Icebergs: from “Why I Write, From Both Sides Now” by Sara Lippmann

“Irregularity is the only pattern I know, so I must trust it. Nothing good may happen on the page today, but eventually I’ll get there. Stories await. There is a persistent curiosity that cannot be ignored. Before long I will heed the imperative and the unknown, the driving force that sends me to my knees, peeling dark scraps off the floor. I will cradle the film like a broken ghost in one hand while sucking a thread and slipping it through a needle’s bright eye to resume once more the humble work of stitching shadow to soles of feet.”

Sara Lippmann, “Why I Write, From Both Sides Now,” from Stymie Magazine

"Is it a Novel, Yet?"

This is a piece of nonfiction I wrote almost two years ago. It’s funny how the emotions, the raw energy of writing and failure and the never-ending passion to do both, changes little over time. I’m happier now, so much more so than when writing this piece, but I still desperately want it, everything, to be good, either way.

The whiskey coated my gums like molasses. I sucked in air between my two front teeth, and a soft whistle hung between the group.

“So tell me, Fucker,” Joseph said, his hand coming down forcefully on my shoulder, “how’ve you been?” He was scruffier than normal, and his light beard seemed off on his face. 

We shared a laugh, mostly because “Fucker” was a deviation from his regular nickname for me: Fuckface. I took a drink and a few drops splashed from my bottom lip to the table.

“Is it a novel yet?” he asked, referencing my thesis project, a collection of linked short stories.

“Still a collection,” I said. “I thought that’s what you wanted, too. What was best.”

“Either way,” he said, drinking his Pinot Grigio. “It’s good either way.”

“The novel’s coming,” I said and let Friday lick my knuckle. “Something separate.”

(This piece originally appeared in April 2010, in fwriction.)

“I write horrible first drafts full of lousy sentences that run on and on and half-formed ideas that go nowhere. Then I throw away everything but a few moments that seem to be worth exploring in another draft. I’d rather write three bad drafts in two weeks than one good draft of an essay, because I think the disorderly process bring me to say and see things that were not obvious to me when I sat down to write.”

from Hippocampus Magazine’s interview with author and Brevity editor Dinty W. Moore 

The "Essay," or Some Other Word Metamorphosed by John D'Agata

Some of my thoughts on the nonfiction debate, over at the fwriction blog:

Though I haven’t chimed in regarding John D’Agata’s “nonfiction” versus “essay” debate, raised in the new book, The Lifespan of a Fact, I have to now let off a little steam.

This excerpt, from Gideon Lewis-Kraus’ piece in The New York Times Magazine, “The Fact-Checker Versus The Fabulist”, struck a chord…

David Foster Wallace Turns 50

An excerpt from my essay, “Angles of Response to Your Angles, or Brief Reflections on Tennis, Sharks, and the Loss of David Foster Wallace,” to celebrate what would have been David Foster Wallace’s fiftieth birthday.

“The goosebumps still came, despite having read that passage at least a dozen times before. Wallace had memorized the facts, the numbers; it seemed, however, even within those statistics, that Wallace had also categorized the panic, loss, horror brought on by that historic event. And, within the pages of his essay, Wallace found the words to bring to life, not only the fear, but also the interminable beauty moving, fast and determined, like a Great White shark just below the surface. He was capable, at all times, of noticing the fin breaking through the cresting waves.”

My nonfiction essay, "Angles of Response to Your Angles, or Brief Reflections on Tennis, Sharks, and the Loss of David Foster Wallace," published in the new issue of Specter Literary Magazine

I wrote a nonfiction piece about tennis, sharks, and David Foster Wallace. Specter Literary Magazine, one of my favorite literary journals, who got a sweet shout-out in a recent The Millions article, was kind enough to publish it. 

I’d love for you to read it. Then, if you really like it, maybe you could share it. That would be delightful.

“Angles of Response to Your Angles, or Brief Reflections on Tennis, Sharks, and the Loss of David Foster Wallace,” published in Specter Literary Magazine

(An early version of this essay was the recipient of the 2009 Samuel Mockbee Award in Nonfiction.)

“That was [David Foster] Wallace, wrapped up in the tightest package possible: a force of elegant nature, a disobeyer, a leader rather than follower, a writer capable of impressing his will upon a reader and leaving a body-shaped indentation, like in cartoons.”

from my nonfiction essay, “Angles of Response to Your Angles, or Brief Reflections on Tennis, Sharks, and the Loss of David Foster Wallace,” published in the new issue of Specter Literary Magazine

“To begin the class, I handed out a copy of the New York Times obituary, written on September 15, three days after Wallace’s death. The class, seemingly as a whole, had the wind knocked out of them. They didn’t know, not one of them, that Wallace had passed away. One young man looked up at me and said, “How? This guy can’t be dead. He’s incredible.” I nodded and grinned. Both statements were true.”

In Issue Six of Specter Magazine, “Angles of Response to Your Angles, or Brief Reflections on Tennis, Sharks, and the Loss of David Foster Wallace” by Danny Goodman

(via spectercollective)

Angles of Response to Your Angles, or Brief Reflections on Tennis, Sharks, and the Loss of David Foster Wallace, published in Specter Literary Magazine (Photo courtesy of The New York Times) High-res

Angles of Response to Your Angles, or Brief Reflections on Tennis, Sharks, and the Loss of David Foster Wallace, published in Specter Literary Magazine


(Photo courtesy of The New York Times)

My nonfiction essay, “Angles of Response to Your Angles,” about sharks, tennis, writing, and David Foster Wallace, forthcoming in Specter Literary Magazine.  High-res

My nonfiction essay, “Angles of Response to Your Angles,” about sharks, tennis, writing, and David Foster Wallace, forthcoming in Specter Literary Magazine.