Boaz was a yellow he-goat, old as sin according to Grandma Gert. He stood just inside the barbed wire fence and aimed his gaze along the top of his nose as if it was a gun. When Joseph pointed him out to his mother, she said “Ish” without looking. The car bumped along the dirt road.

He liked to imagine catching the buck in a net and dragging him through the river till he came out white. Then you could walk near him and not have your stomach clutch from the stink. Nobody could figure out why Mr. Lurtz kept him. Sometimes he chucked rocks at his goat.

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Hot Off The Presses!

We stopped by Barnes & Noble, To Kill A Mockingbird was in the “New Fiction” section. Now, considering our locale (South Carolina), this provides an opening for many conventional Southern jokes. You have the illiteracy joke and the racism joke. Well, not all of us are illiterate and not all of us are racist. Anyway, older books and writing come back to us this Tuesday. The Preppy Handbook returns. Recently deceased, Frank Kermode had a love affair with poetry. More on poetry with an interview with Mark Strand. Camille Paglia wonders what the next big idea will be; postmodernism is dead?! And Isaac Asimov wonders what happened to the big ideas of the past. Enjoy your Twosdey –  Andrew Geer

She’s xTx. Her writing is raw, brave, and charged. She writes works of such talent and verve no one really cares about her actual identity. We’re far more caught-up in the words, worlds, and truths she gives us. Yet I’m going to out her. I think everyone should know: In addition to her extraordinary and no-holds-barred writing, xTx is incredibly kind and heartful.

– Ethel Rohan

Writing wise, where are you now? Where are you going?

I’ve done a lot of writing this year that hasn’t shown up in public. When it finally does, I will be happy.

I am going and going. I feel that my writing now is better than my writing before. So, I hope that wherever it is I’m going, I’ll be better when I get there.

What informs your creative process? How do you keep inspired?

I get randomly inspired. Today I heard the phrase, “She’s a spaghetti girl!” It was uttered in a high-pitched voice with complete love and adoration and instantly I knew I needed to write about it. I need to find out who the spaghetti girl is.

My creative process is to get inspired by something and go with it, wherever it wants to take me.

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I don’t eat birthday cake unless it’s my birthday. I’ve never tied another person’s shoelaces. Once upon a time there was a cat and a field and a mouse. The cat put its teeth through the mouse and then the field burned fire. Please don’t ask to try my french fries. You will only want more. The sky’s not yellow it’s chicken. Tonight the devil will wrack the sky with thunder. Tonight you will dream of people you have never met, fret about an operation you will never need. All is well, friend. Wear your feet bare. Except in public. Nobody likes people who don’t wear shoes in public. Unless it’s your birthday. Happy birthday. Now let’s eat some fiction. — Oliver Kancamagus

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Oh, Canada

If you make it to a top 10 list as a writer that’s worth mentioning on your CV, during interviews and when “casually” trying to impress your date. But we hope you never make it to the top 10 Overrated Candaian Authors list. Since the Huffington Post and the Guardian recently ran their version of overratedness, Canada’s taking its turn now. And yikes! These reviews are brutal with scathing adjectives such as “solipsistic, humorless, and alienating” grovelling nouns like “tragedy and farce.” If you really want to get your acerbic on, check this one out. And be sure to check back once more for the National Press version of 10 Underrated Canadian Authors. But, hey why even bother with it, for all we know these could be of the top 10 most overrated articles.

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