admiring his new beard and bow tie, learning about the legend of Master Legend, the Orlando-area vigilante crimefighter.

7. Walking San Francisco.

8. Eating all the foods of the world in San Francisco, including (a first!) Taiwanese.

9. Eating said foods of the world with George Awad, host and tour guide extraordinaire.

10. In the Mission, meeting a Guatemalan man in a Mexican restaurant who was reading a library edition of Isaac Bashevis Singer's stories, translated into Spanish from an English edition translated from Yiddish. Also: having this moment with this man without either of us actually using words the other knew. Hooray for Isaac Bashevis Singer!

11. Meeting Peter Orner, buying his book, reading it later that night, wishing I had read it before I met him so I could have talked with him about it when I met him.

12. Reading with Daniel Handler.

13. Drinking with Daniel Handler.

14. Eating lots of meals with Kathleen Rooney (hereafter I'll refer to her as Kathy), whose vegetarian ways helped nudge me toward eating more healthily, and thereby feeling better than I would otherwise have felt, and also probably keeping me from falling ill while on the road. The first of many admirable things I learned, in fact, from traveling with her.

15. Bitching about the weather in Portland but sort of liking Portland anyway.

16. Bitching about the semi-creepy guys in Portland who came out on account of the idea of "Live Nude Girl," but sort of liking the semi-creepy guys in Portland anyway.

17. Meeting Jonathan Evison, the hardest working man in fiction publishing. He brought tiny hot dogs and Twinkies to our reading at the University Bookstore in Seattle. He invited everyone at the reading to the after-party. Even the bookstore employees followed us over. No debauchery followed, so far as I could tell. What did was plenty of warm conversation, jokes, talk about literature, talk about the economy. A theology professor held forth in one corner about the death of God, and a factory worker held forth in another about gaming the Washington state unemployment system. I wrote a blog post about Jonathan Evison wearing rouge, but turns out he doesn't wear any. He is gifted with the natural coloration of an Abercrombie and Fitch model. I took notes but couldn't figure out how to replicate the genetics.

18. Watching Kathy cycle through her material before settling on the crowd-pleasing piece -- the essay on photography -- that became her standard reading material. Watching her progress as a reader from good to very good to, by day six or so, world-class pro.

19. Taking a chance in Bellingham, and reading from "A Love Story," a slower story about a closeted gay man who is also a fundamentalist preacher, and connecting with several people in the audience in a way that the slicker, more thrilling work never could quite match.

20. Hanging out with Carol and Elizabeth, poets extraordinaire, in Bellingham. Sitting around their table and working, the four of us, like we were real writers, and enjoying the quiet communion of that time of work.

21. Eating Indian food and gossiping in Tacoma with Jason Skipper, author of one of the most beautiful not-yet-published novels in America.

22. Fighting with the gas station attendant outside SeaTac, and making our flight only because of Kathy's uber-organization.

23. Regarding with sheer pleasure the magenta binder of maps, directions, expenditures, and receipts that Kathy collated with a care not unlike the care she invests in making and publishing beautiful books for other people at Rose Metal Press.

24. Flying over Big Sky country, reading Amy Wilentz's grossly underrated The Rainy Season, which is the best account by anyone anywhere of the pivotal late '80's in Haiti.

25. Learning that Minneapolis is one of the best cities in the world. The people are warm there, the politics are just right, and when you read at the Book Loft, they put your name in pink letters on the streetside marquee, and send a photographer to follow you all night and give you a CD-ROM full of pictures before you leave.

26. Learning that Rebecca Kanner, our guest reader in Minneapolis, was as cool in person as she seemed to be from her work. Loving her, loving her, loving her.

27. Hanging out afterward at a dive bar with Rebecca's friends, whose stories and regalements included talk of intercontinental expeditions, detainments by Uzbekistani police officers, bribes paid, motorcycles wrecked on icy ponds, and heroin dens disrupted by the vice of virtue.

28. MegaBussing for eight dollars one way, Minneapolis to Milwaukee.

29. Watching Kathy skillfully defuse a semi-skillful MegaBus proposition, a thing of dicey sketchy beauty I hadn't known enough about the world to imagine possible.

30. Eating strips of bacon wrapped in cheese wrapped in egg rolls, deep friend, and washed down with pitchers of beer, in Milwaukee, with the poet Drew Blanchard.

31. Talking Peruvian poetry, political violence, and the Shining Path, while drinking Peruvian drinks with a Peruvian poet (in Milwaukee!)

32. Spending more less the last of a buddy's record advance while all-night carousing on Division Street, in Chicago.

33. Playing uno with my brother and sister-in-law, in Chicago.

34. Reading to a packed-out bar on the north side, in Chicago.

35. Standing three inches from three Vincent van Gogh self-portraits, in Chicago.

36. Reading with real true personal hero Roy Kesey, in Chicago, and also oversleeping in the bed next to Roy Kesey's, both of us snoring I'm told, in Chicago.

37. Talking Postevangelical Literature, comic books, the sexual lives of the ladies of the cloth, and the apocolypse, with Pinckney Benedict, David McGlynn, Scott Kaukonen, and Angela Pneuman, while a standing room only audience egged us on, in Chicago.

38. Meeting Beth Rooney, soon-to-be-famous photographer, in Chicago.

39. Dammit, I really loved Chicago.

40. Finally meeting Martin Seay, Kathy's husband and author of a manuscript for a novel whose ambition seems to me to rival William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom, and Dan Brown's the Da Vinci Code, and both at once, and maybe it will appeal to both audiences, and maybe I just got in on the ground floor -- Fanboy #1. I'm claiming it. This was also in Chicago.

41. The unexpected beauty of Boston from the vista the airplane achieves upon approach -- the buildings, the harbor, the crazy cow path road shapes.

42. Reading with Steve Almond, whose generosity extended to gifts of rarish sweet candies in a paper dime store bag.

43. A magical evening in Provincetown, among the best and smallest crowd of the tour, a crowd that interrupted the reading to cheer or praise the work, and a crowd that brought beer.

44. A magical evening in Provincetown (Part II), at the townie bar, where a drag queen regaled us with stories from his wedding and his cab company, and then bought copies of both our books.

45. Eating avocado wraps the next morning in Provincetown, while sitting on a bench in the beach sand, overlooking the bay, contemplating the Atlantic beyond, dreaming of New York City.

46. Walking Provincetown one last time, among the ghosts of summers past, all the way to the lighthouse.

47. Hearing the good news that Kathy was going to be a guest on Talk of the Nation!!!

48. Sleeping an extra hour in the car while Kate and Kathy navigated Boston's downtown one-ways and got us safely to the rental car drop-off.

49. Reading V.S. Naipaul on a Chinatown bus full with people for whom English is not language number one, and discussing politics in Chad with a woman from Chad, who said, "Would you ever like to visit Chad?" (Yes, I would!)

50. Arriving in New York! Drinking coffee in Chinatown! Hopping the subway to Brooklyn!

In our next installment: 25 Readings in One Day! Tao Lin! Tacos! Snow Falling in Memphis! Snowplows Necessary In Arkansas! A Birthday Party! Interstates! Aaron Burch!

The Short Review and Bookslut on In the Devil's Territory

2009-04-04T10:29:00.003-04:00

There's an extraordinarily generous new review of In the Devil's Territory by British critic Susannah Rickards up at The Short Review. Rickards writes: "Everyone who reads or writes short fiction should take a look at this debut collection. Missing out on it would be like missing out on Greene, Carver, Munro . . ." More here.

And there's a new post about the book and particularly the story "A Day Meant to Do Less" at the Bookslut blog. Nina MacLaughlin writes: "In Kyle Minor’s debut collection In the Devil’s Territory (which came out late last year; which I’ve written about elsewhere; which more than warrants continued discussion), sex weaves in and out of the stories, a powerful, destructive force, a location of massive self-deception and self-denial. The sexual situations Minor sets up are baleful, uncomfortable, sad. He explores the shadowy pockets of our hearts and heads, the places we avoid, because what we find there is weird, off, wrong, and sort of scary." More here.

Live Nude Girl gets 8 out of 10 nipples....

2009-04-04T10:09:00.006-04:00

...from Campus Progress! To give some sense of scale, this occurs on the same page where the new Decemberists album gets "8 out of 10 dog-eared 19th-century Penny Dreadfuls" and U2 gets "9 out of 10 earnest rock stars."

Read Caroline Hagood's review in its entirety here.

Imitation is the sincerest form...

2009-03-30T21:34:00.032-04:00

...of affectionate mockery, hence my co-workers' leaving a copy of the hot new book, Live Nude Boy: Shake It, Shake it, Shake It, Till You Can't Shake No More, on my chair for me to find when I made my triumphant return yesterday morning: Thanks, guys! Also waiting for me? The following sign, courtesy of Sendy......and peanut-butter blondies......courtesy of Jeffrey. If you are curious about how he made the culinary magic happen, then might I suggest you take a look at Jeffrey's blog? Welcome to the working week.

Long Sunday afternoon of the heart

2009-03-28T11:43:00.022-04:00

On the last leg of my most recent journey back to Chicago (after the drive from Carmel to downtown Indy, after the Megabus from there to Union Station, and after the El from there to the Granville stop, on the walk from there to my apartment), I saw the following sign on the door to a barber shop and I had to stop and take a picture: Let's get a closer look: Maybe because I was sleep-deprived, alone, and overly emotional, this sign seemed to speak directly to me. Something about its DIY hand-lettered quality and its overall semi-comical questionable believability (fishing? really??) reminded me of the tour that Kyle and I had just about finished. It still seems unreal to me that we really went out and did what we did. And that we were able--considering costs, work committments, family obligations, the shit-tanking economy, the panic in the publishing industry, etc. etc. etc.--to do what we did at all, and to have had such a fantastic time (I did, anyway) doing it.

Another reason the sign's message felt especially relevant is that I asked for and received an approximately two-month leave from my office job in order to do the tour. Now, having not shown up in my cubicle since January 30, I will report back there as per usual by 8:30 am this coming Monday. So basically, the "go fishing" part of my recent life is just about over, and the "back soon" part is about to begin.

You know that sense of protracted finality you get on a Sunday afternoon or evening after a weekend particularly well-spent? The feeling that the all the fun and freedom you've had is ending, and that all that opportunity you had to do whatever you wanted is, at least temporarily, at an end? This whole week has felt like that. And I actually really love my normal job. I can't imagine how this would feel if I didn't. So thanks to my employer for letting me go away, and, more importantly, to letting me come back; catch you soon, back in Cube City.

Now the two friends climb up, up to the high balconies.

2009-03-26T09:59:00.011-04:00

Kyle and I had to limit our travels to the continental United States, but intrepid super-fans Lisa (left) and Mansi (right) made sure that Live Nude Girl got a European vacation: They are pictured here reading LNG on a scenic promontory at Gibralfaro Castle in Malaga, Spain, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Spring Break 09! Thanks, you two.

Hoosier Daddy?

2009-03-25T16:36:00.028-04:00

Last night was our penultimate appearance--the second-to-last stop on the epic Live Nude Girl in the Devil's Territory tour--and the 24th city out of 25 was Indianapolis. It's a five or so hour drive from Carbondale to Indy (plus, you jump a time zone, so you lose an hour). Luckily, Kyle (who did all the driving) and I were well-rested, a fact I attribute--in my case, at least--to there having been ballerinas in the room where I'd slept the night before: Improbably restful natural sleep has happened three times so far on the tour (twice at Carol and Elizabeth's and now once at Rebecca's) and I'm beginning to think ballerinas are somehow more effective than Ambien. When we got to Marian College, where we were hosted by Andrew Scott (pictured below, rocking the mic), whose fiction chapbook Modern Love I highly recommend... ...I couldn't decide which section of Live Nude Girl to read, so I asked the students, some of whom are pictured here... ...to kick it democracy-style and vote for whether they wanted to hear a chapter that was more about sex, or one that was more about death. As in Carbondale, sex won by a landslide, even though (or maybe because?) it was a Catholic college, and we were clearly, as indicated by the World's Largest Cross by the side of I-57... ... in God's country. After the reading, Kyle and I parted ways, not to be reunited until May 18th, when we'll be reading with Zach Dodson and Gina Frangello in Chicago at the Book Cellar. He headed down the lonesome highway to Muncie, and I went to Carmel with one of my oldest friends, Liz... ...who I met 15 years ago, during our freshman year at Downers Grove North High School in Downers Grove, Illinois. Go Trojans! Thanks to her, her husband Dustin, and their son Marcus (pictured here, being really excited about drinking tiny bits of water from his mom's plastic straw)... ...for having me, and for driving me to the Megabus stop downtown this morning, so that I could be delivered safely back to Chicago this early afternoon.

