Hugest of huge thanks to The Millions for including THE ISLE OF YOUTH in their Most Anticipated: The Great Second-Half 2013 Book Preview: "…The Isle of Youth delivers with stories of magicians, private detectives, and identity-trading twins." Honored to be in such wonderful … [Read more...]
Archives for July 2013
Short Story of the Week
"The Tenth of December" by George Saunders. Here is the opening paragraph: "The pale boy with unfortunate Prince Valiant bangs and cublike mannerisms hulked to the mudroom closet and requisitioned Dad’s white coat. Then requisitioned the boots he’d spray-painted white. Painting … [Read more...]
Some Things I Thought About While Revising My Story Collection
When I make a list of all the first lines, what do I see? What kind of landscape is being built? Ditto for last lines. Is each story taking the reader someplace new? Where do I feel myself getting bored? Where does the reader get taken one too many times? Is … [Read more...]
The Buzz About
Thanks a ton to The Buzz About for this generous early review of ISLE. … [Read more...]
…the novel duplicates at a supremely fascinating level the imperfections of the human subjectivity that produces it. In other words, to say that what gives a novel its force is that it feels very human, and why it feels human is because it’s imperfect, it’s contradictory, it has … [Read more...]
https://lauravandenberg.com/2013/07/02/the-novel-duplicates-at-a-supremely-fascinating/