It’s been a week of more rain, inter-cranial pressure changes, and discussions about how to pronounce Joaquin. But also lots of literary goings-on!
We enjoyed a fantastic discussion late last week between Michael Taeckens and Belle Boggs, about the promotion for her story collection, Mattaponi Queen, and forthcoming book, The Art of Waiting. (You can read her essay, “Imaginary Children,” in Ecotone 17 for a sneak peek of her new book!) The discussion revolved around the perfect cover design (witness Belle’s first cover here, one of Michael’s favorites), whether to hand out character-themed jam at readings or not to, and how to be yourself on social media. We’re so grateful to Michael for all we learned from him as UNCW’s first visiting publishing professional this semester.
Speaking of social media, Ecotone got Instagram! Follow us @EcotoneMagazine (and Lookout’s as well, of course, at LookoutBooksuncw).
Lookout and Ecotone authors have been in the news nearly as much as Hurricane Joaquin this week!
Lookout’s debut novel, Honey from the Lion, has been all over the South, from our home state of North Carolina, to the book’s backdrop, West Virgina. Wilmington’s own Star News called it “a masterful effort, an evocation of a vanished time and place” in this review. The Charleston Gazette Mail says Honey “reads like a thriller, a sweeping epic, and historical fiction at its best.” We couldn’t agree more.
Ecotone contributor and neighbor John Jeremiah Sullivan wrote a fun rock ‘n roll investigation for the Paris Review. Kirkus Reviews 2015 Book Finalists longlist includes Ecotone contributors Lauren Groff and Jim Shepard. We owe congratulations to Ecotone poet and essayist Lesley Wheeler, whose new collection of poetry, Radioland, is available, as of yesterday, from Barrow Street Press. And our own Binocular Vision appeared in the New York Times this week, in this meditation on the intersection of motherhood and gadgetry.
“I was waiting out my twin sons’ soccer practice, reading Binocular Vision, a collection of short stories by Edith Pearlman, on my iPhone. The boys were dribbling their way around cones; I was in the gym bleachers, moved by Pearlman’s meditations on mortality, having a bit of a moment in an unlikely place.”
We hope your week is filled with only the best kinds of storms and unlikely realizations: ones that bring much-needed rain and understanding.
(And: Joaquin. There, we said it one more time!)
