29.12.10

Anne Germanacos

Born in San Francisco, Anne Germanacos has lived in Greece for thirty-five years. Her work has been published in over sixty literary journals. Her first book, a collection of short stories, was published by BOA Editions in October 2010. For more info: www.annegermanacos.com.


what are you reading now

The Penguin Freud Reader
Mercier, Night Train to Lisbon
Judt, The Memory Chalet
Smith, Just Kids

An enticing combination!


classic you’ve been meaning to read

Tristes Tropiques


last book you finished in a single sitting

Malouf's Ransom


book you borrowed and never returned (not really, but it could have been)

Markson's Wittgenstein's Mistress


if you could write yourself into any short story

something by Amy Bloom (she’s kind and generous to her characters)


most scribble-ridden book in your collection

Calasso's The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony


book you’ve planted on a coffee table to impress someone (and to look at—it’s gorgeous and fascinating!)

Abstract Comics by Andre Molotiu


if you could subscribe to only one literary journal

AGNI for the beautiful covers as well as what's between them.


most anticipated upcoming release

Under the Sun: The Letter of Bruce Chatwin


recommended reading list:


Books for a Self-Critical Jew

- I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti

- The Accidental Empire by Gershom Gorenberg

- Sleeping on a Wire and The Yellow Wind by David Grossman

- Dancing Arabs and Let It Be Morning by Sayed Kashua

- The Iron Cage by Rashid Khalidi

- Palestine Inside Out by Saree Makdisi

- Once Upon a Country by Sari Nusseibeh

- A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz

- The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe

- Palestine by Joe Sacco

- Palestinian Walks and Strangers in the House by Raja Shehadeh

- The Iron Wall by Avi Shlaim

- Khirbet Khizeh by S. Yizhar

8.12.10

Paula Bomer

Paula Bomer is the author of Baby and Other Stories (Word Riot Press, December 2010) and the co-publisher at Artistically Declined Press, where she also serves as the supervising editor at Sententia, a Literary Journal. Find out more about her and her work at www.paulabomer.com.


what are you reading now

I'm reading The Easy Way to Stop Smoking by Allen Carr.


classic you’ve been meaning to read

Middlemarch by George Eliot and Moby Dick by Herman Melville


last book you finished in a single sitting

He is Talking to the Fat Lady, a chapbook by xTx . Prior to that, I was reading the excellent Bad Marie by Marcy Dermansky. I didn't read it in one sitting, but I read it quite quickly.


book you borrowed and never returned

I can't remember - this may have happened when I was younger. I no longer borrow books, although I give away, rather than lend, many books. I will say the last book someone didn't return to me that I really cared about was a signed copy of a first edition of White Jazz by James Ellroy. I'm still mad at the man who didn't return it. This happened 15 years ago.


favorite book from childhood

Hmm. So many! I think Pickles the Firecat meant so much to me. I was a cat fanatic (still am) and he was so misunderstood because he was in the wrong place. And when he found the right place to be, and the right thing to do - be a firecat - he became happy. It made me think that I too could find the right place to be and do, and that I too could stop being so misunderstood. When my oldest boy was little, I tried reading him The Giving Tree and I started to weep so badly I couldn't finish reading it. I'm never picking that one up again. I think I'd die from grief.


strangest dream involving a book, writer, or literary character

Hm. Nothing is coming to me. Sorry. I do often have sexual dreams about professional tennis players that I've written about at my tennis blog, Must Watch Tennis All The Time.


book you’ve planted on a coffee table to impress someone

Again, I can't think of anything, really. I do try to hide some books from my religious cleaning lady, like Fuck You Too by Glen E. Friedman and Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain.


if you could subscribe to only one literary journal

The Paris Review. I guess. I buy lots and lots of journal. All sorts.


best thing you’ve read online recently

Roxane Gay's blog comes to mind. I love reading her blog and anything else by her. But there are so many good things online. The essay "The Love of My Life" by Cheryl Strayed is available online. It really really stays with you. It's unbelievable. I read Storyglossia, Night Train, Pank, Dogzplot. Some writers I discovered online are Elizabeth Ellen, Scott Wrobel, Kevin Wilson, T.J. Forrester, Barry Graham... anyway, I could go on here forever.


most anticipated upcoming release

PJ Harvey's new record. Also, at the small press I run with Ryan W. Bradley, we are releasing the novel You Can Make Him Like You by Ben Tanzer and Ayiti, a collection, by Roxane Gay. I'm super thrilled to be publishing these two books.


recommended reading list:


Books with Suicide and/or Mental Breakdowns


- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

- Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

- The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

- The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene

- Darkness Visible by William Styron

- The Awakening by Kate Chopin

- Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

- Last Things by Jenny Offill

- The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

- A Sorrow Beyond Dreams by Peter Handke

- The Eden Express by Mark Vonnegut

- Disturbing the Peace by Richard Yates

2.12.10

Matthew Salesses

Matthew Salesses is the author of a forthcoming novella, The Last Repatriate (Flatmancrooked), and two chapbooks, Our Island of Epidemics (PANK, 2010) and We Will Take What We Can Get (Publishing Genius, 2009). His short fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train, Witness, American Short Fiction, The Literary Review, and others. He writes and edits for The Good Men Project Magazine.


what are you reading now

Korean myths, legends, and folklore, and Great House, by Nicole Krauss.


classic you’ve been meaning to read

I've been meaning to finish War and Peace for ages now. I am on Book Fifteen, which is the last book before the epilogues, but have been on Book Fifteen for a couple of years. I don't know why I don't finish it. I loved what I read. Maybe this will make me.


last book you finished in a single sitting

Bad Marie, by Marcy Dermansky


book you borrowed and never returned

Usually this happens to me.


most scribble-ridden book in your collection

I hate writing in books. I hate cracking the spine. I will only occasionally allow myself to dog-ear a page.


strangest dream involving a book, writer, or literary character

I'm not sure I've ever had one, not counting writers I know.


book you’ve planted on a coffee table to impress someone

The Blue Fairy Book


if you could subscribe to only one literary journal

I tried for a while to answer this, but there are too many.


best thing you’ve read online recently

The first that came into my head was Edan Lepucki's story, "Salt Lick," in Flatmancrooked.


most anticipated upcoming release

Alex Chee's The Queen of the Night


recommended reading list:


5 Recent Books with Good Long Titles


- Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It by Maile Meloy

- Sometimes We're Always Real Same-Same by Mattox Roesch

- What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us by Laura van den Berg

- St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell

- All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost by Lan Samantha Chang

Unfortunately, this is off the top of my head, and I have a bad memory. I'm sure there are more.