Can you write a ghost story in no more than 124 characters?
Stuart Neville, author of The Twelve (which I reviewed on The Book Book the other day), is running a little contest. The occasion? That book’s publication tomorrow in the US, called here The Ghosts of Belfast. Following is a brief description of the rules/guidelines [...]

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My review of this new thriller is up, over at The Book Book.
(Technically, it’s only newish; it came out in the UK several months ago. However, it’s slated for publication here in the US on October 1, under the title The Ghosts of Belfast.)
Capsule review: an excellent story, told in what is — for another [...]

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From yesterday’s New York Times Book Review, we have an essay on “When Writers Speak“:
Like most writers, I seem to be smarter in print than in person. In fact, I am smarter when I’m writing. I don’t claim this merely because there is usually no one around to observe the false starts and groan-inducing sentences [...]

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[Image: "Autumn Grasses," a two-panel folding screen by 19th-century
Japanese artist Shibata Zeshin. Click image for more information.]
From whiskey river (which has been on a William Stafford binge for a few weeks, not that you’ll find me complaining):
Assurance
You will never be alone, you hear so deep
a sound when autumn comes. Yellow
pulls across the hills and thrums,
or [...]

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The Missus and I saw District 9 on Saturday. I’m tempted to review it in full, but fear I’d reveal too much of its plot. So I’ll just say that District 9 is one of the, I don’t know… two or three best movies I’ve seen for the last 10 or 15 years — in [...]

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From whiskey river:
The Way It Is
There’s a thread you follow. It goes
among
things that change. But it doesn’t
change.
People wonder about what you are
pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do [...]

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An old Monty Python skit posits a service called “Confuse-a-Cat.” (Veterinarian to anxious elderly couple: “I think I can definitely say that your cat badly needs to be confused.”) I started to explain the whole thing but was laughing too hard to type properly; I’ll include the seven-minute routine in its entirety at the foot [...]

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From Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig:
You want to know how to paint a perfect painting? It’s easy. Make yourself perfect and then just paint naturally.
From “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” a story by Jorge Luis Borges (translation by James E. Irby):
[Menard] did not want to compose another Quixote [...]

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From whiskey river (italicized portion):
Messenger
My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird –
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which [...]

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It’s twenty-five(ish) years ago. Lunchtime on a workday. Walking the landscaped grounds of a building especially constructed for the two to three thousand programmers, managers, and support staff — and giant mainframe computers, hard drives, and other hardware — in the service of what, for now, is still the world’s largest telephone company.
I’ve got two [...]

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