Friday the 13th Debunked Just a Bit

I decided to use “Wikipedia” for some inspiration on the theme for today, despite its recent flack received from Bowdoin college professors who found it to be fraught with possible misinformation that research students were citing in their papers as fact. Based on that academic caution, I will temper any references here up front – they may be inaccurate in places in general and possibly due to horror movie fans who have decided to pepper the website’s pages on “Friday the 13th’ with bunk I may not catch.

At least you can take comfort in knowing that I did not use “Wikepedia.org”, which is really frightfully unfair of someone to register, don’t you think? I was quick enough to redirect and change websites when the bogus “Wikepedia (with two “e’s”) asked me “Are you Johnny Depp?” (I’m not, but he is one of my wife’s “boyfriends”, a term of affection that she uses for actors she likes.) I redirected to the true Wikipedia site (with three “i’s”) ready to absorb the history of today’s fateful Friday, which has gone on to be a 10 sequel franchise (if you count “Freddy vs. Jason.”)

Thankfully, if you want to read more on your own, I can say the aforementioned
horror movie is oddly nowhere to be found in any sort of material way. I do find it interesting that today has its own phobia – Paraskavedekatriaphobia - but then again, these days, what doesn’t?

So he we are with me posting and you reading about a day of superstition founded in…does anybody know?

Can someone tell me why parents always instilled a sense of dread whenever the 13th day of the month landed on what is most kid’s favorite day of the week? (after Saturday and Sunday of course.) I mean, come on, it’s Friday…no school tomorrow…Saturday morning cartoon marathon with unlimited cereal bowl refills…perhaps even something special like French toast since it’s the weekend and if you’re good.

Friday typically means pizza for lunch at school and in some cases like my house, for dinner (since I always said to my parents school lunch was fish sticks so I’d be assured of two pizza meals.)

Friday was the exhale after the afternoon’s very last minute of school, which seemed to last forever, each second counting as ten. What could parents possibly be talking about by being extra careful and worried about on a Friday?

Actually in my house, they never said a word. This absence of addressing what seems to be a very suspicious almost holiday was not so much based on parental myth-busting efforts by my folks but rather circumstance.

My dad had not yet started his 27 years of sobriety (and actually didn’t until right before I moved to college) so there was that. He was just more of absent of paternal participation in general and not just jumping over parental warnings about jinxes and curses.

My mom had another reason for being well, mum, about the date and she never spoke of it.

It was up to my grandfather to enlighten me as he did about a great many things. He reminded me every time the date came around, which is one to three times a year by the way. Grampy assured me that Friday the 13th being unlucky was just something that I shouldn’t believe, not in the least.

My mother, his daughter and his only child, was in a horrific car accident, which left her in a coma for 6 weeks when she was 19. She woke from it quite unexpectedly on a Friday the 13th, apparently in defiance of any superstition. The 13th card of the Tarot is Death, which also means rebirth according to the gypsy woman, so perhaps mom doing just that – defying the death they thought she was heading for.

My grandfather, despite being 100% Italian and prone to some amount of belief in the supernatural because of that, could never again believe the date to have any sort dark relevance. In fact, whenever a Friday the 13th rolled around, he got excited about what good fortune may follow the family. Although the extra lottery tickets never did pan out, I always invest a couple bucks in his memory just in case.

My mom doesn’t say much about it because, well, she doesn’t remember much about the accident: having it, waking up or sadly my grandfather’s overwhelming joy at having her back. Her memory still trips on itself here and there and we’ve just learned to be patient and give big hugs. It’s just one of those family things that we know about and like a lot of family history, dance around in conversation.

I was going to suggest that if you’re looking for a reason to simply treat this like any other day, just enjoy your Friday pizza as I plan to do with no worries. Maybe you can share this tale with your kids instead of telling them to look today up on the internet where they will undoubtedly search for more information on the Vorhees family movie franchise instead of any of the interesting historical references that I decided not to include here after all. Hey, you can visit Wikipedia any time you want, I’m only blogging today.

Yes, I was going to tell you to just move on and enjoy the day like any other TGIF - thirteen, schmirteen.

