Snooki of Coney Island by Lauren Stanzione

Managing Editor Lauren Stanzione shares a short story following the timeline of a young Italian-American couple's relationship in their hometown of Coney Island, Brooklyn, NY. Themes of young lust, anger, and violence.

Brandi looked like Snooki. 

That’s what the principal said. You gotta stop dressing like Snooki. We don’t like you dressing like Snooki. Brandi didn’t care. She lived by the beach. She would be Snooki if she wanted to be Snooki. No pleasure was more abundant than a cheetah-printed push-up bra bought by her mother. Rico would come up behind her, cupping her like a vase that was not delicate but was rather handmade, sturdy pottery. Etruscan pottery. Rico called himself that, an Etruscan. Brandi didn’t know what that meant. Nor did it bother her. She didn’t care about that much. Besides the boardwalk. Coney Island. Rico. And her look. She very much cared about her look. 

If an Estrucan was Rico, they must be beautiful, sculpted by something out of this world, and work the clam bake. Tall, tanned from head to toe, gentile locks smelling of his father’s guido hair gel and rough comb. Big smile, big laugh, big hands, she knew what that meant when she saw him at the register two years ago, with the boardwalk noise and the guns; there were always guns. When he had given her a sideways look, those arms, shoulders, and said ciao bella. She hadn’t looked him in the eye; she was Snooki in Brooklyn, why would she. But she knew. Under the hours of festival upkeep, Brandi knew her heart was molten, gooey within an urn. She desired to look into him so deeply, her fingers would be rooted in his ribs, caught in the webs of bone until she died. 

Rico gave her a free granita from the back, crafted by his father in his old Italian age. He told her to come back when everyone was gone, around twelve. Brandi didn’t like hanging around too long. Her Dad was dead. She didn't want to see him anytime soon. 

Brandi ate her clams. The other neighborhood girls clicked their toes, false eyelashes irritating their lids and spurring on crankiness. Let's ride the Ferris Wheel, said Brandi, holding onto bleached hair from the box, one of her friend’s new looks. No, the girls said. We’re going home. 

She and Rico made out on the metal grate against the Cyclone. Had sex in the empty gelato parlor. It wasn’t great. But held potential. He was big. And strong. He liked to hold her face, tracing it in swirls of sweat and peppermint spit. It was the first time anyone had touched her cheek, jaw, chin, hair. Rico left covered in tan foundation. He stopped wearing wife beaters around then. 

After that was a lot of hand holding, jumping from one side of dislodged planks to the other, and sharing chicken tenders on the sand. Brandi became a scooper in the summers. Ice cream sweet, decadent, which Rico would lick off when the children all went home. Clam boy Sicilian, Scooper Snooki. College-aged non-college-goer sweethearts. 

*

Rico’s Dad, who was almost eighty, needed money. Rico’s mother was just shy of her forty-first birthday. Their inherent distance created odd tensions. 

But Leonardo, Rico’s dad, he made very good fish. Especially on the feast of the seven fishes, December 24th, Christmas Eve. Brandi attended with Rico one year; everyone forgot her name and looked at her weirdly. Why'd they look at me like that? She asked, undressing. Rico watched her. Swallowed. Looked out the window, which was frosted over. It’s all that shit on your face, he replied. The fucking lashes. And the tits, did you have to keep the tits for my family? Clasico intonation, ragey with a smile. That was Rico. 

Rico boxed her against the wall and fucked her. It was really good. Angry. He didn’t touch her face, just the cheetah bra, this one was red. For Jesus. For Christmas! She would never put the tits away. She liked them too much. 

A summer. Two. Twentieth birthday, Rico still needed money. He started doing cheap shit, selling his father’s things. Stealing. Rico was incredible at stealing. His smile, trusting, that's how he reeled them in. He would find a watch, or diamonds, or both, he was smart like that, scouting out rich goers and offering services of cleaning, plumbing, air conditioning assistance; Rico was as handy as a father. Once, her sink broke, and he had taken his whole hand, that gargantuan Sicilian hand, and shoved it down there with the dirtiness; it reminded her of when he would try to finger her. But more erotic. Way more. He was sweaty, his black shirt straining his organs, his gentlemanly mouth, his laugh which refracted from the metal to her ears. The sound reminded her how much she loved him when he would watch her in the morning, her back against his chest, his hands playing her spine like an antique piano. He was, of course, very good at the piano. Billy Joel, but more sightly. And Rico’s creations, one can not forget: tomatoes, bread, cheese, olive oil; he was lean and ancient and Mediterranean, an Olympian in a poor man’s body. And always, the boardwalk. He would point oddballs out, jowly men. He knew what to say to make her laugh, always. Sitting on the sand, forgotten towel, melting makeup. He always brought his mother’s makeup wipes in his bag for her on those days. He knew she would forget, with the makeup doing, bikini choosing, shoe walking, jewelry selecting, how was there time and space to remember? 

Rico got caught. Eventually. But this time, it was someone in the neighborhood. Witler. Brandi told Rico not to steal. What do they tell you, Rico, they tell you not to; she nagged and nagged and nagged, went through vanilla bean and rose petal and pistachio sunrise and orange cream, these were all the body sprays she went through in the three months before Rico died. The last one. Cherry. He loved cherries, tearing the stems from the body and swallowing them whole, pit and all, lips stained red, laugh dark and fragrant. She bought it for him, but he never inhaled it. He never knew she cared that much, that she would scoop to buy things for him, that she would scoop for him, and that night, she stole, she stole her mother's watch and had six hundred dollars, enough for Leonardo’s medicine, she should have said more. She should have told Rico to fuck off when he said that thing about her tits on seven fishes. She should have said goodbye then. The Cherry body spray wouldn't be sitting here, on her dresser, red, bloodied. 

Rico wanted to take her to the fair. They had fought. Just about Witler. Don’t go stealing from Witler, Brandi commanded as she pressed her magenta acrylics deep into his bicep, leaving little moons. Fine. Fine, I’m not going to steal from Witler. I hope you're happy when my dad fucking dies. Brandi just rolled her eyes, watching the reflection of her fake eyelashes in her peripheral vision. She should have worn more lashes, an indication to Rico to fuck off. They went to play some games. She huffed and puffed, rolling her eyes: pink heels, pink skirt, white tank, pink tits, khaki skin. Hair crackled and straightened until it fried. Bubble gum, sweet, she moved it between her teeth. She told Rico he didn’t have to win her anything. Really, he didn’t need to. But he insisted. Don't tell me what to do, Rico said, his arms and hands playing a game with the air. But he laughed. I’m getting you that penguin. I’m gonna get you the fucking penguin. 

Even when she was angry with him, and he was being his Siciliani stubborn self, she loved to watch him. His neck was sugary and burnt. His back, curved, croissant-like, flaky, tan. Legs, long, so long. Laugh, deepest thing... A joy so palpable, something she wished she recorded and could play on a loop. I don’t care, she had been repeating this as a mantra to herself. I don’t care. I’m Snooki of Coney Island. I don’t care about Rico. I don’t. Fuck him. He tossed the rings. One ring. Two. Six. One away. He was one away. 

