BURN PILE: Midwinter '22-'23

The year has changed over and a new semester has begun. While the long (long) wait for spring is underway, here is what we are reading, googling, watching, and what we would work on if we were snowed in to a one-room cabin by ourselves . . .

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Hubble Stark

Second-year MFA candidate in Fiction

Googling: Miscarriages, tuberculosis, and polio, mostly. 

Watching: Watched Risky Business, soccer, and Frasier.

Reading: A lot of Agatha Christie and James Lee Burke. 

Snowed in til spring?: New manuscript and the creepiest story to tell myself before nightfall.  

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Marko Capoferri

CutBank Poetry Editor, second-year MFA candidate in Poetry

Googling: I checked and found out that I turned off my search history tracking in January of 2019. I have no illusions that has kept my information private from our digital overlords, but I suppose I may have been a little hopeful/naive four years ago? At 12:32 AM on 12/31/2018, I searched "train drops of jupiter lyrics." I think I was sober, too. 

Reading: Over winter break I finally got to read (most of) Until The Red Swallows It All, a collection of narrative nonfiction pieces by Missoula's very own Mason Parker. While a lot of the book deals with land and ecocide in Mason's native Oklahoma and beyond, there are a lot of other people in the book, too, and it's easy to see how much love Mason has for both the land and the people he introduces the reader to, even if the relationship with either may at times be fraught. 

     When I'm feeling a little adrift I often go back to my beloved poetic lord and savior Larry Levis. I spent some good time with his 1985 collection Winter Stars, the volume where he really became the Levis we know and love, where he figured out how to harness his capacious mind and put it on the page in shapely, discursive lyrics. 

Watching: I watched a lot of YouTube clips of stand-up comedy. 

Snowed in til spring?: Stuck in a cabin for months, I'd probably see how many consecutive push-ups I could do. 

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Kirstie Clinko

First-year MFA candidate in Fiction

Googling: The most unforgettable google search I’ve ever made was when I entered five numbers I heard in a dream. The unknown voice implored me to remember the numbers, and they repeated all night. When I woke, I jotted them down and thought no more of it. A couple of weeks later I entered them in a google search and found they were part of a mathematical formula called the Nth degree. My father had passed away a couple of months earlier, and he used to say to me, “I love you to the Nth degree.”

Reading: Earthsea [by Ursula K. Le Guin] is a superb exercise in world-building and held tension. Ged’s pride leads him to a mistake that loses a terrible evil in the world. His attempts to escape bring him to confront dragons and one of the old powers of the Earth, before an epic chase takes him right to the edge of the world. Ged follows the hero’s journey, chasing the thing he fears most, to save his people.

Snowed in til spring?: I'd work on my Y.A book and my crime ghost story. 

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Jenny Rowe

CutBank Print Editor, first-year MFA candidate in Nonfiction

Googling: Lots of daily and weekly horoscope sites for Libras (my sign); I tend to go through phases of this, and at the beginning of every new year I'm especially open to mystical ponderings. 

Watched: Finished rewatching Mad Men with my partner Zach in Iowa City (I think we've each seen it at least three times through already, but watching it together for the first time felt special).

Reading: I flew through Grammar Lessons: Translating a Life in Spain: Translating a Life in Spain by Michele Morano and Chris Dombrowski’s The River You Touch. (I think grad school is training me to be a faster reader than I normally am, out of necessity.)

Snowed in til spring?: My memoir/essay collection (not sure which it's going to be yet); my current strategy has been to write one distinct essay at a time and hope they form themselves into some kind of coherent, book-like creation by the time I submit my thesis, but I'm trying not to put too much pressure on the work yet. It would be interesting to see how the essays would evolve if I didn't have any other life distractions!

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BURN PILE: October 2022

Late October brought the first snowstorms of the season to Missoula, luring us back inside to cozy up with the books, music, and movies that are carrying us through autumn. Here’s what we loved:

Emily Nelson

Second-Year MFA candidate in fiction

Fiction Editor

Listening: October is for Timber Timbre and very little else in my household. Their music is spooky and witchy without being cheesy, and while their more recent albums are more experimental and jazz-oriented, their first two records, "Creep on Creepin' On" and "Timber Timbre" are wall-to-wall spooky season bangers. Also my beloved Waxahatchee and Jess Williamson started a project called Plains and their debut album, "I Walked With You A Ways," is pure Americana perfection. 

Reading: (Galley brag incoming) Allie Rowbottom’s Aesthetica, a delicious novel about perfection and image in the social media age. I also loved Daisy Alioto's 2021 essay on TikTok and the Suburban Gothic for Dirt, which delves into the literature of the suburbs and the uncanny nature of suburban life. 

