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“I’m not consciously balancing humor and tragedy, but I know that they do exist side by side.” In this Louisiana Channel interview, Lorrie Moore talks about the nature of jokes, the emotional and tonal range of her short stories, and reflects on the sense of repetition in her novel I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home (Knopf, 2023).
“Take your time. And indulge in the messiness, the privacy, the anxieties of the writing process.” —Aria Aber, author of Good Girl
In this episode of Poured Over: The Barnes & Noble Podcast with host Miwa Messer, New York Times Book Review critic at large A. O. Scott talks about his journey as a journalist and book critic, reflects on “instant classics” like Percival Everett’s novel James (Doubleday, 2024), and discusses how the experience of discovering books has changed because of the internet.
In this 2024 Asian American Literature Festival event, hosts Cathy Song and Misty-Lynn Sanico introduce a reading from Bamboo Ridge Press authors Donald Carreira Ching, Scott Kikkawa, Wing Tek Lum, and Tamara Wong-Morrison.
In Richard Curtis’s 2003 romantic comedy Love Actually, love is all around us—and it manifests in a wide range of ways for the characters in the film: romantic, platonic, familial, professional, and all sorts of in-between zones as well. The film, which has become a holiday classic, explores the lives of several characters and their loves, some of which are evenly balanced, while others are unrequited or lopsided; some which are new and some old. Write a short story that tells the story of multiple types of loving relationships, perhaps including both love that may seem straightforward or obvious, as well as love that is less so. When you have multiple types of love juxtaposed in one story, what do their similarities and differences illuminate?
Watch the trailer for Nightbitch, a film adaptation of the 2021 novel of the same name by Rachel Yoder. Written and directed by Marielle Heller, the film stars Amy Adams as an artist who pauses her career to be a stay-at-home mother and finds her maternal instincts beginning to manifest in canine form.
The dreaded rejection letter, whether from a job application or a beloved literary journal, is often met with mixed feelings of inadequacy and disappointment. Something you worked hard on, had high hopes for, or saw a future in just didn’t pan out. Instead of imagining the receiving end, take the initiative to write a rejection letter to one of your characters. Consider the circumstance for the letter, if it’s professional or personal, and how well the writer knows the addressee. Is there room to infuse some humor or will you use this as an opportunity to write the letter you’ve always wished was sent to you? Write with truth and intent.
In this 2022 Louisiana Channel interview, Japanese novelist Sayaka Murata talks about the imaginary worlds of her childhoood, her writing process involving character sketches, and the origin of her otherworldly stories. “My world of daydreams or the power of stories saved me, so I was able to survive. And this same strength is in my protagonists,” says Murata.
In this Center for Fiction event, author Mariana Enriquez talks about the supernatural themes and local Argentinian language and humor within her short story collection A Sunny Place for Shady People (Hogarth, 2024) with translator Megan McDowell in a conversation moderated by Melissa Lozada-Oliva.
There are those who think John McTiernan’s 1988 film Die Hard is the farthest thing from a Christmas movie—an action-thriller blockbuster about a New York City police officer, played by Bruce Willis, who attempts to bring down a bunch of stereotypical villains holding his estranged wife and others hostage in a high-rise building in Los Angeles—while others passionately disagree, citing the fact that the film is set on Christmas Eve at an office holiday party with a soundtrack of seasonally appropriate Christmas songs. This week write a short story that occurs on the eve or day of a specific holiday, while subverting or upending conventions and expectations of the type of narrative usually attributed to this occasion. What conflicting themes and actions will you include in your blockbuster story?
