This is a book journal I started back in 2009. I couldn't pass on the unique, natural look and feel of the lokta Paper from Nepal. I thought it would make a perfect book journal, so it's full of reflections based on the books I read. The cover took water damage from a time it was sitting near an open window and a rainstorm passed through, but it didn't cause too much destruction. It makes it look like an effect the cover is supposed to have on purpose. The pages are thick and

Inspiring Oneself Octavia Butler's groundbreaking writing continues to captivate readers as they rethink humanity and society through the lens of her work. She paved the way for those who would follow in her path, being the first science fiction writer to be awarded a MacArthur Genius Grant, the first woman to receive both the Hugo and Nebula awards, and the first African American woman to rise to prominence as a science fiction author. In 2008, the Huntington Library in Sa

Writing in the Bathtub & the Duality of Screenwriter-Novelist Dalton Trumbo liked to write while he was in the bathtub. I wouldn’t say that he wrote while he was taking a bath because it was less about the bath and more about the idea that being there in the water was a comfortable place for him to sit and write all night. And at first I was thinking, maybe that’s not so odd—but the water mixing in with his papers and ink—and apparently he would have his typewriter in there w

This blog makes it clear that I'm really into bookstores, and I've been to bookstores throughout North America and even parts of Europe. So I thought I'd share with you my personal favorite bookstore, Brier Rose Books in Teaneck, NJ. Now, perhaps I'm a bit biased because I used to live within walking distance of this store and I could go all the time, but I am still convinced that if you have the chance, you will have a unique and wonderful experience at a bookstore with a gr

“Sword? One supposes a mistake, since Kafka never saw the monument. Yet it grows increasingly clear that Karl has landed in a nightmarish new world where everything is slightly off-kilter, skewed and disorienting. A bridge over the Hudson connects New York to Boston.” (Quote-Michael Dirda, WP | Image-Vanished Empires) Comic Moments in Literary Fiction #1 There’s plenty of reasons to laugh, so this series will explore the hilarious, laugh-out-loud moments found in serious,

The American Writers' Museum's First Exhibit Features the legendary scroll manuscript of Kerouac's classic American novel. I first read On the Road by Jack Kerouac in 2008. Then I started to get even more into Kerouac's writing, reading many of his other novels starting in 2009. But at that time, I learned I had just missed the chance to see with my own two eyes the actual, original, legendary, scroll manuscript of On the Road. Starting in 2007 and ending in early 2008, the s

Some reflections on magical realism via Nikolai Gogol It would be easy to brush aside the absurd impossibilities of Nikolai Gogol’s “The Nose”as merely a dream or illusion, but the story’s narrator—who sometimes butts his own nose into the story to tell the reader exactly what is going on—will have none of this. As the narrator concludes, “Say what you may, but such events do happen—rarely, but they do.” Kovalyov, our poor noseless protagonist, also questions that these event

Literary Talismans Literature as we tend to conceive of it exists in the realm of the mind, represented by little markings that are easily reproduced (the written word) and endlessly spread, whether on paper or electronically. But my goal in this series was always to explore the physical roots, the paper on which the words were originally carved. I'm also exploring what an English professor of mine once called "literary talismans" - tangible objects left behind by creatives.

I can use a poem to sneak in.” "Forbidden Welcome" - a short story of poets, philosophers, and a totalitarian government with a robot - has been published in Apeiron Review. You can read the full story in Apeiron Review Issue #3. Other recent fiction: "Pageturner" in 365 Tomorrows (Also see the forum discussion of the story here). "The Desert of the Hoboken" in Instigatorzine #18 (see the artwork they commissioned to go with the story from Shigeko Okada on her blog) "The

This blog may not have been updated recently, but I wrote a post for Drunken Boat's blog the other day, which I thought I'd share here. I'll be writing another one next month, all leading up to when the 15th issue of Drunken Boat is released. UPDATE - March 31st, 2012: I just wanted to add the link to my most recent article up on Drunken Boat's blog: Joseph Pascale on DB9’s “The Bull’s Eye” by Inderjeet Mani. You can access the story "The Bull's Eye" in Issue 9 of Drunken Boa

Destroy the Internet In a recent post I wrote, “I tend to type my novels directly into GoogleDocs so that they are constantly backed up on Google’s servers” and I realized that my writing process being so entwined with the internet is the exact opposite of Jonathan Franzen’s, who wrote (in his top ten rules for writing), “It's doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.” The Time Magazine article “Jonathan Franzen: Great American

Fountain Pen and Malfunctioning Typewriter Neal Stephenson started out writing on a typewriter, but when he began work on The Baroque Cycle, he decided to write the whole thing with a fountain pen. In an interview for Quicksilver, Stephenson said, “I’ve written every word of it so far with fountain pen on paper. Part of the theory was that it would make me less long-winded, but it hasn’t actually worked.” The plan didn’t seem to have worked out at all, as I believe the comple

in a Windowsill Garden I am honored to have my work included in On A Narrow Windowsill: Fiction & Poetry Folded Onto Twitter alongside 42 other wonderful writers. Folded Word Press has crafted a print version that is a sleek volume presenting the once Twitter-exclusive stories in a way that brings them alive. Appropriately enough, it is also available for ebook readers such as the Nook. According to Folded Word Press: “Written on four continents and read on six, the works in

and Hatred of Fellow Man: Ezra Pound's Pisan Cantos I love the poetry of Ezra Pound, but it is unfortunate that he cast the tainted shadow of anti-Semitism over his work, and this is something that his readers must struggle with. This is especially true in The Cantos, and The Pisan Cantos in particular, which still manages to be one of my favorite pieces by him. It seems to me that he was trying to unveil a usurious global banking conspiracy - something we can certainly relat

and "To Live a Life That is Not My Own" by Suany Cañarte It's been a big publishing week for the author Suany Cañarte. Finally, some of her fecund writing is available for the public to read online. Previously, the only access one could have to her wellspring of imaginative talent was in the webcomic Pyraliss, which she writes and draws, although that product has been on hiatus for the last couple of months. Now Suany has burst onto the fiction writing scene in the online lit

Oxford World's Classics Recently, I've been working on my novel The Bookstore Hobos, and I've amused myself by adding a minor, yet impossible, detail. There's a scene when two of the characters are perusing the James Joyce section. One of them, having previously noticed one of the B&N's giant posters for Ulysses on the wall near the bathroom - "The Modern Library's #1 Novel of the Twentieth Century" - takes a copy of the novel from the shelf. As he turns the thick paperback b