highlights? having every single person i love in one room, sharing the stage with a smart poetry editor who has helped reshape my journal, catching up with old friends, meeting new ones, hugging new momma and dear pal, leigh, laughing, laughing and perhaps having a little bit more wine than i should, great readings and [...]

v. quiet around here, folks, as i prepare for tonight’s festivities. i’m v. excited! the talented brian van will be taking snaps, there will be loads of sweets and free books (a brilliant idea shamelessly snatched from RKB), readings, music and a mini art exhibition.
today will be all about waiting in line at the [...]

I do my crying alone. I keep my tears close thinking they’re more mine and if I cry in front of people, they’re somehow less mine. On the way up to Washington Heights, to keep vigil with my dearest friend and her friends and family while her wife undergoes a double mastectomy, I thought of [...]

check out my wonderful friends’ Suzanne’s & Susan’s beautifully designed and smart as hell magazine, chockful of sensational content. I’ve been privy to their entire journey and it has been nothing short of an auspicious one. You! Must! Click! HERE!!!
Hot off the press! Jhumpa Lahiri, Aaron Hamburger, Lisa Selin Davis, Richard Nash, music, Brazilian movies, [...]

i teach my first class this morning and i’m terrified, seriously. i have 11 pages of single-spaced typed notes, handouts, in-class and take-home exercises and i’m bringing in a bag load of books for show and tell.
i’m prepared but i’m still terrified. i have to lecture in front of strangers for an hour [...]

A short list of documentable facts—I’ll begin with the smaller issues and proceed to the larger ones—would include master’s theses that are routinely passed despite the fact that the level of writing exhibited in them is remedial at best and virtually illiterate at worst, tenure-track hires of close personal friends of the chair who have, [...]

i cannot wait for the publication of Voodoo Heart, the forthcoming debut story collection by my friend and former Columbia classmate, Scott Snyder. Seriously, I’m shaking. I stalk this poor boy on a bi-weekly basis for my copy of his book to review. I tell him that I will drop everything to read this. [...]

this morning the sky paints my windows grey. it’s cold and the lilac tree in the yard is wilting. the buds half blooming; they’re on pause, they’re cautious, not wanting to breathe just yet. i’m thinking about what i’ve seen this weekend: a pair of cream pumps on a landing, a woman nears, sniffs [...]

*SAVE THIS DATE! 4.27.06*: It’s our fifth birthday and we’re celebrating issue three on April 27, 2006, at Happy Ending Lounge (302 Broome Street) in NYC 7-10pm. Readers include SSN Contributors Elissa Schappell, Todd Zuniga, Joshua Mandelbaum, Idra Novey, Joan Biddle & Michelle Wildgen. Performances by indie recording artist Summer Pierre & an exhibition of [...]

thanks to all the fab people who came out last night to hear me all nervous reading about an ex, who was an uncircumsized meth-addict kiwi, and how our near catatonic sex life drove me back to watching john holmes movies (MUST see the WADD documentary). rachel was a charming, delicious host, the readers [...]

two years ago i scoured websites, read blogs daily, i lived vicariously through creative folks living their dream. i felt that if i kept reading, i’ll uncover some secret, some hidden kernel of information which will deliver me their life, all neat and tied up with ribbons. i wanted tea during the day, skirts that [...]

and more…
two parties in two days – finally, i actually leave my house to practice talking to boys without cowering…20 close friends celebrate my best friend’s birthday downtown…we toast her entrance into the dirty thirties with fortifying spanish wine and pumpkin pancetta pizza…we trade stories, hatch plans, act silly and for a moment, [...]

five years ago, i knew no one in publishing. i was on leave from an mfa program i had come to hate, and i was slowly building on an idea i had over drinks – to create a haven for emerging writers who couldn’t get their work into those high-browed slicks. a little magazine called [...]

for the first time in a long while, i’m trying to relax. really relax. apparently, i am more busy unemployed than employed, which shocks me to no end. so this weekend will involve lots of lazy, delicious reading: calvino! because although my childhood was rife with addiction, struggling to make ends meet and all [...]

is online! The new issue includes fiction and non fiction by Connie Corzilius, Brett Berk, Ron Burch, Janice Erlbaum & Michelle Wildgen, poetry by Elizabeth Horner, Garth Graeper & Kristin Roupenian and interviews with David Goodwillie, Jen Lancaster, Michelle Wildgen and Kate Braverman. Upcoming Interviews: Elisa Albert, Janice Erlbaum & more!
I’m also rolling in a [...]