1. 15:11 30th Apr 2013

    Notes: 118

    Tags: litHanan al-ShaykhOne Thousand and One Nightsinterviewsmy writingLibrary Journal

    Every writer has changed these stories, and I have changed them, and I’m sure someone else in I don’t know how many years will change them. These stories refuse to die—they are always expanding and shrinking, they have an organic life of their own. Usually, Arab women writers look down on Shahrazad, saying “Oh, she became a prisoner of the Shah, the bloodthirsty king.” No, in my opinion, she was stronger, he became her prisoner. He needed her stories; he depended on her to humanize him. She wasn’t doing it to save her life, but to educate him. That was what she set out to do, to humanize him.
    — 

    Author Q&A: Hanan al-Shaykh’s New Shahrazad | Library Journal

    I just loved doing this Q&A, having this amazing conversation with a writer and woman I admire a lot. Hanan al-Shaykh’s new retelling of One Thousand and One Nights (with an intro by Mary Gaitskill!) comes out next month.

     

  2. 14:35 17th Apr 2013

    Notes: 27

    Tags: litPANKnamesmy writingThe Wearied Cords

    [Renaming is] also a profound expression of power, a way for a new group of people to claim ownership. The erosion of the name of the place I write about in the story, which here I’ll call Nacotchtank, is a testament to this effect. Even though the village was a very important trading center in its day, no firm or authoritative version of its name exists today, just various Anglicizations. But just as (re)naming is an enormously powerful tool for any kind of encroaching force, its also a potent instrument for fighting back against that encroachment. It is a way to say this is who I am; know me.
    — 

    PANK Blog / The Lightning Room with Molly McArdle

    Simon Jacobs asked me a bunch of questions about my story “The Wearied Cords” (which appeared in PANK’s December issue) and I did my best to try and answer them!

     

  3. 13:11 4th Apr 2013

    Notes: 7

    Tags: litprosemy writingBorgesLibrary JournalClassic ReturnsNew Directions

    Borges was famous for his love of British literature and especially its Anglo-Saxon guts, the thorny, Germanic, Viking-inflected language he learned in his childhood. Here Borges scholars Arias and Hadis have collected 25 of his lectures on English literature, covering Beowulf to Robert Louis Stevenson, which he delivered at the University of Buenos Aires in 1966. The book’s thorough notes prove Arias’s assertion that “editing this book was like running after a Borges who was constantly getting lost among the books in a library.” As much as these lectures are shaped by Borges’s wide-ranging, omnivorous mind, they are also a demonstration of the great pleasure he found in these works of literature. This dense thicket of allusions (as only Borges could perform them) is also a profound testament of love.
    — 

    Adult Fables and Literary | Classic Returns, Library Journal

    I am really genuinely excited to have taken over LJ’s “Classic Returns” column, where I’ll get to talk about my favorite old books that are coming back into print. Above is a little snippet on a new collection of Borges’s lectures on English literature from New Directions.

     

  4. 15:12 2nd Apr 2013

    Notes: 9

    Tags: litThe Scarlet LetterBitchmy writing

    Not knowing Chillingsworth’s true identity or purpose (which is—guess what—revenge!), Dimmesdale has let the shrunken older man become his roommate (bad idea), resulting in the longest and most effective guilt trip in all of literature.
    — 

    Reading the Classics: Hester Prynne is a Puritan Super Babe | Bitch Media

    This is what happens when you let me recap old books.

     

  5. 16:48 22nd Mar 2013

    Notes: 29

    Reblogged from therumpus

    Tags: litmy writingChinua Achebe

    “The story is our escort”: Chinua Achebe, 1930-2013 | Library Journal  His fiction and essays were relentless both in exposing the racist underpinnings of much of Western culture’s representations of Africa in general and Nigeria in particular, and in supplying new narratives, new ways of seeing the world. Achebe’s ruthless and uncompromising 1975 essay, “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness”, made it impossible for even the most fervent Conrad apologists to ignore the bestial and inhuman manner in which the writer portrayed African characters. Things Fall Apart, a novel whose influence cannot be underestimated, had Ibo culture at the center of its world, and it was the British colonizers who were the foreign, bizarre, savage element. I wrote this.

    “The story is our escort”: Chinua Achebe, 1930-2013 | Library Journal 

    His fiction and essays were relentless both in exposing the racist underpinnings of much of Western culture’s representations of Africa in general and Nigeria in particular, and in supplying new narratives, new ways of seeing the world. Achebe’s ruthless and uncompromising 1975 essay, “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness”, made it impossible for even the most fervent Conrad apologists to ignore the bestial and inhuman manner in which the writer portrayed African characters. Things Fall Apart, a novel whose influence cannot be underestimated, had Ibo culture at the center of its world, and it was the British colonizers who were the foreign, bizarre, savage element.

