06-27-09: A Podcast Frankenstein : Pat Murphy Reads "Clap If You Believe" in 2008 and 2009
It didn't occur to me until this moment that I'd performed by own Frankensteinian construction in the world of audio. Let me first state that hearing Pat Murphy read is always a pleasure even if she hasn’t got an entire story for you. The readings at SF in SF are live events, and must be viewed in that context. But when she told us last Saturday that she was reading the end of a story he had begun last year, I began to wonder.
It struck me as Murphy read the end of the story now with the working title "Clap if You Believe," that I might have the beginning still available for a bit of cut-and-paste. Fortunately, I have a disk-mirroring system so that when these tings fail, I don’t lose everything. And I structure my archives in a manner in which at least I can find old stuff pretty easily. The upshot is that I was able to Frankenstein the reading of the first half of the story, from 2008 with the reading of the second half of the story, from 2009. The audio quality is pretty much the same, so now for your uninterrupted listening pleasure, I present "Clap if You Believe," the complete story, via this link to the MP3 audio file.
06-26-09: Michaela Roessner Reads at SF in SF : Fish Story
I'd never read Michaela Roessner before hearing her at SF in SF on Saturday, June 20, but that's a date that's going to stick in my memory. Her story, 'Fish Story' told in the second person is truly a command performance that will change forever the way you look at fish — and religion.
Short story writing can seem on the face of it, pretty similar to novel writing. But then something like this story comes along, knocks your socks off, and makes you realize that short form is capable of power that you just can't achieve in the long form. I can't say anything else about this story beyond this: click the link and listen.
06-25-09: Pat Murphy Reads at SF in SF : "Clap If You Believe"
I had a blast at the Brazen Hussies SF in SF show. Everything was superb. And happily, Pat Murphy returned, one day less than a precise year after her reading last year, to read the second half of the story she started then, "Clap If You Believe."
So here's the deal. Today, I'm podcasting Pat Murphy's reading from June 20, 2009. It's the second half of "Clap If You Believe," which was untitled when she read the first half back on June 21, 2008. In this reading, she offers a very effective summary of the first part of the story, so if you missed the first part or heard it and need a recap, you've got, along with the rest of this funny and moving work, at this link to the MP3 audio file.
06-23-09: Agony Column Podcast News Report: Lisa Goldstein Reads at SF in SF : A Family
Saturday — June 20, 2009 — at SF in SF, the Variety Children's Charity and Tachyon Publications played host to the Brazen Hussies that's Lisa Goldstein, Pat Murphy and Michael Roessner. I'll have a lot more to report on all of this, but we're going to start with the beginning, in this case, Lisa Goldstein.
As usual, each writer read, in this case for about 20 minutes (since there were three writers). Lisa Goldstein started off with a reading from an as-yet unpublished novel, which, one hopes, her publishers will hurry and bring to us as soon as she turns it in. In the interim, you can hear her read from this linked MP3 audio file.
Amy Stewart
06-22-09: A 2009 Interview with Amy Stewart : "A very poisonous plant, and that is not to say that you should not grow it in your yard"
Amy Stewart has a poison garden. This is the first thing you need to know about her. The next thing you need to know is that she is a storyteller. So when you pick up 'Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and other Botanical Atrocities,' bet that you’re getting more than a guide to knocking off the neighbors.
I sat down with Am Stewart in my personal bookstore studio, the office at Capitola Book Café to talk about her gripping volume of gruesome plants. I must admit that it takes a few moments to reconcile her sunny personality and her obvious enthusiasm for her subject with her subject itself. You'd be surprised at how inviting she can make the Suicide Tree sound, for example. It' a native of Kerala, where the alien red rain fell last year, and one might well wonder if this tree's origin are not of this earth. It’s certainly friendly only to those who hope to hasten their own or anther's departure from this veil of tears.
Stewsrt and I talked about her resesarch for the book, and the unique format for the book, as well as the outstanding art, done, as she tells us, with a 300 year-old method of copper engraving. For the picture of the nettle pant alone, this book rates buying. But frankly, it's the quality of the stories and the prose that makes this book one worth setting out where others can find it. Stewart doesn't just dish up facts about plants, she finds the people and stories behind the plants she covers. You can hear her dish the dirt, so to speak, on the oh-so-green killers with whom we share the planet by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
New to the Agony Column
03-19-10: Commentary : Adam Nevill Inherits 'Apartment 16' : Home is Where the Hell Is
03-18-10: Commentary : Stephen Kessler Follows 'The Mental Traveler' : Bad Trips and Good Reading
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview with Alta Ifland and Stephen Kessler : "I had to do it; it was a way of both coming to terms with the experience, of documenting the experience, of commemorating it..."
