[Book Nerd Links] Literary Beers

Virginia Woolf drowned on this day in 1941, her pockets deliberately heavy with stones. Did she, I wonder, caress their smooth surfaces with the pads of her thumbs, as she waded into the water? Did she choose her death-coat because it had roomy pockets, or because it was her favourite? Was she being sentimental or practical?

Virginia Woolf, 1902

The River Ouse received her whilst her books were on shelves in libraries and homes around the world. It wasn’t enough, but why should it be? Private wars are always the hardest fought, and are seldom won.

What words and ideas did she leave unwritten? Would they have changed literature, changed the world, changed me? Ah, but we’ll never know.

Daily Prompt: Judgment Day

Posted on March 27, 2013 by maedez

I cannot get over the fact that it is possible to have one favourite book. My mind is blown. What was the question again?

This bafflement is in response to the Daily Prompt: Judgment Day. If you were to judge your favourite book by its cover, would you still read it?

[Book Nerd Links] If Dead Writers Weren’t Dead and Used Instagram

Posted on March 23, 2013 by maedez

Back from the Dead and Taking Selfies: Classic Authors on Instagram [courtesy Quirk Books]

Inspiration Board for the [Untitled] Short Story I am Writing

Posted on March 23, 2013 by maedez

In my world, complex stories call for physical inspiration boards. The five-part short story I am writing has been in the planning stages for 3 years. In fact, the first part was written in January 2010. I’m finally ready to move ahead with the rest of the project (more details on that later). After completing it, I plan on adapting it into a play. Ambitious, much? Always! Before starting on the second segment, I decided it would be wise to pull together the disjointed bits of inspiration that have been living in my head for so many months. This collective of images lives on one of the glass blocks that divide my studio from the bedroom I share with The Chef. One glance to the left from where I type this, and ta-da!

I fancied up the photos so that you have a better idea of how things look inside my head!

Inspiration Board for Untitled Short Story

Yes, it is set in the 1920s. Why do you ask?

Inspiration Board, alternate treatment

I will add images to the board as needed.

[A Small Press Life’s Irregular Index of Literary Facts] Debut Novels, Dead Writers Edition: Part One

Posted on March 22, 2013 by maedez

Welcome to A Small Press Life’s Irregular Index of Literary Facts, a new feature designed to give lovely order to the random bookish trivia traveling around my brain. If you like lists, mental organization, random facts, or useless trivia about authors famous and obscure, you will definitely want to keep reading.

DEBUT NOVELS, DEAD WRITERS EDITION: PART ONE

The following books represent the first published novels of their respective authors, which were not always the first to be written. All novels are readily available in both traditional and e-reader versions.

Louisa May Alcott: Moods
Sherwood Anderson: Windy McPherson’s Son
Gertrude Atherton: What Dreams May Come

Gertrude Atherton

Jane Austen: Sense and Sensibility
James Baldwin: Go Tell it on the Mountain
Djuna Barnes: Ryder
Arna Bontemps: God Sends Sunday: A Novel
Elizabeth Bowen: The Hotel
Paul Bowles: The Sheltering Sky
Kay Boyle: Plagued by the Nightingale
Louis Bromfield: The Green Bay Tree
Anne Brontë: Agnes Grey
Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre
Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights
Pearl S. Buck: East Wind: West Wind
Fanny Burney: Evelina: Or the History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World
James M. Cain: The Postman Always Rings Twice
Truman Capote: Other Voices, Other Rooms
Willa Cather: Alexander’s Bridge
Kate Chopin: At Fault
Agatha Christie: The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Colette: Claudine at School
Wilkie Collins: Antonina
Ivy Compton-Burnett: Dolores
Stephen Crane: Maggie: A Girl of the Streets
Philip K. Dick: Solar Lottery
Charles Dickens: The Pickwick Papers
Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Poor Folk
Theodore Dreiser: Sister Carrie
George Eliot: Adam Bede