books

Book Scavenger Hunt #3: Archipelago Books

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I’ve recently fallen in love with the Brooklyn-based nonprofit indie press, Archipelago Books. I love their satisfyingly minimalist book designs. I especially love their mission to publish beautiful translations of classic and contemporary world literature. This includes literature written originally in Arabic, Spanish, Norwegian, Dutch, Tamil, Russian, Slovenian, Greek, and more. According to the press’s website, “less than three percent of new literature published in the United States originates outside the Anglosphere.” This is why Archipelago’s work is so important—to find illuminating international writers that American readers might not otherwise encounter.

So far, I’ve only read Love by Hanne Ørstavik (winner of the PEN Translation Prize and a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award for Translated Literature), which was hauntingly outstanding. Now, I can’t wait to go back and read the entire Archipelago catalogue.

Can you name all 14 Archipelago Books titles featured in these slivers?

Want more challenges? Check out my Book Scavenger Hunt #1 (Riverhead Books) and #2 (Graywolf Press)!

Book Scavenger Hunt #1: Riverhead Books

~ Cameron ~ 5 Comments

Last Friday, our publishing class had the great opportunity to Skype with Jynne Dilling Martin of Riverhead Books. We chatted all about the history of Riverhead, the changes that social media has made for the industry, and tips on how to break into the NYC publishing scene.

One thing that particularly stuck with me from Jynne’s talk was how the design team at Riverhead strives to craft a unique “visual identity” for each title. Essentially, this means that if you eliminated the text from each cover, you’d still be able to identify the books based on the graphics alone.(Remember this Buzzfeed quiz on classic book covers?)

So in order to test this, I created a fun collaged scavenger hunt, in which I have tucked 18 of Riverhead’s stunning book covers inside. Some are more subtle than others. Can you find them all? Leave your guesses in the comments below!

 

 

 

And there goes 2018…

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I’m attempting to pack my bags (I’m a horrible procrastinator when it comes to packing) as I leave tomorrow for a two-week trip to Japan! I’m nervous excited with the arrow pointing more to the excited portion of the scale. I’m reviewing my hiragana/katakana charts and stuffing as many notebooks as physically possible into my carry-on. I’ll be palling around with local cats (named Mimi and Otsuka for all you Kafka on the Shore lovers) in Hiroshima/Miyajima, Kyoto, and Tokyo. I went to Japan as a wee lass in 2005, but I don’t remember too much except that I loved it. I have a few places I know I want to check out this time (e.g. the Atomic Bomb Dome, Itsukushima Shrine, Fushimi Inari, Yayoi Kusama Museum), but if you have any spots you think I should check out, I’d love to hear from you! Mostly, I just want to soak up as much history and culture to add to the novel I am writing — and if that means hanging on a park bench or sipping green tea in a cafe for half the day, then I’m down for that. Book-wise, I’m bringing Akutagawa’s Rashōmon and Jean Genet’s The Thief’s Journal, plus the Poison issue of Tin House, for all those long hours on the plane and the Shinkansen.

I think this trip is coming at the perfect time—a reset at the top of the New Year.

But today, I take a few moments to look back.

This was a glimpse of 2018:

-My first trip to the AWP conference in Tampa, Florida, and celebrating the publication of this beautiful issue of Hunger Mountain I had the pleasure to help make!

-Finishing my third year of beginning every day with a yoga routine (will you join me in the challenge as I enter my fourth year?)

-The launch of a new series of (almost weekly) posts called Sandbox Notes where I collect and curate words, links, facts, thoughts, descriptions, and objects of interest into creative visual pieces. Learn the story behind my Sandbox Notes here! 

-Tapping into a state of delicious movement with Eiko Otake, and hearing brave hibakusha share their stories of the atomic bombs.

-There were tears: family illnesses, heartbreaks, stress, listening to Visions of Gideon.

-There were fears. Most of them seen on TV.

-There were very good friends—new and old—who made my life a little brighter.

–I quit chain-chewing gum. 

