Book 3 of 100 Lorrie Moore, Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? Moore’s slim novel took me two tries. I sat down some number of months ago and read the first eight pages of Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?, the book’s opening section. It felt too dense and disconnected—I couldn’t find anything to grasp onto to pull myself through. I felt a little bored. I put the book away. When I came back, the first eight pages were still slow, and it...

Book 2 of 100 Kathryn Stockett, The Help I’m happy to report that so far I’m about two-and-a-half times as fast at reading than I am at reviewing. : ) Stockett’s novel chronicles the lives of several southern women in the early 1960’s: Black maids caring for white children and families, as well as a few of the white women who have hired them. Just home from college and swept up by the momentum of the early stirrings of the...

While sitting down at the computer for a few hours two nights ago to compile that list of June writing contest deadlines and calls for submissions, I came across an awesome new independent literary press based out of St. Louis. Architrave Press, founded this year, selects poems for publication and then offers them for sale individually, the same way you can buy a song from iTunes. Their website isn’t set to launch until September, but...

Go read this brilliant and hilarious blog. Go on. Do it right now. If you like what you see, I suggest dropping what you’re doing and immediately reading every single story in the “Best Of” list on the right-hand side of the page. You won’t regret it. You’re welcome in...

I received Hannah Tinti’s gem of a novel, The Good Thief, in the mail as a free gift from the literary journal One Story, along with an invitation to what sounded like a really awesome AWP Conference event. (If you aren’t a One Story subscriber, do it. They’re great, and every three weeks you’ll get a single excellent story in chapbook form sent to you in the mail.) Having finished Tinti’s novel several days...

To kick off my year of 100 books, I started with Margaret Atwood‘s brilliant work of speculative fiction, The Handmaid’s Tale. I’d like to say that I elected to start with this book because I’m probably the last person on Earth to have read it or because my husband has been very nicely asking me to read it for at least a year. The truth is, it was the first one on top of the giant pile of unread books I pulled...

Jim’s post this week on what he’s stopped reading inspired me to take a good look at what I haven’t even started. Long before I ever considered myself a writer, I was a reader, and even now, I feel like I at least do a fair amount of it. But the reading I do is sporadic, because this is how I do almost everything. I am a huge champion of the day planner, but I’m not especially good at following a consistent schedule for anything...

Need something to do this month while you’re waiting for winter to finally be over? Submit! I wanted to work something about March Madness into the title of this post, but I’ve seen the future, and that junk is played out. Just get your voice out there: New Ohio Review Prize for Poetry and Fiction. March 10 deadline. Colorado Review Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction. March 11 deadline. Arts & Letters Prizes in Fiction, Poetry,...

Kirsten Clodfelter Alone in Michael’s car, I steal moments of sleep without meaning to. I try to keep my eyes open, and each time they close I instinctively jerk myself awake. It’s early, a few minutes before seven. My husband thinks I’m at the gym, and in twenty minutes he’ll start to wonder why I’m not back at home getting ready for work. Michael is inside Kara’s Coffee buying breakfast. This is where we go after we’ve...