Interview with J'Lyn Chapman

My interview with J'Lyn Chapman, author of BEAR STORIES, is up at Bookslut.

Check it out and then buy her book. It is only $5 from Calamari.

Also, Jesse Ball's story from the last Paris Review is up on their website so you can read for free. THE EARLY DEATHS OF LUBECK, BRENNAN, HARP, AND CARR. I enjoyed the story quite a bit. It melds some kind of antiquated storyteller speak with Kafkaisms and weird injected musings such as this one:

They say that in a heavy storm one shouldn’t be beneath trees for fear of lightning. Also they say don’t go into an open field. This is very confusing, as, when I have on occasion been in a place of fields and trees during heavy rain and lightning, I have become completely confused. At what point do I stay away from the trees? At what point from the fields? Do I dig a hole in the ground? Do I need to keep a little shovel with me for rainstorms? In such a hole wouldn’t the rain collect and drown me? That’s not so much better, and in fact would be much the same because I have heard that the bodies of people killed by lightning are bloated in a similar way to those found after a drowning.

WHERE AM I WHERE HAVE I BEEN WHERE ARE YOU now contains 47393 words. I have added 8000 words in revision, including a short appendix. More is slipping in through the cracks. I don't want to stop but I am going to try to keep as much of the original draft intact as possible. I am going to limit myself to finish by end of week, I think, though last night after reading a chapter of Joy Williams's THE CHANGELING (which is getting really fucking good), I blurted a 900 word chapter that seems essential to the book as a whole about an egg that gives the mother orgasms.