Courtney Zoffness writes fiction and nonfiction. She won the 2018 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award, the American Literary Review Fiction Prize, the Arts & Letters Prize in Creative Nonfiction, and an Emerging Writers Fellowship from The Center for Fiction. A recipient of two residency fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, her work has appeared in The Southern Review, Indiana … [Read more...]
At the Intersection of Linguistics and Literary Criticism: Objectivist Methodology in the Creation of Metalanguage(s) in Alain Robbe-Grillet’s La Jalousie
In his essay on Robbe-Grillet, “Objective Literature: Alain Robbe-Grillet,” Roland Barthes says of objectivism in practice that objects exist “without heredity, without associations, and without references, an object rigorously confined to the order of its components and refusing with all the stubbornness of its thereness to involve the reader in an elsewhere, whether … [Read more...]
Star Spider’s YA novel, Past Tense – book release and launch event
Empty Mirror contributor Star Spider's novel, Past Tense will soon be published by HarperCollins. Past Tense will be released April 10, 2018 (and will be available at Amazon). Past Tense is a debut YA novel about Julie Nolan—a pretty average girl with pretty average problems. She’s been in love with her best friend, Lorelei, ever since they met in grade three. Only Lorelei … [Read more...]
Writers on Writers on Writers I: Linda Chown on E.L. Doctorow on Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying
This is the first of a series of short essays. These reviews will interpret writers interpreting each other. This first one specifically addresses what I think E.L Doctorow does with Hemingway and Faulkner in his reading of Faulkner’s tremendously interpretable novel, As I Lay Dying. All writing here is my own except where otherwise quoted. I will step in parenthesis to make my … [Read more...]
Realism: Just How Real Is It?
We’ve been sold a bill of goods. The original crime was committed a century and a half ago when literary romanticism was kicked to the curb by Flaubert, Tolstoy, Twain, and other disciples of a new religion: realism. I’m not claiming that I prefer romanticism to realism. I do not. But if I’m going to invest my literary capital, I want to know what I’m buying, and I think I’m a … [Read more...]
Book Review – Joe Ridgwell’s novel, Burrito Deluxe
As a writer, I relish the occasional night of ritualistic storytelling. Nights where it becomes a sport, sat around bars, campfires, or kitchen tables; exchanging stories of where you've been and what you've seen with friends family and the occasional stranger. As the people and places within them naturally become mythologised over time, but never watered down. It's a world … [Read more...]
The Invitation of the Mirror: Jonathan Lethem & Me, from the Margin to the Mainstream
Words and images by Jasun Horsley I recently had a podcast discussion with the author Jonathan Lethem. This connection has probably meant more to me than previous connections. For one thing, it’s been ongoing since the inception (very much was the inception) of Seen & Not Seen, and anyone who has read that work knows how important my connecting to Lethem has been to me … [Read more...]
Inaudible
Can’t anyone just give us a straight answer? He rambles, doctor. It’s dementia, isn’t it? I see no signs… Here we go. I see no signs of… Here we go… ‘no one can say for sure.’ I see no apparent signs of… It gets on our nerves, doctor. …no apparent signs of… He just rambles, doctor. Meaningless. On and on. Too much light in my eyes. Snatch the Ray-Bans off the … [Read more...]
Heebling’s Journals
The recent, unexpected passing of Charles Heebling and the subsequent discovery of his “third-floor journals” are finally shedding light on an intriguing and relatively unknown area of scientific research. The facts about Heebling’s death, at 38, have been accurate, though sparse: an unfortunate collision with a speeding milk truck, Heebling, on foot, just a few blocks from … [Read more...]
Book Review – Alex Preston’s In Love and War.
In Love and War is the third novel from Alex Preston, following 2010's This Bleeding City – which won The Edinburgh International Book Festival Readers’ First Book Award, and was chosen as one of Waterstones’ New Voices of 2010 – and its follow-up, The Revelations, which was released in 2012 to much critical acclaim. The novel follows Esmond Lowndes on a journey from an … [Read more...]