Witler, up behind her. "Hey, sexy," he whispered, hand on her lower back. He had pimples, blond hair, and blue eyes—the dead kind. He reminded her of the Hudson. He was always sunburnt, even in December. He was a heavy breather, Irish, used to bring beef jerky to lunch, and had a powerful handshake. Everyone knew not to mess with him. 

Witler slithered past her. He dug into his pockets. Tapped Rico on the shoulder. Rico turned, expecting Brandi. Witler shot him. Rico died. 

At the funeral, she kept her tits away. That was the last time anyone saw her, Brooklyn graveyard, Avenue U. Her mascara blackened her face, charcoal toothpaste reminiscent. Her lashes in the grass. Heels, muddied. Tan melted away. There was no Rico to provide wipes. Rico was dead.

Murakami Women by Hazel Walrod

Prose Editor Hazel Walrod shares a short story.
Split between a college Friendsgiving party and a fall day in Central Park, “Murakami Women” is about people unraveling and coming together. Content warning: brief discussion of disordered eating and violence.

You asked to meet up at Central Park by the pond. It is November, so everything is shades of brown and orange and yellow, besides the geese, who are stubbornly gray and black. I arrive first, so I pick a bench and sit looking out at the water. I brought a book along, Sputnik Sweetheart. The day after the party, I went out and bought it, driven by some odd determination. The bookstore bookmark is still wedged between the pages where the cashier slipped the receipt. 

You arrive fifteen minutes late and start fast-walking when you see me. You’re wearing a little green coat and red scarf, somehow without being Christmasy, and a black skirt. “Sorry I’m late,” you say, a cloud of hot air coming out of your mouth. I watch the cloud spread out and fade away. Your hair is back in a long braid and your cheeks are flushed. 

“No problem, I was too.” 

“Well, good.” 

I fidget with my scarf, then see you are doing the same, and stop. 

You break the silence. “I guess we should probably talk about the party?” 

I give you an awkward smile. “You were kind of pulled into it, I feel bad.” 

“Not at all. It’s just all really intense. Has that sort of thing happened before?” 

I shake my head, “Not like that. But sometimes I feel like we are all close to violence in a way, right? Like there’s this thin line that we don’t cross usually, until someone does. Especially between people.” You draw your eyebrows together, considering. 

“I guess you’re right, I just never think of it that way. It’s kind of scary,” you laugh as if to lighten the mood, and I suddenly feel bad. 

“She’ll be fine, though, really,” I say lamely, trying to catch your eye. When you look back though, I feel unsure again. When I finally break away and look down, I find myself watching your hands again, and they are dancing around in your lap, never still. I think of the stillness of my apartment after everyone left. 

“I hope so,” you say. 

I open my book and flip through the pages, listening to them shuffle. “I was really struck by what you said at the party, about wishing you were a Murakami woman.” 

*** 

I don’t know whose fault the party was, really. I think it started as a late birthday celebration for Stella and then was postponed too many times for that to make sense anymore, before it finally ended up at my apartment on November 18th, as some type of Friendsgiving. I thought Friendsgiving was stupid, but Stella and Mike really leaned in, and then we all went along with it. I just didn’t like eating much, and I think Stella secretly agreed, which made the whole thing an emotional conflict for her, which she, I guess, enjoyed. 

It was us three, plus Stella’s boyfriend Christian, and then Lenora, my roommate Dante, and you. Those were the people who mattered, anyway. A small thing, Stella promised me. Stella was really into intimacy, and her latest idea was dating your friends, which meant hosting themed parties and sending platonic love letters and things like that. The first letter she sent me was inside a pink envelope and was covered in stickers, addressed in calligraphy lettering. It was all about memories from freshman year, and I wasn’t sure it even applied anymore. One of the memories was of a party around this same time, in which we had slept together on the carpet of someone’s dorm, spooning for warmth. When I thought back, I couldn’t remember this party at all, and thought she might have mixed me up with someone else. 

*** 

Stella and Christian were breaking up at the party. We could all tell something was going to happen between them, but Stella told me beforehand that she was sick of his shit and she was finally going to do it. I was in my bed with no pants on at the time, cradling my phone next to my ear, resting my head on my knees. 

“Well, how are you going to do it?” I asked her. 

“God, I don’t know, is it bad to do it at the party?” 

“Yeah,” I replied, “please don’t do that.” 

There was a short silence on the phone. Then, she said “I just don’t think I can do it alone, when it’s just the two of us. I don’t think he’ll understand and then I’ll just let it slide.” 

“I don’t know, Stel, but you shouldn’t, let it slide, I mean. It’s okay if he doesn’t understand, honestly.” 

They came to the party together, and Stella was smiling too broadly. She gave each of us a hug and set some mashed potatoes on the table. Christian looked surprisingly handsome that night I remember, and was giving everyone small smiles. I never knew him that well but I knew that they would not last, so I avoided eye contact. 

It happened right before dinner, for some reason. There were way more people there than Stella had said, and I was trying to keep things together. All the windows were open as wide as they would go, and cold air rushed in from all sides, unsettling the tablecloth and pulling petals off of flowers. I could see them across the room, though, heads bent together. Stella said something and scrunched her face up in the way she does when she is sad. Christian stood very still for a long time. Because he was still, Stella became still also, and their faces were so close and illuminated with the yellow light of a nearby lamp, they reminded me of old porcelain dolls, cracked and tarnished. Then, I saw him grab her arm a bit roughly and shake it, which made her recoil and try to push him away, which I guess made him angry. I heard the word ‘bitch!’ but I think that was only the end of what he said. The eyes of the party were shifting onto them as she finally broke free and walked away, towards my bedroom. She shut the door behind her, and I could hear, even from across the room, the click of the lock. 

*** 

At the dinner table, I sat between Lenora and Stella, who was sitting next to Dante who was sitting next to Mike. We had dimmed the lights and lit candles and tried to make things festive and for the most part succeeded, though there was still an air of somberness, probably because of the fight. Christian sat on the far end of the table and honestly, I don’t know why he was still there, why no one had thought to make him leave. 

“Thanks guys for coming, and obviously thank you for hosting,” Stella said looking at me. I smiled back at her quickly. “I’m really grateful to have you all as friends.” Her eyes were glassy and red, but she was not crying and there was no wobble in her voice. I felt like I should do something, but I couldn't think of what, so I just clinked my glass with hers and took a drink. Stella was always teetering on an edge, but she never seemed to fall. 

No one else had any speech to give, so we just started eating. Lenora brought up the topic of Murakami. “I just read Kafka and honestly I think it’s the best book I’ve read in a long time,” they said, at first to no one and then directed at me when our eyes met. I nodded a bit. 

