Paige Williams’ “Radiohead-style” Journalism
When writer Paige Williams wrote a feature on Dolly Freed, author of the cult classic Possum Living: How to Live Well Without a Job and With (almost) No Money, she agreed (as we did when she agreed to let us re-issue the book) not to reveal the writer’s real name. In the book, Dolly encourages [...]
Tin House Writer’s Series
That writer in your life doesn’t need another Moleskin notebook . . . you got her one last year and she’ll be getting two more in her stocking. Not to worry, Tin House has put together a handsome collection of books for people just like her. With instruction on craft and insight into the lives [...]
Tin House (E) Books
While we’re still getting comfortable with the technology ourselves, Tin House is beginning to roll out our list on various E-Book devices. Most of our forthcoming titles will be available the same time that physical books hit the shelves, and our backlist is in the works. Check back soon for titles from Jeff Parker, Karen [...]
JC Hallman: Kenneth Patchen’s The Journal of Albion Moonlight
J.C. Hallman’s anthology, The Story About The Story, collects essays that approach book criticism from a personal angle. One of his favorite venues for that sort of thing is Tin House’s own “Lost and Found” section. In our most recent issue (Hope/Dread), Hallman writes about encountering Kenneth Patchen’s The Journal of Albion Moonlight.
I had it [...]
Painting Pictures Is Not A Normal Job
Like everyone else, at a certain point, several hours in, you begin to wonder if doing your job is insane. And, like everyone else, the first evidence that it’s not is that you get paid for it.
When you’re a professional artist, however, the thought process doesn’t stop there. The fact is, doing enough to simply get paid [...]
Q&A: MATTHEA HARVEY
Parents: You know that 10,000th time you read your kid Go, Dog. Go! as your unfinished copy of that Anne Carson collection you really wanted to read sat on the coffee table and served as nothing but a sippy-cup coaster and a reminder of all the great writers you no longer had the time to [...]
An Essay in Criticism: Virginia Woolf on Hemingway
An Excerpt from our new anthology, THE STORY ABOUT THE STORY, which hits bookshelves today.
Human credulity is indeed wonderful. There may be good reasons for believing in a King or a Judge or a Lord Mayor. When we see them go sweeping by in their robes and their wigs, with their heralds and their outriders, our [...]
A Conversation w/ Deborah Eisenberg
In celebration of Deborah Eisenberg’s recent MacArthur Fellowship, we decided to post her conversation with Anna Keesey from our interview anthology, The World Within (for you subscribers, it also appears in Tin House #34). We’ve been calling her a genius for years, and are thrilled that it’s been made official.
After thirty years on West [...]
HEAL THE LUNG
The essays collected in The Story About the Story assault the institution of literary criticism.
The problem with literary criticism is not that critical actions conducted on literary texts do them damage—the problem is the way in which critical actions tend to be conducted. There’s a basic contradiction built into the system: dry, soul-deadening, derivative, entirely [...]
Driving The Stake
The whole question of beginnings is tricky—a point Geoff Dyer makes about D.H. Lawrence’s poetry in the excerpt of Out of Sheer Rage reprinted in The Story About the Story:
“Who can say when a poem begins to stir, to germinate, in the soil of the writer’s mind? There are certain experiences waiting to happen: like [...]
Brief Interviews w/ Русский Men: Oleg Zobern
Now that we’ve settled on the proper cyrilic for the demonym “Russian,” we’ll continue with our series of short Q&A’s with the Rasskazy contributors. Today our interlocutor, Jeff Parker, is mostly made fun of by Oleg Zobern. Zobern is the author of Silent Jericho and Funeral Feast for Yann Volkers. His story “Bregovich’s Sixth Journey” [...]
Drill and Song Day, by Vladimir Kozlov
There’s one week until the release of Rasskazy: New Fiction from a New Russia. Because I’m feeling charitable this morning, I’m posting an excerpt from the book–a short story by Vladimir Kozlov (translated by Andrea Gregovich with Mikhail Iossel). Enjoy.