03-17-10: Commentary : Ted Chiang Charts 'The Lifecycle of Software Objects' : Joshua Blue, Digital Chimps and Lives in Flux
03-15-10: Commentary : Elif Shafak Reveals 'The Forty Rules of Love' : Intimacy and Centuries
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview with Elif Shafak : "I know that culture that exists in my country, that is carried on by women, generations of women."
03-12-10: Commentary : Karl Marlantes Scales the 'Matterhorn' : World-Building in the Past
03-09-10: Commentary : Paul McHugh Meets 'Deadlines' : Murdering the California Coast
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview with Paul McHugh : "..the strengths of good writing go all the way, across all the genres..."
03-08-10: Commentary : Joe Hill Grows 'Horns' : Devil and Detail
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview with Joe Hill : "Eventually, the wicked and the unworthy will get their just desserts on the business end of the Devil's pitchfork."
03-05-10: Commentary : Henry Porter Calls 'The Bell Ringers' : It Takes The Village
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Four Books With Alan Cheuse : Thrillers! : Henry Porter, The Bell Ringers; Keith Thomson, Once a Spy; Jo Nesbo, The Devil's Star; Hennig Mankel, The Man From Beijing
03-04-10: Commentary : Jo NesbØ Earns 'The Devil's Star' : Rewind
03-01-10: Commentary : Adam Haslett Invests With 'Union Atlantic' : Abstract Power Abstracts Absolutely
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview With Adam Haslett : "With her, and with each character, how does the rhythm create a kind of musical argument?"
02-26-10: Commentary : Dan Simmons Heads for the 'Black Hills' : Unstuck in Life
02-23-10: Commentary : Adam Haslett Knows 'You Are No Stranger Here' : Stories from Strangers' Shoes
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Jedediah Berry Interviewed at SF in SF, February 13, 2010 : "...being at Small Beer has actually introduced whole worlds to me ..."
02-22-10: Commentary : Graeme Gibson's 'The Bedside Book of Birds' and 'The Bedside Book of Beasts' : A Feast for Your Mind, Your Eyes and Your Mind's Eye
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2009 Interview with Graeme Gibson : "Our common humanity, our common culture, will help make the connections."
02-19-10: Commentary : Ralph Waldo Ellison 'Three Days Before the Shooting ...' : One Book, Many Stories
Agony Column Podcast News Report : John Callahan and Adam Bradley and 'Three Days before the Shooting' : "I've moved through the phases of my own life, and I find those phases mirrored in the characters of this novel." — John Callahan "...capable of brilliance, eloquence and power; that's how I understand the second novel, as we see it in Three Days Before the Shooting, and that's certainly how I understand, and I think how Ellison understood, America." — Adam Bradley
02-18-10: Commentary : George Mann Scares Up 'The Ghosts of Manhattan' : Hard Core Pulp Action
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Speaking Frankly With Thomas Frank : From Tea to Shining Tea : "When I think about what I'm saying, it's so depressing..."
02-17-10: Commentary : Thomas More, Clarence Miller and 'Utopia' : Politics, Satire, Fantasy
02-15-10: Commentary : 'Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded' by John Scalzi : A Decade of Whatever
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview with Chitra Bannerjee Divakaruni : "I have to work through the novel and then it comes to me, how it's going to end."
02-12-10: Commentary : Stephanie Merritt Becomes S. J. Parris : 'Heresy'
02-11-10: Commentary : Max Watman 'Chasing the White Dog' : Home-Made Hooch and Rebellion
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview With Sam Farr : : "The money came from Washington, but the uses for that money came from the local community."
02-10-10: Commentary : Anne Lamott Spots 'Imperfect Birds' : The Ties That Unbind
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Speaking Frankly: Thomas Frank on Re-Populism and Re-Launching The Baffler : "I have never seen 'populist backlash in a headline before."
02-09-10: Commentary : Douglas Clegg Returns to 'Neverland' : Is 1980's Horror Returning from the Grave?
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2009 Interview with David Drake, Part 2 / Complete : "I didn't have governor ... that is ... anything, endgame, was me killing somebody.""
02-08-10: Commentary : David Louis Edelman Completes Jump 225 : 'Geosynchron'