Then a frustrating and true thing happened. I wanted to post this much earlier today (some folks like to start the day off with their horoscope, yours truly included.)

Since I am the world’s worst proof-reader of my own work (I’m sure today is no exception), I was doing some last minute editing and…well…my laptop, which is only 2 months old, froze for the first time since I bought it. My edits were not recovered as they have been in the past on a Word document.

Perhaps it was just fate suggesting that I not be so cavalier about the prevalent creepiness surrounding today. Despite my mom’s story, perhaps you should do the same after all – just be aware. A crashed computer is nothing tragic, just a bit of a nuisance and maybe it’ll just help to double check today (or save your document along the way…)

But then again, I'm confident this finished piece is better than the one I lost so, there is that for you to consider as you proceed with caution.

And just remember, as I do when I imagine my mom opening her eyes for my grandfather almost 50 years ago, great things can still happen. I’m buying a lottery ticket or two in case my grandfather is watching out, right after I call my mother.

John LaFleur

Off the Shelves, part two

First, let me say this: I am not proud of what I'm about to disclose to you.

Here goes: I don't like used things. I don't like to shop at vintage stores or thrift stores. I am skeptical about the idea of buying a used car, even though I am well aware that new cars are a terrible investment. I use Craigslist only to get rid of my own used items, and am always surprised when people want what I am selling. I hardly ever remember to eat leftovers, and have an embarrassing habit of throwing away Tupperware containers because the contents is visibly--i.e. through the plastic--too alien to merit further exploration. And, most shameful of all, I'm not so into used books. I like the idea of them: the musty bookstore, the frisson-inducing experience of finding a hidden gem, the surly bookseller climbing a rickety ladder to show you a first edition of Gatsby. But the reality? The reality is me, harassed and impatient, flipping through a dusty table of cast-offs and despairing of ever finding the one book I can remember having on my list to buy. I am not a thrill-of-the-hunt kind of shopper.

But new bookstores? Oh, let me sing of ye, new bookstores*, let me tell tales of your glory, of the hours I've spent running my gaze over the uncreased spines of your fiction, the afternoons I've whiled away in your comfy chairs, breathing in the scent of your untouched inky pages, the anticipation I've felt choosing tomes from your perfectly alphabetized shelves.

(*a note so that you don't all think I'm irretrievably lame, just fiscally irresponsible: I am speaking here of INDEPENDENT bookstores. Your WaldenBooks, your B. Daltons, your Borders(es), fill me with despondency, the sterile familiarity of the store layouts, the generally unhelpful staff, the selling of CDs at seventeen bucks a pop while the books are buy-two-get-one-free. I will gladly pay more to shop at an independent bookstore, and do so as often as I possibly can.)

I love you, new bookstores. I love you so much that I often indulge in that terrible sin, gluttony, and purchase not only the one book I intended to buy, but a nice juicy stack of books, which I then set on my nightstand and stare at with the manic glee of someone with a behavioral problem.

If this wasn't bad enough already, here is the part that I feel really bad about revealing: Out of this new stack of books, these delicious novels and story collections I was so excited to purchase, I will probably only read, on average, 3/4 of them. Why, you might ask, would I only read 3/4 of the books I was so excited to buy that I paid full price for them? The only explanation I have is that after a few months go by, these books cease to be new. Their shiny covers fail to entice. Like a secret crush nursed for so long that, when finally requited, the make-out sessions leave you wondering what's on the telly, these books bore me before I even begin their first chapters. The books sit on my nightstand, their pages yellowing with the passing of the seasons, and where am I? The new bookstore, of course, buying newer books to place on the dais of their forgotten forebears.