Evan Martinak

First-year MFA candidate in fiction

Watching: Saturday, Fiction. Watched this on an international flight; I hate flying. It was one of the cleverest movies I’ve seen in years; it depicts an aspect of WWII I previously knew nothing about, namely the Japanese occupation of Shanghai and the semi-autonomous European quarters of the city known as concessions. The way the movie is shot is really breathtaking, even from that tiny little screen. Plus, I’m a sucker for a movie with Fiction in the title. For about two hours I almost forgot that I was trapped in an aluminum atmospheric coffin rocket.

Reading: I wouldn’t be living up to my status as one of the few but vigilant Mavis Gallant torch bearers if I didn’t mention her. I picked up the NYRB edition of her early and uncollected works, introduced by Jhumpa Lahiri. Mavis Gallant is a legend, people. On the order of Chekhov. The short story Travelers Must Be Content, also a Shakespeare reference to As You Like It, is one of the most delicately constructed, funniest little masterworks of fiction I’ve ever read…and I feel this way every single time I encounter a Gallant short story.

Listening: (On repeat) Brandy / Borderline: A song about being bipolar that chills me out better than actual brandy; Jeff Buckley / Lilac Wine: Sorry Nina but his version is so lovely it’s almost unbearable; Sza / Good Days: For the biblical references. “Feeling like Job when he lost his shit.” 

Anthony Cardellini

First-year MFA candidate in fiction

Watching: Compilations of Kevin de Bruyne on YouTube mixed in with old Roger Federer highlights

Listening: Diminish, Return’s classic album Holy Moly Mountain

Robin Bissett

First-year MFA candidate in fiction

Online Managing Editor

Reading: I read Tell Me I’m An Artist by Chelsea Martin!

Lily Emerick Valentine

First-year MFA candidate in poetry

Art Editor

Reading: Fevered Star, the second installment in Rebecca Roanhorse's fantastic trilogy (Between Earth and Sky), which re-imagines the pre-colonial Americas as the backdrop for epic fantasy.

Watching: Outlander Season 3 and becoming obsessed with Scotland.

Listening: NPR's Radio Ambulante podcast—Latin American stories in Spanish.

BURN PILE: September 2022

Hello, friends! We are back and better than ever. We are excited to share the return of Burn Pile’s collection of interesting links for your entertainment pleasures, things we MFA candidates and CutBank staff have been perusing, viewing, and jamming this September.

Mark Hernberg

Second-year MFA candidate in poetry

Nonfiction Editor

Reading: Had to scratch that sci-fi itch before getting plunged back into literature this semester, so I just tackled (the fantastic) The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. Working through Ada Limón's latest (& beautiful) collection of poems The Hurting Kind. 

Watching: House of Dragons—such rich, compelling storytelling I can pretend Season 8 of Game of Thrones never happened!

Lily Emerick

First-year MFA candidate in poetry

Visual Arts Editor

Reading: I’ve been reading lots of pre-release nonfiction to review, mainly nature writing and memoir, most recently an adventure story of climbing in the Alaskan mountains. I also just completed Elena Ferrante's newest novel, The Lying Life of Adults, which was not as good as the Neapolitan novels but still brilliantly written because Ferrante is amazing.

Watching: I’ve been rewatching Gilmore Girls just to complain about Rory. 

Listening: Listening to Fiona Apple like it's 1999.

Robin Bissett

First-year MFA candidate in fiction

Online Managing Editor

Listening: “girl in your MFA” playlist

Emily Nelson

Second-year MFA candidate in fiction

Fiction Editor

Reading: Runaway by Alice Monroe, The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan 

Listening: "Pre-Pleasure" by Julia Jacklin, "It's Not Just Me, It's Everybody" by Weyes Blood, "Soul Journey" by Gillian Welch

Watching: Barry, Season 3

Marko Capoferri

Second-year MFA candidate in poetry

Poetry Editor

Listening/Watching: All things Marc Maron (WTF podcast, stand-up, weird indie comedy flicks). Maron feels like a kindred neurotic soul, with so many fears that I also share (climate collapse, creeping fascism, addiction/recovery, food issues, mental health issues). He hits it all in his podcast and stand-up, but with such generosity and humor as someone who has lived a lot and come out whole. He knows that we have to laugh or we’d all be exponentially more doomed than we perhaps already are. I never leave an encounter with him feeling hopeless.

Erin White

Second-year MFA candidate in poetry

Editor-In-Chief

Listening: Every morning, my 9-year-old fires up Spotify to purge whatever songs were running through his head overnight. This morning, it was the Star Wars cantina song. Sometimes it's Hamilton. Sometimes Weird Al. Sometimes I get to experience the elementary school sugar rush that is Parry Gripp. If you don't know such hits as "It's Raining Tacos", "Chimpanzee Riding a Segway", or "Last Train to Awesometown", it's probably fine.