“I liked it, but wasn’t his relationship with that woman a bit weird? With the age gap?” Lenora nodded, “For sure, but you have to read it like art, like a metaphor, you know? In the context of what he is saying, it makes sense, same as the cat killing and all that, but if you think of it as real life, then yeah, it’s fucked. I guess I just like how he isn’t afraid to talk about sex and love in a different way.” 

“I can never tell if he writes such horny shit because he doesn’t get laid, or because he does,” Stella said, which made me laugh. “But god, the women in those books!” “I know, it’s bad. I almost feel like all his main characters, even the little boy, are author-inserts, and he uses them for his fantasies,” Lenora said. 

“I mean what’s really wrong with them, though?” Mike asked from down the table, having to raise his voice to be heard. Stella made a little hmph sound, like she was ready to argue. 

“The women are all pale and soft, or otherwise saggy and old, and examine themselves in the mirror. It’s like they are either completely innocent to their sexuality or completely aware of it and use it against men, like some sort of weapon,” I said. 

“Femme fatales,” Stella added. 

Mike took a large bite of mashed potatoes, and I could see the wheels in his head turning, working on something. “I mean I guess, but I don’t think that’s all together inaccurate. Like, there are a lot of women out there. I know some like that, who use their looks or whatever. He just writes from the male point of view – you can’t always be mad about that.” 

“You haven’t even read his books, Mike, so I feel like you can shut up,” Stella said. He raised his hands in the air as if regretful. I felt like this conversation could take a turn.

“He writes about lesbians too; he loves lesbians,” Dante said loudly, looking right at me. “Why are you looking at me?” 

He shrugs, smiling, because it is obvious. I make a face at him back. 

“He just writes about women kissing because it turns him on, not because he actually respects lesbians,” Lenora said. I took a long sip of my drink and got dizzy for a second before it settled. 

“Come on, is it really that deep though?” Mike asked, red in the face. 

“Mike, fuck off about it if you are going to be so misogynistic,” Stella snapped. Dante let out a long exaggerated breath. I put a hand on her shoulder but she didn’t look at me. Sometimes Stella could get carried away, extrapolating everything to misogyny. Maybe he was being misogynistic, though, I don’t know. 

“I’m just saying there’s no harm in describing attractive women, how is that an issue?” he replied, going back to his food as if the conversation was over because he willed it to be. Stella stood up suddenly, the chair scraping, and left the table without a word. I was relieved and at the same time annoyed. 

“Sometimes I wish I was a Murakami woman,” you said out of nowhere from the other side of Lenora, just as the dust was settling. “Just a beautiful body.” I really looked at you then, for maybe the first time, but then I got shy and watched your hands, which seemed to always be moving, like a hummingbird flitting between branches. 

“I’m going to check on Stella,” I said, and pushed away from the table, tripping on the leg of my chair. 

*** 

After the ambulance left, I finished cleaning up in silence. It’s amazing how many people can disperse so quickly, without goodbyes. By the door, there were mud smudges and bits of grass where the pile of shoes, now all removed by their owners, had been. The empty wine and cocktail glasses were rimmed with lipstick and stuffed with napkins. I was still very drunk, and walked around the room as if I was gliding, time speeding up mid step, so that all at once I was far too close to the table before I crashed into it. My head was throbbing and it was maybe 3 or 4 in the morning by then. Still, I decided to vacuum the glass around the couch, mesmerized by the crunch of each shard being sucked up into the vacuum’s stomach. I wondered briefly how it would feel to pick up a handful of these pieces and swallow them, whether they would scratch the itch in the back of my throat. When I started to feel a real temptation, I shut off the vacuum and left it leaning on the table. I shed my clothes, piece by piece, and stood in front of the full length mirror in my bedroom, examining my body. The moon was out and made my skin look milky and radiant, a second moon. I wondered how Murakami might describe me, if I was a woman in his novel. 

She cups her breasts, weighing them side by side, checking for irregularities. 

I stopped looking at myself and climbed into bed, staring into darkness, thinking about what you said.

*** 

I found Stella in the bathroom, crying and rummaging through my pill cabinet. “I’m so sorry, this is such a mess,” she kept saying, over and over, until the words lost their meaning. I said “it’s okay,” until those words lost their meaning, too. Then, we sat in each other’s arms for a long while, silent except for her sobs, listening to the dinner conversations filtering in from the other room. There were small silences, clinks of plates and silverware, and then bursts of laughter. 

“I know you said not to do it, but I just couldn’t keep going, you know?” Stella finally said into my shirt. 

“I never said not to do it. I think you did the right thing,” I told her, stroking her head. “Do you think he’ll forgive me?” she asked, her voice so unbearably small. 

“I don’t know, Stel, but it doesn’t really matter.” 

The tiles of the bathroom warped around me, reminding me of a giant net holding us in. I could hear music playing through the walls, but couldn’t pick up anything but the unending bass. Stella felt stiff in my arms, and I wondered again how close she was to the final fall. 

“Bro, fuck this, I’m gonna go play poker.” She wiped her tears with the back of her hand and then the tips of her fingers, pressing hard under her eyes so that they bulged. I thought maybe I shouldn’t let her go, but she gave me a winning smile and squeezed my hand, as if she was comforting me. 

I sat in the bathroom for a while, letting the bright white tile consume me. The door swung open to your face, already beginning to blush. I stood a bit too quickly. 

“Sorry!” You just stood there, not closing the door. 

“It’s fine, I was just sitting here,” I said. 

We introduced ourselves. You’re Lenora’s friend from their history class, you explained, looking a bit embarrassed. I understood the embarrassment of being brought along, a friend of a friend at someone’s house, unsure how comfortable you could be. 

We went back into the living room together, and they were playing poker now, all circled up on the carpet flipping cards. Mike or Stella had brought the chips, I think, but they were my cards. We watched from above for a moment, as if in a casino game. You didn’t know the rules of this game, so I explained them, but you still didn’t get it. 

“I’ll just tell you when something good happens for someone.” 

Afterwards, we went to my room and looked at the posters on my wall. “Right, Len told me you like movies a lot,” you said, sitting on my bed. 

You were wearing so many rings stacked up on your left hand, but your right was completely bare. I asked you about it and you shrugged. “I like to have one practical hand, and one decorative one, I guess.” You said it so earnestly, that I nodded along, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

I sat down on my bed too, but farther from you, and I was very conscious of the way the bed sagged and seemed to pull you closer, so that really, we were only a foot or so apart. If I made even the slightest move, you would feel it too. 

“I’m hungry, should we go eat more?” you said, bouncing a bit so that I bounced, too. I shook my head, “You can go, though.” I realized I didn’t want you to. 

You looked at me for a long beat. “You left dinner right when we started, though.” I shrugged, “I’m not really hungry, it’s okay.” 

“Do Mike and Stella hate each other?” I laughed at your bluntness and you gave me a sheepish smile. 

“No, actually they’ve been friends the longest between us, even since middle school I think. I feel like they’re too similar and that’s why they fight so much. I’m sorry you had to be there.” 

