Category: books

compli copies from story quarterly

Got these beautiful things from the post office:

This is Story Quarterly’s Issue 44.

I have a story here.

One of the copies will go to my parents, the other will be on my TBR list!

To wit:

The Mighty Reading List!

Feast for Crows

The Kobayashi Maru of Love

Showbiz Lengua

PGS Horror issue

Floating Dragon

El Bimbo Variations

The Tesseract

Faithful Place

Moxyland

Zoo City

The Dispossessed

Our Story Begins

reading now: Glass Soup

Here on Earth

The Pull of the Moon

Little Bee

Story Quarterly Issue 44

The Bell Jar

Thank you to the editors.

Founded in 1975, StoryQuarterly has been publishing emerging and established writers for over 30 years. Originally an independent quarterly based in Illinois, its contributors’ work has been selected for inclusion in the annual collections The Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, The Pushcart Prize: The Best of the Small Presses, and The Best American Non-Required Reading. Among the acclaimed writers who have written for the journal are Margaret Atwood, Ann Beattie, Frederick Busch, Joyce Carol Oates, T.C. Boyle and Jhumpa Lahiri.

In the summer of 2008, Rutgers University–Camden acquired Story Quarterly. J.T. Barbarese, associate professor of English who teaches poetry in the newly established MFA Program in creative writing, is the new editor. Rutgers–Camden novelists Lisa Zeidner, professor of English, and Lauren Grodstein, assistant professor of English, will serve as assistant editors. M.M.M. Hayes, who edited Story Quarterly for the past decade, remains with the journal as senior contributing editor.

Through its new affiliation with Rutgers University, Story Quarterly will continue to publish an annual print edition, the first one to appear through Rutgers–Camden in the summer of 2009 and will continue as an online presence that will showcase new work year-round. In addition Story Quarterly will begin to publish creative nonfiction and look to make the interview a staple feature.

You may contact their office for subscription questions, or if you want to get your hands on a copy.

* * *

I had to go to the Makati post office and pay a parcel fee of P40 to get these copies, and I still don’t know why. (Where will the P40 go?) Apparently the package had to go through Customs? (Again, why? My books from The Book Depository reached me just fine.)

psf 6 book launch has a date!

Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 6 will be launched on May 28th, a Saturday, 5 pm, at the U-View Theater, Fully Booked, at the Fort. I have a story here. See you at the launch! :)

moxyland

The book opens with a young photographer agreeing to become a sponsorbaby for the beverage, Ghost. She receives an injectable tech that circulates in her system and attaches to her cells. The Ghost logo will appear like a luminescent tattoo on her skin. She will crave for Ghost for as long as she lives.

This is her world. The city is drowning in advertising. Everyone is dependent on their phones for money and identity, and even the simple task of opening a door. To be without a phone is to be a disconnect: homeless, identity-less. But someone is forming a group that will aspire for just that – to be disconnected from the world, in order to change it.

The divide between corporate versus “civilian-plebes” plus the brutality of the police force is reminiscent of apartheid (author Lauren Beukes is from South Africa, where the novel is also set). Beukes says so herself in the “Extras” that the novel grew from the legacy of this divide. “Don’t let anyone tell you that apartheid has nothing to do with South Africa now.”

She covers several topics in her novel – gaming culture, nanotech, technological dependency, advertising, corporate rule, oppression, terrorism – and presents them fresh and highly charged. The energy of the narrative is amazing. Read this book.

The Mighty Reading List!

Feast for Crows

The Kobayashi Maru of Love

Showbiz Lengua

PGS Horror issue

Floating Dragon

El Bimbo Variations

The Tesseract

Faithful Place

Moxyland

Zoo City

The Dispossessed

Our Story Begins

Glass Soup

Here on Earth

The Pull of the Moon

Little Bee

book giveaway

Gave away these books to friends.

I want to do more book giveaways (to readers for example) but I don’t have the time and the energy to do meet-ups or send books via courier. What if I parked myself in a nearby McDonald’s, would you come meet with me? Haha. Give me an idea. (And a truck, while you’re at it, so I can get my books from my parents’ house.)

faithful place

One winter night in 1985, nineteen-year-old Francis Mackey waits for his girl, Rosie Daly, on top of a hill in Faithful Place. All his life he’s lived in Dublin, crammed with his siblings, his drunk da, and his nagging ma, and he wants out. Frank pictures Rosie hurrying to him with her suitcase of clothes and their ferry tickets to London, where they plan to get married and start anew.

Rosie doesn’t show. Believing he has been dumped, Frank turns on his heel and skips town on his own. For more than 20 years he (as well as the rest of the town) believes Rosie has reached London, living a new life.

Twenty-two years later, someone finds Rosie’s suitcase, and Frank is forced to go home.

I’ve read both In the Woods and The Likeness (where Frank first makes an appearance), and I must say Tana French has the incredible ability to inhabit a character. One moment she’s narrating a story as a young man in the Murder squad, then as  a young woman in Undercover, then as a middle-aged detective about to trip on a secret, and you believe her completely. It’s an immersive read. She has good ear for dialogue (I’ve never been to Ireland, and I can’t do an Irish accent, but while reading this I just know I’m in Ireland and I’m listening to Irish characters), and she makes sure that even the most minor of characters are three-dimensional. I’m glad to see Ms French is still as good as ever, and I cannot wait for her next book.

 

The Mighty Reading List!

Feast for Crows

The Kobayashi Maru of Love

Showbiz Lengua

PGS Horror issue

Floating Dragon

El Bimbo Variations

The Tesseract

Faithful Place

Moxyland

Zoo City

The Dispossessed

Our Story Begins

Glass Soup

Here on Earth

The Pull of the Moon

Little Bee

philippine speculative fiction 6 cover revealed

Editors Kate Osias and Nikki Alfar sent an e-mail apologizing for the delay, but the book should be out soon. I think the cover is amazing. Stay tuned.