In conclusion, here is a picture of a record-player that was in the same room as the ballerinas: Why? Mostly because I like it. But also maybe because it feels like Kyle and I have set some kind of record in the world of DIY touring? And because I never met a pun I didn't like? I'm inevitably sad when something comes to an end, even when said something sort of sucked sometimes (which, for the record (Get it? Sorry, I can't help myself.) this tour pretty much didn't). So I am happy to say that this is not good-bye, not yet. This is still until next time.

Homewood, Kankakee, Gilman, Rantoul, Champaign-Urbana, Mattoon, Effingham, Centralia, and DuQuoin...

2009-03-23T22:39:00.056-04:00

...are the towns you pass through when you are riding the Amtrak Saluki to Carbondale, Illinois. In addition to possessing a certain romance, trains provide an excellent environment for getting work done while you are en route. But even then, there comes a point (about four hours in, this time) when all you can do is look pensively out the window and take self-portraits for your blog (special thanks to Alexis, who is 8, for helping me pick which one to post here): Once our train arrived--only half an hour late, which is really pretty decent in Amtrak time--the whole town of Carbondale was Spring-ing its heart out (thanks, Tree!).... ...and Kyle was there (thanks, Kyle!) to pick me up at the station and then head off in search of a slice of chocolate banana cream pie for me... ...and then to a bar called--fittingly, given the subject matter of the tour, "Booby's"--for a ham and cheese sub for Kyle, tempting though it would have been for him to pick up some Chik-Fil-A, whose signs pit one poor doomed animal against another in a desperate and poorly spelled fight for life: After that, we gave a reading that was very hot and not just because of the winsome... ...and stylishly dressed audience: I mean, that too, but also, the room was just really hot. After that, we went to Fujiyama, a Japanese steak house in a strip mall. Although we did not sit in the stunt cooking section where, we are told you risk getting your beard set on fire or at least losing an eye, we still had a lovely time. Special thanks to Pinckney Benedict for bringing the funny to our intros, and to Laura Benedict (pictured below) for reading with us and for the delicious dinner... ...and to Jon Tribble and Allison Joseph (pictured below) for hanging out and adding to the photographic documentation of the evening's events: Thanks also to Rebecca and Brian (and Karma and Alexis) for cleaning their rooms and hosting us at their home in Herrin, Illinois. Tomorrow morning, Kyle and I will hit the road again and tomorrow night we will read at 7:00 at Marian College in Indianapolis. But before we go to bed to rest up for that, here is one more picture of the sky above the SIU Student Center, both because it is pretty and because it reminds me of Elisa Gabbert who had lots of cloud formations in her poems when we read in California last week. This one's for you, EG. Good night out there, everybody, wherever you are.

Surf's up!

2009-03-22T10:08:00.067-04:00

Many aspects of our trip to California were so improbably beautiful and fun, they felt unreal. Some of them actually were unreal, such as this faux-horse outside a storefront in the quaint and hilly town of Ramona, former turkey-producing capital of the United States: Numerous other things were fully real, though, including our enthusiastic audience… …at Cal State San Marcos… …at the reading we gave there… …as well as the beach, of course… …the mountain scenery… …Lester the parrotlet (pictured with Lorraine)… …and even the squirrels: The food was superb, and the fresh produce was beyond. Witness the berries and bee pollen on the acai bowl I ordered (when in Rome) when we stopped in Encinitas on the way from the airport to Carlsbad: But Elisa and I also really… …really loved the pickled vegetables: And it felt like Happy Hour there all the time: Spring Break 09! Thanks so much to Mark, pictured with us on the beach trying to look intense and perhaps even spiritual (not our forte?)... …and Lorraine for being phenomenal hosts. Thanks also to the Cal State audience for being so laugh-y and attentive, and to California for embodying such a weird yet appealing dream. Kyle and I are hitting the road again tomorrow, and will be reading in Carbondale, IL on the SIU campus tomorrow at 4:00, so if you are in downstate Illinois (or Kentucky or Indiana or Missouri or thereabouts), come on by.

California, here we come.

2009-03-18T17:25:00.006-04:00

"We" being Elisa Gabbert and me that is.

We are flying--from Boston and Chicago, respectively--into the San Diego airport tomorrow morning, because tomorrow night, we are doing the Community & World Literary Series at Cal State San Marcos, further detais about which you can find here. A really important detail is that we will be reading collaboratively and individually, which basically makes this three--three!--readings in one. The event is free, but really, that's a lot of bang for your literary buck. So if you are anywhere near Southern California/Northern Mexico tomorrow evening, stop on by. And speaking of details, regardless of where you are, you can stop by our blog "Even the Details Have Details" any time.

Wordslingers!

2009-03-16T10:48:00.010-04:00

Everyone's always warning you to beware the ides of March, but this year I have to say my ides went pretty well. In addition to the Woman Made reading yesterday, I got to appear on the local poetry radio show Wordslingers based out of Loyola University and located in this building (which I will admit, at night, looks a little worth bewaring)......and at 88.7 FM, and co-hosted by Michael Watson and Shelley Nation. Also appearing was Joris Soeding, the managing editor of Another Chicago Magazine and the author of two chapbooks: Trees.Otherness.Instance. and Surfaces Diminished. Thanks to Michael and Shelley for having me (and for being totally cool when I almost accidentally swore in a poem on live radio, despite having been told: "Because of the FCC, no profanity or overtly pornographic or graphic descriptions of sexual interaction can be allowed on air") and to Joris for reading the best poem about attending a Barbie convention in Schaumburg that I have ever heard.

Support good art--shop Woman Made.

2009-03-15T23:17:00.026-04:00

Many's been the time in my working life (including my years as a live nude girl, not to mention the ones spent slaving in the white collar sweatshop known as adjunct teaching) that I've ardently wished to be part of a union--all that working together for the common benefit/sticking it to the proverbial Man. Unfortch, that dream has never been realized, although reading today at Woman Made was almost as good because they are a tax-exempt, not-for-profit organization whose goal "is to support women in the arts by providing opportunities, awareness, and advocacy," and which "specifically accomplishes this through monthly thematic exhibitions which raise public awareness and recognition of women's cultural contributions." Thanks to Woman Made and Nina Corwin, I got to read this afternoon... ...in their space at 685 N. Milwaukee in Chicago, for a lovely audience... ....while being recorded by Kurt Heintz (to whom the arm pictured on the left belongs), along with Alice George... ...Kristy Odelius... ...Elise Paschen...
...Parneshia Jones... ... and Jesse Lee Kercheval. Thanks to everyone for coming, to Janet McKenzie (the artist responsible for the beautiful piece hanging behind everyone in these pictures), and to my fellow readers for fitting so much pure, unadulterated woman-made awesome into one modestly-sized art space. Thanks also to Caitlin Rogers for coming to the reading and announcing the call for submissions by Wisecrack: Feminism & Comedy, because who (besides Christopher Hitchens (that jerk)) says women can't be funny?

Afterwards, Martin and I went home and I baked a bunch of butterscotch chocolate chip cookies, mostly because I miss cooking when I'm on the road, but also because it seemed like a nice third-wave feminist kind of post-WomanMade reading thing to do. Hear me roar. Also? Come see me read with Elisa in the Community and World Literary Series at Cal State San Marcos later this week, on Thursday.

Great Lakes, Great Times

2009-03-12T17:34:00.026-04:00

That is pretty much how it felt to be in Michigan yesterday, so a big way-to-go to the people who came up with that slogan and put it on the "Welcome to Michigan" signs that greet you when you enter that state: The front left seat in the top deck of the double-decker Megabus is by far the most coveted, at least by me, and yesterday that was the seat I got, the better to take pictures out the window of Indiana, my dear: It looks perfectly healthy here, I know, but do not be fooled... ...this was one seriously unwell Megabus. The poor thing broke down six times--six! times!--on the way from Chicago to Ann Arbor, but that was cool because the driver happened also to be an amateur mechanic, so he would just do this damage control where the hose would break, the pressure would get low (so he explained; I had no idea what he was talking about), he'd slow the bus to about 20 mph, put on the hazards, and limp it over to the shoulder of the road where he'd do something to "fix" it before pulling back on the highway at top speed until he had to do it all again five more times before we finally made it to our destination, only about an hour and 20 minutes late. Hail to the bus driver.

At Shaman Drum, Kyle and I got a short but rousing joint intro from the poet Ray McDaniel, pictured here, leaning against the shiny tiled table that made it feel like maybe we should be doing a cooking show: We read with Dzanc Books' very own Dan Wickett, pictured here, coaster-faced on the left, and I stayed with Rose Metal Press' Elizabeth Ellen, pictured on the right: In addition to being an all-around chill and courteous host, Elizabeth has two small Boston Terriers who are incredibly adorable, but almost impossible to photograph: On the way from dinner to the reading, we ran across the following sign in downtown Ann Arbor, which I am including here because keeping a fart joke all to yourself is selfish: Elizabeth and Aaron Burch do a lot of cool things, but one of the coolest is publishing Hobart magazine and running Short Flight/Long Drive Books which just released The Sicily Papers by Michelle Orange and Big World by Mary Miller, pictured here in a small stack in this self-portrait in a borrowed bedroom mirror: Thanks to EE for having me, to Dan for reading with us, and to everyone at Shaman Drum who came to listen!

Radio Free Chicago

2009-03-10T21:47:00.014-04:00

In what's shaping up to be another radio-friendly week, this afternoon, I went back down to Navy Pier...
...to be interviewed about Live Nude Girl for Vocalo, hot on the heels of yesterday's Talk of the Nation appearance. Thanks, Vocalo. And extra thanks to Robin Amer for giving me a tour of the Chicago Public Radio offices while I was there, especially for showing me Peter Sagal's desk which I really wanted to take a picture of, except I decided maybe that would be weird? So here is this picture of a lighthouse instead:
Also, here is a link to post on the "Words, Emotions, Regurgitations, Et al" blog relating to the part in LNG where I talk about Elfriede Jelinek's (scary, depressing, accurate) formulation of the "relationship between man and woman as a Hegelian relationship between man and slave" and her assertion that "As long as men are able to increase their sexual value through work, fame or wealth, while women are only powerful through their body, beauty and youth, nothing will change." Thanks, Melanie.

And here is a link to a short review (compressed from the LA Times one) of LNG that ran a couple days ago in the Baltimore Sun. Thanks, Person Who Takes Longer Reviews and Compacts Them into Reusable Shorter Ones.

And last but not least, although it's technically not related to Live Nude Girl or In the Devil's Territory, my poetry collection, Oneiromance (an epithalamion) made the Small Press Distribution top 30 poetry bestsellers list! Weighing in at lucky number 13, it is two slots behind Zach Schomberg and one ahead of Sherman Alexie. My fellow Switchbacker Monica de la Torre is #25. Thanks, People Who Buy Poetry.

Tomorrow night at 7, Kyle and I will be reading at Shaman Drum Bookstore in Ann Arbor with Dan Wickett. We hope to see you there. In the meantime, we will be keeping our feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars, etc.

Neal Conan is a phenomenal interviewer...

2009-03-09T17:39:00.007-04:00

...and radio show host, and WBEZ in Chicago is a fun place to go to be interviewed by him live on Talk of the Nation. And the latter is not just because of the miniature Tyrannoaurus rex action figure in the studio I did the interview from, which I am told was left there by Ira Glass before he decamped with This American Life to New York: Major thanks to Neal Conan for the great questions, all the callers for their comments and insights, and to Mary in Chicago and Gwen and Audrey in DC for helping to make this happen and happen without a hitch.

NPR's Talk of the Nation!

2009-03-08T11:05:00.002-04:00

I am going to be on it! Tomorrow at 2:40 pm Central, 3:40 pm Eastern. You can read more about the program here. You can even call in if you get the notion. And can get past the screeners.

Goin' down the only road I've ever known.

2009-03-07T14:32:00.015-05:00

"co_presidents_club" is the name of the unsecured wireless network enabling me to blog to you from SeaTac Airport after a scenic and professorial trip to Bellingham. Why scenic? Because of the sky over the campus of WWU, which looked like this: Why professorial? Because I got to guest-teach Carol Guess's super-smart students, who looked like this... After class and office hours, we headed over to a room containing a lab sink and some burners... ...which made me feel like I should deliver a chemistry lesson. I stuck to the original plan, though, and gave a reading.

The night before my reading, Carol, Elizabeth, and I--and a huge turnout of people from Bellingham--went to see Brenda Miller read from her brand new book of essays Blessing of the Animals. If you get a chance to do the same, you should go. As the title suggests, the collection is largely about animals, such as Callie, pictured here, licking her lips, perhaps at the thought of listening to braided essays that mention dogs: Thanks to Carol and Elizabeth for being stellar hosts for the second time in a month, to Carol for taking me with her to Bikram, to Carol's students for having so many thoughts about literature, and to everybody who came to the reading. I'd say more, but I have to go get on a plane. Because like a drifter, I was born to walk alone. You know how it is.