And so, this week, a mea culpa to the orphans of my bookshelves, the Forgotten Ones. I am sorry, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, my husband read you first and by the time he was done I lost interest in you. My apologies, The Collected Letters of E.B. White, you had such a great staff recommendation at Porter Square Books, but you proved too heavy to carry on the T. I hope to make amends, First Light by Charles Baxter, I loved your author so much that I bought five of his books at one time and then became temporarily Baxtered-out. I confess, Nothing But Blue Skies by Thomas Mcguane, I have a terrible habit of buying books about the vast plains of the American West and then never reading them. And lastly, I seek redress, Sons and Lovers and everything else ever written by D.H. Lawrence, I always buy your books when I am deep into a Henry James novel and then never end up reading you. To all of you, and all the other Forgotten Ones who are so forgotten I can't even remember who you are right now, I am sorry. I want to read you, really I do. Maybe this August? Or maybe September... there are a lot of new books coming out in paperback that I might want to check out.

In dread,
Whitney Scharer

Thanks For Not Writing

Ask most authors for their best writing advice and most will hand you the old saw, "You must write every day." They say that even when it seems impossible -- your only spare time is from 4-5am, you're hopelessly blocked, you're having brain surgery -- you must write something. Anything! And if you don't write every day, then clearly you're not committed or passionate enough. I've given this advice countless times and, for many years, actually taken it.

A friend of mine, a fellow author & teacher, once told me he didn't believe in this truism. After a few glasses of wine, he came out about the fact that he was on an extended break from writing, and that, despite some intermittent guilt, he'd never felt more creative, inspired or happy. He was alive again! Instead of straining his eyes at his computer, he was spending his time reading, taking walks, re-connecting with his family, and, every so often, working through plots and characters in his head. He was looking forward to a returning to his work one day, but until then he was "recharging." He argued that this recharging was crucial for his imagination and would ultimately make him a better writer.

My response: "Interesting theory." What I was really thinking: "So, he's not a *real* writer after all." And, feeling superior about my daily regimen of eye-straining and hand-wringing at my computer, I offered to pay for the wine.

Now, having not written a word of my novel for close to two months -- and even slacking on my blog responsibilities -- I am starting to see what my friend meant. My left-behind characters, who'd seemed stagnant and thin in April -- are beckoning me back, siren-like. I long to spend time with them, but instead of indulging that desire I daydream about what they might do and say. I'm back to what is most fun about writing: that sense of play and possibility. And though I could find some time these days if I tried, I might play hard to get with my book for a while. After all, that tactic does work in most other spheres of life.

Of course I could just be lazy. Or not a real writer after all. But my friend ended up writing two novels after his "recharging" period, so he's my new hero. And my new best excuse.

***

Just a few days ago I learned that one of my favorite poets, William Meredith, died on May 30th at the age of 88. I had the honor of meeting him a few times and hearing him read, and I am deeply saddened by his passing. He was an elegant, generous and accomplished man who will be missed by many.

I read a Meredith poem, "Crossing Over" at a friend's wedding last weekend, but here is another of my favorites:

The Illiterate

Touching your goodness, I am like a man
Who turns a letter over in his hand
And you might think that this was because the hand
Was unfamiliar but, truth is, the man
Has never had a letter from anyone;
And now he is both afraid of what it means
And ashamed because he has no other means
To find out what it says than to ask someone.

His uncle could have left the farm to him,
Or his parents died before he sent them word,
Or the dark girl changed and want him for beloved.
Afraid and letter-proud, he keeps it with him.
What would you call his feeling for the words
that keep him rich and orphaned and beloved?

--1958

~Christopher Castellani

The Grub Street Rag, 7/9/07

* Alacritous Grub gossip
* Lissome Grub events
* Last week to register for a summer workshop

"If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster."

-- Isaac Asimov


grub street gossip.

Welcome to the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday from the Boston Harbor Island satellite office of Grub Street's world headquarters. As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.

Last week to sign up for summer 6- and 10-week workshops
Have a desire for a daytime class? A passion for poetry in all its forms? A craving for creative non-fiction? This week is your last chance to sign up for our 10- and 6-week workshops, which begin next week. View the whole schedule, and call us at 617.695.0075 and get yourself registered before time (and availability--several are already full) run out.