When I've been in charge of Spotify lately, it's to satisfy the 80s post-punk bender I've been on — loads of Brian Eno, INXS, The Cure, New Order, Echo & the Bunnymen, and all that angsty, synth-y pop that I remember listening to with my sister on her tapedeck. Always a dose of Bowie in there, too. Also, I hear that tapes are back. Some things can stay dead and that's okay.

Reading: Everything I'm reading these days is either for class or CutBank, though I do indulge a few favorite Substack newsletters when they glisten in my inbox. Chris La Tray, Garrett Bucks, Anne Helen Peterson, and Francia McCormack put out some of my favorites. And Nick Cave's Red Hand Files is the best rockstar-written newsletter ever. Issue #202 is a good place to start — just a beautiful way of thinking about the convergence of art, creativity, understanding, and mystery.

Norma Barksdale

First-year MFA candidate in fiction

Special Projects Editor

Reading: I recently finished Elif Batuman’s Either / Or, the best part of which is the selected bibliography Batuman includes in the back. Not enough novels have bibliographies!

Watching: Last weekend a friend recommended Broadcast News, a 1987 romantic comedy starring Holly Hunter, whom I adore. It manages to avoid all cliche and has a surprisingly good ending, which most rom-coms do not.

Listening: I’ve been spinning Alain Goraguer’s soundtrack to La Planete Sauvage a lot lately—the album is weirdly tantalizing and playful, and it seems to make me more productive than usual.

Happy fall semester and happy writing!

BURN PILE: "NATO, Impeachment, and the Politics of Publication" by Jake Bienvenue

Welcome back!

Headlines the past few days have centered on the arrival of many world leaders at the NATO summit. Among them, of course, is the eminent Donald Trump. And it seems he made quite a splash. The New Yorker put out a great run-down of The Donald’s antics at the event. It appears, at least from video footage, that some of Trump’s actions might have prompted a few world leaders to laugh at him behind his back. Of course, presidential candidate Joe Biden hopped all over the video and you can see the result here. To give it the usual literary twist, go check out this piece from McSweeney’s which gives the impeachment proceedings a Southern Gothic flare.

When faced with this kind of political (and economic) stupidity, one of the only approaches left for many writers is satire. Since Black Friday was just this past weekend, and since things seem to adequately dumb, go check out this interview over at ElectricLit. Mychal Denzel Smith interviews Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah about the portrayal of the absurdity of American racism and capitalism in his debut collection of stories, Friday Black.

Things tend to get a little uncomfortable when you mix art and money, though it doesn’t usually happen. NPR ran a great story the other day about the real relationship between a book’s popularity and its placement on bestseller lists. This comes well-timed around the holidays, as many (of you, hopefully) are planning on buying your loved ones some books. And, on that note, we’ll wrap things up with a great list from LitHub of under-appreciated books this past decade. Go check them out!

BURN PILE: "Impeachment and the National Book Awards" by Jake Bienvenue

Welcome back, friends. There’s a lot to discuss this week.

In an effort to begin, as usual, with climate issues, here is a fascinating article from LitHub about new genres budding in the wake of the environmental crisis. What’s interesting about these genres is that they are set up to be alternatives to climate nihilism and its consequent apathy. This doesn’t mean they’re cheery and warm, they just don’t all end the same way.

But, for those genres already established, there’s the National Book Awards. The winners were announced on November 20th. Here is the list from the National Book Foundation. And, if you’re looking to see what you’re interested in, maybe buy some books, here’s a great rundown of the winners and the finalists from Vox. If that doesn’t satisfy you, here’s LitHub’s list of the 20 best novels of the past ten years. Or if you’re more into the covers, LitHub made a list for that too.

In political news, Donald Trump’s impeachment hearings are coming to a close. Opinion articles and press releases and video clips have dominated the headlines recently, and the crazy amount of media attention can be pretty disorienting. So, here are two. The first is from NPR, which simply looks at what might come next in the nationally-embarrassing saga. The second is an interesting article from LitHub which historicizes the impeachment in the context of the indictment of King George III. Go check them out!

And happy Thanksgiving.

BURN PILE: "Wealth, Climate, and New Genres" by Jake Bienvenue

A lot of news the past couple weeks!

But before we get into that, we should start, as always, with the earth. LitHub ran a great conversation about how we might breathe more urgency into the climate crisis through description and representation of climate emergencies as they occur in real time. Often, events happen so quickly and in such distant locations that they get swept to the wayside. The earth is issue number one, and it likely will be for the rest of our lives. We gotta keep moving forward on this stuff.

So much of policy action is dependent, unfortunately, on the wealth. The term “OK boomer” has made headlines the past couple weeks along with some [ridiculous] comments made by the absurdly wealthy. Rebecca Solnit did everyone a favor and rolled the two issues into one: “OK billionaire.” She discusses the unbalanced political sway of billionaires as a threat to positive change. You can find the article here. On the other end of the spectrum, younger generations are finding it difficult to deal with rapidly shifting material relations. LitHub ran a great article on the idea of home and displacement in millennial memoir. And, if all this isn’t enough, check out this run-down on Charlotte’s Web. Erin Wisti pulls the wisdom from this beloved children’s classic, such as how to resist the bullshit of late-stage capitalism. And so on.

