read the web

Chicago Manual of Style FAQ

Wednesday, May 24th, 2006 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

I was doing some editorial work today on the forthcoming Electronic Literature Collection Volume One, which I'm editing along with Katherine Hayles, Nick Montfort and Stephanie Strickland. Having left my books temporarily in New Jersey, I was delighted to run ...

Coover Interview on KCRW

Thursday, December 8th, 2005 Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

There is a superb interview of Robert Coover available in RealAudio from KCRW’s Bookworm program. The first part of a two part interview was broadcast December 8th, and the other half will be broadcast on the 15th. The first part ...

Trib Article on Control and E-Lit

Monday, November 28th, 2005 Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

I was interviewed by the Chicago Tribune's Pulitzer Prize-winning cultural critic, Julia Keller, for an article published in the Trib this Sunday, "Plugged-in Proust: Has e-lit come of age?" (archive). William J. Mitchell, head of the Media Arts and Sciences ...

Winter Break Reading Update: Oulipo Compendium, Hayles, and Castronova

Monday, November 28th, 2005 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

I've gotten some sweet packages in the mail from Amazon over the past couple of weeks. My longest-anticipated purchase finally arrived from England. For the past year, I've had the Oulipo Compendium on order from Amazon UK. It seemed impossible ...

Books That Changed My Life

Wednesday, October 26th, 2005 Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

A former student, Tracy Lisk, is doing a project for Tom Kinsella's "Readers, Writers, and Books" class and has asked each of the Lit faculty to tell her about three books that changed their lives. Here is my response: First, ...

The Illustrated Gravity’s Rainbow

Wednesday, June 1st, 2005 Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

I recently ran across this ambitious and obsessive illustration project: Zak Smith's Illustrated Gravity's Rainbow includes an image for every single page of Pynchon's masterpiece. All the images are available on the site. The whole collection ...

Shelley Jackson Reading

Friday, April 22nd, 2005 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Shelley Jackson Writing Shelley Jackson visited Stockton last night to give a reading as the featured reader at the Stockpot literary magazine release party. Shelley read a brand-new story with an unpronounceable title in the form of an equation. She ...

William Gillespie’s MFA Reading

Thursday, April 21st, 2005 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

William Gillespie's Reading William Gillespie's MFA thesis reading at Brown University was a resounding success. William is the second writer to complete the Brown MFA creative writing program with an electronic writing fellowship (or third, if you count Noah). William ...

Shelley Jackson this Thursday

Monday, April 18th, 2005 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Quick trip to Providence

Monday, April 18th, 2005 Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Shortly after my next class, I'm hitting the highway for a quick trip to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where I'm giving a talk tomorrow titled "Electronic Writing from Hypertext to the Network Novel." I'm also going to attend ...

One Man’s Rubbish, Another Man’s Canon

Sunday, April 17th, 2005 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

This is pretty darn cool news that must have classicists jumping up and down. The Independent reports that, using infrared imaging technology developed for satellites, Oxford University scientists are now able to decode a horde of hundreds of papyrus manuscripts ...

Interviews from the archives

Friday, April 8th, 2005 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

I just added some new old material from my Miningco days: interviews of T.C. Boyle and Bettina Drew, as well as transcripts of chat/interviews with Chuck Palahniuk, Octavia Butler, Kinky Friedman, and Chitra Divakaruni. These can be found in the ...

A Baker’s Dozen Book Reviews

Monday, April 4th, 2005 Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

I posted many of the book reviews I wrote 1997-1999 for Authors Review of Books, the online book review I edited when I was doing the Authors site at the Mining Company. Reviews of books by Octavia Butler, Don DeLillo, ...

With Hidden Noise

Sunday, April 3rd, 2005 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

With Hidden Noise My Unknown amigo Dirk Stratton wrote an excellent story about this readymade, published as a book and website by Spineless Books. I should also mention the excellent Tout-Fait: Marchel Duchamp Studies Online Journal.

How DeLillo Writes

Monday, March 7th, 2005 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

I've been an avid fan of Don DeLillo ever since David Foster Wallace accused me of ripping off DeLillo's style in a story I wrote, when I was taking a workshop with Wallace at ISU, where I did my M.A. ...

Killing Time in Airports — Travel Notes

Saturday, January 8th, 2005 Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

IN ZURICH I walked from my house to the Rod and Reel at about noon, yesterday grabbed a reuben for lunch, called a cab, took a cab from the Rod to the Atlantic City Bus Terminal, purchased a greyhound ticket to ...

A reason to go to Texas

Monday, October 25th, 2004 Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Someday, when I'm older, I might want to spend some time in Austin, where the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center now hosts The Don DeLillo Archive. He's one of the few living novelists whose discarded pages I'd like to spend ...

T.C. Boyle

Tuesday, September 21st, 2004 Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

I came up with a formulation years ago of levels of fame. The first level of fame is: Nobody knows who you are, and nobody cares. The second level of fame is what I have achieved: People read my books, ...

Terminal Tours

Monday, July 5th, 2004 Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Critic and novelist Tom LeClair recently published a novel Passing On. While the novel itself is a print novel, in part about a company that takes the dying on trips when they have no one to assist them, LeClair also ...

Harry Mathews Reading

Monday, May 17th, 2004 Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Last night I tore myself away from the 1000-page grading marathon of the past week to take the train up to Philadelphia for a unique experience. Harry Mathews, one of the most interesting living novelists and the only American member ...