You laid down and stared up at the ceiling. “It’s okay, I’ll just hide in here.” I didn’t know what you meant by that, so I didn’t respond. You smiled at me. “Are you close with Stella?” 

I laid down too, mirroring you, careful that our arms didn’t brush. “I guess, but less so than freshman year. She’s just so competitive, even about things you shouldn’t be, like for a while we would count our calories and she would be mad if she didn’t ‘win.’” As soon as they were out, my words felt meaningless and pathetic. You let out a slight breath, in between a gasp and a sigh. 

“I’m sorry,” you said quietly. 

“No, I don’t know why I said that. Stella is a good friend.” The more I spoke, the more I felt my body disintegrating, assimilating into the mattress. I was trying very hard not to look at you. “You should go get some more food, if you want.” 

You whispered something, and I could feel the goosebumps rising on my arms, little pinpricks. “What?” I said back, shifting to face you. The bed brought us close abruptly, so that our noses were only a small space apart. I looked down to avoid your eyes but found myself looking at your lips, which was worse, far more suggestive. 

“I said I don’t think I’m that hungry anymore,” you said, and kissed me. 

The sound of shouting outside finally broke us apart. You sat up, listening. I looked at your body, twisting away from me, and felt a rush of anticipation, for when you eventually turn back to me, full force. You looked incredibly graceful, just listening. Then you said, “I think it’s getting serious” and the moment was over. 

*** 

Outside, the poker game ended, and its remains were scattered. Some people had left, and the apartment felt empty. Stella and Mike were shouting at each other, and at first I couldn’t tell what they were saying. Everything was blending together. 

I pulled on Stella, and spun her towards me. “Hey, hey what’s going on?” My voice was delayed coming out, and I felt my mouth move without willing it.

“He lost the game and is being all pissy about it.” 

“It’s not about that – she’s mad about Christian,” Mike said loudly. 

“Yeah you really think you are so fucking funny, bringing him into this,” Stella spat. I could see her, teetering on the edge, in front of me but out of my control. 

“What did he do with Christian?” 

“Brought him into the game, making all these jokes about how it will throw me off,” she told me, and then turning to him, “you’re just jealous.” 

Mike laughed, “He’s my friend too, Stel.” 

“No he’s fucking not! You’re just mad no one wants you so you have to make it unbearable for everyone else. Jesus.” I looked around the room, for Christian, for anyone, really, but it was just a blur of faces, heads moving this way and that. 

I could see the rigidity of Mike’s body, the way it was pulsing with energy. Stella could too, but she was soaking it up, playing off of it. 

“We fuck once and everything is all of a sudden about you,” Mike said, painfully slowly. “If I had known you’d act like this, I wouldn’t have even bothered.” There was a short silence that hung in the air after that. My eyes met Len’s across the room and they shook their head slowly, but I didn’t know what they were trying to signal. 

The sound hit me only after the impact. Mike whipped backwards, as if tugged violently by a string, and I felt something wet on my arm. Little red drops, most of them not larger than a mole. I looked up and saw Mike clutching his face, blood dripping in between his knuckles, and shards of glass at his feet. Stella’s arm was still in the position of her release, as if she was frozen. For a moment, everything was still again, before I heard the crash. 

Then, Mike was picking up a cookbook from the coffee table and winding back, swinging hard. I think I screamed, or maybe it was you, I don’t know. I watched Stella’s head fly back against the couch cushion, snapping so suddenly I thought it would come right off. The thud was something horrible. Only after she had fallen did I remember the phone in my trembling hands, and call 911, my voice speaking without me there to control it, long, winding sentences. It doesn’t matter what I told the dispatcher, they came eventually, and everyone left. Before then, though, I remember thinking that Stella is beautiful asleep and that maybe once we did spoon on a carpet at a party, even though I don’t remember where. 

Mike had his face in his hands, everything dripping, so I couldn’t tell if he was crying or only bleeding or maybe both. I put my hand on his shoulder and watched the panicked procession, until it was just us, the important people, me with Mike, Lenora at Stella’s side, checking her breathing, and you, with your hands in your pockets, always restless. 

*** 

“What did I say? I can’t remember,” you tell me, sitting back on the bench, warming your hands. 

“I’m not sure,” I lie, “something about being beautiful, I guess.”

You laugh a little, bouncing now, to keep warm. I put my hand on your arm and rub a bit, to try to warm you up. “Thanks. I think I said I wish I were a Murakami woman sometimes, because they are so beautiful.” 

“But also miserable, right?” 

“Sure, also miserable, in a way. But their misery is beautiful too, you know? They don’t have to do anything because they aren’t real, just symbols, or fantasies. I don’t know if they are supposed to be sexually liberated, or repressed, but I guess I envy how much power their bodies have over the protagonist. Whether they are too young, or too old, or whatever. Am I making sense?” You glance at me sideways, and we laugh a bit. 

“Yeah, no, I understand. It struck me, what you said, because I thought it was a brave thing to say. Like, you don’t try to make yourself sound better. But anyways, I’ve had thoughts like that, too. I’m sure it’s normal.” 

“Well, I don’t really care if it’s normal,” you say, looking out over the pond. I follow your gaze and see two geese standing on a rock, one foot up, their long black necks tucked backwards over their bodies. “They’re sleeping, I think,” you say. 

A cold wind picks up around us and throws dead leaves through the air. It feels, in some ways, like this scene, between us, is completely removed from the events of the party. I think of my bed, and our weight on it, of how unbearably soft your hair was under my fingers when I ran my hands through it and caught on the braid you had begun, and how you giggled mid-kiss, how you let me unravel it. I think of Stella too, and how she finally did go over that edge, and I don’t know how she will be when she recovers, when the bruises heal. I don’t know how much people who love each other can endure, after all. 

Two girls pass us, giggling, arms linked, and I suddenly feel very shy and small, sitting next to you on the bench. 

You find my hand before I can work up the courage, which is maybe always what will happen. We watch the geese for a long while, and even clasped around mine, your hand is never still.

You're Invited to West 10th's Poetry Workshop!

Attention all NYU undergrads: Our first workshop of the year is coming up! On Wednesday, October 19th at 7:30pm, join West 10th for a poetry workshop in Seminar Room A at Palladium Hall.Make sure to RSVP and check out the Facebook event, too!Bring up to two works of poetry (two pages maximum) to receive some feedback from your West 10th Editors. See you there!Just a reminder that we are still accepting submissions until December 15th!

From our Editors: LGBT Novel Recs from Allen Fulghum

Hi all, I’m Allen, one of West 10th’s prose editors. I’m a senior in Gallatin studying modernism, homosexuality and the First World War. When I sat down to make a short list of my favorite 20th century LGBT novels to share with you all, I realized that I’d chosen at least one representative of each decade from the 1910s to the 1960s—so here are six decades of LGBT literary history, condensed. 