In other news, literary superstar Carmen Maria Machado’s new book In the Dream House was released recently. ElectricLit ran a wonderful piece about the way Machado’s book seems to invent a new genre: the gothic novel. Speaking of big names, The New Yorker transcribed a speech by Karl Ove Knausgaard about the slowness of literature in the face of cultural change. And, finally, the literary world lost acclaimed African-American author Ernest J. Gaines in November, and NPR put out a wonderful obituary.

That’s all for this week.

BURN PILE: "Halloween and Books" by Jake Bienvenue

Happy Halloween!

A bunch of spooky book stuff coming your way. To start us off, LitHub ran a great piece which deals with the significance of the mask in the contemporary horror genre, tracing its origins all the way back to Shakespeare and other dead writers embedded in our collective psyche. Another article on LitHub similarly works with the goal of historicizing contemporary horror tropes, this time coming as an investigation into the links between women, the asylum, and the domestic sphere. ElectricLit ran a great piece listing some of the best writing about horror movies—if you have any interest in catching a couple post-Halloween flicks.

But we’re not done. Believe it or not, the literary community seems to love Halloween. Here are the thirteen of the scariest (and most feminist) witches in modern literature, courtesy of ElectricLit. And here are ten of the most disturbing author photos the people over at LitHub could scrounge up.

Alright, now we’ll pivot. Check out The New Yorker’s really interesting breakdown of Carmen Maria Machado’s new memoir “In the Dream House.” And, per usual, LitHub continued their “ten best” collection, this time in regards to the best essay collections of the decade. You can find it here. And, for fun, check out an interview with everybody’s favorite historian, the late Howard Zinn.

See you next week.

BURN PILE: "Poetry, Politics, and Young Adult Fiction" by Jake Bienvenue

It’s that time of the week again. 

To jump right into it, here is an opinion article from The Atlantic on the inevitability of Trump’s impeachment. Things have been ramping up on that front, and it’s good to stay informed as political events seem to be occurring at a more-and-more rapid pace. One possible way to slow things down would be to do as presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren did: hire a poet. Here is a cool article from The New York Times about why we need more poetry in political rhetoric. Take note, ye poets and politicians. 

Speaking of poetry, LitHub ran a cool article about teaching high school students how wild and energetic that medium is. Poets already know this, but many (most?) are unfamiliar with the art form. Same goes for children’s literature. Philip Pullman, acclaimed author of The Golden Compass, shared some really interesting thoughts over at LitHub about young adult fiction. As most of us know, readers become readers through what our early books brought us into contact with: the vast, unexplored life of the mind, and the sheer oddity of the world we live in. Here is an article from Cara Hoffman over at LitHub chronicling how she turned to writing children’s fiction as a means of aesthetic rejuvenation, and just how powerful that imaginative space can be. 

As part of their ongoing series, LitHub just ran their list of the best memoirs of the decade. So if you’re into that, go check it out, maybe buy some books. If that doesn’t satisfy you, here is an article from ElectricLit which gives a run-down of the race for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction next year. And if all this makes you want to write--which it should--here is a great article from LitHub about what makes a short story work. 

Happy reading, happy writing, and have a good week!

BURN PILE: "Incels and the NBA" by Jake Bienvenue

Welcome back!

As usual, there’s a lot of stuff going on. Before we get into that, I want to drop a link to an incredibly poignant article written by Tim O’Brien, National Book Award winner and author of The Things They Carried, over at LitHub. In it, he reflects on war, remembrance, and the paradox of experience. It would of course be sloppy to draw too many parallels between the Vietnam-era United States and our own unique historical moment, but nonetheless, O’Brien calls attention to some very important issues.

Armed with a nuanced historical perspective, go check out this article. Susan B. Glasser, staff writer for The New Yorker, has the takeaways from this week’s Trump shenanigans. Speaking of men throwing temper tantrums, Eileen Pollack, creative writing instructor in the MFA program at the University of Michigan, wrote a wonderful article over at LitHub about this very thing. She situates the rise of incels in the context of the Unabomber.

In celebration of the approaching NBA season, and speaking of young men understanding the world, go check out this article over at LitHub about youth and pickup basketball. Here is the rundown of the controversial comments made by LeBron James about the protests in Hong Kong, and here is a hilarious article from McSweeney’s in response.

Finally, for fun, here is LitHub’s list of the best poetry collections of the decade, and here your favorite songs pictured as vintage book covers.

Until next week!

BURN PILE: "The Nobel Prize and the National Book Award Finalists" by Jake Bienvenue

A lot of big news in the literary world this week!

