Office Hours
A cornucopia of links, while I catch my breath.
It’s been a busy week around here – I did an event for the Los Angeles Review of Books (a stellar non-profit dedicated to exploring literature with the same care and passion we use here in Story Club), with the genius writer and lovely person Charles Yu. Years ago, Charles wrote this very generous review of “Tenth of December” and I’ve been an admirer of his work for years, but this is the first time we’ve ever had a chance to sit down together. Thank you, Charles. I am now getting ready for my upcoming (Friday) workshop with my Syracuse grad students, and also I got pulled into a very nice burst of writing over the weekend that extended out into this week.
So, with your indulgence, I thought that for Office Hours this week, I’d just offer a few (hopefully) fun tidbits/links.
First, here’s a podcast I did with the talented interviewer Kelly Fordon about my story, “Mother’s Day,” from the recent collection Liberation Day, and in which we touch on many of the process-type questions we take up here in Story Club. You can also hear the audio of the story here, in a mind-blowingly insightful reading by the wonderful Melora Hardin, whose new one-woman film Golden Vanity just last week, won two awards at the Burbank International Film Festival.
Here, courtesy of Margaret S, is the only known colored photo of Tolstoy, as well as some photos of his estate, family, and work space.
This week, in the comments, someone mentioned my preface to “CivilWarLand in Bad Decline,” which touches on the subject of how to keep writing when life seems to want you to stop.
Harkening back a bit, to our discussion on kids’ literature, with Corinna Luyken, here’s a piece on my favorite kids’ books that I wrote for my dear friend Jenny Rosenstrach, who now hosts the excellent Substack, “Dinner, a Love Story,” which I highly recommend.
I’ve gotten some great questions for Office Hours from so many of you, that I’ll begin taking up next Thursday.
Next Sunday, across the paywall, we’ll begin our first-ever exploration of a Dostoevsky story, “An Honest Thief.” Join us over there, for some serious 19th-century angst and self-examination (in a good way!).
Thanks for being here and I hope the week ahead is both easy and rich with fun.
George
George, I hesitate to post because you're obviously busy. But here's a question that maybe you could answer at some point in the future--not necessarily this week!
In the podcast "Let's Deconstruct a Story," (what a nice podcast!) you mention 12 stories that were your core stories, the ones you read again and again, and that you find yourself reacting to as you write your own work. Master and Man, you said, is one of those stories. Can you tell us what the other 11 are? (Apologies if you've already told us at some point.)
Also, i love Melora Hardin. She's great in everything,, but I'm partial to Jan in the Office. Just brilliant, her portrayal.
Thank you, George. It's really helpful to read that preface again today. I had a job interview today; I would rather have been writing, but the anxiety of the interview stuff made it difficult. In the end I did some drawing instead (I've been illustrating as many of my substack posts as possible: https://strangeorbeautiful.substack.com/p/relatable-dilemmas-for-millennial)
Anyway... I needed a reminder to keep going. Thank you.