Six decades, six brilliant LGBT novels

Maurice - E.M. Forster (1913)Written in 1913 but only published posthumously in 1971, Maurice was well ahead of its time in its nuanced depiction of a young man discovering and coming to terms with his sexuality. While Forster carefully examines the difficulties of identity and love, Maurice is ultimately founded on the belief that same-sex relationships have the capacity to be profound, beautiful and happy—a radical thesis for a novel written when men were still routinely arrested and imprisoned for having sex with other men.   

Orlando - Virginia Woolf (1928)Subtitled “A Biography,” Orlando was written as a paean to Woolf’s friend and erstwhile lover, the aristocratic Vita Sackville-West. With typical élan, Woolf transforms Sackville-West into the novel’s eponymous protagonist, a sex-changing immortal who begins as an Elizabethan nobleman and ends as a successful female author in ‘the present day’ (that is to say, 1928). Traversing three hundred years of Orlando’s life, Woolf relentlessly questions conventional notions of history, authorship, gender and sexuality.   Nightwood - Djuna Barnes (1936)Contained in a deceptively slim volume, Nightwood is a superbly stylized portrait of a doomed lesbian relationship in the bohemian Paris of the interwar years, explicated through the head-spinning speeches of Dr. Matthew-Mighty-grain-of-salt-Dante-O'Conner (who is just as campy as his name suggests). This modernist masterpiece was lauded by T.S. Eliot as “so good a novel that only sensibilities trained on poetry can wholly appreciate it.”    Notre Dame des Fleurs/Our Lady of the Flowers - Jean Genet (1943)Similarly to Nightwood, this novel renders the Parisian underworld in prose so rich and revelatory it practically creates a new class of literature. The lives and loves of its central characters—sex workers, trans women, and teenage murderers, all bearing charming monikers like Divine and Darling Daintyfoot—are unspooled by a capricious narrator who creates the world of the novel while masturbating in his prison cell (!!!).   The Charioteer - Mary Renault (1953)Renault, having worked as nurse at a British military hospital during the Second World War and later emigrated to South Africa to live with her female partner, was uniquely equipped to write this novel, which follows a British soldier who falls in love twice over as he recovers from a combat wound. With equal measures of heartfelt psychological insight and cutting social observation, The Charioteer struggles with the tensions between idealism and reality, individualism and community, and innocence and experience.  Another Country - James Baldwin (1962)An earlier novel of Baldwin’s, Giovanni’s Room, is often hailed as a masterpiece of gay literature, but while Giovanni’s Room is a claustrophobic investigation of one man’s psychology, Another Country seems to encompass an era. The characters are gay, straight, bisexual, questioning and in denial; white and black; working-class and middle-class and destitute and wildly successful. In a rhythm reminiscent of jazz, the novel traces the cast as they move in and out of each other’s lives, coupling and splitting up and getting back together, rising and falling in fortune—but always circling around the specter of a character who commits suicide at the end of the novel’s first act.

Prose Workshop Open to All NYU Undergrads

Our prose workshop, our second of the year, is coming up! It will be on Thursday, November 19 at 7pm, at Seminar Room B in Palladium Hall. Here is the Facebook event page, you could also RSVP here.This workshop is open to all undergrad students! So bring up to 1500 words of fiction/non-fiction prose to receive some feedback and comments from your West 10th Editors.Just a reminder that we are still accepting submissions until December 8th!

A Review of Das Energi by Paul Williams

Sifting through second-hand paperbacks at a musty bookstore on the Upper West Side I stumbled upon Das Energi, a hippie-spiritual classic from 1974 that I’d heard my friend’s parents talk about when they would reminiscence about times when music was political and LSD was legal. It was one of those popular books that everyone eventually forgot about as the decade passed and the peace and love mentality of that generation faded into the 80s.Usually these kinds of “Feel the world, heal the world” narratives can be hard to get through, mostly because they are repetitive and almost always vague, but this one struck a somewhat different note. Paul Williams manages to weave lyrical prose with hard slang into a strong and thoughtfully structured manifesto, a mantra for a new way of living life. The structure of Das Energi follows suit, each page as varied as the voice. Some pages are run-on paragraphs, set in a conversational tone Williams asks an obscure “you” why fear is so potent, why we choose to ignore the metaphysical implications of our existence. Others are only a line, something short and thoughtful to be repeated over and over again. Though he traverses a number of topics, from guiltless sex to our obsession with efficiency to the potency of religion, the one line he refers back to constantly is: “You are God”.  Williams seems to believe that worshipping a separate and nonhuman entity is pointless and detracts from the self-evolution and discovery that is necessary to contribute to the energy flow of the world.In some ways Williams came very close to sounding like the stoned middle-aged gypsies you might bump into at Burning Man while waiting in line for beer, but it is his stylistic voice that separates him from the ‘wishy washy’ aspects of spiritual culture that mainstream society can’t seem to handle. He has a very forceful approach to his doctrine and often ends up sounding much more like Karl Marx than Gandhi. His constant reference to “shedding old skin”, “setting yourself free” and of “not seeking but finding” are dispersed between urgent didactic lines like “Here and now, boys. Or else spend infinite future fighting quarrels of endless past.” He pushes forward the importance of responsibility and even outlines three self-made laws of the economics of energy. Admittedly Williams’ inconsistency in writing is sometimes shaky—it is harder to sink into a piece that chooses not to commit to any tone or mood—but he is nevertheless an earnest and often charismatic writer with enough skill to pull off a book that could have been excruciating. His words are familiar the way an old jazz tune at a coffee store is; you know the basic melody but the vocal riffs and trumpet solo always take you buy surprise.--Michelle Ling, Art Editor

Writer's Bloq

Have you ever felt that, even in this brave new world of online sharing, you are lacking in options for online creative writing communities? Where is the Flickr of poetry? Writer's Bloq seems poised to fill this niche. The Bloq is an online community for MFA and Undergraduate Writing, English, and Comparative Literature students, professors, and alumni to share work, connect with peers, discover new writing, and uncover the literary events. Students, alumni, and professors from top programs such as Austin, Brooklyn, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, New School, Stanford, and Syracuse have already joined in creating a modern platform for writers.Writer’s Bloq is hosting its first event, “Unsolicited: MFA Mingle”, at the Strand on May 3rd. “Unsolicited” will feature the top writers from the site. To learn more about the event, check www.unsolicited.eventbrite.com. Interested in reading at the event, discovering the work of fellow writers, or showcasing your own skills? Join the Bloq today at writersbloq.com. Because writer's block isn't always a bad thing.

Books for People Who Aren't Sure If They Like Books.

