call it obsessive, but i track all the books i’ve read here. this year i’ve been lagging, far behind my usual book-per-week clip, however, a nervous breakdown, a book, a new job and lots of personal and professional changes have shifted the normal course of things, and i started to slow down. now i’m not […]

The second annual Legion of Lit Mags Weekend at Galapagos Art Space (Williamsburg): Literary magazine editors collaborate and unite in an all-star magazine fair Saturday, December 2, 2006 at Galapagos Art Space. Event coordinated and hosted by literary magazines, Small Spiral Notebook and Ballyhoo Stories. Nine prominent literary magazines team up to showcase […]

What’s new at small spiral notebook (have you seen the blog? a mama would cry)? I know you crazy kids are just dying to know! Well…authors Aaron Hamburger (Faith for Beginners) and Maxine Swann (Flower Children) chat…
AH: How do you feel about the novel versus the short story? It’s a question I get asked a […]

like jasmin, i don’t buy into (pardon the pun) the mass consumerism of black friday. a holiday of family and celebration immediately followed by a manic shopping spree seems a bit twisted to me. and the holidays have been all about the great dollar instead of the great love, the great home and the great […]

it’s always woeful when your best-laid plans fall through. this year, i didn’t get to celebrate thanksgiving. i was horribly, horribly ill from wednesday night and i’ve only just recovered. i’m really starting to think that i have celiac disease (the terrible stomach pains, the muscle aches, etc…) and am finally realizing that i […]

i defined by trip to taiwan as before the tattoo debacle and after the tattoo debacle. let me pause for a moment to do some necessary scene setting. i should preface this story by saying that i have a tattoo. it is on my lower back. it is a chinese character, which i was told […]

while in taiwan, something kept gnawing at me and i couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. there was these constant sounds, continuous movement - something that was more foreign to me than the land to which i was visiting and it is only now, days later, that i realize what that […]

returning from asia is not as fun-loving and fabulous as i had imagined. armed with various sleep-aids and xanax, i slept my way through most of my 18-hr (turbulent!) flight back from taiwan. whenever i woke, i chugged water. because there would be none of this waking up at 3am nonsense. i would beat, i […]

yes, there is the terrible pollution. after a few moments sipping tea at an outdoor cafe, we scurried inside because we couldn’t manage the haze and the exhaust from the scooters, garbage trucks blaring fur elise, and the multitude of toyotas crammed into the republic’s thoroughfares. everyone dons a mask whilst riding scooters (i […]

props to my dearest friend millwhistle, all up on f*cking mtv and everything. we heart you, girl! check out mary’s & brian’s site: ruinedmusic.com

ah! the food. so much of it. so beautiful and bountiful and served up in delicate bowls. goa tea (pork dumplings with coriander, leeks, garlic, for breakfast), bamboo shoots (only available in asia and they are indeed nutty, slick and delicious), steamed carp, scallion pancakes, noodles with bok choy and carrots and a brown […]

it is always harder for the women, don’t you see. we shake our heads, confused, we caught a whiff of something archaic. we said that we were not determined by men. this is a country of sound, houses sealed up with iron grilles (a constant clang ushers in the evening), some sort of fashionable […]

am off. think i’m packed. think i have enough books (7?) and magazines (5?), blanket for the plane and everything organized for the cat sitters. nerves, nerves, nerves.