Pia's Nest

A Nervous Relaunch?

2008-07-22T13:40:00.004-05:00

No, no, a calm and assured one. Check out the new look of The Nervous Breakdown, the brainchild of the tireless and unflappable Brad Listi. I'm going to be blogging there about the renovation of our house.

Off Line and Laid Low.

2008-07-22T13:20:00.004-05:00

Ten days ago, I left my black MacBook at LAX. I was on my way to a meeting in San Francisco. I left three things on that trip and only got one of them back, and the computer is gone. And so are the recent drafts of my novel. I did not back up often enough, or e mail the damn thing to myself, so I'm screwed. I have to believe this is a sign for me to go back in and keystroke the most recent xerox I have and live inside the text for the next week or two. To re engage. It's odd: we're renovating our house so Malcolm and Andrew and I been editing and culling and tossing and donating over these last few weeks, and I wonder if leaving these three things - computer, blue scarf, novel by Kate Christiansen I'd just finished - was a part of this process. Like a snake losing its skin?

I got flustered when the young Chinese girl next to me who was traveling alone wanted to follow me off the plane after we landed. Her father was many rows behind us and he'd only checked on her once, and she looked panicky. I think he wanted to be able to work back there, the jerk. She was, like, 7. He gave her a pink video game and a box of bright colored Chinese candies. Anyway, her distress threw me off and since Katrina I don't have much of an auto-pilot anymore, so I left with the computer under the seat in front of me and by the time I ran back to the gate, huffing and sweating, it was gone. The airlines were no help; they suck. I sat in the baggage claim in the bowels of LAX for two hours imagining that someone would walk in and lay my laptop in my arms, but, um, no. In what dream world does that scenario happen? I hope the fucking person who stole my computer at least had the decency to scrub it.

So I have a new MacBook and I've been slowly filling it with my iTunes and photographs, with bookmarks and saved articles, and I'm trying to forgive myself for leaving something so important and expensive behind. The novel? I left it on the airplane home, and the scarf? It was mailed back to me courtesy of the lovely bed & breakfast in SF, where I'd left it hanging over a chair.

I know, I know: back that thing up.

Malcolm and me.

2008-06-23T16:00:00.003-05:00

Five Stars.

2008-06-23T15:54:00.004-05:00

Check out this multi-faceted site where short story's that've been published on the web are discussed by their original editors and a reviewer. My story, "Running the Room," had its day on June 7th, nominated by two fine writers in their own right, Jim Nichols and Matt Bell.

Five Worried Pieces.

2008-06-23T15:45:00.007-05:00

A new, long story I've been working on for a couple of years - Closer, Still - is being serialized this week at a cool on line literary magazine called Five Chapters. It's the brainchild of Dave Daley, the eager instigator/editor of McSweeney's "Twenty Minute Stories" , which can be found on line and in issue 12 of that magazine.

Brilliant:

2008-06-10T08:47:00.004-05:00

Abigail Ulman's "Chagall's Wife" from New England Review

Dylan Landis' "Rose" from Swink

Marquetry.

2008-06-10T08:40:00.002-05:00

Then and today at the James Cohan Gallery in Chelsea.

Arizona.

2008-06-10T08:31:00.002-05:00

Carolyn Kellogg's visit & interview with my 4-ever friend and Bread Loaf roomie, poet Sally Ball.

Mud.

2008-06-10T08:19:00.006-05:00

Andrew and his friends after skim boarding on a rainy Jazz Fest Saturday.

A Closer Look.

2008-05-29T09:21:00.000-05:00

Andrea Aversa.

What It Is.

2008-05-29T08:55:00.001-05:00

A six-page exclusive excerpt from Lynda Barry's new book.

Class of 2008.

2008-05-29T08:47:00.003-05:00

Curtains . . .

Summa cum laude! Yup! Andrew's on the first row to the right of the aisle, staying very very still.

Proud ain't the word for it.

Cousins.

The Withdrawal Method.

2008-05-23T10:47:00.005-05:00

The Quill and Quire's review of Pasha Malla's short story collection, The Withdrawal Method (Anansi), is up and it's a good one. My copy's on order. Through May 25th, you can download the book for free.

His mama interviews him here.

Bakeless Prize for Fiction.

2008-05-23T10:13:00.004-05:00

Skip Horack is this year's winner. I read for this contest and came upon his brilliant short story collection and passed it up to judge, Antonya Nelson. I'm not sure if Bread Loaf has announced this yet, but bloggers are talking about the results.

This was the floor of my den while I culled.

New Issue of NM.

2008-05-23T10:08:00.003-05:00

Narrative Magazine's spring bounty is on line and waiting for you. I'm reading my way through it, but, oh, Holly Wilson, you are wicked good.