Conor Burnett defends literature from its egghead stigma, recommends books that entertain."Odds are, if you're on this blog you like reading and writing a lot. This post is not for you. Though you totally can still read it. Please read it."Odds are, if you're on this blog you like reading and writing a lot. This post is not for you. Though you totally can still read it. Please read it.I read. I read well. But I'm not well-read. I can power through a million books a month, but I still have trouble getting interested in the books that are generally perceived to be important, or intelligent. I read a lot, not to absorb information, or to enlighten myself, or to show off. I read because books are a form of entertainment. And people don't seem to remember that.Books are good. There is nothing wrong with books. But dozens of my friends haven't read a book since high school. Hell, one of my friends hasn't read a book since 9th grade, and he managed to stay in Honors English for the entire rest of high schoolNow, to me, the stigma involved with books stems from the fact that we use them so often in classrooms, and libraries, that they catch a bad reputation by association. People associate books with being forced to sit down, and choke through a terrible one for a class you don't want to be a part of in the first place. Teachers cramming books into your brainhole day in and day out, 6 or 7 periods a day, is draining. What people forget is that being force-fed anything sucks.  Doing something against your will is the absolute worst. Plenty of times I quit things I genuinely liked because my life was over-saturated with it. I used to absolutely love playing basketball. After a year of playing Junior Varsity, on a team that won two games (they were our first two games, we thought we were going to be unbeatable) and for a coach that made us practice every day, even over winter break, I no longer enjoyed basketball. So I joined the school play, because I liked to perform for people too. Except the exact same thing happened: they drilled acting and performing into us literally 7 days a week, and it made me absolutely hate the school plays.Now, with some distance between me and my days as the starting center on an absolutely terrible JV team, I can safely say that once again I enjoy basketball. Mr. Steeves is no longer riding me to get plays right, and to "not to be afraid to use my body when grabbing a board."This is all a huge round about way of saying this: just because we were force-fed books for years, doesn't mean that they're something that we should permanently ditch when we can. Your crappy high school English teacher made you read 5 books a marking period, and set all these crazy deadlines, and assigned unimaginative projects. I swear, I won't do that.The cliche goes that "high school was like a jail." My blog posts are going to be the halfway house between said jail and the Real World. I'm going to suggest books that shoot the gap between entertaining and intelligent. And remain calm: there aren't any dead-lines, you don't have to write a paper, you don't have to do anything other than sit back and read. I don't expect anything out of you, friend. No pressure.Short stories are the perfect starting point for what I am trying to accomplish, here. I'm treating you as a skittish animal. I'm trying to lure you over to my side, and if I make any large sudden movements or chuck "War and Peace" at you, this entire thing will be for naught.That said, the book I suggest you read is CivilWarLand in Bad Decline. Rather than subject you to a long diatribe as to why I think it's brilliant, I'll sum things up fairly quickly. George Saunders wrote a book of short stories. Because George Saunders is good at what he does, this book is simultaneously intelligent, funny, and easy to read. And above all, the stories are entertaining.I didn't hear about this book through a literary magazine, or a book reading, or from an English Professor. I read an interview with Ben Stiller where he talks about how he's been fighting for years to adapt the titular story into a movie. If you can't trust me, trust Ben Stiller. If you can't trust Ben Stiller, may God have mercy on your soul.

Writing prompt!

Let's call this the "dedication" prompt.Write a poem/story that begins with: To the one who...To the one who (brilliance brilliance brilliance)To the one who (youaresuchagoodwriteryouaresuchagoodwriter)etc.Let the anaphora of the phrase take you where you want to go.

Writing prompt

Let's call this the psychoanalytical prompt.Answer these questions:What are you thinking?What are you thinking now?...What are you thinking now? ...continue to answer the question again and again, per stanza or per paragraph. When you're satisfied, go back and take out the questions. Or leave them in. You're a piece of work--and that generates interesting results.

REVIEW: Yoko Ogawa's HOTEL IRIS

At a party about a month ago, I picked up a thin paperback that was sitting on my friend's kitchen table called One Hundred Strokes of the Brush Before Bed. I hadn't heard a thing about it but apparently everybody else had-- the cover claimed it was an international bestseller (translated originally from Italian) with over 1,000,000 copies sold. One Hundred Strokes is an ostensibly autobiographical novella that recounts a Sicilian schoolgirl's sexual exploits over about a year. It isn't really a coming-of-age story-- it's more like borderline soft/hardcore erotica, a strange book about a young girl who discovers her body and "wants to explore its limits," asking for help from a few older men she finds to seduce her on the way. I took it home with me and read it quickly, and it was quite a romp, as far as that kind of stuff goes. I say "romp" because it isn't a story of a sexually-curious girl who gets hurt and learns a lesson at the end after something tragically rape-y happens to her. Melissa P, the novella's protagonist, doesn't really learn many lessons. She is in control the entire time. She learns about her body as she goes along-- she is entirely conscious of what is being done to her and how her body reacts to it. So she's a likable protagonist, because she isn't stupid. Sure she's naive, as most sixteen year old girls are, but she has limits for herself and eventually knows when to hold her hands up and say "no." I wouldn't go as far to say that this book was a good book, because it wasn't. It's a translated text, and the prose just kinda pedals through until it gets you to the end.Similarly, Yoko Ogawa's Hotel Iris also follows a naive protagonist who goes through a journey of sexual enlightenment and awakening -- sort of. The difference between One Hundred Strokes' Melissa P and Hotel Iris's Mari is that while Melissa P falls in love (healthily, almost normally) with the idea of sex, Mari instead falls in love with a fifty eight year old sadist who lives on an island off the coast of her tiny Japanese shore town. He whips her, and binds her, and essentially makes her his slave, and she doesn't think twice-- because she loves him. And so all these things he does to her, she "LIKES IT", or thinks she does- because of how in love with him she is, she doesn't know anything else. Originally written in Japanese, the translated prose of Hotel Iris is really quite beautiful. There are moments in the story during which the writing itself is just as exciting as the suspense you feel during the graphic sex scenes between Mari and her "lover". (There is one chapter in particular in which Mari and the old Russian translator visit a traveling circus that does nothing to advance the plot but is gorgeously descriptive and sad, and may be the literary highlight of the entire book.)My one issue with Iris, though, is Mari herself. The author gives us reason enough to like her-- having grown up beneath her mother's strict grip, it's exciting to watch Mari invent excuses to leave her post at the front desk of her family's run-down motel to go gallivant with the old translator. But this is where Mari's agency stops. In any scene where Mari is with translator, her character draws inward and becomes-- boring, maybe? Although the observations she makes about her lover are certainly perceptive and intriguing (the old man is actually quite a fascinating character in his own rite and not at all entirely despicable), they all come from a place of utter entrancement, pure infatuation. The fact that Mari is so in love with this stranger, the fact that she never once questions her feelings towards him, makes her quite limited as a protagonist. Even during the climax of the story, during which Mari is exposed to a truly humiliating circumstance, her inner thoughts sway only slightly-- she's still so in love with the translator that her thoughts come close to being inconsequential in the context of the events she's experiencing. Mari's lack of any sort of emotional revelation, big or small, made me question how to feel at the end of the book-- is Mari's blamelessness what makes this story tragic? What makes the story good? Or is the ending a sort of triumph for Mari? It's difficult to decide. Which, I suppose, is a good thing.Unlike Hotel Iris, One Hundred Strokes doesn't leave you with much of a feeling at all. Because Melissa is never really hurt, although she is likable, there is no reason to really feel for her. It certainly made me question the thought that a protagonist has to be likable in order for a book to be good. In this case, with these two books, the answer to that was blurred for me. I'm certain I much preferred Hotel Iris to One Hundred Strokes.So:Do not read: One Hundred Strokes of the Brush Before Bed by Melissa PInstead, read: Hotel Iris by Yoko OgawaAlso, while we're on the topic, watch Secretary!Enjoy the snow?CD

