Category Archives: Literature

Books: Digital or Print?

Posted on February 20, 2013 by writedrunkandeditsober

One summer back in the third grade, when I was, if possible, nerdier than I am today, I created a book fort in the back corner of my closet. I pinned postcards to the walls with blue pieces of sticky tack, hammered a green blanket over my head as a tent, and stacked all of […] Continue reading →

Posted in digital, e-readers, green innovation, kindle, Life, Literature, print, sustainability, sustainable reading, writing | Comments Off

Time to Change the Road We’re On

Posted on January 29, 2013 by writedrunkandeditsober

Hey there literature lovers, it’s been awhile. Let’s just say the obvious: it’s my fault, not yours. I haven’t kept up with you as a good friend should, and all I can offer you are my few feeble excuses. I blame my blogging truancy on the combined forces of post-finals burnout and a holiday-treat-induced torpor, […] Continue reading →

Posted in bill mckibben, climate change, environmental crisis, Literature, writing | Comments Off

Bibliopocalypse Bullshit

Posted on December 6, 2012 by writedrunkandeditsober

If you’re a literature lover, you’ve probably grown weary of false prophets proclaiming The End of the Book. It’s easy to shake your head and smirk at the world’s December 21st doomsday preoccupations, but rumors of the publishing apocalypse have bombarded the literary world for a long time now, and such discussions still make us […] Continue reading →

Posted in apocalypse, Authors, books, death of the book, Esquire, Life, Literature, National Endowment for the Arts, Stephen Marche, writing | Comments Off

The Reluctant Read

Posted on November 28, 2012 by writedrunkandeditsober

Have you ever read a book you were certain you would despise? Someone forced it on you, for one reason or another—class or a kindly but pushy relative—and every ounce of you resisted. You took the loathsome lump of a novel in your hands and a frown unfolded from every crook in your body. Your […] Continue reading →

Posted in Authors, books, Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, Life, Literature, Maile Meloy, Montana, New Yorker, Read Drunk; Analyze Sober, reading, Richard Ford | Comments Off

Write High and Edit Sober

Posted on November 14, 2012 by writedrunkandeditsober

Hey there literature lovers,
Guess what? Last week Colorado and Washington legalized recreational marijuana use. I bet you knew that already.
Whether you agree with the new laws or not, the precedent of substance-inspired prose was set a long, long ti… Continue reading →

Posted in Authors, denis johnson, drugs, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, fiction, Hunter S. Thompson, jesus' son, Life, Literature, marijuana, writing | Comments Off

The Case for Lilac Prose

Posted on October 17, 2012 by writedrunkandeditsober

Dear literature lovers, have you grown sick of simple sentences? Deadened to the doldrums of dry, dusty prose? Benumbed by the banal? You’re not alone. I, and at least one other guy, agree with you. And after all, don’t we have a right to be upset? These days American literature has taken on the drab […] Continue reading →

Posted in american prose, Authors, Ben Masters, Bruno Schulz, Literature, maximalism, New York Times, prose, Saul Bellow, Street of Crocodiles, Vladimir Nabokov, writing | Comments Off

The Power of Imagination Against Oppression

Posted on October 10, 2012 by writedrunkandeditsober

Why do we read literature? No, really, why? Good literature goes beyond entertainment—it reaches down into the core of us and jerks us back into the heart of the world, into the heart of humanity, into the whirling depths of the human soul. That is what we need to remember. Azar Nafisi, author of Reading […] Continue reading →

Posted in Authors, Azar Nafisi, books, C.S. Lewis, empathy, imagination, Iran, Life, Literature, Reading Lolita in Tehran, Short story, story | Comments Off

Read “Birnam Wood” by T. Coraghessan Boyle

Posted on September 21, 2012 by writedrunkandeditsober

My aunt learned to read tarot cards in college as a party trick. Now, every New Years when she comes to visit, she’ll pull out her stack of cards from their purple velvet pouch, shuffle them between her long-nailed hands, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Authors, Birnam Wood, Literature, Macbeth, New Yorker, Read Drunk; Analyze Sober, reading, story, T. Coraghessan Boyle, tarot cards, writing | Comments Off

Read Drunk; Analyze Sober

Posted on September 12, 2012 by writedrunkandeditsober

It’s time to declare the new age of the short story. It’s time to laud the concise. It’s time to realize that in this day and age of blogs and online journals and YouTube videos, print media—books and newspapers, especially—are … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Amazon Kindle, Black Box, Canada, Jennifer Egan, Literature, New York Times, New Yorker, reviews, Richard Ford, Short story, Twitter, writing | Comments Off

On Writing Bad Fiction

Posted on July 11, 2012 by writedrunkandeditsober

I just wrote a bad story. A 26-page disaster of a story, to be specific. Now that I’ve come to the end of it, now that it’s all been punched out—I’ve come to realize that the whole thing is one … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in 10 000 hours, Authors, fiction, Life, Literature, Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers, practice, story, writing | Comments Off

The Good Life, Whatever It Is and Wherever It Happens to Be

Posted on July 10, 2012 by writedrunkandeditsober

“Let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism, to rain on the roof and instant coffee, to unemployment insurance and library cards, to absinthe and good-hearted landlords, to music and warm bodies and contraceptives… and to the ‘good life’, whatever … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Authors, ernest hemingway, Florida, Hunter S. Thompson, Key West, Life, Literature, Miami Beach, Pub crawl, Quotes, travel, vacation | Comments Off

I Sent Out 126 Rejection Letters Today

Posted on July 3, 2012 by writedrunkandeditsober

Believe me, it wasn’t easy. I plowed through only one-and-a-half of three stacks of submissions, logging out short stories, essays, and poetry. As I worked, I read through cover letters, paged through submissions,and scanned through the editors’ comments, thinking: dang, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Life, Literature, publishing, rejection letters, submissions, Writer, writing | Comments Off

Hunter S. Thompson, American Legend

Posted on June 27, 2012 by writedrunkandeditsober

Last weekend while I was in Austin, I met Alan Rinzler, the man who published and worked with Hunter S. Thompson, Toni Morrison, Tom Robbins, and Bob Dylan, among others. He told me that Hunter S. Thompson was a crazy … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Posted in Alan Rinzler, Authors, books, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Great Gatsby, Hunter S. Thompson, infinite possibility, Letterman, Literature, writing | Comments Off