I don’t mean to do it. It just happens. I spot birds; they spot me. They sit strangely close to me on the bench in my front yard.
And so, some new fiction. It’s short. It’s sweet. It contains a lot of birds. (Which reminds me, doesn’t another favorite magazine of mine foreground a beautiful bird?) Anyway, read it here, or listen to me read it, at Hermeneutic Chaos.
*Also a song by The Eels well worth a listen.
Photo by Tyler Ingram, cc.
Alright, so I’ve got some books. A lot of which I’ve read: college assignments, trendy new releases, and old, wonderfully soft spots. A lot of which I’ve not really (ever?) touched. (I get free shipping if I buy four more books? Oooh, what’s this in the free used book bin? A book for Christmas? You should have!)
I’ve also got a Goodreads profile. A sorely neglected one. So here’s the project: catalogue the books I’ve got and then read them. All of them. Not quickly. Not too slowly. Very medium.*
When we moved from The States to the Netherlands, the books fit neatly in 35 boxes. (See a the partial shipment here.) I’ll set a goal of finishing them before we move back. When? you ask along with my parents. Who knows. I’ll keep you posted.
Today, I’ll continue working on a book that was a gift from my dad to my husband. (If it’s in my living room, it’s in my tally.) It’s called Proust and the Squid by Maryanne Wolf. Nonfiction about the brain’s acquisition of language. So far so good.
*Bonus points to anyone who can find an old news clip. A reporter, standing at the bottom of a sledding hill, asked a young girl if she liked to go very fast or very slow. The girl paused and then said, “Um, I like to go very medium.”
In a Foreign Town also inside! Read it online.
An early Christmas present: the online version of Structo issue 10!
Click on the preview above, or head on over to Issuu, to read the issue for free and in its entirety. It features 10 short stories, 10 poems, two interviews (author Evie Wyld and poet/translator/author/editor David Constantine) and an essay about hereditary book addiction. It’s a great issue, even if we say it ourselves.
There are also a few print copies around if you would like to read it on paper.
Happy Christmas on behalf of the entire Structo team.
— Euan
Castle Inn, Warsaw
1. No trumpeting.
2. No bananas.
3. And for goodness sake everyone, no books in the toilet. Something to live by. Thank you, Castle Inn.
For those keeping track, that’s 33 poems sold, only 44 left!
christine PS stocke 