What ails the short story?

Stephen King takes a crack at this now seemingly perennial question. I totally agree with this part:

In too many cases, that audience happens to consist of other writers and would-be writers who are reading the various literary magazines (and The New Yorker, of course, the holy grail of the young fiction writer) not to be entertained but to get an idea of what sells there. And this kind of reading isn’t real reading, the kind where you just can’t wait to find out what happens next (think “Youth,” by Joseph Conrad, or “Big Blonde,” by Dorothy Parker). It’s more like copping-a-feel reading. There’s something yucky about it.

By the way, anyone still read Stephen King? I believe the latest novel of his I read was The Tommyknockers. I don't remember much about it. I wonder if in more recent years his own writing has gotten an upgrade similar to his literary credibility. I did like his book about writing. I did not like the "death-by-cellphone" excerpt of Cell that I read a few years back in Entertainment Weekly at the Deadwood during a Simpsons commercial break.

Anyone know this story by its vague description?

So, I was at this cocktail party with a local author, and Lumpy started talking about this short story that had to do with the mistakes people have in their memory. I thought the thing was called "Peaches," by a Japanese Writer, but I can't find it anywhere. It was the first or second story in one of the collections I taught at Iowa, and it had to do with a boy and his mother pushing a baby carriage full of what I thought were peaches. Anyone have any idea what I'm talking about, and what collection it was in?

And, by the by, that's me and the baby wolves at our private beach, which hopefully entices one of y'all to come visit (an invitation I meant to put up in June -- honestly, I can't believe the summer is over).

So, if you know the story, help me out. I'm looking at you, Bernard.

Hello, Friends

How nice to check this blog after a long hiatus and see that you're all still here and still being funny.
I'm writing to say hello and I miss you, and also to ask you to help me with two things:
1) I just moved to Philly and know only one person. Do any of you know anyone here who might like to be my friend?
2) I'm teaching a creative writing class, and I've asked them to write a scene of dialogue comprised only of questions. If any of you are bored at work, or bored in general and want to whip up a funny one I could use as an example, I would be very happy and very grateful.

Thank you thank you.

Antoine Wilson reading Wednesday

He will read from The Interloper at Prairie Lights starting at 7 p.m.

The slaughter of 16,000 hyphens

We can apparently blame the Interwebs for the OED's mass killing. "People are not confident about using hyphens anymore, they're not really sure what they are for." And: "The hyphen is seen as messy looking and old-fashioned." There's always been a tendency for two words to "date" -- the hyphen as chaperone -- and then marry, becoming one word. But interesting to me are the words that have "broken up": water-bed is now water bed, and ice-cream is now ice cream.

And it's true, they do seem old-fashioned (oldfashioned? old fashioned?). Consider the Onion headline from 100 years ago: Will the Steam Engine Replace the China-Man?

Let me be the first to say: I for one welcome our new antihyphen overlords.

Upholding tradition

Good to know that Talk Art is alive and well. Wish I were there to go sometimes.

Making Books Cool

And another...

I'm happy to report that Kim & Pete have just brought another boy into the world. Roscoe Bell was born this morning at 8:10am, weighing in at 6lb 10oz. K&P are both tired but well.

Anyone Want To Workshop?

So, after a very long hiatus, a baby, and a dark night of the soul, I really want to get writing again, as I've realized my internal happiness really took a hit when I stopped doing it and concentrated on teaching, making enough money to survive in the Northeast, and changing poopies. While my three main concerns aren't going away any time soon, I was wondering if anyone wanted to start passing around stories over the Net?

And, interestingly enough, I work at Roger Williams University Law School now, and the guy that wrote the article on workshops in the Atlantic teaches in the J-school.

So, let me know, and God Bless Us, Each and Every One.

Find out your actual favorite candidate

at the Candidate Calculator. It's very fast and surprised me. Apparently Mike Gravel is -- by a wide margin -- my dream presidential candidate, as he is among the largest percentage of visitors to that site. Kucinich, Obama, and Hillary are my next best, in that order. Not sure what that says about me, because I think Mike Gravel comes off as a kook. Perhaps I, too, am a kook. A little disturbing that it seems I am voting style over substance, because I am going so far for Obama.

Continuous computer-generated "news poem"

Richard Valentin, former lead singer for the Poster Children, has created an art project called HOURS. Basically his computer scans the major news sites every hour, finds the two most common words, then prints them out on a continuous sheet of paper. A sample 24-hour period:

iraq	bush
iraq	bush
iraq	bush
iraq	korea
iraq	felix
felix	basra
felix	korea
felix	basra
felix	korea
felix	korea
nuclear	felix
nuclear	felix
nuclear	felix
nuclear	iraq
nuclear	iraq
nuclear	iraq
felix	iraq
iraq	nuclear
nuclear	iraq
nuclear	iraq
nuclear	iraq
nuclear	iraq
nuclear	iraq
iraq	nuclear