Find us a Cambridge space, take TWO FREE Grub Street classes
Grub Street seeks 4-5 classrooms in the Cambridge/Somerville area to hold our fall classes. All the rooms must be at the same location, and big enough to fit 13 adults comfortably. Parking and T-accessibility are key. We would need the rooms on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday nights from 7-10pm for ten weeks starting in October. Please let us know of any leads--if we end up renting from your tip, you'll get two free Grub Street classes to take yourself or give as gifts. Email whitney@grubstreet.org with ideas (or for more info on what we need).

Grub Turns Ten
Join us July 27th for our 10-year anniversary celebration, with readings from Hacks, our new anthology. Click here for all the details and to sign up.

Softball Department (brought to you by guest sportscaster, Dan Pritchard)
Double-Digits on the Horizon
Grub Street Wordslingers 9 – MannyOrtez 20

It had all the makings of a great day at the park. With two outs in the first inning, your Grub Street Wordslingers put 4 runs on the board for one of the best starts of the season. Two-out hits and timely walks were the key to our production. It sure was hot on the diamond, but so were our bats. Dan, Jen, Jeff and Becky had especially good turns at the plate today. It all seemed to be coming together for this ragtag group of authors-come-ballplayers.

The opposition – MannyOrtez – was stiff, and brought home 6 of their own in the bottom of the first. Their defense held the Slingers scoreless through the second, while doubling their own tally to make it 12-4. The Slingdogs kept it close with an epic effort, rallying to add 5 more runs in the third, but ManyO kept the pace and stayed true to their name, adding 4 runs in the third and then 4 more in the fourth. We tried to get it going in the fifth, but a tag-out on some great, aggressive base running ended the game.

Looking back, we learned a lot that hot day in July, together out there on the field. We learned that an umpire can really affect the complexion of a game. We learned that wooden bats are questionable. In the third inning we learned that MannyOrtez's left fielder was not up for a golden glove, and did our best to capitalize. I learned to throw it to the base, not the person — sorry Jen. We learned that walking a boy to strike out a girl is unfair, and wished we could apply that rule to Julio Lugo. But most of all we learned that the most important thing is family, so try not to hit the kids with errant flies.

The un-unbeaten streak remains unbroken. Still think we could beat the Pirates though.

Cheers,
Whitney, Chris, Paige and Sonya

The P.S. There was an error on our website, which incorrectly listed a Riot Act taking place tonight. There is NO Riot Act tonight (July 9th). Sorry for the confusion!

The Happy Camper by Becky Tuch

It’s a Wednesday afternoon, and I am in a bar. I am drinking white wine, staring at a horrifically garish electonic red eyeball on the top floor of Charlie’s Kitchen in Harvard Square. I’m with a friend who is flirting with the bartender. Aside from the three of us, there is no one else in here. The air conditioning is on full blast, so cold my gums are freezing and I wish I had a winter coat, though it’s the end of June.

After about an hour, I leave the bar and get on the T to meet my ride. Tonight, I am going to a potluck hosted by the director of my new summer camp. Yes, I am to begin work at a day camp on Monday. How I will pull this off is still a mystery. I am drunk in the middle of the afternoon and I am lonely, frightened and more confused about the direction of my life than I have ever been. My roommate and I have been fighting. My boyfriend and I are “on a break.” I need to find a new apartment. I am absolutely fed up with waiting tables and don’t know what to do next. The novel I’ve been working on for the past three years is going nowhere.

Yet by Monday morning, I will be expected to smile and encourage budding young minds to write stories, to create characters, to participate in this fiction workshop. How, I wonder, can I even feign pleasure over writing when I feel so heartbroken and downtrodden over the whole enterprise of writing--of living--altogether?

My ride comes to meet me in front of the Somerville theater. She is a soft-featured attractive brunette with a bright smile. Somehow, I feel even drunker at this moment, and suddenly more exhausted.

“I’m Kate,” she says. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

“I’m 27 and I’m terrified,” I want to say. But I don’t, of course. We shake hands and she starts driving.

“Are you excited about orientation tomorrow?” she asks.

“Orientation,” I repeat. I had not remembered anything about orientation. All I could think was that camp would start on Monday. But that’s right, we have a two-day orientation tomorrow and Friday. I can’t believe I’ve forgotten this. What kind of counselor will I be? What kind of human being am I? How could I begin this new job at a summer camp and not even get the dates right? How could I be drunk for my first meeting with all the other counselors and camp staff? No wonder I’m aimless and adrift.

