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
09-01-10: Commentary : Tim Pratt Finds 'Sympathy for the Devil' : "...Hell for the company..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview with Dan Basta at the Blue Ocean Film Festival : "Experiential learning is the way we learn best."
08-31-10: Commentary : Peter S. Beagle Reveals 'The Secret History of Fantasy' : : Telling Lies for a Living
08-30-10: Commentary : David Doubilet Captures 'Water Time Light' : Painting with Pixels
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview With David Doubilet and Jennifer Hayes : "Everything people have always feared about photography comes true underwater."
08-25-10: Commentary : Vendela Vida 'The Lovers' : Reading and Revelation
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A Live Reading and Interview with Vendela Vida At Bookshop Santa Cruz : "...there was an owl that came into this place we were renting one day..."
08-24-10: Commentary : Jeff VanderMeer and 'The Third Bear' : Absurd Is as Absurd Does
08-20-10: Commentary : Joe R. Lansdale Takes 'Deadman's Road' : Deader Than Thou
Agony Column Podcast News Report : On the Phone with Vendela Vida : "You do all this background information, most of which never makes it into the book."
08-19-10: Commentary : Gary Shteyngart Tells a 'Super Sad True Love Story' : Retro-Prescience
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Gary Shteyngart Live Reading and Interview at Bookshop Santa Cruz : "...please like me, this will make up for Hebrew school if all of you like me.."
08-18-10: Commentary : Mark Pilkington Unleashes Weapons of Mass Deception : "ECM+CIA=UFO"
Agony Column Podcast News Report : David Corbett and Barry Eisler for The Agony Column Live at Capitola Book Café, August 7, 2010 Q and A : "This is NewSpeak."
08-16-10: Commentary : Howard Norman Asks 'What is Left the Daughter' : The Past Always Rises
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview with Howard Norman : "I'd wanted to write from the beginning an epistolary novel; this is just an epistolary novel that's consisting of one letter."
08-12-10: Commentary : James O'Neal Copies 'The Double Human' : Proceeding into the Future
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Barry Eisler and David Corbett Live at Capitola Book Café on August 7, 2010 : "If anyone thinks it's absurd that the government might assassinate the founder of WikiLeaks, it's quite a bit less absurd than I wish it were".... — Barry Eisler
08-11-10: Commentary : Joe R. Lansdale Takes Huck Finn to 'Dread Island' : "Classics Mutilated"
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Barry Eisler Reads at The Agony Column Live on August 7, 2010 : "...they'll pick up that angle and run interference for us..."
08-10-10: Commentary : David Corbett Asks 'Do They Know I'm Running?' : Crossing Borders
Agony Column Podcast News Report : David Corbett Reads at The Agony Column Live on August 7, 2010 : "These Families are making incredible sacrifices..."
08-09-10: Commentary : David Mitchell and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet : The World is Ever the World
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2010 Interview with David Mitchell : "The periodic table of the human heart is still the same now as it was then."
08-06-10: Commentary : Tim Powers Sails 'On Stranger Tides' : History, Fantasy and the Reality of Reading
08-03-10: Commentary : Robert M. Price Spins 'The Tindalos Cycle' : Terrorize, Horrify, Repeat
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A Short Chat with Gary Shteyngart : "...the technology is outpacing our ability to absorb what it is doing to us..."
08-02-10: Commentary : A Second Tour Through 'The Passage' : Sending Characters into Time
07-30-10: Commentary : Subterranean Press and Robert R. McCammon Wake at 'The Wolf's Hour' : The Time Before Cheese
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Three Books with Alan Cheuse : Allegra Goodman, 'The Cookbook Collector,' Noam Shpancer's 'The Good Psychologist' and Elie Wiesel 'The Sonderberg Case'
07-28-10: Commentary : Rule Britannia, In Space 2 : En Route, RJ Frith and Peter F. Hamilton
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Brian and Wendy Froud at SF in SF on Monday, July 19, 2010: Q & A : "The people you deal with at the publishers ... if they last the end of the week, you're lucky."
07-27-10: Commentary : Rule Britannia, In Space : UK Space Opera Demonstrates Excess is Not Enough (Part one, the Arrived)
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Brian and Wendy Froud at SF in SF on Monday, July 19, 2010 : "Well, I thought if I do faeries then nobody's going to say that I've got it wrong."
07-26-10: Commentary : Brian and Wendy Froud Seek 'The Heart of Faerie Oracle' : Cards, Books and a New Perspective