Andrew at Antoine's.

2008-05-23T08:05:00.002-05:00

After the Baccalaureate Mass at Jesuit:

Blowing through town.

2008-05-22T16:05:00.012-05:00

On Tuesday morning, I drove an open-hearted, fuschia-haired writer and literary blogger, Carolyn Kellogg, around New Orleans. Maud Newton sent her to me. Carolyn's on the road and she called Monday to say she was in town for the night. So we took off to look at the flooded neighborhoods and to talk.

Today the interview she did with me is on the Los Angeles Times book blog Jacket Copy. I hope I don't sound like a numbed out fool. We were talking intently when we turned into the Lower Ninth Ward and then my brain froze. I hadn't been down there in a couple of months, and to see a neighborhood vanquished - and its people - freezes my brain.

Carolyn's driving from Pitt where she just finished grad school back to LA where she lives, and blogging from the road. I put the press on her to move to New Orleans, buy a shotgun and teach high school, because that's what I do when I meet someone I like who doesn't live here but maybe could. I want to capture the good people who come through town and keep them here to help us rebuild. But she loves her city, too.

Brilliant and Awful.

2008-05-16T09:02:00.002-05:00

Ayee. Manbabies.

I know about this site thanks to Henry's mom, Myfanwy Collins.

The oldest living things in the world.

2008-05-16T08:06:00.002-05:00

Photographed and written about by artist, Rachel Sussman.

Happy Birthday to Chris Paul.

2008-05-06T07:44:00.002-05:00

And to me, me, me!

Another Game 2 Hornets win last night. By 19 points. We watched on TV and ate Rally's hamburgers. Now the team travels to an unfriendly place where we can't carry them on the wings of our crazy basketball-fan love.

Andrew's finished high school.

2008-05-05T10:38:00.003-05:00

Clickable.

2008-05-02T13:34:00.003-05:00

Scott Doyle's "Clapping Girl" on Night Train

Katrina Denza's "Soap" and Kim Chinquee's "Night Shift" at Wigleaf

Myfanwy Collins' "Verbatim" in Mississippi Review - now Adobe-formatted

Me vs. Hornets.

2008-05-02T13:07:00.008-05:00

On May 6th, Tuesday night - aka Game 2 of the Western Division semi finals AND my birthday - I'll be reading at the 1718 Reading Series at the Columns Hotel. It's a (usually) heavily attended reading series that's run by really nice students from Loyola and Tulane who collaborate and pull this monthly event off like champions.

StoryQuarterly Love Story Contest.

2008-05-02T12:36:00.001-05:00

I read for this with great pleasure. The winners have been announced.

NARRATIVE MAGAZINE CONGRATULATES THE WINNERS AND FINALISTS
IN THE 2008 LOVE STORY CONTEST

First Place ($2,500) Elizabeth Stuckey-French Interview with a Moron
Second Place ($1,500) Maud Newton Conversations You Have at Twenty
Third Place ($750) Janet Burroway Blackout

Ten Finalists ($100 each)
Heather Brittain Bergstrom Shallow Sea
Mermer Blakeslee Digger?s God
William Borden The Real Thing
Beth O?Gara Connor Accommodations
Masha Hamilton It Always Does
Christian Lewis It?s a Joy to Serve You
Ron Tanner Renovation
Sarah Towers On the Universal Tendency Toward Debasement in the Sphere of Love
Lesley C. Weston I Believe
Yuvi Zalkow Blue

The new First-Person Story Contest, with a
First Prize of $3,000, a Second Prize of $1,750, a Third Prize of $1,000,
and ten finalists receiving $125 each, is open to
entries of both fiction and nonfiction,
and will run from May 1 to July 31, 2008.

Western Division play.

2008-05-02T12:35:00.001-05:00

There's a nicely written opinion piece in the NYT this morning about Byron Scott and how stuff goes-and-comes around. Coach Scott's nothing but class, imo. When Stackhouse trash- talked him last week (before he was named Coach of the Year) and said he's not a good coach, and that anyone would look good on a team with Magic and Kareem, we sort of figured out that he might've been put up to it by Jason Kidd and Brandon Bass (an ex Hornets player who never clicked). Stackhouse's words rattled onto the court. Fucker.

And how stupid is Jason Howard to admit to smoking dope during the summer?

First game is tomorrow night at 9 p.m. I'm nervous, but excited. I really like and fear the Spurs as a team. The Hornets have beaten them twice this year, but S.A. knows how to win a championship. Yikes. So far, no trash talk. Tony Parker called Chris Paul the "head of the snake."