Each year around the twenty-third of February, to celebrate the anniversary of the Red Army, we had [...]
Brief Interviews w/ Русский Men: Dmitry Danilov
On September 1st we’ll be celebrating the release of our new anthology Rasskazy: New Fiction from a New Russia. In the meantime, Jeff Parker (who co-edited the book with Mikhail Iossel) will be posting brief interviews with some of the contributors. The first conversation is with Dmitry Danilov, author of Black and Green and House [...]
Congrats to Jim Krusoe! And Persistence!
Jim Krusoe–our dear, dear friend and idol–has been shortlisted for the St. Francis College Literary Prize, an award for a fourth work of fiction.
The prize carries a $50,000 purse and the honor of being nominated alongside Aleksandar Hemon (who kindly endorsed Rasskazy, our forthcoming anthology of Russian Short Stories), Chris Abani (who was recently featured [...]
The Children’s Day: Discussion Questions
Michiel Heyns’ novel The Children’s Day is available now. Below are some discussion questions–for bookgroups, classrooms, or just your personal edification. If you have any thoughts or feelings, please post them below…
The novel’s title is derived from the Robert Graves poem “The Cool Web,” reprinted in the book. Discuss ways in which the poem might [...]
Summer Reading Recommendations: J.C. Hallman
Over the next couple months, some of our authors and editors will be offering up their suggestions of what books you should be reading this summer. From all available research, sand and sunshine do not make the Twilight series any better. J.C. Hallman is the author, most recently, of The Hospital for Bad Poets: Stories. [...]
Recreate or Re-Create: Creativity and Translation
I have just sent off the first draft of a translation of a 130,000-word novel, Etienne van Heerden’s 30 Nagte in Amsterdam (30 Nights in Amsterdam). By chance, on the same day, I receive a Call for Papers from the University of Swansea in the UK for a conference on “The Author-Translator in the European [...]
Summer Reading Recommendations: Jim Krusoe
Over the next couple months, some of our authors and editors will be offering up their suggestions of what books you should be reading this summer. From all available research, sand and sunshine do not make the Twilight series any better. Today’s selection comes from Jim Krusoe, the author of, most recently, the novel Erased.
In [...]
That Whole Climate-of-Fear Thing Continues to Make Life Less Fun
So, a few days ago, I posted this excerpt from an e-mail a fan sent me online (under the heading Most Disturbing Review Yet):
“In my dream of dreams, I’d order copies to teach in my creative nonfiction classes and/or my pop culture classes, but I have a feeling the provost would bitch-slap me if I did that. These [...]
Summer Reading Recommendations: Karen Lee Boren
Over the next couple months, some of our authors and editors will be offering up their suggestions of what books you should be reading this summer. From all available research, sand and sunshine do not make the Twilight series any better. (NOTE: It’s yet to be determined whether the same holds true for Storytelling by [...]
Summer Reading Recommendations: Michiel Heyns
Over the next couple months, some of our authors and editors will be offering up their suggestions of what books you should be reading this summer. From all available research, sand and sunshine doesn’t make the Twilight series any better. Today’s selection comes from Michiel Heyns, the South African writer and translator who’s novel The [...]
Notes from the Book Tour
On the way home from book tour dates 3 through 5 of at least fourteen. An ingenious system of Chinese people has delivered us into a needle-nosed jet headed from SF back to Los Angeles. Mandy caught a cold somewhere along the line so, next to me, the most beautiful woman in the world is [...]
Summer Reading Recommendations: Lucy Corin
Over the next couple months, some of our authors and editors will be offering up their suggestions of what books you should be reading this summer. From all available research, sand and sunshine doesn’t make the Twilight series any better. Today’s selection comes from Lucy Corin, author of The Entire Predicament, a collection of stories, [...]
The Scene of the Crime
The reason I was heading to Cleveland, the place I’d grown up but hadn’t seen since I left for college, was to promote my novel, Erased. After all, the book’s about a guy who goes to Cleveland because he gets a postcard from his dead mother, a transcriber, and I myself had been transcribed, in [...]