Brief Mention of the Tour at the New York Times website

2009-03-06T10:39:00.003-05:00

Kathy and I were lucky to read with Rebecca Barry a couple of weeks ago in Brooklyn. She mentions our books and the tour today in her interview with the Paper Cuts blog at the New York Times. Thanks, Rebecca!

And: Hello, Kathy! I hope you're having fun in Washington! I miss you!

Here I go again on my own.

2009-03-05T19:50:00.016-05:00

A confession: I've been dying to use the lyrics of that Whitesnake song in a blog post ever since this tour was invented, but today is the first day I've been truly able to. For the past month, I've had the nagging feeling of forgetting something. Moving around, staying in a new place night after night, leads to a persistent paranoia that you are constantly leaving something important behind, and today I felt like that something was my tour partner. But Kyle is safely in Toledo, Ohio where he is supposed to be. And I am safely in Bellingham, Washington--you can tell by the indecisive sky in the background as seen aboard the airport shuttle from SeaTac: This morning I flew out of Midway in Chicago, named after the famous World War II battle and commemorated with a dramatic statue in the concourse: Elsewhere, there were other statues. Since I didn't have Kyle, I hung out with the Blues Brothers, to keep from being lonely:

Tomorrow during the day, I will guest-teach Carol Guess' Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/ Transgender Literature class at Western Washington University. Tomorrow night, I'll read on campus at 6:00 pm! It's free and open to the public, so maybe I will see you there?

Help a sister out...

2009-03-04T19:06:00.012-05:00

...specifically my sister, the photographer Beth Rooney, who is competing in a contest called "Name Your Dream Assignment" and whose project, "Endangered Feasts," is here, just waiting for your votes. "If the pleasure of discovering a dish that can 'only be found' in one region of the world becomes something of the past, we will deprive future generations of many delightful flavors and memories found in a healthy and diverse food culture," she says. Damn right. As Kyle and I now have the ethos to say, much of what passes for "food" on the sides of America's highways is just this side of edible. When we stopped at a combination gas station/Arby's in Missouri, for example, shortly after our snow-coated ordeal in Arkansas, I overheard the following conversation while waiting for Kyle to purchase a Klondike Bar:

GAS STATION CLERK: How's your Arby's?

LADY IN A WOLF SWEATSHIRT: I took one bite an' I gave the rest to the cat!

GAS STATION CLERK: Was it rotten?

LADY IN A WOLF SWEATSHIRT: Naw, just nasty. Cat took one bite an' walked away.

We knew there had to be good food out there somewhere--Karen Golightly (who made the heavenly chocolate chip pancake pictured above) told us about a barbecue joint in Osceola that sold fried pickles on a stick--but it just wasn't accessible to us. All the food that was accessible off I-55 seemed uniformly-cheap-but-face-punchingly-bad, and was food we could have had anywhere, regardless of what state we happened to be in. And that is why you should vote for Beth's project: to help her find and photograph food that isn't like that. Also, she did my author photograph and I paid her zero dollars for that, but if she wins this prize, she will get $50,000.

Theory Z

2009-03-04T11:24:00.006-05:00

After 21 cities; after 45 readings; after 4 weeks on the road with only 3 days off; after Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Bellingham, Tacoma, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Boston, Providence, Provincetown, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Baltimore, Washington, Fayetteville, Memphis, Edwardsville, and Champaign; after two radio interviews; after eleven newspaper interviews; after two Internet interviews; after sixteen after-parties; after two after-after-parties; after one after-after-after-party; after the six hour drive in the dark through Illinois, Indiana, and western Ohio;

Budget Car Rental at the Toledo Airport said I had not filled the gas tank (again! for the second time this trip!) and I owed them to the tune of $6.999 a gallon, and

Could I please sign here, and could I please swipe the credit card again, and could I please take my John Adams audiobook biography on seven CD's out of the CD changer, and could I please explain the stain on the back seat, and I said,

"Definitely, sure: Tea, or coffee maybe, maybe Coke, maybe Pepsi, do you know which they serve in the middle of the country? Have I told you about the ice on the roads in Arkansas? Have I told you about the slush on top of the ice? Have I told you about the cars sliding slowly into the snow? Have I told you how when you cross the state line to Missouri, the roads suddenly clear? Have I told you about the snowploughs in Missouri? Have I told you how I love Missouri?"

Etc., & etc., & etc., & these etceterings didn't even include all the things I had really been thinking about so much while I was driving from Champaign to Toledo, like the poetry of Bill Knott, which I discovered on the road with Kathy, or the poetry of Davis McCombs, which I discovered in Fayetteville, or the beautiful beautiful house that Karen Golightly, our host in Memphis, kept remaking and remaking through her special magic gift for beauty-finding and beauty-making, because,

Frankly (let's be honest, yes? and let's admit that it's impolite sometimes to be honest), the Budget Rental Car person didn't really care much about Bill Knott or Davis McCombs or Karen Golightly; she didn't really care much about the secret knowledge I've stored away about Miroslav Penkov, who read with us in Fayetteville, whose stories are built to last like the stories of Gogol or Tolstoy or Dostoevsky; she really didn't care that just two weeks ago I was reading in Tao Lin's apartment in Brooklyn; she probably didn't even know who Tao Lin was; she probably didn't even know that he was an avant garde hero whose flat public persona concealed the fiercest intelligence maybe in the whole borough; she probably hadn't even ever been to Brooklyn; and, let's be honest again,

Going to Brooklyn is something that mostly mattered to me because I was thinking about advancing my own career, about finding readers, about maybe selling enough books to allow me to publish another one, to make me a good risk:

Had the Budget Rental Car person thought of this? Why would it matter to her? Why would how tired I was matter to her? Why would a book tour matter to her?

Is a book tour culturally significant anyway? I was thinking about independent rock bands, moderately successful ones, how they might sell 40,000 copies of each album; Did the Budget Rental Car person know how 40,000 would be a huge huge huge success for a book of short stories, an unprecedented success for a person like me, signed as I am to a publisher in Michigan rather than one in New York? Did she know how my secret hope was to one day sell 5,000, or maybe even 10,000 copies of my book? Did she know how happy it made me if sixty people came out to the reading? Did she know how sixty people would be a slowish night for a moderately successful indie rock band?

"Just sign the paper," the Budget Rental Car person said; she was sighing; she was impatient with me; it was cold outside; I wasn't attractively apparelled; I hadn't shaved; I had road breath; I was in a hurry because I had to prepare to teach my eight in the morning narrative nonfiction class at the university; I was wearing jeans and a leather jacket instead of a suit and tie; people attach value to their idea of you based upon what you are wearing; people worry about things like that all the time; you represent money if you are well-put-together enough, and the idea of money is very closely tied to the idea of service-giving at car rental places, so I signed the paper, I initialed all the places I had to initial, I handed over the

Keys, I said, "I left the hazard lights on," even though she already knew I had left the hazard lights on; the hazard

Lights blinked on and off the same way they had on the icy roads in Arkansas, where I had been truly scared that one of the tractor trailers in front of us would jackknife, or that one of the tractor trailers behind us would lose control and ram our little rental car from behind; I felt responsible because Kathy was in the car with me and I wanted to make sure I got her safely to Illinois, to Martin; I felt responsible because I have a family at home and I'm the one who makes the money;

Money was everywhere; in those blinking lights I saw the pile of receipts I needed to reconcile so I could get reimbursed for the trip; I saw the small daily choices -- an extra drink, some extra food, some dessert, a book purchase, a stop at this more convenient gas station instead of that cheaper one -- that undermined my budget planning;

Never in my life have I been good at budgeting, at planning, at money; throughout the tour I admired how good Kathy was at all of it; throughout the tour I worried that somehow I was worrying about money instead of making it or making plans to make it; I was worried because my job will end in May and I haven't found another to replace it; here at the Toledo Airport, I was walking away from the Budget Rental Car person, and she was already thinking about something else, maybe her job, maybe her family, maybe her money, maybe her boss, maybe the Cleveland Cavaliers; maybe LeBron James and whether he will flee the team next year for the New York Knicks and the New York market with all its glories, with all its possibility to allow a person of exceptional talent to reach the world audience;

"O Budget Car Rental person!" I wanted to say, "I want to reach the world!" And:

"Please! Read my work! Love Me!" All the things, in other words, that nobody is supposed to think and nobody is supposed to say, but why else would I have spent the last four weeks on the road, in uncomfortable cars, in uncomfortable buses, on uncomfortable early morning cross-country flights, in dragging my heavy rolling suitcase bag and my laptop case and my backpack so large Kathy said I looked like a turtle, dragging all of it through all the major cities of the East Coast and the West Coast, and sleeping too little, and enduring the daily small slights travelers endure, and not spending much time reading or writing or talking to the people I love the most, a

Queer pursuit if you think about it, a selfish pursuit; "I wrote these things, I worked hard on them, they took a long time, I want people to read them," I'd tell anybody whether they asked or not; but there is more to it than that; there is some kind of Greek thing, the desire for immortality, the desire to make something lasting, the desire to be significant, as though

Reading something can change somebody else's life, as though it could matter at all if anybody else's life is changed by something I have written, as though our lives themselves have any significance when we all know we'll all soon return from the dust from which we came, and anyway the earth is eventually going to crash into the sun, as Weird Al prognosticated in his song "Happy Birthday,"

So why do all this? Why go to all this effort? Why be tired? Why not go back to school, and this time not for knowledge but for professionalization, maybe to law school or medical school or business school? Why not acquire and build and give comfort by way of money-making to everyone I know, instead of chasing whatever I'm chasing on this tour -- readers, limited fame, approval, something that might pass for love, from strangers -- but

Then, of course, a lot of this was the tiredness talking, a lot of this was the self-aggrandizement and the self-diminishment that often enough accompanies the desperation of sleep-deprivation;

Under the circumstances it wasn't even bad self-aggrandizement or self-diminishment; later that day I read the new piece in the New Yorker about David Foster Wallace, a real true hero of mine, and his struggle with mental illness and genius and Nardil; later that day I reread and taught his story "Good Old Neon," that beautiful beautiful story that parses existential questions in a manner unlike anything I'd ever seen in any other story written by anyone anywhere;

Very truly it is a story that I wish I had written, even though the best stories are stories that nobody but their author could have authored, even though

Writing a story like that can break the writer into small tiny pieces, can unmake the writer, how this unmaking can itself be evidence that you've made something worth making, the theory being that it can't unmake anybody else if it didn't unmake you first; the

X marking the spot where craft turns into art, where artifice is turned in the direction of transcendence being the same X-marked spot where the maker is himself or herself undone, even if only a little bit; and now

You're thinking: "So what? So what? So what?," same as I've been thinking, but without the passion, probably, because what's at stake for me seems to me to be heightened from the inside of me, but probably not from the inside of you, because all this is, after all, is just a blog post, not a real true story, not art, that would take twenty-nine more drafts, and I don't have time to make them, I don't care enough to so craft them, I have to finish the Haiti book, I have to finish the novel, I have to find a job that buys me time enough to finish both, I have to struggle and struggle and struggle, my struggle is not noble, but I want to make something super-noble, I mean it, I'm not being ironic, to me right now and right then while walking away from the Budget Rental Car person for whom I had already become part of the part of the past that is forgotten as soon as it is three seconds past, to me the struggle is everything, the tour is everything, the making of things is everything; I call this Theory

Z: Forget the temporality of things, forget all that will be forgotten, forget the doubting, forget what lack of sleep brings by way of self-aggrandizement and self-diminishment, forget who listens or watches or reads or doesn't, forget all of it, because everything is important, everything is worthwhile, every bit of it, everything.

Live Nude Girl Book Notes at Largehearted Boy!

2009-03-04T10:54:00.003-05:00

You probably already know this since you're hip like that, but "Book Notes" is a series in which "authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published books."

Today, my playlist (John Cage! Led Zeppelin! Morrissey! Melanie! And more!) is featured here. Much gratitude to David for giving me the chance to write the piece.

The Utne Reader...

2009-03-04T09:18:00.004-05:00

…reviewed Live Nude Girl for their March-April 2009 issue, and they loved it! It’s a short review (and it doesn't look like it's online), so here is the whole thing, right here:

“Nude, Not Naked” by Kari Volkmann-Carlsen

It’s not about being naked. In fact, Kathleen Rooney feels naked for only the first 30 seconds or so when she’s modeling for artists. Nudity, she says, is wholly different from nakedness, in that it suggests confidence rather than vulnerability. What draws her to posing for artists as a "live nude girl" is deeply rooted in empowerment and sexuality, respect for the many shades of beauty, and the quest for immortality. Brimming with enticing personal stories, Rooney’s memoir also reflects on her predecessors whose images in art have survived lifetimes longer than their bodily forms. A spirited and thought-provoking exploration of the human figure, Live Nude Girl beckons the oft-clothed to share the thrill of taking it all off.

Central Illinois is centrally located...