The National Book Foundation released the finalists for the prestigious award on Tuesday. For a full list, check out NPR’s run-down. The Nobel Prize in Literature was also given, this time around to Olga Tokarczuk and Peter Handke. The decision to bestow the award upon two Europeans has been somewhat controversial, for reasons that a ElectricLit covers here. Regardless, go check out some of the authors!

And if that’s not enough book recommendations, LitHub ran a great list of the ten best short story collections of the 2010’s. Looking ahead to future authors, here is another run-down from LitHub about the book deals that were announced this week—Rihanna is on there, spoiler alert. Literary darling Ocean Vuong, too, ran a piece in LitHub about the ten books which most influenced the process of writing his breakout debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. This list from ElectricLit will help you pick the books you need to have a sad girl fall. And, after all this, if you’re hurting for a good back but low on cash, here is an article detailing some of the secrets to shopping in used bookstores.

And, finally, here is a piece from McSweeney’s about the existential pull of pumpkin space, especially for men.

Happy fall!

BURN PILE: "Movie Releases and Banned Books" by Jake Bienvenue

Welcome back!

We’re gonna start on a slightly different note than the usual Donald Trump and climate disaster thing.

Todd Phillips’ The Joker was released today in a whirlwind of drama. Its depiction of political unrest and antisocial tendencies turning to violence has left many uncomfortable. Here is an article over at Slate which might help navigate the complicated context and ramifications of the film. Narrative always seems to have a particularly inflammatory role in society, perhaps even more so as individual events come to have dramaturgical significance which transcends the events themselves, spurred in large part by increasingly extreme narrative politics and a media system rooted in storytelling, which are linked cyclically with consumer expectations molded by those very systems. Like a big dumb literary tornado.

I sense I might be preaching to the choir here. Well, if you’re so inclined, here are seven ways you can hide the release of Frozen 2 from your child, courtesy of McSweeney’s. To go along with the movie thing.

In any case, here is an article from over at ElectricLit about something you might be interested in buying: America’s very first banned book. On the other end of the spectrum, here is a wonderful and comprehensive list from LitHub of the ten best debut novels of the decade. And, if it suits your taste, here is another article from LitHub about stillness, disguise, and nature writing.

To cap it off, here’s an interview posted over at The Rumpus with Shonda Buchanan, who was in Missoula in September as a CutBank-sponsored author at the Montana Book Festival.

See you next week.

BURN PILE: "Impeachment Proceedings and Greta Thunberg"

Well, folks.

The world seemed to respond to the issues presented in last week’s installment, and now climate politics and sexual politics have seemed to come to a totally-weird form of a head. In an absolutely wild turn of events, Greta Thunberg addressed the U.N., stared down Donald Trump on every screen in the world, and, to my imagination, single-handedly sparked impeachment proceedings with a fucking gaze. How does this pertain to literature? Well, as it happens, Thunberg now has a two-book deal with Penguin Press, reported by LitHub. While the book deal preceded the incident at the UN, it still goes to show that staring down Trump (and trying to save the world) could be lucrative for aspiring writers. And, as a further point of contrast, one of Elizabeth Warren’s campaign strategists is up for a National Book Award. That’s right, it’s Steve Bannon.

Also, just a friendly reminder that the government sneakily released the federally-mandated (and incredibly bleak) Fourth National Climate Assessment on Black Friday of 2018. It would have received hardly any attention were it not for the fact that Melville House decided to publish it. Yet again, the literary world saves the real world. Go check out the story over at ElectricLit. It’s wild. Also, Amazon, one of the biggest distributors of books worldwide, is facing a climate strike of their own. Rebecca Renner has a story over at LitHub about employees striking at the corporate giant’s headquarters in Seattle.

Anyways, here’s a little how-to from McSweeney’s about talking to your parents about colluding with foreign governments. And, if you’re aesthetically inclined, here are the best book covers of September.

See you next week!

BURN PILE: "Climate Change, Sexual Politics, and a Pinch of Humor" by Jake Bienvenue

Welcome back to Burn Pile, friendly readers.

If you don’t know, today marked the beginning of the global climate strike. Women and men in over 150 countries will be marching in protest against sluggish political systems whose policies have not reflected the urgency of the issue at hand, which is planetary ecological catastrophe. As writers and readers, we are beginning to be confronted with the prospect of constructing and consuming narrative in the face of a future which might not remember us. Here is an interesting article by Omar El Akkad over at LitHub about what stories might survive climate change. In it, El Akkad asks questions about what roots narrative when we’re losing the ability to anchor our memories to the land. And if that seems a little glum to you, Elizabeth Putfark wrote an article for LitHub about maintaining humanity in the face of global anxiety. Both are well-researched, precise, and, to varying degrees, helpful. Most importantly though… organize. 