    I wrote this.

     

  6. 11:56 11th Mar 2013

    Notes: 13

    Tags: CliteracySophia Wallacemy writingBitchart

    “Female bodies are still taboo, flawed, disgusting, shameful,” Wallace said. “I wanted to attack the fetishization of reproductive sex.” The problem of pleasure stems from these twin problems of offensive femininity (ranging from bare arms to nipples to the clit itself) and of sex as a penis-centric act, where women’s bodies are nothing but receptacles for men or for children. The former results in a concerted ignorance, the latter in active misinformation. Wallace’s cure is education: linguistic precision, realistic expectations, and the confidence to ask for what everyone deserves out of sex—pleasure. A Different Kind of Literacy | Bitch Media I wrote about Sophia Wallace’s installation Cliteracy over at Bitch.

    “Female bodies are still taboo, flawed, disgusting, shameful,” Wallace said. “I wanted to attack the fetishization of reproductive sex.” The problem of pleasure stems from these twin problems of offensive femininity (ranging from bare arms to nipples to the clit itself) and of sex as a penis-centric act, where women’s bodies are nothing but receptacles for men or for children. The former results in a concerted ignorance, the latter in active misinformation. Wallace’s cure is education: linguistic precision, realistic expectations, and the confidence to ask for what everyone deserves out of sex—pleasure.

    A Different Kind of Literacy | Bitch Media

    I wrote about Sophia Wallace’s installation Cliteracy over at Bitch.

     

  7. 15:27 23rd Feb 2013

    Notes: 7

    Tags: my writinglithousekeeping

    image: Download

    Months overdue, I have finally revamped my “Writing” page. If you want to read some of my writing, it is now an accurate, thorough, and up-to-date resource. I also did my taxes today so I am feeling ~pretty good.~

    Months overdue, I have finally revamped my “Writing” page. If you want to read some of my writing, it is now an accurate, thorough, and up-to-date resource. I also did my taxes today so I am feeling ~pretty good.~

     

  8. 16:45 15th Feb 2013

    Notes: 19

    Tags: litDraculahorrorvampiresproseBitchmy writing

    You know this story. You’ve seen, at least, that snarling image of Bela Lugosi, his paper-white hands curled, talon-like, before him. Let’s set aside, for now, that picture: the high collared cape, the patent leather shoes, the w’s sliding into v’s. In fact, so much of the chilling delight of this book is that no such picture exists in the minds of our protagonists. (It is Victorian England, after all, where dispassionate Western science reigns supreme.) When Jonathan Harker, who has traveled to Transylvania to meet with his employer’s client, first sees the Count, his reaction is painfully nonplussed.

    “The mouth…was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth. These protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years.”

    Yes, those sharp teeth sticking out of his mouth sure are peculiar, Jonathan. Good luck with that.

    I wrote about Dracula for Bitch!

     

  9. 17:35 3rd Jan 2013

    Notes: 17

    Tags: friendshiplitmy writing2012

    I have been thinking a lot about this past year, as the season dictates. I’ve also been reminded about how this is not the most wonderful time of the year, in fact its the absolute worst time of the year, and all of this aggressive celebration is just an elaborate coping method. (As I am reminded every year, at this time, once the celebrating is done.) I hate winter. It makes my lungs hurt. But really, to distract myself from this pulling, chest-buried ache, it is good to think about good things. And really there have been so many good things. #1 is buds: gchat/all talk with Par, heart talk with Em, ghost talk with Claire, theater talk with Eleanor, Trek talk with Jess, picture talk with Jessica, internet talk with Grant. I love all of our talk. I love all of you. #2 is all the people I’ve met and gotten to know through the interwebs, through lit events, through this whole big bookish world I feel like I’ve gotten to know this year: I love all of Erin’s gut-exposing, Topher Grace–sneaking posts. I love Kate’s relentless advocacy for the library community here on Tumblr, not to mention her duck boots. I love Cait putting Santa hats on grumpy-looking Emily Dickinson. I love Rachel’s big big heart. I love Saeed’s ranging, relentless mind. I am so happy to know all of you. Talking BBC with Kelsey and Kathryn and Kathleen. Talking libraries with Daniel. Talking everything with everyone. #3 is getting published. This is so big. I don’t even know how to begin to talk about it! How even to begin to thank the people who made it possible, because there are always people who make things like this possible. Never believe the people who said they did it by themselves, on their own. They didn’t. There are always people helping. This fact makes me feel good about the world. I want to publicly thank, again and again, Isaac Fitz, who first urged me to write something for to the Rumpus. To Isaac Fitz again, when he urged me to write something more. To Roxane Gay, who read and liked both that second Rumpus piece and then a third thing, a new thing, for PANK—one of my stories, the first piece of fiction that I’ve ever had published. I remember the day I first got that email, the days that followed. Every mirror I looked in, every reflection of myself I saw, I said to myself, aloud or silently or some whispery in-between: “Molly McArdle, published writer of fiction.” It is silly but it is real. It is what I am most proud of, this year. I am sick today and was yesterday and will likely be tomorrow too; my lungs are not having it, this weather, this cold. Before starting this I drank a whole cup of warm, milky, sweet coffee (which I rarely do now, anymore, having exceeded my life’s quota of coffee) and it made be feel a little better, a little less cold. Writing this has made me feel better too. I am very nearly warm.

