The Whole World at Once is a collection of stories that revolve around loss and take place in the strange, placeless rural Midwest.
Monday, July 17, 2017
The Whole World at Once: Book Giveaway on LibraryThing
The Whole World at Once is a collection of stories that revolve around loss and take place in the strange, placeless rural Midwest.
Saturday, July 15, 2017
The Whole World at Once at Montana Book Festival
Got the good word that I'll be at the 2017 Montana Book Festival in Missoula. So, mark your calendars, friends.
September 27-October 1
I'll provide more information as I get it. Hope to see you there!
Saturday, July 8, 2017
First Friday Spokane: Hypothesis at the Richmond Art Collective
Last night, we took part in Spokane's monthly First Friday art tour by visiting the show Hypothesis held by Spokane's Richmond Art Collective. Our friend Ira Gardner is a member of the collective and was showing some of his recent photography, so we wanted to learn what his mind has been up to behind the lens.
The Richmond Art Collective uses a small gallery in the space behind Spaceman Coffee, on Sprague. Above the gallery are art studios where the artists do their work. The show was well attended, and the space added a heat and energy to the experience of meeting the artists' work, which ranged from photography to sculpture to installation to painting. The arts potluck nature of the gathering provided a little something for everyone and couldn't help, I imagine, but cause interesting discussions afterward. Next to each piece was a short background of the work and what the artist is exploring. These were written well, and helped attach the artist's questioning experience in a way that was interesting and not didactic or patronizing. Ira said that one of the ideas behind the show, or driving it, is for the artists to share their work with each other and every three months, share their work again, and start affecting each other's work by this sharing. Hypothesis. Transformation. How? In what way? How fundamental these words are to art and seemed clearly underlying the work chosen for the show. It will be interesting to see how the work starts intersecting as time passes because the artists all seem unlike one another, not in their questioning, but in the way they question through their mediums.
Ira Gardner showed two pieces, both black and white still-lifes of a leaf and pine branch. The lighting and placement of the pieces transformed the pieces into a kind of metal sculpture that blurred both the medium and the viewer's relationship to nature. Are we looking at a photograph of a sculpture of a leaf or a leaf? Is there a difference? Is the leaf both art object and sculpture? It made me wonder about meditative space, and what kind of mental silence art automatically creates by the fact of itself for the viewer. Perhaps something like the white space on a page for poets, the darkness that falls between scenes of a film, or the silence of the ellipses that Samuel Beckett used to his advantage and turned into a tool of transformation.
This quiet space that art itself brings with it had been on my mind because of the conversation that happened on the drive to the gallery. We were explaining to our three-year old why people would be more quiet than usual at the art gallery.
Why? he said.
Because, I said--trying to think it through myself--Because in our culture, people have a tendency to be quiet as a sign of reverence. Like in the library, people are quiet around the books because they appreciate the books. The books are important to them.
A few beats later, I remembered concentration. Everyone moving along the walls, looking and thinking.
And concentration, I said. We are quiet so we can think about what we are looking at.
And we were. Everyone moving around each other to get to the art. Stepping back, stepping forward. Our bodies turning into sculptures themselves that we moved around, giving each other space and silence, and the quiet goodness of seeing people we knew amidst the art, and then the space transforming somehow to allow us to speak, and then return to the meditative as we separated and became different versions of ourselves again. As though caught by light, made central in the eye of another, and then let go.
The Richmond Art Collective uses a small gallery in the space behind Spaceman Coffee, on Sprague. Above the gallery are art studios where the artists do their work. The show was well attended, and the space added a heat and energy to the experience of meeting the artists' work, which ranged from photography to sculpture to installation to painting. The arts potluck nature of the gathering provided a little something for everyone and couldn't help, I imagine, but cause interesting discussions afterward. Next to each piece was a short background of the work and what the artist is exploring. These were written well, and helped attach the artist's questioning experience in a way that was interesting and not didactic or patronizing. Ira said that one of the ideas behind the show, or driving it, is for the artists to share their work with each other and every three months, share their work again, and start affecting each other's work by this sharing. Hypothesis. Transformation. How? In what way? How fundamental these words are to art and seemed clearly underlying the work chosen for the show. It will be interesting to see how the work starts intersecting as time passes because the artists all seem unlike one another, not in their questioning, but in the way they question through their mediums.
