Author: benjwoodard

Categories
Interview

Interviewing Ondjaki

I talked with Angolan author Ondjaki for this month’s issue of Numéro Cinq. You may remember that I reviewed Ondjaki’s novel, Granma Nineteen and the Soviet’s Secret, this past summer, and we got to communicating shortly thereafter. We chatted via email for several months to construct the piece, with messages exchanged every week or two. The wonders of technology! Read everything we had to say here.

Categories
Fiction

Spartan Issue 2

Spartan2

Happy to see that my little story, “Whiteout,” which was originally published online at Spartan Lit, was also included in Spartan‘s second print installment. The issue (out now) is full of great writers, and I’m thrilled to be in their company.

Categories
Random Uncategorized

The big list of what I read in 2014

As far as I can remember, these are the books I read (or re-read) this calendar year. Most are new; some are older.

Particular gems published in 2014 are in bold.

  • A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
  • Young Skins by Colin Barrett
  • Before, During, After by Richard Bausch
  • Arts & Entertainments by Christopher Beha
  • The Betrayers by David Bezmozgis
  • Train Shots by Vanessa Blakeslee
  • Adventures in Immediate Unreality by Max Blecher
  • A Brave Man Seven Stories Tall by Will Chancellor
  • Man V Nature by Diane Cook
  • Fantomas Versus the Multinational Vampires by Julio Cortazar
  • Academy Street by Mary Costello
  • Every Kiss a War by Leesa Cross-Smith
  • Outline by Rachel Cusk
  • Can’t and Won’t by Lydia Davis
  • Wonderland by Stacey D’Erasmo
  • The Family Cannon by Halina Duraj
  • The Wilds by Julia Elliott
  • Together We Can Bury It by Kathy Fish
  • Dreaming Rodin by John Michael Flynn
  • When Mystical Creatures Attack! by Kathleen Founds
  • An Untamed State by Roxane Gay
  • The Up-Down by Barry Gifford
  • Never Mind Miss Fox by Olivia Glazebrook
  • After the People Lights Have Gone Off by Stephen Graham Jones
  • Airships by Barry Hannah
  • Ray by Barry Hannah
  • The Big Seven by Jim Harrison
  • The Spark and the Drive by Wayne Harrison
  • The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman
  • The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison
  • If It Is Your Life by James Kelman
  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
  • Sleeping with Gypsies by Ginny MacKenzie
  • The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai
  • I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You by Courtney Maum
  • Birds of America by Lorrie Moore
  • The City Under the Skin by Geoff Nicholson
  • Granma Nineteen and the Soviet’s Secrets by Ondjaki
  • Wouldn’t You Like to Know by Pamela Painter
  • Twenty-Something by Tatiana Ryckman
  • Skylight by Jose Saramago
  • By the Book by Diane Schoemperlen
  • Antigone by Sophocles
  • All Days Are Night by Peter Stamm
  • The Last Reader by David Toscana
  • The Big Green Tent by Ludmila Ulitskaya
  • The City Son by Samrat Upadhyay
  • The Isle of Youth by Laura van den Berg
  • The Least Cricket of Evening by Robert Vivian
  • God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut
  • Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West  
  • Mobile Library by David Whitehouse
  • The Elusive Moth by Ingrid Winterbach
  • The Wallcreeper by Nell Zink
Categories
Book Review Essay

Small Things

Brief update: I contributed a tiny bit about Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater to a great little essay over at The Oyster Review. I’m happy to share the same space with some excellent writers as we wax poetic about our favorite Vonnegut books.

Also, I added my two cents to Necessary Fiction‘s “Best of 2014” roundup.