Red Warner’s Last Painting
Excerpted from the forthcoming novel, Visual Liberties He's now had his morning coffee and finished off a bowl of oatmeal with raisins and slices of banana. From the back of his closet he digs out the old coveralls he wears when painting, takes off his shirt, puts the coveralls on and slips his feet into paint splattered shoes that have been relegated to the back of the … [Read more...]
From Notes of an Errant A/C Man: The Secret to My Uncle’s Jalisco Style Birria – jose arroyo
THE SECRET TO MY UNCLE’S JALISCO STYLE BIRRIA i shouldn’t’ve opened my big mouth: where i’ve been accused by women of being ‘emotionally unavailable’, i make myself too available for these god-damned air conditioning gigs. but a man’s gotta make a buck in this inclement economic climate. it’s fuckin’ sink or swim… i was with my ol’ lady at my cousins quinceanyera when i … [Read more...]
Chiseled in Rock
Literature is a morgue: I go there to identify my friends. One of them evaporated yesterday, March 6, 2013. The last pic he nailed through the ether toward me had his Woodstock cherry red 335 erecting from the lap into the skies. I was, obviously, born ten years after him, yet that tiny space in time made no difference. If one were to study history thoroughly, one might … [Read more...]
Why multi-genre writing rocks!
During the week of June 14-17, I was fortunate enough to win a scholarship to attend the Wesleyan Writers’ Conference. It is a program that offers the opportunity for people to meet fellow writers and learn from some of the best in the field, and I was ecstatic. But a dear friend, who is privy to my day-to-day madness, asked me, “Do you have any energy left to participate in a … [Read more...]
I’m For an Art
1982 SoHo Painting can be an evil mistress. She can love you tender and she can love you raunchy, and she can rip your guts apart. When you put that last stroke on your canvas and you know you've done it right, and you step back to look at what you've done, a deep sigh comes all the way up from your loins and you say “Yes! Yes, by God, I did it.” But it can also be … [Read more...]
Book Review – T.C. Boyle Stories II
Stories II by T.C. Boyle / Viking / Penguin Group / 2013 / 978-0670026258 / 944 pages In some form or another the short story has probably been around as long as man has had the desire and the ability to communicate. Oral tales told around the fire at night aren't going to be long drawn out affairs. Neither are they going to deal with more than one subject. While they might … [Read more...]
Post-Zen, a reflection for Reilly
When you were put away your car had a half a tank of gas. This surprised me, because I had only ever seen you put five dollars in at a time. While you drove I would watch the dial on the odometer slowly turn as we ate up every tenth of a mile. After you were put away we cried in a bar. Two boys approached us and asked us to play pool, and I said yes, but the game felt silly … [Read more...]
Book Review – Erik Verhaar’s Andalusian Dogging
Andalusian Dogging by Erik Verhaar, translated by Jonathan Ellis / The Reception Game / 2013 / 17 pages In Erik Verhaar's short story, inspired by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali's 1929 film An Andalusian Dog (Un Chien Andalou), the film itself becomes a character. An Andalusian Dog bumps into this story's narrator on the street: "I felt his fingers tap my shoulder. I … [Read more...]
Lost Angeles: Writers on the Storm
"Lost Angeles: Writers on the Storm" is an excerpt from Jim Cherry’s novel The Last Stage. We pulled up in front of a u-shaped apartment building that opened into a courtyard, the address the writer gave me. Jimmy and I walked up to the apartment. It looked like I was expected, the inside door was opened and I could hear the TV show The Price is Right coming from inside. I … [Read more...]
Students: A Play by Peter Rose
The living room of a student house in London. Emma sits holding a mug of tea. Robbie stands looking out of the window holding a bottle of beer. She is twenty. He is sixty. ROBBIE:You think you know something about men? (Pause) Would you say you knew much about the opposite sex? EMMA:I think I do. ROBBIE:Well, you don’t. EMMA:I know one thing/ ROBBIE:No … [Read more...]