2009-03-03T10:18:00.019-05:00

...so Kyle and I didn't have too far to drive yesterday to get there from Edwardsville. And when we did get there, there was a high-quality audience--which contained Richard Powers (!)--waiting to hear us read with Ninth Letter editor Jodee Stanley, pictured here to the right of Kyle: After the reading, we went out for beers and onion rings... ...with Aaron Burch and other assorted members of the U of I MFA program. Then Kyle drove the rental car hurriedly (but lawfully) back to Toledo where he had to teach this morning, and--because it was my birthday, and because he is selfless like that--Martin drove me back up to Chicago where I will be for a couple days before heading out Thursday to do a visiting writer thing at Western Washington University. On our way back into town, it was snowing slightly, but that's okay because Chicago knows how to deal, and it made the city look even more beautiful than it always does. For instance, here is the Adventures in Babysitting building, officially known as Smurfit-Stone: And here, just because I can, a blurry picture of the lights of Navy Pier as seen from the passenger-side on Lake Shore Drive: Also just because I can, a couple of birthday fun facts: 1980 is the year that I was born, but did you know it is also the first year that Mattel manufactured an African-American Barbie? And that it is the year of the founding of University of Arkansas Press? True story.

Super-huge thanks to everyone who came to see us on this leg of the tour, and we look forward to seeing everybody else on the next tour dates this month!

Down-state = down-great

2009-03-02T14:33:00.018-05:00

Yesterday, after stopping by Graceland to see where Elvis lived, loved, and stored his airplane "Lisa Marie"… …we embarked from Tennessee to Illinois, which entailed driving back through a substantial portion of Arkansas. Because I-55 resembled an ice rink… …it took us an hour to go three miles at one point. It was like disaster movie with bumper-to-bumper cars full of edgy, desperate people—stuck buses, jackknifed semis, and roadside slideoffs as far as the eye could see. There was almost nowhere to even get on or off the highway since the ramps were so sludged, which meant that some people who had to pee really, really bad had to go in their their cars--into bottles, travel mugs, bags, whatever. Did I have to do that? Only Kyle knows for sure, and what happens on tour stays on tour. At a service station in Osceola, where we arrived three hours after leaving Karen’s in Memphis, Kyle jockeyed to get a spot at the over-run gas pumps and I ran inside to get the last two greasy pies from the Pizza Inn Express. But once we got to Missouri, the roads instantly became plowed, dry, safe and civilized: Missouri’s nickname is the Show Me state. As in Arkansas should go over to Missouri and say, “Show me how to keep my state from turning into a clusterfucky ice nightmare the next time we get a little snow.” And once we got to Illinois, the roads were perfect and the sun was shining over the mighty Mississip’: Earlier in the day, we’d had our doubts about whether or not we’d make it in time for our 7:30 reading. In the end, we did, and for that we are so glad because the SIU-Edwardsville people know how to do a reading up right:
The University Center restaurant was packed, thanks to the efforts of Lana (pictured to the right, with the beautiful white hair), Wayne (pictured toward the back) and Val (semi-pictured, with the green scarf, behind the gentleman in front of the pillar). Stacey Lynn Brown (pictured in the second row, to the left, behind the table) read from her long-poem- in-sections, Cradle Song, which I bought after the reading, and recommend you buy too.

Last night—March 1st, 2009—was the last time I will ever read from Live Nude Girl—or anything else—as a 28-year-old person. Today, I am 29. Here is Nancy’s hand lighting the candles (just imagine that there are 24 more on there) to prove it: Thanks, Edwardsvilleans, for being so thoughtful and caketacular. This afternoon, we’re going to read at the Illini Bookstore in Champaign-Urbana at 4:30. Happy birthday to me! See you there!

Sam Phillips named his record studio Sun...

2009-03-01T09:12:00.031-05:00

...because the name sounded "bright, happy, and hopeful" quoth our witty tour guide. But in Memphis yesterday, there was no sun. When we crossed the Mississippi into the city, there was actually a freakish amount of snow pouring from the clouds and coating the South... ...a meteorological fact that meant that our audience at Burke's... ...was small, but intrepid:
Thanks to Corey and Cheryl for having us, to Chloe for talking to me about Prince and David Bowie, and to everyone else for bundling up and making it out. Extra special thanks to Karen Golightly for hosting Kyle and me, and walking us through the Winter Wonderland.

Fortunately, the conditions of the five-hour drive up from Fayetteville, though gray, were not so treacherous as the snowstorm in Tennesssee, so Kyle and I were able to clearly see and enjoy such roadside sights as massive American flags... ...vehicles with shiny, overcompensatory, metallic testicles... ...and ghostly white crosses on desolate hillsides: At the moment, we are drinking coffee and eating chocolate chip pancakes in Karen's kitchen, but soon, we will hit the road for Edwardsville, Illinois, where we are reading on the SIU campus tonight at 7:30. If you are anywhere in the greater St. Louis area, we hope to see you there! The weather's supposed to suck way less than it did last night!

Regnat Populus...

2009-02-28T18:04:00.012-05:00

...is Arkansas' official state motto: "The People Rule." Yeah they do. Especially these people who came to our reading at Nightbird books, which contains actual birds, such as this one, who is closing her eyes, perhaps because it was night:
After the reading, we had a party at the home of University of Arkansas Press Director Larry Malley and his wife Maggie including champagne, delicious Irish whiskey and cake!
Thanks so much to everyone at the press for hosting Kyle and me, and for making Fayetteville such a great tour stop. Kyle and I are in Memphis now, and Memphis is buried beneath a surprisingly significant amount of snow, but we are about to read at Burke's Bookstore tonight at 6, so we hope to see you there.

Hog Heaven

2009-02-27T17:19:00.023-05:00

Live Nude Girl turns one month (and one day) old today--happy kind of birthday, book! In a tour stop that feels particularly celebratory, Kyle and I are reading in the book's birthplace--Fayetteville, Arkansas--this evening. First, though, since it was cheaper, we had to fly to Tulsa. Here is the eerie green wing of the plane, seen through my window, all smeared with de-icer:

After driving two hours from Oklahoma to "The Natural State" and then spending 20 minutes or so sort of lost on the University of Arkansas campus, Melissa came out and waved us down and we finally made it to McIlroy house... ...home of University of Arkansas Press which contains this sign, telling you where you are... ...as well as the many smart, nice people who work there. Further smart nice people are to be found at the University of Arkansas Press warehouse, where Kyle is pictured, marveling at the superbly organized and neatly towering boxes of well-made books: Larry Malley took us all over the land of the razorbacks... ...including to the Petra Cafe where we had delicious Middle Eastern food for lunch, maybe the best I've ever had anywhere. Who knew? They thanked us for eating locally... ...and they are very welcome. Tonight, we are reading at Nightbird Books at 7 with Miroslav Penkov. It was hailing a minute ago, but it's stopped now, so there's no reason not to come. See you there!

The week of rave-ups continues! In the Devil's Territory in the Boston Phoenix, the Baltimore City Paper, and more

2009-02-26T17:03:00.005-05:00

1. Nina MacLaughlin, books critic for the Boston Phoenix, wrote a generous and well-made review of In the Devil's Territory in yesterday's arts section. The first paragraph:

"In Kyle Minor's dark debut collection of stories, personal secrets always exact a terrible price — sometimes worse than the events that motivated them. In the novella "A Day Meant To Do Less" — violent, agonizing, and the centerpiece of this collection — nine-year-old Franny gets assaulted in the tobacco fields near her Kentucky home. She is chased, pushed, pissed on, forced to take her older cousin's penis in her mouth. She grows up, tells no one, buries it deep. But as Minor shows in fantastic, horrifying detail, buried truths can bubble up in strange, nightmarish ways."

Read the rest of the Boston Phoenix review of In the Devil's Territory here.

2. Jeffrey Anderson at the Baltimore City Paper highlights "A Day Meant to Do Less," a story from In the Devil's Territory, in its review of Best American Mystery Stories 2008, in which the story also appears.

Read the Baltimore City Paper review here.

3. I gush about Kathleen Rooney's book Live Nude Girl at the Writers Read blog maintained by the Campaign for the American Reader: here.

LNG (rave) reviewed on Huffington Post!

2009-02-26T16:27:00.006-05:00

It's no secret: I have much love for the "liberal" media. And, it seems, they have some back for Live Nude Girl.

"LNG is a memoir of Rooney's career as an art model that wrestles with the headier issues of the naked form as inspiration, objectification for the sake of art, and the role of a muse throughout history. Since Rooney has 3 other books (including a cultural study of Oprah's Book Club) to her credit, we felt sure that her latest effort wasn't of the 'I'm hot and wrote about it' efforts we've been seeing too much of lately," says Kevin Smokler in "The Shelf Talker" this week. Be sure to check out the whole column (which talks about a lot of other people, not just me) here.

Thanks to Kevin, and to eagle-eyed lefty Evan Willner for pointing it out.

All right stop, collaborate, etc.

2009-02-26T09:39:00.021-05:00

Eric Ziegenhagen's punny joke last night was that we were at the Goat Show, but he was a little hoarse. Sore-throatedness aside, Eric did a bang-up job organizing the casual party/potluck/salon/variety-show in the Collaboraction loft space, which has this pretty sign by the door... ...and which is full of art and comfy furniture...
...and which felt like hanging out cozily in some really fun living room: Sadie Rogers sang some beautiful songs... ...Matt Kerstein of Brighton MA played a solo show, and I read an excerpt from Live Nude Girl, plus--in the collaborative spirit--three poems I co-wrote with Elisa Gabbert. The chair I sat in while I read--story-time style--is pictured here, in the mirror to my left: Lots of thanks to Eric for coordinating and to Collaboraction for hosting!

Radio on!

2009-02-24T17:38:00.007-05:00

This is turning out to be a very radio-y week. This morning, at 10 am Central time, 4pm in Dublin, I got to be interviewed on the air for the program (or programme, if you will) Moncrieff by Sean Moncrieff of Newstalk, Ireland's National Independent Talk Radio Broadcaster. Sean is an author, also, most recently of the novel The History of Things and was voted Sexiest Radio Voice by the public in this year's 3G Mobile Annual Awards. Hot.

You gotta listen to the radio...

2009-02-23T23:15:00.019-05:00

...because I have not found it to be in the hands of such a lotta fools trying to anesthetize the way that we feel.

Tonight, it was in the hands of Jesse Seay--pictured here amid a forest of mics and headsets--at Vocalo.org... ...and Jacob Knabb, managing and fiction editor of Another Chicago Magazine. They hosted me, Brandi Homan, and Lina-Ramona Vitkauskas to record us reading our work from the latest issue of ACM, whose theme is American Values. I also did a tiny reading and some Q&A about Live Nude Girl.

As a huge fan of public radio, I found it to be an elementary school field trippy thrill to see where the audio-magic happens: And now I am more of a fan than ever of Vocalo. Be sure to check them and their mission out here. Thanks to Jacob and Jesse for having us, and to Lina and Brandi for being kickass co-readers.

Last but not least, here is the peanut butter sandwich I ate on the flight from BWI to Chicago earlier today... ...constructed with care by one Kyle Minor. He chose, as you can see, to cut it in half. Well played, Kyle; nicely done.

Publishers Weekly (starred!) review of Live Nude Girl!

2009-02-23T08:23:00.001-05:00

"This esoteric, organic meditation on life as an art object is itself a model of personal writing, perfect for those on either side of the easel," they conclude.

You can read the whole (short, but really good!) review here.

The District sleeps alone tonight...

2009-02-22T22:25:00.025-05:00

...but Kyle and I will sleep one more night at Abby's place just north of DC in Takoma Park. Before our reading at the Cloyd Heck Marvin Center, Kyle, Abby, Tim, Caryn and I ate Burmese food at Mandalay in Silver Spring, MD, which has a photograph of Caryn and Tim on the bulletin board in the entry way, from a fundraiser the restaurant held for cyclone relief. I had to take a picture of the picture, 'cause I'm meta like that: All the food was fantastic, but the highlight was a cute, round cream-of-wheat/coconut-cream baked dessert known as shweji, which is pictured (with Caryn chopping it into shareable pieces) here, and which I will have to attempt to recreate when I am not on tour and have more time for cookery (that is if I can figure out how the heck to make it--anyone?):
Our reading at GW (of which I am an alumna) was up against the Academy Awards (maybe you've heard of them?), but the audience filled up nicely just the same...
...thanks to the valiant publicity efforts of Greg Nanni (pictured here with chairs, waters, microphone and chocolate cupcake)... ...GW student and Rome Review editor. Thanks so much, Greg, and to Dan Gutstein for reading with us! And extra thanks to Dan for quoting Frank O'Hara saying "It is even in/prose, I am a real poet" during the Q&A.

Tomorrow, Kyle and I fly home to our respective Midwestern cities for a couple days of much-needed not-being gone. We will sleep in our own beds, wear our robes around our whole apartments/houses, make coffee in our own coffeemakers and do other home-ish things before reuniting to soldier on our epic adventure in Fayetteville, Arkansas on Friday, February 27. The legend continues. See you there.