“Yeah,” I say, plucking at the strap of my seatbelt. “I’m totally excited.”

**

There are moments in life when I just glide along, and the fact that I’m alive and doing things does not occur to me. That’s how it should be. I work, I cook, I get lost in each moment of bustling activity.

But then there are the days when I’m aware of every moment, every second as it stickily clicks past. And I don’t know how I’ll get from this second to the next. It all seems so terrifying. Not knowing where to work, where to live, whether I’ll succeed or fail at the things I want to do most, whether the people I love will really love me back. I feel too young and feisty to ask for help, but too old to still believe I can do everything my own way.

I manage to survive the car ride, and then I survive the dinner too, drinking a little more wine and spending as much time chewing as possible. Conversation is stiff and tense, but I do survive.

I even survive the first couple hours of orientation the next day. The camp director’s voice travels in and out of my ears as I struggle to hang on to the basics. This is the art room. And the computer lab. There is the courtyard. Don’t mind the construction. You’ll have to make sure your campers are with you at all times on the way to the pool. Each computer has internet access. This is the auditorium. That is the cafeteria. The soda machines don’t work. There is always a salad bar at lunch.

But later that day, the camp director places the counselors in random classes so we can each get a taste of what other people are teaching. I am placed into a class that could not be farther from who I am or what I’m about: Afro-Caribbean Dance.

I would laugh with ironic self-deprecation if my legs didn’t actually feel so stiff and heavy, my brain so dense and thick. They want me to dance?

I spend the entire fifty minutes of the class thinking of excuses for why I should stop dancing. I have bad knees. My ankle hurts. I have my period. My father is very sick (which he’s not.) I’m “on a break.”
But meanwhile, I’m still dancing. Or, to be more accurate, I’m lifting my feet up and putting them down and lifting my hands and dropping them one beat or two around the time that everyone else does the same.

Then I learn that tomorrow we will be performing our dance routine on stage. Ha! I almost cry. But it’s not a joke. Not only do I have to endure this torture of being forced to dance now, but tomorrow I will do it in front of an audience. Then, on Monday, when camp starts, I will have to perform again, this time in front of the entire camp.

“Believe me,” the dance teacher assures us. “The campers are more afraid to be here than you are to be performing.”

“No,” I think. “I’m not quire sure that’s possible.”

**

But then something happens. Monday. The campers come. And I just start faking it. But no, that’s not right. I’m not quite faking it. I am genuinely happy to see them. Children. Little people. Shy small creatures. Mini-humans.

They come spilling out of their cars and their school buses and they are looking so scared, so I put on my biggest smile to show them that I am not scared. I can’t be scared. I am their counselor. Suddenly, it’s not about me and everything I’m afraid of. It’s about them, and being confident and enthusiastic for them. It occurs to me that this must be the feat that parents pull off all the time, putting their own personal grievances aside in order to ask Callie if she remembered her tennis racket today and to make sure Betty got into the classes she wanted and to find out if Janie likes to bring her lunch or buy it in the cafeteria--the little questions that become so petty to adults but so, so meaningful to these curious, shy little people.

Each counselor is assigned to a group. Or, as the camp calls it, a “Groupie Group.” I have the good fortune of getting all girls, and they’re all around ten years old. I make fast friends with a camper named Enid.

“Do you like to write, Enid?”

“Yes!” she says. “I love love love love love love to write. I write poetry and I write stories and I’m writing a novel.”

“Wow!” I say.

I’m not even jealous. How could I possibly feel writer-envy for this kid? She loves to write. I hope she writes a billion novels. I hope she publishes everything she writes. I’m simply happy that she has a hobby, that she happens to have the same hobby I had when I was her age.

“Are you writing a novel now?” I ask.

“Yes! It’s about gypsies. There are lower-class gypsies and middle-class gypsies and upper-class gypsies…”

Now a small laugh slips out. A ten-year-old with class consciousness. This is going to be a very special camp.