While we’re on the topic of political subversion, go check out an interview over at ElectricLit with Mona Eltahawy, the author of The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls. Also on ElectricLit is a transcript of Jacqueline Woodson’s address to the recipients of the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Awards, a foundation which supports emerging women writers. The title of the address is “We Are Writing Against Our Own Erasure.” It’s chilling. As an aside, the space between paragraphs up there might lead one to conclude that sexual politics and climate politics are somehow different issues. They are not. 

But anyways, courtesy of McSweeney’s, here are five reasons to stop what you’re doing and write a dystopian feminist novel. Here is a letter to all the women who die first in horror movies, brought to you by ElectricLit. And finally, here is a riot of a piece from McSweeney’s which lists quote unquote honest job postings in academia. Probably good to end this one with some humor.

Go out and change the world. 

BURN PILE: "Literary Drama and the Coming of Fall" by Jake Bienvenue

The rapid coming of autumn was heralded this year by at least a couple of contentious happenings in the lit-sphere.

Many of you may be familiar with Instagram influencer Caroline Calloway. Or, if you’re like me, you hadn’t before this week. For those who haven’t found their way onto the media platform, Calloway has over 795,000 followers. This massive following led to a reported six-figure book deal--a deal which dissolved under mysterious circumstances. Earlier this week, Natalie Beach, Calloway’s friend and former ghost-writer, wrote a tell-all article in The Cut about the would-be literary celebrity. Whatever your opinion on the spat, the media attention it has garnered invites questions about the dynamic between social media and the publishing industry.

And if that doesn’t satisfy your thirst for drama, National Book Award-winner Jonathan Franzen wrote a contentious article in The New Yorker about the global climate crisis. In it, Franzen implores people to give up the pipe-dream of halting the process of planetary destruction. A novel take from the critically-acclaimed novelist. 

Well, let’s move on from that. It’s fall, and that means books in general, and spooky books in particular. If you’re an Agatha Christie fan, go check out a fascinating article about the mystery author and Post-Capitalism on LitHub, written by eminent philosopher and critic Slavoj Žižek. Or, if you want to write horror like Shirley Jackson, check out some advice from the author, also on LitHub. If you’re still not satisfied, consider showing up for ElectricLit’s Edgar Allan Poe-themed festival in October. 

To take a detour into the humorous while remaining within the spooky Victorian mindset, go take a peek at Colin Heasley’s mock-article in ElectricLit about writing queer characters in the Victorian era without getting censored. And to leave you with one last little bit of humor, Jessie Gaskell wrote a hysterical article in McSweeney’s titled “I’m Just the Guy to Write Your Female Empowerment Series.” 

And happy fall, folks. 

BURN PILE: "Toni Morrison, Labor Day, and Fall Releases" by Jake Bienvenue

Welcome back to Burn Pile, folks! 

We’re gonna be coming at you the rest of the season like a metaphor which describes a column that threads literature and current events with humor, wit, and style each and every Friday. If such an object of comparison exists. 

We should, however, recognize one of the gargantuan occurrences of the summer before we move along: the death of beloved writer Toni Morrison. August 5th was a heavy day for those of us here at CutBank, as it was for the millions of people who were touched by her work. May she rest in power. Go check out an interview over at LitHub with the beloved author. In it, Morrison touches on everything from her family history to meeting Jeff Bezos. The Guardian ran a cool series where authors of color--such as Tracy K Smith--reflect on Morrison’s importance. Speaking of her lasting influence, here is an interesting opinion article by Ross Douthat of The New York Times. In it, he approaches Morrison’s oeuvre from an economic perspective, arguing that she might be thought of as the last “great American novelist.” 

Anyways, Monday was Labor Day, a day in which we all collectively celebrate the fight against economic coercion and oppressive capitalism by watching TV, recovering from Sunday, and thinking about Tuesday. In celebration, here is a landmark article run by The New Yorker in 1999 by the one-and-only Anthony Bourdain. This stunning ode to the food industry helped kickstart the career of the beloved star of Parts Unknown. If you’re interested in other odd jobs, here’s a funny interview from McSweeney’s with former Miss Massachusetts, Alissa Musto. And, after all this, if you want to quit your job and run away, go check out ElectricLit’s list of books about just that. 

If all this book talk gets you in the mood, go check out LitHub’s roundup of the best books coming out this fall. Featuring Salman Rushdie, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Stephen King, and Margaret Atwood, this is a good list of what’s up next in the lit-sphere. 

Speaking of Margaret Atwood, labor frustration, and literature, here is a fascinating article from The New Yorker about the novelist’s upcoming installment in the world of The Handmaid’s Tale and the political complicity of our time which makes this world so terrifying, and so real. And, to bring it all the way back to the briefly-mentioned Jeff Bezos, here is an article from ElectricLit about some of the drama involving Amazon shipping Atwood’s new novel a week early, and that decision’s effect on indie booksellers. 