Charm City, USA

2009-02-22T13:20:00.030-05:00

"Anybody going to Baltimore?" yelled the Apex bus driver as we stood stopped for an indeterminate number of minutes at some anonymous weigh station off the Jersey turnpike. "Yes!" said Kyle. Most people were going to DC, but the driver was asking because he needed to tell the two of us and one other guy that there'd been an abrupt change in bus stops, so instead of somewhere on Odonnell street, we would be getting dropped on Cherry Hill. Here is Kyle, surveying the industrial waste of where that actually turned out to be: Luckily, we were not there long. My Rose Metal Press partner and all around amazing friend Abby Beckel came to pick us up and take us to Canton to meet Lauren Silberman and Matt Moffatt for lunch at Helen's Garden where I had one of the best sandwiches of my life, which supplanted the previous Best Sandwich Ever contender that I got in Chinatown in NYC and ate on the Fung Wah back in January 2007. Has it ever occurred to you to almond-encrust a tomato? Because that is what the Helen's Garden people do: Next we headed over to Hampden...
...to hon it up... ...before our reading in the 510 reading series at Minas Gallery. Michael Kimball and Jen Michalski were gracious and attentive hosts, the audience was standing-room only...
...and our co-readers Rahne Alexander, Shane Jones, and Blake Butler were uniformly entertaining to listen to. Be sure to check out all their books/projects.

Also, speaking of things to check out, be sure to get yourself a copy of Ellen Kennedy's forthcoming poetry collection, Sometimes My Heart Pushes My Ribs, which Tao Lin is pictured artfully displaying here.. Tao let us do a tiny reading in his apartment as part of our day-long series of mini-readings all over NYC before our EARSHOT appearance on Friday. Thanks, Tao!

Today, I went to yoga with Abby and Caryn Lazzuri at the Willow Street Yoga Studio in Takoma Park, Maryland, which is located in a building so ugly it swings back around to pretty again:
During our first side-angle pose, the instructor instructed us to "weave [y]our bones in and out of the tapestry of the universal," which is not something I normally attempt, but I did my best. Now? We are doing our laundry. Super-glam. Tonight at 8 pm, we'll be reading in Washington, DC at the Marvin Center on the George Washington University Campus with Dan Gutstein. Eff the Oscars. Come hear us instead. We promise to be equally well-dressed, but way less bloated and excessively drawn out!

Live Nude Girl reviewed by Ron Slate!

2009-02-21T22:26:00.003-05:00

Massachusetts-based poet Ron Slate whose website you can visit here ran an insightful review a couple days back, on February 18. "Rooney has written a book largely about forms of intimacy – conventional and disruptive. But Live Nude Girl is also an act of intimacy between Rooney and reader during which she tries to bare and understand her motivation to pose in the nude. his is the beauty of her prose narrative – a telling that seems utterly without pretension, never trying too hard to analyze or provoke, but consistently coming up with apt and wise statements..." he writes. I meant to blog it sooner, but there's never quite enough time (or short-term memory, I'm finding; we are super-underslept) on the road, so I'm doing it now. Thanks, Ron.

Another thing I meant to do on February 18 was say happy birthday to my sister, Beth Rooney, a genius photographer whose work you can check out here. She was born on that day in 1983, the same year, John McPhee explains in a recent issue of the New Yorker, as the Chicken McNugget. What does that coincidence mean? Anything? Probably not? I don't know, but happy belated birthday, Beth!

If we can make it here...

2009-02-21T08:34:00.005-05:00

...we can make it anywhere.

But as much as fun as we had in New York, and as much as we loved reading in 25 locations all over the city... (more to come on that when there's a little more time), including in the very special fourth anniversary EARSHOT reading series, this morning, we have to leave on yet another Chinatown bus from here to Baltimore. We're reading at Minas Gallery there tonight at 5:00 with three other brilliant readers. Be there!

The Daily Beast...

2009-02-20T11:30:00.003-05:00

...also has a feature on Live Nude Girl by Lizzie Stark that you can check out here. Thanks to Lizzie for taking time out from the chaotic and whirlwindy AWP last week to do an interview.

Review in the LA Times!!!

2009-02-20T11:25:00.004-05:00

Major thanks to Erika Schickel for her close reading and kind words--"She's a smart woman inhabiting a comely body, and she wastes no time taking it off at the top of her book..." among others--which you can check out here.

Later at the Bar

2009-02-20T09:12:00.011-05:00

Last night, on our way from dinner and to Freebird Books, Kyle, Rebecca Barry and I stopped and got our picture taken in front of these Valentine's decorations because we heart NY and we heart Rebecca: The audience gathered up in the front of the store and listened to our stories over the howling wind: Peter at Freebird made everybody feel at home with wine and tea and stories about Oprah, and after we wrapped up there, we walked up the block to the B61, a bar named after the buses that go by. One of my old friends, a painter I used to pose for years ago in Boston (and who you can read about in the "Do You Want Me to Seduce You?" chapter of Live Nude Girl), the talented Jeremy Hoffeld came all the way from Washington Heights. Not only did he listen to us read; he also let me try on his very intense and stylish glasses: The bar happened to have a Magic Eight ball that patrons could use to answer their deepest and most existential questions. "Will Kathy's book sell a million copies?" Jeremy asked the Eight Ball. "Yes, definitely," said the Eight Ball. "Will it happen after she's dead?" he asked. "Reply hazy, try again," said the Eight Ball, but we left it there. Thanks Eight Ball, thanks Jeremy, and thanks to everyone for coming to the reading! I'm about to go to yoga with my host-with-the-most, Brendan, because I'm still feeling squished from the Fung Wah, but Kyle and I are going to read tonight at Rose Live Music in Brooklyn at 8 in the pm along with three other readers. A $5 cover gets you in and gets you a drink--that's value.

No (no!) sleep (sleep!) till Brooklyn (Brooklyn!)

2009-02-19T16:49:00.013-05:00

Kyle and I woke up this morning in Providence in the driving rain, returned the rental car in Boston in the dispersing gloom, and took the bus to NYC in the hesitant sun, all in the span of approximately eight hours. That's three major East Coast cities in way under a day. Three! We are living the dream. Kyle's staying with his friend Doug in Brooklyn, and I'm crashing with my old friend Brendan, a philosophy professor at NYU, pictured here, to your right, my left, in this double-portrait-in-a-bedroom-mirror: He lives on the fifth floor, so while that was brutal in terms of getting my eight-days'-worth of luggage up the stairs (thanks, Brendan!), it offers spectacular views from every single window:
If you've never had the chance to take the Chinatown shuttle, aka the Fung Wah, I highly recommend it for its inexpensivity and adventure. Here it is, parked outside of a McDonald's somewhere in Connecticut, all hulking and multicultural:
And here, just because it grossed me out/cracked me up, is a sign advertising "100 % Beefy Satisfaction x2"--that's 200 %, mind you--at said McDonald's: And here is Kyle's lunch, which, you will note, involves both a quesadilla and nacho cheese Doritos, because this is a great country and, like I said, we are living the dream: Hope to see you tonight at Freebird Books! Rockstar!

Icy in Providence

2009-02-18T21:00:00.011-05:00

When we drove west down 195 toward Providence, it hadn't yet begun to snow, but the clouds were looming: But it was warm (metaphorically at least) and cozy at Ben and Mary and Kitty's house: And at Ada Books they offered quite a spread--bread, cheese, grapes, cookies--thanks, guys! And here is the crowd, who bundled up in their hippest sweaters and ventured out through the pouring snow to hear Brian Evenson: Tomorrow, we'll get up early, drive to Boston, return the rental Prius (because we love the earth like that) to the Enterprise in Cambridge, take the redline to South Station, get on the Fung Wah bus to Manhattan, then take the subway to Brooklyn-- easy peazy one two threesie. See you tomorrow night at 7:30 at Freebird Books where we'll be reading with Rebecca Barry!

Another day, another review...

2009-02-18T10:55:00.003-05:00

...this time from Aarti Nagaraju at her Booklust blog here.

Full disclosure: Aarti is one of my little sister Beth's best friends. She did a great job reviewing the book in a really honest way. "It's a thinking person's book- and it was fun to read it and be challenged by reading again, in ways I haven't been for so long," she writes. Thanks, Aarti!

Sweet Rest in Heaven...

2009-02-18T09:54:00.030-05:00

...said the hand-stiched sampler on the wall of Room 12 at the White Horse Inn where I had the best sleep so far of the East Coast leg of the tour; it felt kind of like this... ...and I'm pretty sure this restfulness is a testament to the comfort and hospitality of the White Horse, and not just the several or so beers Kyle and I downed at the Governor Bradford after our reading. Before we read, we were interviewed for the "Art Talk" radio program on WOMR, hosted by the generous and enthusiastic Chris Busa, pictured here with me and a couple of other fans at the Provincetown Art Association Museum: Provincetown shrinks way down in population during the off-season, so our crowd was not terribly crowded. But the room we read in at PAAM was acoustically awesome and the walls were covered in black and white photographs, including this one of my all-time favorite poet and mysterious disapearee Weldon Kees, who I think loved Provincetown the way I love it: Did you know that before they rocked Plymouth, the Pilgrims landed at Provincetown? They did! And Provincetown has the monument to prove it: Did you also know that I used to live in Provincetown, courtesy of the Fine Arts Work Center, where Martin was a fiction fellow? I did! And it's been wonderful to be back, if only for 24 hours. Look at this... ...and this...
...and this:
Provincetown is so beautiful, just contantly casually all-the-time, like your friend who is gorgeous even first thing in the morning, unshowered and with her hair all messed up and no makeup or anything. Provincetown, how do you do it, and what is your secret? Here, Kyle contemplates these questions, or maybe something else, as he gazes out across the lonely bay: The quality of the loneliness in Provincetown is ever-present, but superior to the loneliness of the Pacific Northwest, though I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe it's because, geographically, though it is at the very end of the land... ...it is also at the forefront of the country in the Eastern time zone, and even though you are isolated, you are also by default kind of avant-garde?

We have to leave the Cape soon to make it to Providence in time for our reading there at Ada Books with Brian Evenson tonight at 7:00. You should try to make it too! See you there.

"Open the book to page ninety-nine and read...

2009-02-17T17:13:00.005-05:00

...and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you," quoth Ford Madox Ford, a provocative premise that is put to the challenge regularly at the blog "The Page 99 Test."

You can see how Live Nude Girl passes/fails FMF's assessment here.

"Take a Picture--It'll Last Longer..."

2009-02-17T16:59:00.004-05:00

...the chapter from Live Nude Girl on photography in general and one exceptionally quirky photographer in particular is excerpted here on Memoirville. Appearing in tandem is a Gchat interview conducted by the whipsmart Katherine Wootton. "You often mention art as a means to a kind of immortality; is the desire to be seen and be recorded part of a more universal urge to resist death? Would you describe that urge as essentially vain?" she asks. You can read my response, along with the whole entire conversation here. Thanks to Katherine for the acute and intuitive questioning.

Get your (candy) freak on.

2009-02-17T08:38:00.015-05:00

Last night, we read at the Brookline Booksmith, always a classy affair where they make you feel super at-home and put your name in colorful marker on the white board out front: We were thrilled to be reading with local literary legend Steve Almond, but we were even more delighted when President Obama showed up (pictured here with Steve, Kyle, and Genie, the bookseller who coordinated this event): Steve Almond's reading involved, among other things, his twelve-year-old self discovering his manhood in a Northern California hot tub, as well as Jenna Bush's deep thoughts while on her own book tour. He graciously brought candy for the crowd, and completely brought the LOLs; no wonder the room was so packed... ....they had to bring in extra chairs: Afterwards, we all shared the lectern with the Wally Lamb poster on it as we fielded questions from the audience: And afterwards-afterwards, on the ride home from dinner, we partook of the weirdest and most special candy Steve had provided, the Heavenly Hash eggs, all the way from Louisiana; they were bizarre, but not undelicious: Special thanks to John and Elisa for letting us crash with them, and to Sandy for the photos. Tonight, we read at the Provincetown Art Association Museum in Provincetown, MA at 7:00 pm. If you find yourself on the Cape, just keep driving down to the very end and come hear us read. Also, thanks to Laura Cerand over at Maude Newton for listing our upcoming reading, this Thursday in Brooklyn, as "highly recommended" in her Smart Set column.

The Bean!

2009-02-16T13:53:00.037-05:00

93.1 WXRT is always a safe bet when you're in the mood to hear Chicago's finest rock, but evidently, it's especially listenable at 4:30 or so in the morning. As we pulled away from our apartment at 4:24, a mere 4 minutes past our noble goal of being on the road by 4:20... ...they were playing "There She Goes Again" by the La's. There she goes again indeed.

