Recommendation
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Buzzed Books #12: Iris Jamahl Dunkle’s Gold Passage
Buzzed Books #12 by Nicole Callihan Iris Jamahl Dunkle’s Gold Passage In the title poem of Iris Jamahl Dunkle’s Gold Passage, she writes, “What illumines our path forward is what once consumed us,” and the book itself seems born from this exchange of consumption and enlightenment. Steeped in music and place, Dunkle’s poems orient me:… Continue reading
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Buzzed Books #11: Superloop
Buzzed Books #11 by Stephen McClurg Nicole Callihan’s SuperLoop While re-reading Nicole Callihan’s SuperLoop, I noticed similarities to Charles Bukowski’s work, starting with form. In general, Callihan uses three forms: lists (including a recipe), sonnet variations, and thin, vertical columns that I’m not sure even have a technical name, but that I associate with Bukowski. The… Continue reading
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Buzzed Books #10: Little Reef
Buzzed Books #10 by Jimmy Newborg Michael Carroll’s Little Reef “Imagine being this hungry and feeling sated, just like this, at the same time.”So closes “Barracuda,” the third story in Michael Caroll’s debut collection, Little Reef. This line carries with it its own sating effect, and is an appropriate statement for the book as a whole. Characters… Continue reading
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Buzzed Books #7: Train Shots
Buzzed Books #7 by Mark Pursell Vanessa Blakeslee’s Train Shots In “Princess of Pop”, the eighth of eleven stories that comprise Vanessa Blakeslee’s debut collectionTrain Shots, Blakeslee gives a voice to one of our most exposed yet tight-lipped pop culture titans: Britney Spears. In a gutsy move that could have easily backfired or lent itself… Continue reading
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Buzzed Books #5: Taking Setting off the Sidelines
Buzzed Books #5 by Alise Hamilton Taking Setting off the Sidelines Many authors, from James Joyce to Annie Proulx, have used place as a device for linking stories. Debut author Kristiana Kahakauwila follows in that tradition with six stories set across the islands of Hawai’i in her new collection, This is Paradise. This is Paradise… Continue reading
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Buzzed Books #4: Why all Writers Should be Paying Attention to YA
Buzzed Books #4 by Alise Hamilton Why all Writers Should be Paying Attention to Young Adult Literature I first took note of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe during the ALA awards last winter, when it won the Pura Belpre Award, the Stonewall Book Award and was named as a Printz Honor Book.… Continue reading
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Versify #1: Brian Turner’s Here, Bullet
Versify #1 by Monica Wendel In Brian Turner’s Here, Bullet (Alice James Books, 2005) some people don’t die, exactly; they are evaporated, or disappear as if they never existed, moving not from living to not-living but from something to nothing “as if even the idea of them were being / destroyed, stripped of form.” For this blog,… Continue reading
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Buzzed Books #1: Mastering the Dinner Party, Dialogue, and First Person Narrators
Buzzed Books #1 by Alise Hamilton Mastering the Dinner Party, Dialogue, and First Person Narrators Recommendation: Bobcat And Other Stories by Rebecca Lee Bobcat is a collection of seven short stories so rich and expansive they leave the reader walks away feeling she has read seven novels. Rebecca Lee manages to fit an amazing scope in… Continue reading
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Episode 50: David Sedaris
Episode 50 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download. On this week’s show, I talk to the memoir writer David Sedaris, plus Pamela Skjolsvik discusses David Sedaris’s Me Talk Pretty One Day, and Adriana Lecuona writes about Ursula K. Le Guin’s “Those Who Leave Omelas.” Texts… Continue reading
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The Drunken Odyssey is a forum to discuss all aspects of the writing process, in a variety of genres, in order to foster a greater community among writers.
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The Drunken Odyssey 