“Does your book take place in Eastern Europe?” I ask, toeing the line a bit further, to see how rigorous her little mind can be. “That’s where gypsies are originally from.”

“No,” she says. “Not there. But in this kingdom that I made. But the kingdom is really part of this trilogy that I’ve been working on.”

“Cool,” is all I say. “A trilogy.”

**

The image that keeps returning to my mind is of an egg cracking open. I know it’s their brains that are supposed to be the eggs, nurtured and cared for to one day crack open into fine young adult minds. But that’s not how it is. I am the eggshell cracking open. Little by little, these kids are teaching me about everything I forgot.

In my Writing and Illustration class, I tell them to choose a character to be the subject of our story. One group comes up with Maria the Dolphin, who is distraught because she’s trapped in a cage too small for her. Another group comes up with Bob the Bulletin Board, miserable because he spends his life being continually stuck with pushpins. That is to say nothing of the Imaginary Penguin, or The Frozen Dragon who battles the mighty “Sir Land Sir Lot.”

They care about animals and they care about the environment. The older kids care a great deal about the upcoming presidential election. The younger kids care about the small things that happen every day, in all their classes, to their friends, to their counselors, to the environment and to our country.

Naturally, these are special kids. They come from good homes and most of them go to private schools during the year and they are lucky.

But I am the lucky one for getting to be around them everyday.

I tell all the girls in my “Groupie Group” that I will be getting on stage to perform. Not only will I be performing, but I will be dancing.

“I am a terrible dancer,” I tell them. “They made me take Afro-Caribbean dance and now I have to perform the number. You’re all going to laugh at me.”

Enid is sitting right next to me. She pats my arm and looks earnestly into my face. “Oh,” she says. “We won’t laugh at you! We’ll say, ‘That’s great! You tried!’”

I laugh. She asks me what’s funny. I tell her nothing.

But it’s everything.

Hey! That’s great! You tried!


Becky Tuch
July 5, 2007

Toilets and Literature

I was using a friend’s toilet last week when I pleasantly discovered a book of Alice Munro stories propped up on the tank. Brilliant! I thought. Toilets and literature. Finally I was reading “Visitors,” and if it wouldn’t have caused my friend some nervous concern, I could have stayed in that bathroom and gotten to “The Moons of Jupiter.”

Since visiting other uncultured toilets, with many sighs of disappointment, I’ve wondered why not every household toilet has a Best American Short Stories propped up on the tank. Why don’t people read stories on the subway, or in line at the bank, instead of the novel they complain to have been reading since 1998? In short, why aren’t short stories more popular?

Cultural observers love to point at my generation and at modern America in general, noting our shorter attentions spans, high distractibility, and impatience with expression. Sometimes I’d like to break their fingers, but they have a point. More than ever, art and entertainment seem best absorbed in brief, easily ingestible chunks, whether as music videos or mp3s or favorite Sopranos episodes that can be skipped to on a DVD. Short stories, it seems, ought to be the hit singles of the literary world.

But perhaps I’m wrong to characterize short stories in this way. Good stories are “brief,” yes, but they’re not necessarily “easily ingestible chunks.” The best ones are actually robust as brick, and reading them requires the patience and appreciation of reading novels.

Filmmakers are realizing this truth. Recently a number of short stories have been adapted into full-length films, including Annie Proux’s “Brokeback Mountain,” Raymond Carver’s “So Much Water So Close to Home” (with the film title Jindabyne), and Alice Munro’s “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” (film title Away From Her). Perhaps the short story’s rise in popular culture will be driven by film.

I was hoping that while writing this post I’d conjure some huge and brilliant theory as to why short stories aren’t as popular as novels. I haven’t. So in the meantime I’ll be on the toilet, fantasizing about how to get short stories in every bus depot and waiting room in America. Missing Munro too? Her books look great against porcelain.

~Sonya Larson

Grub Street Rag, 7/2/07

"Characters take on life sometimes by luck, but I suspect it is when you can write more entirely out of yourself, inside the skin, heart, mind, and soul of a person who is not yourself, that a character becomes in his own right another human being on the page."