The original draft of this tour had us doing a stop in Philadelphia on Thursday, February 19th, but there were limited indie bookstores available, and none of their schedules seemed to sync up with ours, so we had to scrap that plan in favor of a two-night stand in Brooklyn. The closest we came to Philly was changing planes in the airport this morning. But here is a picture of the City of Brotherly Love (or at least some heavy machinery in said city's general vicinity) as seen from my window, just before takeoff: So far, people on the East coast have been as nice as they were way out West, including the gentleman who offered me the window seat on the second leg of the trip, thereby giving me the opportunity to bring you state-of-the-art aerial imagery of what we saw below (water, land) and how we stayed so high above (engine, wing): As we landed in Boston, I was on the phone with Melissa King, my saintly publicist, working out the whereabouts of some books we'd shipped to Provincetown for tomorrow night's reading. Sarah Messer, author of Red House --which I remember selling quite a few of back in my bookseller days at the Museum of Fine Arts right here in Boston--overheard me, since she happened to be sitting in the row above. As we walked off the jetway, she expressed her well-wishes for the rest of the tour. Thanks, Sarah!

Because we are thrifty and efficient, here are some pictures of me... ...and Kyle eating peanut butter sandwiches on the MBTA on our way to John Cotter and Elisa Gabbert's house. That's where we are now, looking forward to seeing you at this evening's reading at Brookline Booksmith tonight at 7. What better way to celebrate Presidents' Day than by hearing excerpts from Live Nude Girl and In the Devil's Territory, plus whatever Steve Almond decides to read?

The City is Windy, But the Company is Warm

2009-02-15T23:20:00.004-05:00

It's 10:30 pm Central Standard Time, an hour and a half from Day Fourteen of the tour. We've blitzkrieged our way across the western half of the country and back: Toledo/Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Bellingham, Tacoma, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and, the last few days, Chicago again.

For me, it was one part break, one part frenzy. I arrived Wednesday with Milwaukee host extraordinaire Drew Blanchard, who introduced me to Peruvian poets and their signature liquors, toured me through the offices of the Cream City Review, took me to a place that served bacon wrapped in cheese wrapped in egg roll and deep fried, let me sleep, let me launder my clothes, let me play with his dogs, and drove me to Chicago. I've stopped counting the favors I owe him.

After arriving, I hightailed it to Sheffield's, where I read with such luminaries as Matt Bell, Amy Guth, Darlin Neal, and Mike Czyzniejewski. (Apologies in advance for the name dropping. There's more to come. Everyone in the world was in town for the AWP Conference!) The crowd was enthusiastic, and the room was more than full. I got to see some old friends there, too, among them Cliff Garstang, who shared news of his forthcoming book, and my editor, Dan Wickett.

By ten we were done, and I was off to Division Street, to spend the evening carousing with my brother and our old friend Tim Sheff, who knew all the best places to eat and drink, and right in the part of town where meets the north and south sides and the east and west sides, which gives me license, I suppose, to say that I visited all four quadrants of the city.

Thursday I went for a long walk with the celebrated Roy Kesey (newly returned from Beijing!, a loss for China but a real coup for Syracuse, New York), visited the art museum (Van Gogh! Van Gogh!) with the painter Trent Miller and the poet J. L. Conrad, also old friends. Also: lunched with Twentysomething Essays alum Joey Franklin, cruised the bookfair (where I got to see Laura van den Berg, Mike Alber, Aaron Burch, and more friends and more), dinnered with Anthony Neil Smith (we talked Plots with Guns, genre fiction, and our shared love for both) and eveninged at the only semi-empty hotel bar on Michigan Avenue, with Keith Lee Morris, Joe Oestreich, Heather Kirn, a very inebriated poet of new acquaintance, three gutter punks, and a few homeless ladies.

Friday was the AWP reading with my fellow Dzanc authors -- Allison Amend, Roy Kesey, Mike Czyzniejewski, and Louella Bryant. The room was packed with friends, many of whom I had seen during the West Coast leg of the tour, and it was also warm with goodwill -- a credit to the people at Dzanc, especially Dan Wickett, who organized the reading and introduced us with characteristic generosity.

After dinner with Dan and Matt Bell, I wandered back to the hotel, where I met up with Christopher Coake, Mike Alber, and a bunch of Ohio State MFA students. We rode the El to Pizzeria Due, where we feasted on their world-famous pizza, brainstormed titles for Mike's TV pilot, and talked shop about books, writing, and literature (not necessarily in that order.) I enjoyed almost everything about these days in Chicago, but the time with Chris, Mike, and the others, was no doubt the best of it. I was sad to see the evening end.

Saturday I joined Pinckney Benedict, Scott Kaukonen, David McGlynn, and Angela Pneuman, for a panel on Postevangelical Literature, a term none of us could define, but I guess we knew it when we saw it. The room again was overfull, and the audience fairly enthusiastic about our talk of love for Catholic writers like Flannery O'Connor, Andre Dubus, and Graham Greene, and half the fun was watching Pinckney hold forth with his characteristic straight talk and good humor.

I was lucky afterward to spend twenty minutes with Erin McGraw, one of my teachers from grad school days, and now a mentor and friend. (This, too, was a real highlight.) Then I hightailed it back to Wicker Park, where I joined my brother and his wife for their Valentine's Day dinner and a rousing game of Uno. We spent the evening resting, and Sunday all of us got some work done -- my brother working on some new songs, his wife studying for law school, me returning emails and figuring out how to get everywhere in Boston tomorrow.

Then I took the train north, to Kathy and Martin's house. We shared dinner (potato kale soup, oatmeal biscuits, and cherry cake) with Kathy's sister Beth and her husband Nick, and I finally got to meet Martin for the first time (and a first-class guy, he is.) I write you from their computer, and now I'm off to bed, just in time to get a few hours of sleep before the 3:20 am wakeup call.

See you in Boston?

Sweet home Chicago

2009-02-15T19:09:00.003-05:00

Sunday has been a day of rest. Three things I miss the most when I am on the road include:

1) Martin,
2) yoga, and
3) homecooked food, both the making and the eating thereof.

So today, Martin and I made eggs and blueberry-sour cream muffins for Elisa and Abby, who were still crashing with us. Abby's second muffin is pictured here; the eggs are long since devoured: After I went to yoga, Martin and I made potato kale soup. Martin is pictured here, moving with lightning speed to get the kale in soup-ready shape: My sister Beth and her husband Nick are on their way over with homemade bread and strawberry cake, and Kyle will be joining us, both so he can meet the fam, and so he can get a lift to the airport with me and Martin, since we fly out of O'Hare at 6:00 am. If you are in or near Boston/Brookline, MA tomorrow night, be sure to come hear us read with the inimitable Steve Almond!

AWP we <3 U

2009-02-14T20:50:00.013-05:00

Are the best things in life really free, and is the AWP Bookfair one of the best things in life? Such were the heavy questions we pondered today, the day the bookfair was open to the public at no charge to them. Part of that public included the winner of the second annual Rose Metal Press Short Short Chapbook contest, Geoffrey Forsyth, who showed up to sign books...
...and to give Abby and me some adorable disassemble-able erasers all the way from Japan by way of the kids' clothing and toy store he manages when he's not writing incredible flash fiction... Other standout moments included a visit to our table by Sean Lovelace, who is the winner of our third annual chapbook contest and who knows how some people like their eggs...
...as well as an appearance by indie publishing genius Dan Wickett:

Tomorrow, Kyle and I have a day off before we continue the tour on the East coast on Monday.

Chicago, that somber city

2009-02-13T19:28:00.030-05:00

The Friday we just experienced was a 13th, thus it was sinister, but maybe not surprising to see this voodoo bike parked outside the Chicago Hilton on the way back to the AWP Conference: Fortunately, the sights inside the exhibit halls were more auspicious, including Crystal, our Chicago-based intern, helping to (wo)man the Rose Metal Press table alongside Carol Guess, who was doing a signing for Tinderbox Lawn: Everyone was highly impressed with their saleswomanship and professionalism, particularly Chris Tonelli and Dan Boehl: Elsewhere, University of Arkansas Press marketing director Tom Lavoie saw that all was well at their booth, and even took a moment from his sell sell selling to peruse Live Nude Girl in front of the handsome display; it is important to have a marketing team that really gets you, and Tom and Melissa King (not pictured) totally are that team: On our way to lunch with the editors of our upcoming Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry, Abby, Dan, Gary and I passed a sign that reminded me yet again why Chicago is, as they say, my kinda town:
But despite the allure of Obamartinis, we continued on to the luscious Eleven City Diner, where Abby and I split what we believe to be the best French toast of our collective lives; note that while the toast set us back a cool $10.95, the Guilt (listed at the bottom of the menu) was free: As we chatted about the finer points of the forthcoming Field Guide, we discovered Dan and Gary's taste in sandwiches appears to be as good as their taste in prose poems. Dan... ...and Gary: From 2-3, while valiantly fighting off a French toast-induced food coma, I did a signing at the Switchback Books table, staffed by Brandi Homan, pictured here, and next to Claire Hero and Kristy Bowen (both sort of pictured in the background, next to the chair, recently vacated by me), representing dancing girl press: And last but not least, I fully intended to help get all experimental on everyone's ass at Links Hall... ...courtesy of the Red Rover reading series, hosted by Jen Karmin and Lisa Janssen, pictured here with their awesome tent: ...but I've been sort of low-grade sick for the last two weeks (with antibiotics and everything!), and I had to bail at the intermission. The spirit was willing, but the flesh was feverish. Martin and I made our way back to the train, past the snowmen and no trespassing signs... ...to rest up for tomorrow and the rest of the tour. One more day of conferencing left! Come on down to the Northwest exhibit hall and say hey.

I am an American, Chicago-born...

2009-02-12T18:33:00.008-05:00

Chicago is a rather lengthy city from North to South. Here, Abby is seen sporting her red coat and taking the 45 minutes afforded by the ride on the red line from my apartment to the AWP Conference in the Loop to get in a little crosswordery, courtesy of the Redeye: Once we got to the Chicago Hilton, we entered one of the many cavernous exhibit halls, where the Rose Metal Press table was looking attractive and bookish: And speaking of attractive and bookish, here's a picture of Martin: After spending most of the day beneath the unforgiving fluorescent lights of the Bookfair, it was refreshing to spend most of the night beneath the softer and more soothing lights of the Hideout, where even this wall-mounted Mahi Mahi looked tranquil: Elisa lives in Boston, so she and I don't get to read together nearly often enough, so we try to make it count when we do. Here we are, rocking the mic: Thanks to Make/ACM/etc for hosting, and thanks to everyone for listening. Now, it's back to the Bookfair to do the same thing we did yesterday all over again. Tonight, if you're free, be sure to come by the small press readings at Links Hall, starting at 8:00.

Home field advantage

2009-02-12T08:03:00.005-05:00

You know how you love your friends so much, you wonder how it might feel to be them? Me too, and that is why I found myself trying on Abby's big red coat, as we hung out in my apartment last night with Elisa Gabbert and Sarah Bartlett. All three of them are staying with Martin and me during the AWP Conference here in Chicago:
This is Elisa, with whom I'll be reading (along with John Beer, Arda Collins, Joel Craig, William Hillman, Dan McCann, Caroline Picard, and Greg Purcell) tonight at the MAKE: a Chicago literary magazine/ACM/Action Books/Green Lantern Press off-site event at the Hideout at 1354 W. Wabansia in Chicago at 7:30 pm: While we were sitting there, she got a text from her friend Farrah that said "subtext and buttsex are anagrams." Think about it.

Well it's Ninth and Hennepin, and all the doughnuts have names that sound like prostitutes

2009-02-10T14:44:00.023-05:00

In what is rapidly becoming our tour MO, we went to bed late and got up early, which turned out to be wise. That way, we had plenty of time to check out the small but charming redlight district of Minneapolis, handily located near the bus station, kind of under the freeway: Matt gave us a ride on his way to work, and even waited with the car running while I hopped out and took a picture of the many-bulbed sign advertising LIVE NUDE MODELS whose work is different than mine, but probably no less inspiring. The models are based at Sexworld, just across the street from Midwest XXX: Halfway between Minneapolis and Milwaukee, we stopped for a half hour at a Love’s/Hardee’s combo reststop/gas station in Oakdale, Wisconsin, a town whose name I was able to figure out thanks to the water tower behind the Megabus and trees in this picture: Despite lacking the promised WiFi, the Megabus still won us over with its cheapness and with the way its name resembles that of a Transformer. The sky was gloomy and gray at first... ...but people everywhere seemed in good spirits and kept up the pattern of niceness we have come to appreciate about this tour, including our fellow Megabus passengers. For example, while I was taking this picture, I was feeling more than a little like something the cat dragged in, but then a gentleman whose name I would learn was Maurice came up and asked me 1) what my name was, 2) where I was from, and 3) if I would like to accompany him to the clubs back in Chicago tonight. No, Maurice, but thank you for asking.

