Long time no see, eh? Hope you’ve been well – I know I have. It smells like spring today in Fort Greene Brooklyn; I’m at Red Lantern Bicycles (a coffee / bike shop) and Myrtle Ave is positively hopping. I have, for the first time in a long time (ever, maybe?) no complaints. That’s […]
Literature
Galveston / Tell Me What to Read
So I promised you a review of Nic Pizzolatto’s Galveston, but I’m afraid there’s not a whole lot to say. It’s good, if you’re game for some southern ne0-noir action. It’s a whiskey soaked ~250 page romp through the deep south; the protagonist, a drunk New Orleans helical named Roy Cady, gets diagnosed with lung […]
Last Day of Winter
This season really got to me this time around, and I know I’m not the only one. I haven’t met a soul who hasn’t confessed to a higher-than-average Netflix / HBOGo binge-watching rate in months — thank god for House of Cards, True Detective, and The Wire — and people don’t seem to be interested […]
Goodbye, Clarice / New Work
Have you ever begun reading a book that you thought was going to be great, only to find yourself losing interest within the first one hundred pages? Of course you have. It happens, and sometimes – especially if you’re a blogger who promises a review of said book – it’s rather inconvenient. The book practically […]
And Counting
I recently sent out a packet full of pages to a couple close friends / fellow writers in Chicago (you know who you are, or at least you will by Saturday) as well as to a couple people here in Brooklyn for their consideration. Those pages contain a handful of stories I’ve been working on, and quality-wise […]
It’s Cold Out There
It’s been a while, huh? Lots of changes on my end since 2013 – how about yourselves? I’m sure you’re still waiting with bated breath on that Clarice Lispector review. The book is coming along, albeit slowly, but it’s shaping up to match my expectations pretty squarely. That is to say, it’s starting to rattle […]
Clarice Lispector, and QC’s Year of Brazil
In honor of Queens College’s designation of the academic year 2013-14 as the “Year of Brazil”, all of us writers here at QC Voices are taking a moment to discuss certain interesting cultural, economic, and social aspects of this enormous country that has, in the past decade or so, become one of the most important […]
Review: John Williams’s “Stoner”
Apparently, every few years one critic or another will break out a well-worn soap box in order to to tritely proclaim John Williams’s Stoner as a “forgotten” American classic, an “overlooked” literary gem, etch. I will try and refrain rom using that selfsame platform, though it might be difficult not to use a corner or […]
#NowReading
“Cabot Wright Begins” by the wonderfully salacious James Purdy; “Bough Down” by Karen Green (wife of the late great David Foster Wallace).
Brief Ramble / The Unbearable Lightness of Keith Gessen
“How much money does a writer need? In New York, a young writer can get by on $25,000, give or take $5,000, depending on thriftiness. A slightly older younger writer—a 30-year-old—will need another $10,000 to keep up appearances. But that’s New York. There are parts of this country where a person can live on twelve […]
