Lately.

It's been awhile. My apologies. What's new with me?

- A triad of reviews in LipStik Indie.

- Packing for my move to the Annex on Tuesday.

- Quitting my job to get set for the thesis year of my creative writing masters.

- An internship at a literary agency, starting in the next couple of weeks (swoon).

- An acceptance letter from Event Magazine. The story's called Eat Fist! and it's a lesbian coming out story about a geeky high school math whiz who falls in love with her giant bodybuilding Ukrainian tutor. Huh? Yeah, you heard me right.

Golding

It seems that William Golding, author of Simspons-parodied and general literary classic The Lord of the Flies, admits to setting children against each other during his stint as a teacher at Bishop's. More shocking is his attempted rape of a 15 year old girl during his teen years. Here's a bit from The Guardian:

The attempted rape involved a Marlborough girl, named Dora, who had taken piano lessons with Golding. It happened when he was 18 and on holiday during his first year at Oxford.

Carey quotes the memoir as partially excusing the attempted rape on the grounds that Dora was "depraved by nature" and, at 14, was "already sexy as an ape".

It reveals that Golding told his wife he had been sure the girl "wanted heavy sex". She fought him off and ran away as he stood there shouting: "I'm not going to hurt you," the memoir said.

Two years later, the pair met again and had sex in a field, with Golding again introducing crudity by quoting the girl's foreplay remark: "Should I have all that rammed up my guts?"

The author was convinced her approach to his father was a deliberate attempt to discredit him and his older brother who, coincidentally, was having sex with his girlfriend in the same field.

The biography detailing all of Golding's exploits is forthcoming. I'm a total gossip-monger, so I'll clearly be buying it.

Apartment

I just signed a lease for a fantastic apartment in the Annex. Little to do with writing, other than the fact that I'll be writing in it a lot come September.

There you go.

Shit.

[the following comes from the estimable blog of the inestimable Spencer Gordon.]

The Conservative government has decided to cut literary publications out of Canadian Periodical Funding.


Here's the source, from Quill and Quire. I think it's something you should read.

But rest assured, gentle reader - important cultural publications like Elle, Fashion Magazine, Flare, and Style at Home (which no doubt absolutely require the 600 to 900 thousand dollars they receive from the government per annum, due to their tiny, marginal audiences and thought-provoking, status-quo challenging content) will still be on the Conservative payroll.

So, if you like to read new writing, by poor or struggling or burgeoning writers, or like to see a viable outlet for anything even remotely avant-garde or 'challenging', please do your country a favour and support the arts.

Here's how:

1) Subscribe to a lit mag (or ten), if you haven't done so already.
2) Repeat step one.
3) Stop voting Conservative, if you haven't done so already for some strange and scary reason that I'm sure wasn't your fault (probably bad parenting or abuse or that accident on the see-saw when you were four that made your forehead look kind of 'funny'). And if you don't vote, please start actively voting against the Conservatives, as this is all mostly your fault, you apathetic loser.

Anyways. Goodnight, sweet magazines. We'll miss you in the fast food concrete suburbs of Harper's happy planet.

PostScriptUno

Oh yeah, almost forgot. My first review for LipStik Indie is up. It's, like, okay. The next one will be better.

Loving Beth C.

I'm supposed to be doing preliminary work on my thesis, a novel about crazy people. Instead I'm reading some pretty cool Larry Doyle articles. If you haven't heard of Larry Doyle or you're too lazy to click the link, he wrote I Love You Beth Cooper, which I read and found comical. Evidently others did also; it won the James Thurber humor award. He also wrote for The Simpsons. And for places like Esquire and The New Yorker.

In particular, I'm enjoying these essays:

Larry Doyle on moving to LA to write for the Simpons.

How Larry Doyle Became a Writer, Part One

How Larry Doyle Became a Writer, Part Two

Pretty good stuff. In characteristically self-deprecating fashion, he claims these puppies contain no helpful advice. Well. I like how much shit he goes through and how he still trucks on. Good on you, Larry Doyle. I also like how he milks his contacts and advises writers to know as many talented people as possible. In my own (VERY LIMITED, TOTALLY AMATEUR WRITER) experience, I've found that to be the case. I know a lot of really talented people who have been kind enough to throw me bones every once in awhile.

Anyway. I should probably put some pants on (my writing pants) and get back to the desk.