Before the reading, Drew Blanchard picked us up and took us to his place for lunch. The sky was blue...
...and his dogs are adorable: He was our heroic guide as we read to students in the undergrad and grad programs of University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, where their art department hangs pictures of live semi-nude people on the wall: Tonight, Kyle crashes in the ‘waukee, and I Amtrak back to Chicago for the AWP Conference where we are both doing a bunch of events, as are about a million other really great writers. Rose Metal Press will have a table there—number 441!—so please come by and say hi, since Abby and I will probably be there like 90 percent of the time. I can’t wait to meet you. Yeah, you.

Grain Belt Premium

2009-02-10T02:42:00.002-05:00

Tonight's reading at the Loft in Minneapolis was so kickass, I don't even know where to start, so I'll begin by saying that Rebecca Kanner was fantastic to read with, plus she made us all seriously wish we had tickets to the gun show: We started the evening with dinner at Harry's, downtown, where I ordered the kind of beer whose bottles were used to make this chandelier... ...and where Jana ordered a "Wedge Salad" that ended up being more of a salad boob. With bacon:
Afterwards, we went to Grumpy's, which is not named after one of the Seven Dwarfs, despite what its name suggests; it features prominently in the very good story that Rebecca read:
Super-special thanks to Dick, pictured to the far right, for the good stories, and to Shannon with the Cannon at the Loft who is not pictured, but who took many pictures: Everything about this evening felt really encouraging, but maybe the best part of all was that they put our names on the marquee. We stood underneath it and Matt took our picture: From here, we appear small. But together we are mighty. Look out.

By the Numbers, Toledo/Chicago to Minneapolis

2009-02-10T00:51:00.004-05:00

Miles Traveled Thus Far, According to MapQuest: 5296.59 miles
Miles Yet to Travel: 8437.12 miles
Cities Visited: 7
Cities Yet to Visit: 18
Highest Estimated Turnout: 40-50 (Seattle, WA)
Lowest Estimated Turnout: 10-15 (San Francisco, CA)
Total Alcoholic Beverages Consumed, Kyle plus Kathy: 9
Total Automobile Trips: 11
Total Bus Trips: 7
Total Train Trips (Including Transfers): 5
Total Plane Trips: 3
Shortest Night's Sleep: 4 hours
Longest Night's Sleep: 8 1/2 hours
Longest Period of Waking Alone Time Per Tourmate So Far (Average): 37 minutes
Total Apartments Slept In: 3
Total Houses Slept In: 3
Total Airplanes Slept In: 3
Total Buses Slept In: 0
Total Cars Slept In: 1
Total Hotels Slept In: 0
Total Peanut Butter Sandwiches Consumed: 4
Total Packages of Saltine Crackers Stolen from Minneapolis Restaurants: 7
Total Awkward Moments: 17
Total Transcendent Moments: 6
Number of Times I Have Been Addressed as Kevin in After-Reading Q&A's or Signings: 2
Number of Stories About Prague-to-Mongolia Road Rallies Told in Bars: 1
Number of Cool and/or Interesting People We've Met So Far: Approximately 273
Number of Times Kathy Has Publicly Missed Martin: 19 1/2

The heart of the heart of the country

2009-02-09T15:39:00.011-05:00

This morning, we took a plane from SeaTac to Minneapolis. As is common in the industry, the airplane had wings, one of which you can see from my window here: We got up at 4:30 am, so it would have been pleasant to take a nap on the plane. Unfortunately, while I possess an array of unexpected skills (a killer serve in badminton, for instance) I am terrible at sleeping on planes, so instead I stayed awake, reading the New Yorker and memorizing the bones of the inner ear, which were featured in an article I came across there (malleus, incus, stapes, aka club, anvil, stirrup, in case you were wondering). I also continued to read My Diva:65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them, edited by Michael Montlack and pictured here... ...which I am enjoying, and which I will be reviewing for an upcoming issue of BITCH. As you can see, there was sun above the clouds, shining in all sparkly on my tray table and notes. The light in the Pacific Northwest is so gray and indirect. As it turns out, it's gray and indirect here in Minnesota today too... If you are also here, in this light in the Twin Cities, then come to the Loft tonight to hear us read with the Rebecca Kanner! Special thanks to Matt Rasmussen who picked us up from the airport, and Janna Rasmussen who made the elaborate brownies pictured below. We are staying at their house because they are super-nice like that.

City of Destiny

2009-02-09T00:24:00.012-05:00

A lot of writers get nervous before their readings. Some of them have a drink or two to take the edge off. Others have their friends dress their pets in reindeer outfits. Whatever works, you know? Tonight, we read in the Community Room at the shiny and relatively new Garfield Book Company on the campus of Pacific Lutheran University, where Jason Skipper, our co-reader, handed out candy to the crowd: A lot of my former students showed up and so, of course, I had to take their picture: We know we need to go to bed relatively soon, because our flight tomorrow is at the crack of dawn. But Jen and Jason were nice enough to buy us an entire container of Western Family brand peanut butter, so I made us some sandies for the road tomorrow: Super-special thanks to Jen Smith for doing the introductions this evening. If you happen to be in or passing through the Twin Cities tomorrow, be sure to stop by and see us read at the Loft with Rebecca Kanner.

'Hamming it up

2009-02-08T13:11:00.020-05:00

Last night, we read in the cozy basement of the palatial Village Books in Bellingham, WA. Susan, the events coordinator, coordinated our event. Because she is such a fan of coordination, she has also become the model coordinator of her local drawing group—she told the story of how, recently, when they didn’t have a professional model, she ended up posing (clothed) for the session, so she’s seen the easel from both sides now. Elizabeth Colen, whose carefully selected poems were entertaining and educational, was a smash success in drumming up an attentive audience, pictured here, including a few people who either had art modeled in the past, such as the bearded gentleman toward the front left, or were considering getting into it: Appropriately, since so much of Live Nude Girl deals with looking and being looked at, the reading room was hung with many, many pictures of fruits and vegetables with large, staring eyes: During the Q&A, one attendee asked me if I could do the pose that I’d read about, the one I held over the course of 14 weeks in a Boston University sculpture class taught by Isabel McIlvain:
Afterwards, Carol and Elizabeth and some of their friends took us to D’Anna’s for Italian food. On the way there, we saw the scenic downtowns, including the city’s many spectacular neon signs:
After dinner was eaten and much fun was had, we retired to the house, where I had the best sleep of the tour so far in the pink bedroom upstairs. Insomnia is often my worst enemy, especially on tour, but last night I slept magically. Maybe it was because of the fairy on the light switch on the wall, who Carol and Elizabeth tell me some people like to call the Radical Fairy on account of the strategic placement of the actual light switch:
You should know that Sylvie the cat is not the only photogenic creature around here. There is also Callie who is a natural poser with one brown eye and one blue one...
...and Rainier Maria, who is blind. Behind him is the colorful hutch where Atticus the cat-who-is-quite-fierce dwells: And she’s not really a pet per se, but Esther Healey is a champ at holding still for the camera: Elizabeth and Carol make delicious coffee, and they serve it in fired-on-glass mugs with words and pictures:
Have you hugged your camp director today? More importantly, will we see you when we read at Garfield Book Company in Tacoma this afternoon at 4:00? We hope so?

Midnight and I'm Not Famous Yet

2009-02-08T12:00:00.005-05:00

The week before I left for our 25 city book tour, I heard from the chair of the English Department where I teach, and the news was grim: All the visiting professors who taught anything besides composition weren't being invited back next year, and that meant me. There wasn't much time to process this news, although it was certainly grave news. (What will I do for work now? How will I find a new job this late in the game? Will we have to move? Will we have health insurance? Will my children be angry with me for getting them into whatever mess is sure to follow?)

A few days later I boarded the airplane for Los Angeles, and in the five days that have so far followed, the constant geographic dislocation has rendered time fluid, the days and nights expanding and contracting like -- here, of course, I could give you sophisticated and literary-sounding similes drawn from the lexicon of space, where everything seems to expand or contract or both, and everything sounds sexy, like stars, the sun, the orbits of planets, and so on, but the similes more accurate to the state of mind I mean to describe are a fool's game on paper -- Silly Putty, chocolate chip cookie dough, that green gelatin alien you buy for fity cents from a vending machine at Pizza Hut and throw at the ceiling and it sticks.

Seriously: how does one make sense of one's own trouble while traveling through a world that sequentially looks like this:

1. Toledo, Ohio, so early in the morning it looks like night, lifting off above the wasted smokeless abandoned factories and the low dirty Maumee River;

2. "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. If you look through the cabin windows to your left or to your right, you can see the majesty of the Grand Canyon . . . "

3. The otherwordly quality of light upon landing in Los Angeles, where a theatrical lighting director once pointed Lawrence Weschler to the setting sun and spoke of the Almighty: "Incredible, the effects He gets with just one unit;"

4. The serpentine progress of the city as seen from the Green Line, the Blue Line, the Red Line Metro; the First World skyscrapers rising from behind the iron-barred and pink-painted Third World supermercados and zapeterias; the shock of the kind and friendly black faces of protective strangers welcoming us to South Central, a place one finds on first visit to be nearly the opposite of its television analogue;

5. Hollywood and Vine; the stars on the Walk of Fame; the incomprehensible proverbs adorning the street signs outside the nightclubs and used car lots; the Museum of Death;

6. The glamour of the wooden vaulted ceiling like a church sanctuary at Skylight Books; Joshuah Bearman in his bow-tie; Kerrie Kvashay-Boyle runway-ready; the seats filling with friends and strangers; the news that two of them had risked the freeway from Riverside at ninety miles per hour to hear me read about a chase in a tobacco field in Rowan County, Kentucky, seventy-some years in the past;

7. The unexpected sleepiness of San Francisco, the wet in the air, the cold and the drizzle;

8. The kind face of our host George Awad, and the specialness of his social gift, his special ability to make his guests briefly believe they have it, too; our journey through the world by way of the city's cuisines -- Taiwanese squid, the delicate meat from the muscles of beef cheek and chin at the Mexican dive where the Guatemalan man carried a library copy of Isaac Bashevis Singer en Espanol;

9. The sorrowful beauty of the Mission District, the socioeconomic turnings street by street; the face of my Opera House doppelganger on Valencia;

10. The hands-in-pockets charm of a drunken Peter Orner holding forth with enthusiasm on Hungarian literature; the hands-holding-pages charm of Daniel Handler, reading about bad girls, Alzheimer's patients, pirates; the hands-on-hips charm of the mustached-and-nose-ringed woman who made clear her duty as the substitute bookstore employee to have us all out of the store by nine o'clock;

11. The dark of the after-party bar, and the kick of the liquor, unexpectedly strong despite the taste of pineapple;

12. The Portland sky, grayer and gloomier than the Indiana sky, a grayness and gloominess I could not have imagined possible;

13. The march of the creepy men into the Hawthorne Powells, carrying their cameras and tape recorders, wearing their ponchos and mustaches, spurred by the news in the Portland papers that there would be present a "Live Nude Girl;"

14. The white vastness of the poet's tiny studio apartment ceiling, an unexpected vista discovered while lying flat-backed on a deflating air mattress;

15. The somehow-but-how-can-one-explain-how progressive associations of fitful Portland dreams: the five-hundred-foot-tall koulev, snake, serpent, rising above the soccer field in the Haitian countryside to protect the small children from the big ones; the face of Richard M. Nixon; the body blows rained down upon a tiny woman by a tattooed Danny Bonaduce; the eggshell-thin voice of Joan Didion, circa 1973, on a 45 RPM record player; a pink playhouse in West Palm Beach, Florida, and me, age three, and a little girl asking how we should shelve our fine china;

16. Sea-Tac; the forced false smile of the rental car woman, saying my card was denied, then talking about crackheads renting cars and wrecking them; the sudden, first-time knowledge of the logic of Kurt Cobain's life against the washed-out backdrop of passing faded Washington towns, and the word Aberdeen;

17. Unbidden, among the small and dozen daily panic attacks hidden skillfully from my tour partner, the sound of David Bazan's husky voice on the MP3 player of my dendrites -- "I would never divorce you / Without a good reason / And though I may never have to / It is good to have options / But for now, I need you" -- and the sudden and unarticulated wish that love would never be like this, for anyone, anywhere, and the knowledge that a thousand exigencies littered the hills and valleys to our left and to our right;

18. Again, the daily staring at pictures of my wife and children, and missing them desperately;

19. The trays of Twinkies and tiny hot dogs arranged like a kaleidoscope of candy cancer at the University Bookstore in Seattle;

20. The strange beauty of Jonathan Evison's jaunty hat and rouge;

21. Another shock: the twenty patrons following us from bookstore to bar, and the surprising conversations there: Turgenev, Tillich, Tungsten; the death of God; eggplant, pistachio, and portobello; Microsoft; "Dude, if you move to Washington, you can get $440 bucks a week in unemployment!"