-My creative work was accepted three times this year, with two essays forthcoming in 2019 (thank you so much to all of the editors of Queen Mob’s Teahouse, Windmill, and Entropy, and to Glimmer Train for giving my piece “Frozen Locks” an Honorable Mention in the Jan/Feb Short-Story Award for New Writers). I continued writing blog content for the Michigan Quarterly Review, as well as published articles and interviews in Artscope Magazine, Everything is Music, Storyboard, and Perpetual Beta. And my interview with the amazing Rene Denfeld was published in the back of her paperback book!

-Attending the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop and meeting Carl Phillips in real life.

-I started writing a novel!

-Somehow I read 82 books (message me for the full list!) and narrowed it down to 20 “favorite things I read this year.” An eclectic bunch of old and new titles, here they are hand-drawn, in no particular order:

Her Right Foot – Dave Eggers
The Haunting of Hill House – Shirley Jackson
My Favorite Thing is Monsters Vol 1 – Emil Ferris
Vice – Ai
Heart Spring Mountain – Robin Marie MacArthur
Vermilion Sands – J.G. Ballard
Indictus – Natalie Eilbert
Census – Jesse Ball
The Principles of Uncertainty – Maira Kalman
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
Confessions of a Mask – Yukio Mishima
Dialogues in Paradise – Can Xue
Premonitions – Elizabeth Schmuhl
There There – Tommy Orange
The Country Between Us – Carolyn Forché
For Other Ghosts – Donald Quist
Man v. Nature – Diane Cook
Severance – Robert Olen Butler
Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
Everything Under – Daisy Johnson

Favorite moving pictures I saw this year: a Monty Python Flying Circus marathon, Maniac, Alias Grace, The Crown, The Lobster, and Call Me By Your Name.

2018 sounded like Sufjan Stevens, Poliça, Wilco, Death Cab for Cutie, AURORA, the Westworld soundtrack, The National, Father John Misty, Neil Young, and of course, my forever faves — Emancipator and Fleet Foxes.

Next year will see graduation and beyond, the great job search, and more. But for now, Japan! And being grateful for each day as it comes. Peace to all <3

Happy Solstice.

~ Cameron ~ Leave a comment

Another semester has come and gone…and suddenly, I am back in Ann Arbor to celebrate the holiday season with the family, and to take a break (ha!) while also working on my thesis and other writing projects, and I am already days late in celebrating the solstice! I’m surprised at how little snow is here in Michigan (as in NONE!) compared to Vermont. But there are fairy lights in the trees downtown and that helps to keep spirits high.

My latest book haul…thanks to a visit to Bear Pond Books!

I spent most of the weekend reading Everything Under by Daisy Johnson on recommendation from my classmate, Tyler. It’s a book that eats you wholly and takes you underwater, and suddenly, you realize hours have gone by and you’ve grown gills and haven’t needed to come up for air because you are less human and something more magical now. Guess what will feature on my best of the year list—which (stay tuned!) will be posted here on the blog in a few days!

Today, I went to a broadcast of the Bolshoi Ballet’s performance of the Nutcracker with my grandmother. Gah—the dancers were so talented! The show itself was full of nostalgia, timelessness, and charm. Tell me what your favorite pieces from the Tchaikovsky score are! Mine are “The Presents of Drosselmeyer” and the “Pas de Deux: Intrada.”

For the rest of the week, I have artsy presents to craft together, interviews to work on, ice skates to break in, and a travel itinerary to plan, as I have exciting news to tell you in the next few days. But right now, I have sweet cinnamon tea and the promise of stories told underneath an ornamented pine. Happy hibernation!