Getting to Know the Bounties of the CWP Website

Hello! Long time no blog. I blush. And I digress. So right to business:The NYU Creative Writing Program website is chock full of fun things to listen to when putting off homework/studying. I want to bring two such gems to attention.Did you know that NYU CWP and Slate magazine collaborated to create the Open Book series of videocasts with famous writers? People you admire and envy? Intelligent, intelligent folks? You can now listen to them and SEE them moving and breathing and being alive and successful right in front of your eyes, being interviewed by our own Fearless Leader and Director Deborah Landau, along with Slate's (and now NYU's as well) Meghan O'Rourke. The likes of John Ashbery, Jonathan Safran Foer, and Junot Díaz reside in the link below.Check them out here.And this I did already know about: the CWP has been putting up lovely podcasts of the past couple of semester's reading series. If you missed out on catching your favorite writer visiting NYU--or if you desperately want to remember that astonishing turn of phrase that writer said and you without your writing implement repeated over and over on the walk back home but forgot right at the door--your problems are solved.Check the podcasts out here.Perhaps you have already discovered such corners and gems. Alack (changin' it up). You super sleuth.

The Revolution Was Not Televised

Hello all, hope you are keeping calm, and carrying on, and suchYesterday, an adventurous group of us headed uptown to the Community Church of New York for a special reading/fundraiser by Junot Diaz.  Since, I went with a group I was unaware of the details until we arrived.  I discovered that the event was part of an ongoing effort to save Revolution Books from closing.  It took me a while to recover from the shock that a store with decidedly leftist views was holding a fundraiser in a church.  But it certainly provided more space than a bookstore would have and Diaz really did inspire us from the pulpit like a priest would his congregation.Diaz is a great writer, but I've discovered the real fun in going to see him read is in the long Q+A's where he mixes hilarious anecdotes with highbrow descriptions of his process.  One minute he can be cracking jokes about a rich, but stingy friend who wanted to be comped a ticket...to a fundraiser, and the next he can drop pure wisdom: "isn't it the goal of all writing to make the language new again?  We want the reader to suddenly realize the strangeness of something they experience everyday."    The actual reading was brief--an older short story and then a new piece that he described as "absolutely terrible."  (Even though it was great writing by most standards, it was fascinating when Diaz articulated how he needed to fix it.) It was a true move of solidarity with the writers in the crowd who, as he aptly put it, "suffer through the pain of early drafts."Diaz also stressed the importance of Revolution Books as an independent bookstore, rather than as a political entity, and I agree.  I feel it would be a great loss if it were to close.  No matter your political views, the truth is independent bookstores are a precious resource.  While the call for money was a little heavy-handed throughout the night, it was easy to look past it and recognize the reading for what it was: an illuminating "Evening with Junot Diaz"Now peeps, one final thing.  Your assignment, should you choose to accept, is to write a love poem/story! Or better yet, an anti-love poem/story!

A Jagged, Gorgeous, Winter Day

...Nights filled with longer hours, HEY Happy Snow Day Y'all!Hope you are all having a great first week back.  While break was very relaxing, I'm definitely excited to be back in the bustle of the city.  Plus, now that I'm forced to walk everywhere, I can burn off all those holiday calories.  Question for the universe: can someone build a treadmill with a built in Kindle?  Or better yet, bookholder with automatic page-turner? Get back to me whenever.  My reading list over break was small, but considering their scope, I think, West Tenthers, you will forgive my lack of ambition.  I finished Freedom by Jonathan Franzen and White Teeth by Zadie Smith.  Though they were written a decade apart, with very different settings, I was struck by how similar these books were at the core.  They both observe the effects of modern society across generations by focusing closely on very dysfunctional (read: realistic) families.  What is the dark side of our cherished Western freedoms?  Can love survive despite sex/infidelity, difference of culture, and good ol' fate?  These are the types of heavy questions I contended with, but, after all, the heavy novels are the most satisfying kind, in a way.  And the two authors wrap their piercing observation in such humorous situations that you don't even recognize their full implications until you're forced (reluctantly in my case) to put them down.      One unfortunate consequence of this otherwise glorious snow day is that tonight's reading at the Writer's House with Michael Cunningham was canceled.  Although I had prior commitments, I would have highly recommended it.  In lieu of the real deal, we can use our free time today to get started on his celebrated works The Hours, A Home at the End of the World, or his newest By Nightfall.  And, if you're already worn out by your school reading, the movie versions aren't too shabby either.  The Reading Series this spring doesn't have as many, for lack of better term, star authors as in the fall, but I'm grateful that more time and  opportunity will be given to lesser-knowns.  Some readings at NYU that I will definitely be looking forward to this semester are ones by Matthew Rohrer, Nick Flynn, and Colson Whitehead.Stay warm chicos! Hot Cocoa and a good book are the doctor's orders... 

Defining Your World

Hello all!Welcome back to the real world (insert hard stare). The gloves come off!But do keep all gloves and mittens on because it was 6 degrees today and no one wants any fingers to fall off. You need them to write! And what good writing weather it is. Because you can’t go outside.During the last few days of freedom before the spring term began, I spent my time immersed in book called ROOM by Emma Donoghue, daughter of NYU’s esteemed Henry James Professor of English and American Letters, Professor Denis Donoghue.The book has been nominated for many prizes and has been on many best-seller lists since September 2010, when it was published. It is an utterly absorbing story told from the point of view of 5-year-old Jack. Jack is kind of amazing. And so is his story: he is the child of a woman who was kidnapped seven years before the novel begins. The novel takes place in the 11-by-11-foot room he and his mother have been trapped and living in.ROOM is by turns a thrilling escape story, a hilarious and frightening explorer’s tale, part literary horror film (horror…novel?), and the heartbreaking and heart-strengthening chronicles of a boy and his mother. The mother-son relationship is the life-blood of the book and if you were a child or have a parent (YES I MEAN EVERYONE YES THANK YOU) you should read ROOM. You won't put it down until you've finished it. Guaranteed.But besides giving a quasi-review of the book (OK a full-blown, passionate argument on its behalf)—I meant to post a writing exercise. In ROOM, Jack speaks of the objects surrounding him as if they were Close Friends. A rug is not just a thing on the floor. For Jack, it is Rug, a good friend and confidant who is there to be played with. So too with Table, and with Plant. He does this because his world is 11-by-11 feet wide. Your world is not this size, but try to scale everything down. This is an exercise in description.So: Try writing about an object like Jack might. You don’t have to write what it is, but try to write from a perspective that incorporates more than an object’s physical appearance—write in a way that informs what that object DOES to your world, how you interact with it. What does Lamp (that weird little lamp in your bedroom that your mom got you from an antique store when you were really young and didn’t care about presents that weren’t stuffed animals, that one with the peeling lace around the shade) mean to you? What light might this throw on the way you look at your surroundings? 