22. Jason Skipper's well-chosen bookshelves, the reassurance of the colors of the spines: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, brown, black, purple;

23. The slanty houses of Bellingham; the white dog who lives his life running circles; the black dog I'm not allowed to touch or love, because she hates men, and because she is known to snap at any moment; the news that nearly every serial killer in the United States has been known to pass through Bellingham; the news that here there are places where the bodies can be buried and the bodies will never be found; the news that here the drug lords own a city block, and a man can be stabbed with a knife in the street without consequence, despite the watching policemen;

24. The warmth of conversation in the Italian restaurant, among new friends, and what day is today, anyway?

25. The train tunnel blackness stretching eastward from the white itinerary pages: Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Boston, Provinceton, Providence, Brooklyn, New York, D.C., Baltimore . . .

26. My Amazon ranking is lower than it was when I left town to tour. Is the book not selling? Is the book not selling? If I sell 1000 more copies, will I earn out my advance? If I sell 2000 more copies, will my publishers be pleased? If I sell 10,000 more copies, will I have royalty earnings enough to last a jobless year? If I sell 100,000 more copies, will I be a famous writer? If I sell 1,000,000 more copies, will it buy me love?

Among the Hamsters

2009-02-07T20:05:00.028-05:00

After a pleasant drive of exactly 2 hours and 11 minutes (Google maps really nailed this one), we have arrived in Bellingham, where we are staying with Elizabeth Colen and Carol Guess, and where--I am told--people refer to themselves as "Hamsters." Also? Sometimes they dress alike, and if you ask them to pose, they will show you their best good sides: The drive was lovely because the sun came out and we knew that if we wanted, we could always stop and get some alpacas... ...or some cider: When we got here, Carol showed us the view from her favorite spot in their pretty house... ...and we got to meet Sylvie, the extremely photogenic cat. She is shown here, basking in the window of the pink room, where I will be staying. (As the boy, Kyle will be staying in the blue room, of course.): I forgot to note this duly it in the blog post earlier, but Jen and Jason fed us breakfast this morning, including phenomenal blueberry pancakes, pictured here:
Not to be outdone, Carol and Elizabeth served us heart-shaped purple sugar cookies with orange flowers: We are reading tonight with Elizabeth at Village Books at 7:00. Hope to see you there!

All About Twinkies

2009-02-07T14:17:00.019-05:00

Little known fact: I used to live in Tacoma. In honor of being back, this morning, I went to class at my favorite studio, Source Yoga. If you are ever in T-town and need some stretching, Source is your source: Last night, we read here, at the University Bookstore, where not one, but three (3!) enthusiastic booksellers introduced us: Turnout was high, thanks in large part to Jonathan Evison and Paul Constant who blogged about us in The Stranger. "Minor and Rooney are on a tour of the country—I think 25 stops—and at each stop, they're teaming up with a local author. This is a good way to go about readings for young authors, I think, and that makes this the reading of the night," he blogged. Thanks, Paul! Jonathan was a generous co-reader, and he even brought along plenty of sort of phallic snacks for the crowd, including chopped up Twinkies and bite-sized sausages: Let's get a closer look: After the reading, we each got a chair, a pen, and a stack of books and got to work signing: The audience bought a lot of copies--thanks, audience! One gentleman, Neil, asked me to draw a picture when I signed his copy of LNG, which was nice. I drew a picture of a horse. Thanks for asking me to do that, Neil! Next stop: Bellingham. Hope to see you tonight!

Live Nude Cat!

2009-02-06T18:24:00.010-05:00

It was only a matter of time before it happened, but here I am, posting a picture of a cat on the internet. Behold, Roy (named for the former Colorado Avalanche goal-tender Patrick Roy, who, as you probably know, won Stanley Cups with both the Montreal Canadiens *and* the Colorado Avalanche): He belongs to Jen Smith and Jason Skipper, our hosts with the mosts in Tacoma, WA. We just drove up here from Portland. On the way, we stopped in a gas station which offered, in addition to gas, a variety of inexpensive erotic treats which, even though they were just 75 cents, we avoided: We *did* stop at the Espresso hut across the road from the gas station though: Tonight we read in Seattle at the UW Bookstore with Jonathan Evison. Before we go get ready for that, though, here is another cat picture, just because I can. See you tonight!

City of Roses, City of Books

2009-02-06T12:54:00.018-05:00

Because it is important to keep your strength up before giving or going to a reading, Meghan James, Sarah Bartlett & Emily Kendal Frey, took us to a Vietnamese restaurant a couple blocks from Powell's for some bun, hon. When the food arrived, it was almost too cute to eat, but we managed:

As you might suspect, Powell's is approximately the best store ever to read in. Scott, the events guy, made us feel comfy and at ease, and even got us some herbal tea from the cafe. Thanks, Scott! Also? Powell's does extensive publicity, so lots of people from the community came out; some of them, such as the gentleman pictured here toward the front, brought cameras and recording devices to preserve the presentation for posterity:
I couldn't decide what to read, a love story or the tale of a creepy photographer, so I gave the audience a choice and they voted, democracy-style. Creepy won by a landslide! Afterwards, they asked lots of questions that required us to turn our eyes skyward and make our we-are-thinking faces... ...including one woman (not pictured), named Jacqueline, whose birthday it was, and who was giving herself the present of taking up nude modeling this year--good luck Jacqueline, and remember: don't lock your knees, because you will totally pass out. When we were done, we went to McMenamins where some of us, having had perhaps a few too many Manhattans the previous night, opted to get some wholesome ice cream treats, such as this cookie: and this milkshake: Scott had us sign a bajillion books, and you can buy copies of Live Nude Girl here and of In the Devil's Territory here. Next up: Seattle.

Stumptown

2009-02-05T19:41:00.007-05:00

We made it to Portland, where we picked up our trusty steed, pictured here, from the Dollar rental counter. Then, thanks to the help of various kindly Portlandians and some expert phone navigation from Sarah Bartlett, we made it to Sarah's apartment, also pictured here:
We are reading at the Powell's Hawthorne location in a little while, but for now, we are working hard... ...and doing our best to provide you with the frequent fresh blog posts you have come to trust us to deliver: We hope to see you tonight!

Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.

2009-02-05T11:07:00.013-05:00

Before the reading in San Francisco, we spent time just taking in the atmosphere of the city, which has many great stores with even greater names...
...and many great bookstores as well, though some of them copped some attitude:
We were guided through our adventures by George Awad, pictured here, helping us get to our reading in style:
Then we read at Modern Times with Daniel Handler!!!
Kyle Minor's doppelganger, Kyle Minor, showed up to our reading and for a moment, when they touched, we thought it might be like matter and anti-matter flying together and causing the universe to explode or something. Fortunately, that didn't happen: Thanks to Modern Times for hosting, Navin for taking pictures, George for being the host with the most, and everyone for coming. Next stop: Portland.

If you're going to San Francisco...

2009-02-04T14:50:00.003-05:00

...then come hear us read--with Daniel Handler!--tonight at 7:30 at Modern Times! It's not hard to get here thanks to the helpful subway maps... ...and comfortable seats:
See you tonight, we hope!

I love L. A. (We love it)

2009-02-04T14:19:00.011-05:00

We read at Skylight Books in Los Feliz last night, where they put our books right up in the window...
...and lots of people turned out to listen to us, and to Joshuah Bearman, pictured here in the dapper bowtie. Also pictured, back and to the left? Kerrie Kvashay-Boyle, who ran the show:
In attendance as well, shown here just behind Kyle, are Nick and Steve (you can sort of see the top of his head, anyway), who drove 90 miles an hour from Riverside just to make it in time. They made it!

Afterwards, books were signed. Super-huge thanks to Skylight Books, Joshuah Bearman, and the fabulous Clark Harding for the place to crash and the ride to the airport.

Where any barmaid can be a star maid.

2009-02-03T18:08:00.016-05:00

Kyle and I are in Los Angeles, California for Day One of the Live Nude Girl in the Devil's Territory tour. It seems unbelievable, I know, but you can tell it's really true by the fact that we are surrounded by blue skies, palm trees, and California Donuts:
More specifically, we are in Hollywood:
This is evident from the way we are standing on Hollywood Boulevard with the big white HOLLYWOOD sign hovering tinily in the background:
Tonight, we will read at Skylight Books. Hope to see you there!

Things To Do Before Flying to Los Angeles

2009-02-01T13:39:00.003-05:00

1. Finish packing (clothes, toiletries, travel documents, notes for my novel, notes for other projects I might pursue on buses and planes, etc.)
2. I was laid off from my visiting writer position at the university last Wednesday (damn you, George W. Bush), so now there are eighteen letters of interest to write, seven grant applications to finish, a plan for job-hunting to pursue.
3. But I'm still teaching, so I have to take care of my students. This evening, while watching the Super Bowl, I'll give feedback on 25 research proposals, 30 short stories, 87 poems, and 25 write-ups about John McPhee's narrative nonfiction books.
4. I'm also teaching online courses for the Gotham Writers Workshop, and I owe my students there feedback on their work by Tuesday.
5. Translate 35 more pages of the Creole novel I'm hoping to bring to the attention of English language readers.
6. Finish a review of Ted Genoways's poetry book Anna, Washing, for Stephen Elliott's new web magazine The Rumpus.
7. Finish revising a chapter of my novel.
8. Post something for the blog (check!)
9. Finish sending out electronic reminders to readers on my mailing lists in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and the Pacific Northwest.
10. Write three letters of recommendation.
11. Meet with the illustrator of my graphic novel.
12. Play several games of Crash Nitro-Kart with my five-year-old son.
13. Pay bills.
14. Get stuff ready so I can file my taxes in March.
15. Makes plans to get together with people who want to get together at the AWP Conference in Chicago the week after next.
16. Finish figuring out rental car arrangements for the Tulsa-to-Illinois leg of our trip.
17. Finish making arrangements for the daylong event in New York that we're not telling you about quite yet, because we're hoping it will happen at all.
18. Write two guest blogs, for Brevity Magazine (about my short essay "Suspended," which I actually wrote in response to Kathy's writing prompt), and Caroline Leavitt (about this tour.)
19. Watch the Super Bowl. Root for the Steelers, because I am the only person in the United States who doesn't like Kurt Warner.
20. Find places for us to sleep in Memphis and Carbondale, Illinois.
21. Second guess everything, and then third, fourth, and fifth guess everything.
22. Check the weather reports before deciding which coat to wear.
23. Get some sleep! There's a 3 am wakeup call for Tuesday's flight.

WWJDD?

2009-02-01T13:30:00.007-05:00

What Would Joan Didion Do? What would she pack? According to “The White Album”:

TO PACK AND WEAR:

2 skirts
2 jerseys or leotards
1 pullover sweater
2 pair shoes
stockings
bra
nightgown, robe, slippers
cigarettes
bourbon
bag with:
shampoo
toothbrush and past
Basis soap
razor, deodorant
aspirin, prescriptions, Tampax
face cream, powder, baby oil

TO CARRY:

mohair throw
typewriter
2 legal pads and pens
files
house key

I’m packing now for the first leg of the tour, the West Coast leg, and I want to get it right—enough stuff, but not too much. Good stuff, the right stuff. Her list is a nice list. Kyle and I will be staying in Hollywood first. That is where she was living when she wrote this.

LNG interview with Jeff Baker of the Portland Oregonian...

2009-01-31T11:09:00.002-05:00

...complete with a helpful list of "Do's & Don't's" here.

Women & Children First first

2009-01-29T23:49:00.015-05:00

Tonight, Live Nude Girl: My Life as an Object had its hometown premiere at Women and Children First on Chicago's far north side, with Jac Jemc introducing. If you are ever in Chicago, you should go to this store. Also? They make nice signs for their events:
Lindsay Hunter read with me. Her name, as you can see, is on the sign above. She was great! You should check out her reading series, Quickies! This is one half of the beautiful audience:
And this is the other:
After the reading, as is customary, people asked questions and got their books signed:
Thanks to everyone for coming!

Melissa Albert reviews LNG at Time Out Chicago

2009-01-29T11:07:00.002-05:00

“Rooney benefits from the tendency of a silent someone to become furniture, making her a great source of voyeuristic wisdom,” she says.

Also? “Considering the constant co-opting of her face and figure for any number of mythical people, Rooney’s take on the job is fittingly schizophrenic.”

Read the whole (very thoughtful) review here.

Take a picture—it’ll last longer.

2009-01-25T18:31:00.003-05:00

Often, if you are uploading a photograph of yourself camera-faced in the bathroom mirror, it means you’re some guy placing an ad on Craigslist for casual sex. In this case, it means I finally got a digital camera. After years of my life passing visually undocumented, I can now record any and everything of interest on the tour. Lucky you.

Steal this poster.

2009-01-18T12:20:00.005-05:00

Really! Use the color printer at work to print it out and then hang it up--on your fridge, above your desk, around your hometown, especially if that town is one of the ones that Kyle and I will be reading in. Thanks!

Major thanks, also, to Steven Seighman, who designed the poster, and who edits the spectacularly named Monkeybicycle.