Ira Gardner showed two pieces, both black and white still-lifes of a leaf and pine branch. The lighting and placement of the pieces transformed the pieces into a kind of metal sculpture that blurred both the medium and the viewer's relationship to nature. Are we looking at a photograph of a sculpture of a leaf or a leaf? Is there a difference? Is the leaf both art object and sculpture? It made me wonder about meditative space, and what kind of mental silence art automatically creates by the fact of itself for the viewer. Perhaps something like the white space on a page for poets, the darkness that falls between scenes of a film, or the silence of the ellipses that Samuel Beckett used to his advantage and turned into a tool of transformation.
This quiet space that art itself brings with it had been on my mind because of the conversation that happened on the drive to the gallery. We were explaining to our three-year old why people would be more quiet than usual at the art gallery.
Why? he said.
Because, I said--trying to think it through myself--Because in our culture, people have a tendency to be quiet as a sign of reverence. Like in the library, people are quiet around the books because they appreciate the books. The books are important to them.
A few beats later, I remembered concentration. Everyone moving along the walls, looking and thinking.
And concentration, I said. We are quiet so we can think about what we are looking at.
And we were. Everyone moving around each other to get to the art. Stepping back, stepping forward. Our bodies turning into sculptures themselves that we moved around, giving each other space and silence, and the quiet goodness of seeing people we knew amidst the art, and then the space transforming somehow to allow us to speak, and then return to the meditative as we separated and became different versions of ourselves again. As though caught by light, made central in the eye of another, and then let go.
Richmond Art Collective
228 West Sprague
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/RACSpokane/
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
June 30: The Whole World at Once at BookPeople in Austin, TX
Got my haircut today, packing tomorrow, and then I'll return to Texas where I lived for nearly a decade, all begun in 2003 when I moved to San Marcos to attend the MFA in Fiction program. So many of my favorite faces still in live in Texas, and I'll be happy to see them again and meet yours if our faces haven't met yet. I have a full heart. Let's pin our hearts to our sleeves and let them look at each other.
I'll read a few selections from The Whole World at Once, followed by a conversation with Owen Egerton. The event begins at 7 PM, this Friday, June 30. The event is free and so very welcoming to the public.
BookPeople
603 North Lamar Blvd
Austin, TX 78703
(512) 472-5050
Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/412524905801089
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| BookPeople Marquee, photo by Wendy Walker (Used with permission) |
603 North Lamar Blvd
Austin, TX 78703
(512) 472-5050
Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/412524905801089
Monday, June 26, 2017
Fictions and Words in Austin, Austin, Austin, Texas! June 30, 2017 & July 1, 2017
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| BookPeople (photograph from BookPeople) |
Then, on Saturday afternoon, I'm joining a group of fine folk at the Agents and Editors Conference to discuss working with independent publishers. The Agents and Editors Conference is organized by The Writers' League of Texas.
Let's say goodbye to June and greet July together in the best of cities, Austin, Texas. And maybe dance and get a Texas tattoo and sing to the moon.
Friday, June 30
BookPeople
603 North Lamar Blvd.
Austin, TX
Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/412524905801089
Free and open to the public
Saturday, July 1
Agents and Editors Conference
Hyatt Regency
208 Barton Springs Rd.
Austin, TX
Facebook Event Page: https://www.facebook.com/events/170358963428943
Attendees must register to participate in this three-day conference.
Wednesday, June 21, 2017
Austin, Texas is the coolest place in the U.S.
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| The Whole World at Once at BookPeople photograph by Laura Long |
wonderful bookstore, BookPeople.
Friday, June 30
7 PM
I'll read one or two selections from The Whole World at Once, followed by a live Q&A with Owen Egerton about the writing of the book, fictions, and more.
Please add me to your calendar. I'll love to see your face.
BookPeople
603 North Lamar Blvd
Austin, TX 78703
(512) 472-5050
Event is free and open to the public.
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
This June Thursday: Hugo House Reading, Seattle
If you're in the Seattle area tomorrow night (Thursday, 6/15), make plans to attend a wonderful evening of words presented by The Hugo House. The Hugo House is one of Seattle's best literary resources, providing writing space, lectures, events, and resources to community members as well as hosting near and far writers to keep the words flowing to and from the region.
Thursday's reading is at 7 PM and will feature four Washington writers: two poets, two fiction writers.
- Gary Copeland Lilley (listen to this interview with him from KPTZ 91.9)
- Ann Tweedy (her website, here: http://anntweedy.com/)
- Sharma Shields (her website, here: http://www.sharmashields.com/)
- Erin Pringle (you're here, at my website)
Address: 1021 Columbia Street, Seattle, WA 98104
Need directions? Click here.
Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/2202785066624674
Event is free and open to the public.
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