Book Release – The Life of Ling Ling: A Novella About Iraq
In The Life of Ling Ling, the Marines of Combat Outpost Bordelon are weeks away from going home. Buried fantasies of a peaceful future rise to the surface as returning home from Iraq alive suddenly seems real. But for Sergeant Timothy Square, his own destructive bravado and eagerness to embrace the warlike culture where he thrives may have cost him the one bit of peace he … [Read more...]
Book Review – What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, by Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver's classic short story collection, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, was originally published in 1981 and has been the subject of some controversy over the years, with questions raised about the importance of editor Gordon Lish's role in establishing the unique minimalist style that pervades each story. Such questions of authorship vs. editorship have … [Read more...]
Book Review – Beatitude: A Novel by Larry Closs
Beatitude by Larry Closs / Rebel Satori Press / 2011 / 978-1608640294 / 272 pages Empty Mirror received a copy of Beatitude from the author, with no obligation. ] Larry Closs' debut novel focuses on Harry Charity, who is gay, and his relationship with straight poet & Marine Jay Bishop. The Beat Generation fills the pages: there's the pair's shared affinity for the Beat … [Read more...]
Wankers, Burds, and Skag: Heteroglossia in Trainspotting
Mikhail Bakhtin, a twentieth century Russian philosopher and semiotician, was a theorist who worked heavily in literary theory, as well as the philosophy of language. One of his major concepts regarding the philosophy of language addresses the variations and dialects that occur in one single language. Heteroglossia revolves around the concept that multiple languages exist … [Read more...]
Love Ya Baby: 5 Modern Stories of Love & Crime
Gary Sanders' new collection of five hard-hitting neo-noir crime fiction short stories, Love Ya Baby, has just been released. Gary Sanders is an accomplished screenwriter specializing in crime dramas and action thrillers. The short story collection, Love Ya Baby is his first book; his first novel, a supernatural Hollywood thriller will be published later this … [Read more...]
Everything All at Once: A Short Story
I left my poetry somewhere...dropped it...didn't even know it was missing until recently. I found it tucked inside an old book given to me when I was younger from a poet with sparkling eyes. Given to me at a time when I wouldn't dare lose it. I took it with me everywhere in that old tattered army satchel stuffed with poetry and dreams. I found it recently while I was going for … [Read more...]
Hollywood Rooftops
The ghosts of that 1920s apartment were in the air when we sat on its rooftop drinking wine, one summer’s eve at dusk. We could almost see old Betty’s skinny frame still making her way up Las Palmas Avenue, taking a walk with Kooky Carol or visiting Mary Ann Andrews next door. Of course, after a few good glasses of wine, you really could imagine almost anything up there on … [Read more...]
Everything Must Go
Larry was a rare one. Very nice and helpful – he would expertly fix the leaky faucets when my landlord didn’t get around to it. Unfortunately when it came to most everything else, Larry was like the many nomads who had previously lived in that apartment across the way. There are those who will do whatever it takes to get the job done and those who will stop and smoke a … [Read more...]
Lottie – by Kenneth Tindall
Lottie lived in a little house close to the summit of one of the Hollywood Hills. Once every two weeks we would take a Pacific Electric bus which ran out the Hollywood Freeway, and then the arduous walk up to Lottie's. There was a garage, dug into the hillside and considerably below the house itself, and a switchback front walk with precipitous and rickety wooden steps up … [Read more...]
Interview with Kenneth Tindall: From Bellevue to Lynæs. An Interview by Lars Movin
(First published in "Maskinfabrikken," Copenhagen) Kenneth Tindall (b. 1937) is a well-kept literary secret. He first appeared in 1967 with Vindharpen, a novel about Copenhagen in the sixties, and has in all written five novels (of which three are unpublished). They are books which draw their material from a long life's incredible journey: from Los Angeles in the nineteen … [Read more...]
Cut-Up (The Stolen Scroll)
Jim sat at the library table with his head in his hands. He didn't want to go to jail. Yesterday morning he prided himself in caring nothing for possessions, but today, all the people who could have been his friends probably hated him for something he possessed. They didn't know it was him they hated. They posted things on the website like, "WhoEVER took the scroll, please … [Read more...]
