Loved the new book by Clyde Edgerton. Reviewed it very favorably in the Star Tribune. Not as glowing for Jenna Blum's The Stormchasers.
What an interesting contrast in markets. Jenna Blum's book is commercial fiction written for family- and romance-loving women. Clyde Edgerton's book is literary fiction written for art- and music-loving humanists. Still—the basics of storytelling must apply. Good lesson.
Both reviews appeared on the same day, so it looked like I was dominating the books section. The reality is that's all the time I have for book reviews for the next six months. I begin teaching again soon—this year at Minnesota State University, Mankato (instead of St. Cloud State University).
It will probably be January before I review any books again.
I'm not sure you would call what I did with Andy Sturdevant recently a "lecture"—it was more of hilariously weird loose-improv-with-Power-Point. This was for the "Games" show of Salon Saloon—an arts-forward talk show sampler produced by Works Progress and hosted by my longtime pal Mr. Sturdevant, bon vivant and man-about-town.
Andy asked me to talk about games I played with my family, and I led him and the audience through various games my children have invented, including Pop Goes the Weasel, Kick in the Crotch, and something really wonderful called "Baby Ewok".
Let's just say Andy and I are not afraid to pretend we are dinosaurs with each other. Or play Stuffed Animal Olympics with on-the-spot Howard Cosell commentary. Or pretend to be Ewoks and crawl under a blanket together and then "birth" ourselves (oh, now you know how to play Baby Ewok!). And all to an audience of about 80 people, most of whom are strangers.
Andy is amazing. He is more than my friend. He is my brother.
Photo by Sean Smuda.
Categories:
Creative,
News
Chris Koza and Rogue Valley asked Geoff Herbach and I to pick up our narrative where we left off last spring. Chris and Rogue Valley have been writing and recording four albums in one year, based on the cycle of seasons. We helped launch the first album at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul with love letters from a set of star-crossed lovers that wrapped into the music, and we helped them come full circle again with the winter album at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis.
Koza is a wonderfully true artist—and by that I mean that he has great personal and great creative integrity; you can believe in what he does because he believes in it. It is a joy to be around him and the band, doing what people like us love to do—make beautiful things.
It's also a joy when Pamela Diedrich from How Was the Show takes my photo while I am wearing a Muppet coat.
Here's the story about Amanda Hocking I worked on with the amazing Kim Ode and my girl crush books editor Laurie Hertzel, both at the Star-Tribune.
The news that an under-employed college dropout twenty-something in Austin, Minnesota had just earned $1 million in less than a year by self-publishing her young adult fantasy novels made the Huffington Post first. I got down to Austin to interview her within a week, and within a week after that, St. Martin's Press offered her even more millions for the rights to her books. The Star-Tribune broke that story.
The St. Martin's Press deal will really make her "published author Amanda Hocking," but in my mind she will always be "folk hero Amanda Hocking." I'm in awe of her tremendous and savvy accomplishments with her work, and at such a young, fun age. I am humbled by her.
I recently reviewed this book from novelist Rae Meadows. She lives here in Minneapolis. It's a great book club pick for midwestern women, and a nice birthday gift for a mom or daughter too (though there is one character I didn't find quite convincing enough).
For those of you interested in the orphan trains from the turn of the century, this book has a wonderful child character who ends up on one. It's cool for midwestern women to read about these orphan trains, and imagine ourselves (or our sons and daughters) on them. How frightening, and how real, for many children—many of whom eventually became the second generation of working pioneers in our American midwest.
And for those of you interested in Virginia Woolf, there are a lot of allusions to To the Lighthouse in this novel.
If you didn't go, you know you wish you would have. I wrote about it for the Star-Tribune AND I got to go, too.
That's my boy in the middle of the biggest build pile in the 25,000-square-foot joint. He's the crouching one in the turquoise shirt. (Crouching is his most assumed LEGO position.)
One of the most interesting things I learned: AFOLs—Adult Fans of Lego—are an actual thing. Really, they're a thing. They have clubs and stuff, and the things they build are astounding—like working trains that require warehouse storage in Northeast Minneapolis industrial parks.
This is a very wonderful world that we live in, and an even more wonderful city (Minneapolis).
I did a reading a few weeks ago for Talking Image Connection—a reading series (run by wonder-woman Alison Morse) that pairs writers of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction with visual art installations in galleries around the Twin Cities.
What Alison asks writers to do is visit a visual arts installation and then let it work its magic on any new work they're writing. I visited this amazing video installation by Rosemary Williams, and then wrote a short story called Eight Things Happy People Do, According to Martial Artist Today. I also brought along along singer/songwriter Lee Henke, who is also a Mankato State University student. He followed my story with an amazing performance of a new song he wrote for Tales from the Poor House (where I am also a short story contributor).
Read the rest of this story
ATA World Magazine, the publication of the largest martial arts organization in the world, for which I serve as managing editor, isn't online. (*sad face*)
But the work I do there makes me too proud NOT to show it to you, so:
Here's the Spring 2011 cover feature about the upcoming ATA Grand Master and his current training for the job. It's a story I co-concepted and co-wrote with editor-in-chief Jenny O'Connor (we've done several stories together now). I love all of this package's content pieces. And art director Jill Adler definitely knocked the design out of the park.
Speaking of Poor Farms (as I'm sure you were), a few months ago I wrote a feature for the Star-Tribune about the Blue Earth County Poor Farm, which included, among other things, a fabulous photo essay by Strib photog Tom Wallace and myself that didn't get room in the printed paper. (Yet another example of creative cross-medium feature writing/presentation.)
Don't miss the sidebar on the history of Minnesota's Poor Farms. (One of the drawbacks of the Strib's online presence is that sidebars aren't literally on the "side" of the actual feature; the related sidebar content can get lost to readers.)
This photo of Amy Wurdock's is from a great feature I wrote recently for the Star-Tribune on Powderhorn 365. Wurdock heads this community-based daily photo blog.
What I love about this feature is how well it translates online—there was no room in the printed paper for the accompanying photos.
It's a lot like the online presentation of the Strib story I did on the Blue Earth County Poor Farm, which had a whole on-line portfolio of photos that also didn't appear in the printed paper.