The Serious and the Silly of December

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A glimpse into the last month of the year:

  • Making progress on my thesis/novel—though considering a bit of a plot restructuring!
  • Read Bianca Stone’s The Möbius Strip Club of Grief and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee both in one sitting. Stone’s book is doing all the subversive maneuvers I strive for in my own poetry. Even better, she will be teaching a class on “Meaning, Sense, & Narrative in Poetry” at VCFA in the spring! And don’t even get me started with Dictee. Holy wow—I didn’t know a book could look, sound, or read like that.
  • Began an epic watching of Monty Python’s Flying Circus from start to finish. I had seen random sketches here and there, but I’ve never seen the whole series straight through, and I just felt like a phony, calling myself a fan without seeing the entirety of the show! I watch about 15 minutes each day with my breakfast, so I’m not too far through yet! I’m currently in Season 2—just finished “Scott of the Antarctic,” which was pure plasmatic gold.
  • In the spirit of the holiday season, my friend Aaron Wyanski and I have co-authored a list of literary holiday carols. Enjoy the whimsy and feel free to add your own in the comments below!

Jingle Bell Jar
Baby It’s Sharon Olds Outside
Graham Greenesleeves
The Picture of Dorian Sleigh
Robert Frosty the Snowman
Lewis Carroll of the Bells
Little Saint Nicholas Nickleby
Up on the Bleak Housetop
Have Yourself a Merry Little Women Christmas
It’s the Most Wonderful Wrinkle in Time of the Year
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree in 80 Days
Alice in Winter Wonderland
Twelfth Silent Night
Deck the Wolf Halls
Ding Dong Merrily On High Fidelity
Santa Claus is Coming to Our Town
(There’s No Place Like) Maycomb for the Holidays
Go Tell It On The Mountain
The Holly Golightly and the Ivy
Joyce Carol Oates to the World
Love in the Christmastime of Cholera
Ruefle the Red Nosed Reindeer
Hark! The Herald Angels in America Sing
We Wish You a Mary Shelley Christmas
O Little Town of Macbethlehem

Isn’t it nuts that it’s already December? At least the world outside looks like an Emancipator album cover and there are pine-scented candles and the sounds of Vince Guaraldi’s jazz brush beat and lots of spiced tea!

School in Book Form

~ Cameron ~ 1 Comment

I’m already two months into the second year of my MFA! My program at VCFA definitely is an unconventional model and people often ask me to explain my course schedule over and over again. (Crash course: 5 craft modules per semester, each module lasting 3 weeks and taught by a rotation of core and visiting faculty; 2 semester-long classes involving writing workshops). I’ve been thinking about how to craft a post about the classes I’m taking this semester, and realized that the books we’ve been reading for each class should do the talking for me!

Shall we begin the magical book tour?

Craft Module 1 – The Craft of Vulnerability in Creative Nonfiction (works read not pictured): In this course taught by Erin Stalcup, we read excerpts of The Glass Castle, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, The Art of Daring, and The Argonauts, and explored how (and when) to be vulnerable on the page. How I see it—we are always in a state of vulnerability, just by being alive, just by attempting to write at all.

Craft Module 2 – Poetry and What’s at Stake: Through the incredible collections of poems by Carolyn Forché, Kaveh Akbar, and Chen Chen, along with excerpts of books by Solmaz Sharif, Ocean Vuong, and Aimee Nezhukumatathil, our class (led by Rita Banerjee) discussed urgency, conflict, and stake-raising turns in both formal and experimental poems.

Craft Module 3 – Making Fiction True: Adding Texture and Meaning: This course seems to be the school’s response to the kinds of stories my class wants to tell. The majority of us fiction writers have magical/paranormal/speculative elements creeping into our stories in large and small ways. Lesley Arimah uses the lens of speculative fiction to teach us how to sell improbable situations by crafting “the narrative ecosystem” with authenticity and layers of complexity. We’re studying Man v. Nature, The Golem & the Jinni, and Exit West to explore three types of speculative fiction: “our world, but different,” “our world, much changed,” and “the brand new world.”

Novel Writing Thesis Seminar: In this semester-long class, we crazies who are attempting to write a novel for our thesis (or at least 100 pages of it) submit chunks regularly to be workshopped. Along with reading each other’s works, we are also studying the unique structures of award-winning novels. So far, we have read The Underground Railroad (a very tightly structured novel) and A Visit from the Goon Squad (a novel structured in “interconnected stories”). There’s nothing like reading two brilliant Pulitzer Prize-winning books in a row to make you rethink everything you’re doing….