Gilded Ink Writing Contest

To all you fiction writers: want to enter a short-story contest judged by acclaimed author David Rakoff? Here's your chance!The College Group at the Met and Selected Shorts, a short story performance series at Symphony Space and on public radio around the country, co- present another student writing contest.  Students are asked to write 500 words or less about a “private paradise,” in celebration of the upcoming exhibition, The Emperor’s Private Paradise: Treasures from the Forbidden City, opening on February 1, 2011.  Four winning entries, selected by the CGM committee, Symphony Space, and special guest judge David Rakoff (author of  Half Empty and  Don’t Get Too Comfortable and frequent contributor to NPR’s This American Life), will be read aloud at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on Friday, February 4, 2011, recorded, and possibly aired later on Public Radio International.  The special event will be hosted by David Rakoff.Download the submission form here and start writing! GildedInk

Ten Minutes to Submit to West 10th Print Journal

It's Monday, what are you doing? Sitting in your jammies trolling the webs, procrastinating writing your term papers? Me too.But here's a more productive way to procrastinate: submit your prose or poetry to West 10th Journal! The deadline is today, Decemeber 6th, but with ten more minutes left in the day, it's not yet too late.Maybe you're computer is stuffed with short stories you've penned, but have been too nervous to show to anyone, or maybe you have the uncanny ability to write a haiku in seconds. Or maybe, you're so excellent at procrastinating that you've developed the ability to speed-write. Whatever the case, you've got nothing to lose.Plus there's a prize!Editors select one fiction and one poetry piece as "The Best" and the authors get $200, eternal bragging rights, something to put on their resumés, and to read they're stories at the West 10th launch party where Darin Strauss will probably shake your hand and then you'll feel pretty cool.So get your submission form here. And START WRITING!

Favorite Titles

Hello everyone! Now that we've had the first official flurry-sighting of the season, it's time to break out those down coats, drink warm things like soup (soup! Does anyone else miss soup like I miss soup in warm weather?) and hug your friends. Just go hug them.But onwards to the point of this post: I wanted to open up the stage for anyone to share their favorite TITLES of books. This way, if anything strikes your eye you can check it out and possibly request it or give it as a gift this holiday season. Writing a novel or collection of poetry--PAH! (That was the sound of air quickly exiting my mouth in a smug sort of way). Easy.We all know that the hard part of writing really comes down to creating The Title. The Epic Thing that Will Catch Your Audience's Eye and Not Let Them Leave The Book's Presence.Here are a few of my all-time favorites....Of Poetry:Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form - Matthea Harvey. Also the title of one of her poems.Lunch Poems - Frank O'Hara. Just read the inscription on the back of book: "Often this poet, strolling through the noisy splintered glare of a Manhattan noon, has paused at a sample Olivetti to type up thirty or forty lines of ruminations, or pondering more deeply has withdrawn to a dark ware- or firehouse to limn his computed misunderstandings of the eternal questions of life, co-existence and depth, while never forgetting to eat Lunch his favorite meal..." GLORIOUS.Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada - Pablo Neruda. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair.Of, erm, Everything Else:A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggers.Another Bullshit Night in Suck City - Nick Flynn. (Also a poet!)The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down - Anne Fadiman....What about you?

Thanks for the Ideas, Amazon

All of us have been afflicted with writers block at one time or another. It sucks. Weeks of over-caffeination mixed with imaginational stagnation leads to a downward spiral of keyboard smashing and moleskine burning. However, you don't have too look far for inspiration. Actually, your friendly corporation down the block has some wonderful ideas for characters, just in case you need some help. People say literature is dead, but I think we can bring it back to life with the following character sketches of the modern consumer.I ran across these archetype personalities while perusing Amazon on Black Friday. They're meant for shoppers who are having a hard time trying to find gifts for beloved ones. Said shopper is supposed to label their potential recipient as one of Amazon's helpfully re-invented American demographic categories. Then, Amazon will tell our intrepid yet uninventive shopper what that "character" wants. This prefabrication of character and desire provides great fodder for short stories. Wink wink.Take a gander at the cast of the next great American novel (descriptions are taken directly from Amazon.com):1. The College Student - When newly fledged adults leave the nest and head to the dorms, there's a lot they need to get their lives off the ground: home basics, college survival guides, and, of course, a few toys to make the flight enjoyable. (One of their suggestions is to buy your college bound kid a Guinness Book of World Records. Yes, I haven't touched one of those since fourth grade [Pamela Anderson: most downloaded female <you know what I'm talking about.>])2. The Dude - You know the one: the beer-drinker who would rather change his oil than escort a chick to the ballet. Here's a heap of gift ideas for the guy's guy: action movies, gourmet meats, gadgets, and more. (mmm MEAT)3. The Glamour Girl - Now this is a girl who knows what she wants. Lucky for you, we know what she wants too. Impress her with your up-to-the-minute taste by selecting one of these triple-t hottt gift ideas. Cool by-product: you're awarded instant fashion cred! (Be sure to buy at least two sizes too small to reinforce heroine chic! Ha! Ha!)4. The Geek - To be a geek is now très chic. Gone are the days of pocket protectors (who needs a pen when they have a PDA?) and horn-rimmed glasses. High-tech brainiacs now rule the world--and we've got some gifts to keep them entertained in their downtime. (I like how this implies Geeks must be entertained when they're not working on something... perhaps they turn violent if their geekery is not properly channeled.)5. The Grandpa - Whether your granddad's a wise old soul or a wiseacre, we've got plenty of gift suggestions to bring a smile to his face. (He can whittle away his last days playing with a new bathrobe or staring uncomprehendingly at a brand new genealogy software pack.)Whatever, you get the point. Write a story about a computer wise grandpa with a geeky wife and a community college bound, 45 year old son. The son goes to college and meets the Dude, who seduces him with gourmet meats. Meanwhile, the Geeky Grandma gets so bored with herself that she makes a uranium enrichment centrifuge in their basement with the help of a glamourous slave-girl. There, writers block broken!

You and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

We all have bad days: they can ruin our mood for a couple of minutes, for hours, for the entire day, or even longer. Some bad days are worse than others. So, choose the worst day you've had recently (go back a couple of days if you have to. If you're one of those lucky people bad luck can't seem to find, then go back even further.) Try writing a poem or a short paragraph of that day. However, don't write a point by point of everything that happened as if it was a report. Instead write an exaggeration of everything bad that could have happened to you. For example, instead of loosing your keys you could have left your cell on the bus and realized it when you got off. You start chasing the bus, only to slip on a puddle in front of a large crowd. So, the poem or paragraph (more if you want) should be something like "this is what happened but my day could have been so much worse". It'll make you laugh and get over your bad day... hopefully. If not, try some chocolates.