Happy Reading!  

BURN PILE: Death, Taxes, and Game of Thrones

We all know what today is, but a couple of things before we get started.

First off, Monday is Tax Day. Get those taxes filed before midnight, or better yet, before 7pm today MST. Then reward yourself by watching this TED Talk from 2016 in which Katie Bouman explains the algorithm she developed for capturing a black hole on camera. Afterwards you should check out this piece by The New York Times spotlighting all the many women in addition to Bouman who contributed to the historic achievement.

Speaking of women making waves, LitHub argues that, instead of being called a great “millennial” novelist, Sally Rooney should just be recognized as a great novelist. Ana Cecilia Alvarez for The New Republic analyzes the impossible subject matter of Valeria Luiselli’s novel Lost Children Archive, and over at ElectricLit, Marci Cancio-Bello interviews Susah Choi about the painfully accurate teenage emotions captured in her new novel Trust Exercise.

That’s the latest for prose, but April is National Poetry Month, and in celebration of the poem’s traditional appearance in eulogies, The Atlantic has compiled a list of elegiac poems mourning things lost or dead, which serves as a good segue into Game of Thrones. 

First, in no more than four minutes of rhyming couplets, James Corden sums up the last seven seasons of GoT and reminds us that Winter is Here. Then The New Yorker makes some predictions and offers their own set of eulogies for characters likely to be introduced and killed off in the eighth and final season. 

To get serious for a second, The Atlantic issues a criticism of GoT and the fantasy genre as a whole for featuring authoritarian rule as the preferred form of governance by hero and villain alike and posits that elections are the only way to truly subvert the genre by letting the people win the game. And over at BuzzFeedNews Jacob Anderson (aka Grey Worm) laments the show’s lack of diversity, while George R.R. Martin himself speaks up in The New York Times Style Magazine about what today’s politicians, including the President, could learn from his characters. Emilia Clarke is more direct, suggesting a fiery end to a Westerosi Trump. 

All this death is grim business and no doubt we’re going to lose some of our favorites (Esquire makes the case that it will be Daenerys), so count on McSweeney’s to lighten the mood with a little exchange between Jon Snow and 23andMe. 

The night is long and full of terrors even if you’re not banging your aunt. Happy watching. 

BURN PILE: America’s Future, the Hugo Awards, Literary Movies, Unpublished Poems by Emily Dickinson, and Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Lit Mags

Howdy folks,

This week, CutBank would like to say thanks to everyone who dropped by to see us at the AWP bookfair. You are the best. Yes, you. Don’t doubt it for a moment. Now, to the links!

On Tuesday, the finalists for the Hugo Awards were announced. This year’s finalists for the very best in science fiction include authors Yoon Ha Lee, Naomi Novik, Nnedi Okorafor, Brian K. Vaughan, and Ursula K. Le Guin. Congrats to all the finalists!

Science fiction is desperately needed, especially when we all can’t stop worrying about the future of our country, a topic discussed by Victor LaValle in this interview with Tochi Onyebuchi. Poetry also can act as a salve for our fears. Take Dan Chiasson’s profile of anti-pastoral poet David Baker as an example. POETRY BONUS: Check out these ten previously unpublished poems by Emily Dickinson.

And yet there is always room in the future for hope and heroes. Take Pete Buttigieg for example. The openly-gay mayor of South Bend, Indiana is expected to announce his presidential campaign. Gonna file that under Good News That We Need More Of. Further reading: Lucas Grindley argues that “Yes, It Matters That Pete Buttigieg Is Gay.”

CutBank would also like to remind you that as you fight The Fear it is important to take care of yourself. Sometimes you just need to put on your pajamas and curl up with a book or watch a movie or show. Should that be the case, check out Bookriot’s list of 15 book adaptations you can stream for free with nothing but your library card. (featuring UM alum Emily M. Danforth).You can also take a look at LitHub and Electric Literature’s lists of literary adaptations coming out in 2019.

If podcasts are more your jam, then perhaps give fiction/non/fiction a listen. Their newest episode will tell you everything you need to know about lit mags (featuring editors Brigid Hughes of A Public Space and Jennifer Baker of Electric Literature). 

In the meantime, stay strong, stay good,

CutBank

BURN PILE: AWP around the corner!

If you’re like us, you’re gearing up for AWP and are equal parts excited and overwhelmed by the sheer plentitude of writers, events, and offsite activities. That’s to say nothing about all that Portland offers beyond the walls of the Convention Center. So many options! Thank god for the daily yoga offerings and the Dickinson Quiet Space—we’ll need a few moments of quiet here and there. But planning is key, and so to help you best wrangle all that’s on offer at AWP, we’ve rounded up a few of the most helpful links out there.

The first is obvious but not to be overlooked. The official AWP attendee guide is full of useful information and tips, along with lots of nice, glossy pictures. Scrolling through it with a pen and notepad is a good place to start.