Critical Essay (not pictured): This class does not require any reading, as its purpose is for us thesis-writing crazies to craft a book proposal draft that could potentially become what we submit to agents/editors with our manuscript and query letter. Until then, this class helps us envision our thesis and think through our motivations, our scope, our market, our audience, and the trajectory of the stories we want to tell.

That’s all for now, but there’s more to come, more blog posts to write, more classes to attend, more books to read. Which is great, because you know I can’t resist a good “books spread across the floor” picture.

 

The Child Finder

~ Cameron ~ 2 Comments

The day has finally come—one I’ve been anticipating for quite a while now. I read The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld last fall and loved it so much, I reached out to Denfeld for an interview. Little did I know that an excerpt of that interview would become the exclusive back matter for the paperback copy of the book!

The Child Finder is a suspenseful, empathic, and heartfelt exploration into the terrifying depths of the human soul. And the book cover alone is a masterpiece with its fairy-lit, sea green snow. I can’t recommend this book—all of Rene Denfeld’s work—enough.

You can read the full interview here (first published by Michigan Quarterly Review).

You Know You’re Back in Vermont When…(A Mostly Photo Essay)

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Gah…in my move back to Vermont, I’ve really fallen down on the blog job. So here I am, attempting to redeem myself with a mostly photo essay (with some words, too).

You know you’re back in Montpeculiar when the trees warn you they are for panda purposes only: 

Last Wednesday, I went to see Won’t You Be My Neighbor, which was a delightfully magical film about the life of Fred Rogers. It encapsulated an era so dearly. When the credits started, we as a collective theater not-so-furtively wiped our soggy eyes and stepped back out into the mundane Main Street dusk. It was so bizarre to leave that theater and go on with our lives, partly in that Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood has never had a reboot, has never been overtly commercialized, has never transformed into a pop culture consumerist ploy. It is so wholesomely what it was for the time that it had: a dedicated space and time for the sole purpose of engaging, encouraging, educating, and loving children. Please do go out and see this film, if you have a chance! (Of course, writing this post did jog my memory to the time I found this mug for sale at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas.) 

What I’ve been reading : In my latest trip to the downtown library, my eyes were apparently larger than my reading stomach can handle in a two-week checkout period. Nevertheless. she persists! Stack includes The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry, Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, and yes, studying up on the Grammar Bible itself: The Chicago Manual of Style. 

Through pure spontaneity, I hitched a ride with two friends last weekend to attend the 10th Annual Bookstock Literary Festival,where I stocked up on books by Gabriel García Márquez and Maira Kalman (I’m having a bit of a Maira Kalman moment lately; totally enamored), sampled Red Kite Candy’s salted caramels, sat like a fangirl student in the first row of Robin MacArthur‘s reading of Heart Spring Mountain, and heard the legendary Eileen Myles read (and share a story about their false tooth.) What an absolutely incredible poet performer! 

On the writing front: I’ve been on a bit of a flash fiction writing stint, thanks to the photo prompts provided by Midwestern Gothic. (I was a finalist for their 2015 Flash Fiction Prize here with this photo below!)

I find that flash fiction and photos pair so naturally together, because a photo in its essence is a bound moment in time. Yes, in that moment, the future and past seep in, stored in the collective memory and experience of that place and its people. But there’s a border cropping the photo to its size, just as flash fiction word limits (e.g. 500 words) imparts a border on the told story. Which details are seen and which details are just outside of the border are decisions that have to be made by the keen eye of the writer—almost as if we are writing our story with the disciplined filter of a camera lens.

This weekend, a few of us from the cohort are heading down to a rural New Hampshire camp for a two-day homemade writing retreat. At least writing is the goal…but the mountains, the lakes, the trails are always calling.