-- Eudora Welty


grub street gossip.

Welcome to the Grub Street Rag, a newsletter of the Boston literary scene sent out every Monday from the granite outcropping at Grub Street's world headquarters. As always, if you are receiving this e-mail in horror, please advance to the bottom of the page to unsubscribe yourself.

Poetry Book Prize Winner Announced
We are thrilled to announce that Linda Gregg has won the first Grub Street
Book Prize in Poetry for her collection In the Middle Distance (Graywolf Press, 2006). Gregg is the author of five previous poetry collections, including Things and Flesh and Too Bright To See. A poet of international acclaim, Linda Gregg has taught at the University of Iowa, Columbia University, and the University of California at Berkeley. She currently lives in New York and teaches at Princeton University.

You will have two opportunities to meet and learn in person from Linda Gregg. The first is on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 7:00 PM, when she will be reading from her work at Grub Street. The reading will be followed by a Q&A and a reception. The next morning, Saturday, December 8th, from 10AM -12PM, she will lead a free craft class on poetry writing for Grub Street members. Do not miss this extraordinary opportunity to work with one of the country's most accomplished poets.

This year's contest attracted many excellent and worthy submissions, and we were honored to read so much great and varied work. We would also like to congratulate our two wonderful finalists: G. C. Waldrep for Disclamor (BOA Editions, Fall 2007) and Peter Pereira's What's Written on the Body (Copper Canyon, 2006).

The New York Times Book Review
We just discovered this cool underground literary publication and thought you might want to check it out. Kidding! But... you should take a look at the article in the July 1st edition by amazing writer (and Grub friend) Martha Southgate. It’s an essay about the apparent scarcity of African-American writers of literary fiction, and you can find it in the paper issue or at this link (along with a podcast with editors Sam Tanenhaus and Jennifer Schuessler and a short list of little-known African-American writers): http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/books/review/Southgate-t.html?ref=review . Read it and forward it on to anyone you think would be interested.

Softball Department (brought to you by guest sportscaster, Tom Champoux)
MEDFORD –This week’s “Softball in a word”: Abnegation.
Yes, it’s true. The road-weary, perhaps ill-prepared Word-Slingers took their game to Medford, and, while tossing practice balls and stretching our quads, we somehow managed to lose. Yes, sadly, the ratio of Word-Slingers in vs. out of Medford was quite large, and we did not have the required eight players to field a team.

But mercy asked, mercy found. Two gracious opponents – Mike and Sara – offered to take their place next to the Word-Slingers and the game was on. Since the game was officially ruled a forfeiture, score was not kept, making the day a whole lot more fun for everyone.

And fun it was. Becky and Kate both continue to exhibit ferocious power at the plate. Brian put on a third base clinic and Tom again pitched a beauty of a game. Such a resplendent site did we make that a random spectator named Anthony left his girlfriend sitting on a rock so he too could join the ranks of Word-Slingers.

The highlight of the game, at least for me, came in the form of my very own long, rolling homerun. And as I rounded third I glimpsed my two young kids, Abby and Eli, shrieking and jumping with delight for their huffing, red-faced dad. What pleasure it is to experience the complete and utter joy of softball through the eyes of two proud and enthusiastic tots. True Word-Slingers in the making.

As for the loss? Remember, that which does not kill us makes us better writers.

Cheers,
Whitney, Chris, Paige and Sonya

Welcome to the end of the e-mail, where, like the manliest manatee, we offer you the chance to win a prize. Rudyard Kipling wrote a series of stories to entertain his daughter, Josephine. Though British-born, Kipling knew much about American geography, and included what list of Massachusetts landmarks in one of these stories? Please name the title of the collection of stories, as well as the list of Massachusetts landmarks. Email your answer to Whitney. Winner receives a gift certificate for ice cream at J.P. Licks.

Answer to last week's quiz: Ian McEwan has been convicted of a crime. While writing On Chesil Beach, McEwan pilfered stones from Chesil Beach and was ordered to return them by the British authorities. Winner: Judy Salzman.