Notable Portland: 10/11–10/17
Literary events in and around Portland this week!
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Posts Tagged: Ben Marcus
Notable NYC: 10/6–10/12
Literary events in and around NYC this week!
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Notable NYC: 9/22–9/28
Literary events in and around NYC this week!
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Notable Los Angeles: 9/3–9/9
Literary events in and around L.A. this week!
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Brain Soup and Making Things: A Conversation with Rita Bullwinkel
Rita Bullwinkel discusses her debut story collection, Belly Up, the foolishness of writing, and what went into the making of her first book.
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What to Read When You’ve Made It Halfway Through 2018
Rumpus editors share forthcoming books they can’t wait to read!
...moreThe Rumpus Interview with Brian Booker
Brian Booker discusses his debut collection Are You Here For What I’m Here For?, giving characters strange and unusual names, and sleeping sickness.
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The Rumpus Interview with Annie DeWitt
Annie DeWitt discusses her debut novel, White Nights in Split Town City, the 90s, and the brutality of nature.
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The Rumpus Interview with Christopher Boucher
Novelist Christopher Boucher talks about writing so-called “experimental” fiction, both embracing and denying the metaphor, and apples.
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The Rumpus Interview with Lincoln Michel
Lincoln Michel talks about his debut short story collection, Upright Beasts, his interest in monsters, and what sources of culture outside of literature inspire him.
...moreBen Marcus Glad He Isn’t An Anthropologist
Author George Saunders interviews Ben Marcus about reading for the “mechanics” of short stories, and how to “reverse engineer” these mechanics in order to construct original work. In addition, Ben Marcus shares what he learned about the state of the “American ” short story while reading for his recent anthology, New American Stories: I’m pretty glad that I’m not an […]
...moreNotable NYC: 9/5–9/11
Monday 9/7: Er Zhang, Yu Wang, and Wo Chan read in English and Chinese for an event presented by Belladonna*. St. Marks Bookshop, 7 p.m., free. Tuesday 9/8: Margaret Eby launches South Toward Home, a travelogue through the South. BookCourt, 7 p.m., free. Marisa Marchetto talks with Angela Ledgerwood for PEN America’s DIY series. Ace […]
...moreA Snapshot of Contemporary Times
For The Millions, Jennifer Rice Epstein reviews New American Stories, an anthology edited by Ben Marcus, and discusses how the collection reflects modern American life.
...moreForm Over Function
Will 2015 be the year of the short story? Probably not. But Ben Marcus is making sure it will at least be a year of some short stories. Chin up.
...moreNotable NYC: 10/11–10/17
Saturday 10/11: The New Yorker Festival, around town, $35 and up. Cristina Moracho launches Althea and Oliver, a novel about two friends. BookCourt, 7 p.m., free. Sunday 10/12: The New Yorker Festival, around town, $35 and up. The Singapore Literature Festival. McNally Jackson, 6 p.m., free. Amy Jo Burns reads Cinderland (October 2014), a memoir […]
...moreNotable NYC: 3/8–3/14
Saturday 3/8: Ben Marcus talks about his new story collection, Leaving the Sea (January 2014), Rob Spillman, editor of Tin House. Brooklyn Public Library, 4 p.m., free. Craig Morgan Teicher, Wendy Lotterman, Nicole Steinberg, Sarah V. Schweig, Ted Dodson, Krystal Languell, Joanna C. Valente, Jesse Kohn, Jonathan Aprea, Joe DeLuca, and M. Callen celebrate issue […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Ben Marcus
Writer Ben Marcus discusses his latest short story collection, metaphorical writing, language as a communication block, and the sometimes dysfunctional nature of workshops.
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Leaving the Sea by Ben Marcus
M.C. Mah reviews LEAVING THE SEA by Ben Marcus today in The Rumpus Book Reviews.
...moreNotable NYC: 1/4–1/10
Saturday 1/4: Rosebud Ben-oni, Leopoldine Core, Kathy Ossip, Derek Pollard, and Bianca Stone join the quarterly reading series Couplet. Leah Umansky hosts. The Delancy, 7 p.m., free. n+1 celebrates the launch of Issue Eighteen: Good News. Recess Activities, 8 p.m., $10 or free for subscribers. Sunday 1/5: Veronica Gonzalez Peña and Victoria Patterson join the […]
...moreBen Marcus Reading Tonight
Ben Marcus will read from his new novel The Flame Alphabet at City Lights Bookstore. Tonight, 7 p.m. “The Flame Alphabet invites the question: What is left of civilization when we lose the ability to communicate with those we love? Both morally engaged and wickedly entertaining, a gripping page-turner as strange as it is moving, […]
...moreBen Marcus Talks Speech Fever
SF Weekly interviews Ben Marcus about his new novel The Flame Alphabet, which we reviewed last week. “I’m drawn to the ways that family members can speak to each other. It’s safer within a family, in general, to say the worst things, and get away with it. Some families do that as a matter of […]
...moreSpeech Fever
Ben Marcus’ fourth novel, The Flame Alphabet, uses well-worn myths as a way to expose and explore the pressing questions that we often forget thrum at the heart of our most common traditions and rituals.
...moreNotable New York, This Week 5/18 – 5/23
This week in New York Ben Marcus and Deb Olin Unferth read, John Lydon (formerly Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols) performs with PiL, MobyLives presents book trailer awards, One Story holds a Debutante Ball, Jewcy presents readings by Rachel Shukert, Sam Apple and Jami Attenberg, Paper Monument Magazine (sister-mag to n+1) throws a party […]
...moreNotable New York, This Week 11/9 – 11/15
This week in New York Ben Marcus and Rivka Galchen at Harper’s Magazine’s The Family Table, Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach talk, Mary Gaitskill, John Turturro, and Eric Bogosian at PEN benefit, Frederick Wiseman’s documentary La Danse, Jeff Lewis and the Wowz! at Cakeshop, The Internet as Playground and Factory conference with n+1 magazine, Performa […]
...moreThurston Moore’s Audience: A Subjective Account of the Brooklyn Book Festival
September 13, 2009 10:37am – Walking by Book Stands Tao Lin T-shirts were dangling on hangers at the Melville House booth at the Brooklyn Book Festival. The T-shirts said “Tao Lin: 1983- ????” Across from Melville House was the Ugly Duckling booth. The books were beautiful to touch. I touched A Plate of Chicken by […]
...moreDon’t Miss the 2009 Brooklyn Book Festival: Sunday September 13
Reasons to attend the 2009 Brooklyn Book Festival: 1) it’s one of the most hip, smart and diverse American literary events, 2) because Ben Marcus, Sarah Manguso, Thurston Moore, Heidi Julavits and Tao Lin are just some of the stars and emerging writers who will be talking/reading, 3) panels will talk about DFW , rappers […]
...moreJournal Highlight: Conjunctions and the New Weird, a Non-Genre
Conjunctions: 52, Betwixt the Between, its Spring 2009 issue, has just been released. According to the Editors’ Note, the issue explores what happens when the “borderlands of the normal and absurd…are breached.” This breach is bare in Secret Breathing Techniques, by Ben Marcus.
...moreThe Withdrawal Method
In his introduction to the Anchor Book of New American Short Stories, Ben Marcus writes that the best contemporary fiction synthesizes the heartfelt and the innovative.
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