This page by writer Paulette Perhach really is key. It has links to a webinar about how best to navigate AWP while staying sane and (also) having a good time, a pre-made Google map of the Convention Center and downtown Portland with all the AWP essentials (including best places for coffee, breakfast, and even a few walks to seek some peace and quiet) and a pretty useful list of tips (which include preparing a good elevator pitch and making sure your AWP app profile is filled out and ready to go so you can tell anyone you meet to find you later on the app). Paulette Perhach also has a good list of #AWPtips on Twitter, so follow her at @pauletteperhach and search #AWPTips for more useful advice. Also, if you text WELCOME to 444999 she’ll send you a lot more resources, including checklists, reminders, a packing guide, and even a conversation starter guide for the socially awkward (who, us?). Good stuff there, guys, good stuff. 

If that’s not enough for you, here’s another list of tips compiled by The Writer. 

Meanwhile, if the official event schedule has you cross-eyed, The Portland Review has compiled a shorter list of AWP highlights, mostly featuring their own contributors and alumni, but it’s a bit more manageable and also highlights some offsite events for after-hours. Elsewhere, The Rumpus has put together their own list of recommended events.

And of course, don’t forget to come to the kickoff event sponsored by CutBank at Dig a Pony on Wednesday night, 8pm. There will be readings by Soma Mei Sheng Frazier and Joan Naviyuk Kane, our 2018 Chapbook winners, and a DJ to follow. And stop by our table at the book fair (T6025) for a chat, a button, the two newly released chapbooks, and the brand new issue of 89!

See you in Portland!

BURN PILE: Tragedy in New Zealand, the passing of a poet, and St. Patrick's Day

We here at CutBank were horrified and saddened at the news of the mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand on Friday. Here The New Yorker examines the best way to discuss the tragedy without amplifying either the voice of the gunman or the violence he wrought, but laments the social media platforms that allow for endless circulation of the filmed attacks. Over here, they argue that it’s time to have a serious look at the rising threat of white nationalism around the world, while The Atlantic shines a light on the long history of white supremacist ideology in the United States before taking a look at the ways mass shooters, including Friday’s, have repurposed literary words of bravery to evoke the heroic in their attacks on the defenseless.

So how to cope with a world gone mad? With books, perhaps. Over at Guernica, 2018 Oregon Literary Arts Writer of Color Fellow Reema Zaman discusses how to heal collective and individual wounds after a traumatic event, which is the focus of her new memoir, I Am Yours. And The New York Times will be celebrating Women’s History Month by featuring stories, essays, and appreciations by and about women throughout March.

Let’s pause a moment to mourn the passing of a literary great, poet W.S. Merwin, on Friday March 15. In honor of his life and work, The Paris Review has compiled a few of his best poems.

To end on a brighter note, today is St. Patrick’s Day, dedicated to the saint known for converting pagans to Catholicism and for driving the snakes out of Ireland. You could certainly mark the holiday by drinking green beer in an Irish pub or parade, or you could seek out one of these books written by Irish authors set far from the homeland. Whichever you choose, sláinte!

BURN PILE: Celebrating International Women's Day

March 8th was International Women’s Day, a holiday celebrated all around the world, if less so in the U.S.A.. Let’s honor it here at CutBank.

First off, take a gander at this roster of talented women on the just-released 2019 longlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Over at The New York Times, Kristen R. Ghodsee decries the American preference for Mother’s Day over International Women’s Day (attributing this to the latter’s socialist, Eastern bloc origins) and declares, “we are more than our wombs.”

Meanwhile at Broadly, twelve leading feminist thinkers from all backgrounds come together to discuss their visions for the future of the feminist movement and what it means for race, gender, art, and politics.

Across the pond, many an eyebrow was raised on Friday at the speech made by Megan Markle at the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust in honor of International Women’s Day, which she used to call attention to the stigmatization of menstruation, while at ElectricLit, Lily Meyer interviews Swedish comic artist Liv Strömquist about the shame associated with menstruation and the female body explored in her new graphic novel Fruit of Knowledge: The Vulva vs. The Patriarchy, panels of which have been put up by transit authorities in the Stockholm subway.

The Atlantic considers whether rebranding clothing and beauty products to appeal to “real” women misses the mark by implying that some versions of womanhood are false, and moreover by continuing to feed into the notion that beauty is a necessary female goal. Meanwhile, Nicholas Dames reviews L.E.L.: The Lost Life and Scandalous Death of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, the Celebrated “Female Byron”, the first ever biography about one of the most famous female literary figures of the pre-Victorian period.

Finally, as always McSweeney’s is prepared with a list for the modern woman seeking to take advantage of that extra hour of daylight to squeeze a bit more into her already packed life.

Here’s to all the women dancing backwards in high heels. Happy International Women’s Day!