    I have been thinking a lot about this past year, as the season dictates.

    I’ve also been reminded about how this is not the most wonderful time of the year, in fact its the absolute worst time of the year, and all of this aggressive celebration is just an elaborate coping method. (As I am reminded every year, at this time, once the celebrating is done.) I hate winter. It makes my lungs hurt.

    But really, to distract myself from this pulling, chest-buried ache, it is good to think about good things. And really there have been so many good things.

    #1 is buds: gchat/all talk with Par, heart talk with Em, ghost talk with Claire, theater talk with Eleanor, Trek talk with Jess, picture talk with Jessica, internet talk with Grant. I love all of our talk. I love all of you.

    #2 is all the people I’ve met and gotten to know through the interwebs, through lit events, through this whole big bookish world I feel like I’ve gotten to know this year: I love all of Erin’s gut-exposing, Topher Grace–sneaking posts. I love Kate’s relentless advocacy for the library community here on Tumblr, not to mention her duck boots. I love Cait putting Santa hats on grumpy-looking Emily Dickinson. I love Rachel’s big big heart. I love Saeed’s ranging, relentless mind. I am so happy to know all of you. Talking BBC with Kelsey and Kathryn and Kathleen. Talking libraries with Daniel. Talking everything with everyone.

    #3 is getting published. This is so big. I don’t even know how to begin to talk about it! How even to begin to thank the people who made it possible, because there are always people who make things like this possible. Never believe the people who said they did it by themselves, on their own. They didn’t. There are always people helping. This fact makes me feel good about the world.

    I want to publicly thank, again and again, Isaac Fitz, who first urged me to write something for to the Rumpus. To Isaac Fitz again, when he urged me to write something more. To Roxane Gay, who read and liked both that second Rumpus piece and then a third thing, a new thing, for PANK—one of my stories, the first piece of fiction that I’ve ever had published. I remember the day I first got that email, the days that followed. Every mirror I looked in, every reflection of myself I saw, I said to myself, aloud or silently or some whispery in-between: “Molly McArdle, published writer of fiction.” It is silly but it is real. It is what I am most proud of, this year.

    I am sick today and was yesterday and will likely be tomorrow too; my lungs are not having it, this weather, this cold. Before starting this I drank a whole cup of warm, milky, sweet coffee (which I rarely do now, anymore, having exceeded my life’s quota of coffee) and it made be feel a little better, a little less cold. Writing this has made me feel better too. I am very nearly warm.

     

  10. 16:08 19th Dec 2012

    Notes: 56

    Tags: my writingThomas WyattpoetryshipsPANKlit

    image: Download

    He drew a ship in the dirt with his finger, a crude half moon with sticks coming up out of its belly, the lines connecting one stick to another. “These are the cords, the ropes. They hold up the canvas, the sails, and you use them to adjust it all.” He named the parts of the ship: foremast, mainmast, mizzen, gaff, boom, yard. “Where is the wearied cord? Which rope is it?” “Weary means tired, close to breaking.” He erased the drawing with a swipe of his hand. From “The Wearied Cords” in the December issue of PANK.

    He drew a ship in the dirt with his finger, a crude half moon with sticks coming up out of its belly, the lines connecting one stick to another. “These are the cords, the ropes. They hold up the canvas, the sails, and you use them to adjust it all.” He named the parts of the ship: foremast, mainmast, mizzen, gaff, boom, yard.

    “Where is the wearied cord? Which rope is it?”

    “Weary means tired, close to breaking.”

    He erased the drawing with a swipe of his hand.

    From “The Wearied Cords” in the December issue of PANK.