The WELL: inkwell.vue.179: Kelly Link: "Stranger Things Happen"

#70: Valdemar Francisco Zialcita (dextly) Mon 14 Apr 03 07:24

Mon, 14 Apr 2003 07:24:00 PDT

Good luck with the house, the new book, and many zines to come ... [Read entire topic]

#69: Gavin Grant (gavingrant) Sat 12 Apr 03 08:34

Sat, 12 Apr 2003 08:34:00 PDT

Thanks, Martha! -- and everyone else.

Have been trying this Celestial Seasonings tea with everything (zinc, vitamin C, and echinacea -- even good endings) and it is great with lime and honey (most things are, I suppose). Don't usually like their teas (too sweet) but this was hitting the spot.

Back to the proofing of books. Paul Witcover, the proofreader, is our collective hero.

Cheers! [Read entire topic]

#68: Martha Soukup (soukup) Fri 11 Apr 03 16:14

Fri, 11 Apr 2003 16:14:00 PDT

Well, this went fast! Thanks, Kelly and Gavin. Officially, this interview is over, and you can sequoister yourselves in a tub of chicken soup.

But you're more than welcome to stick around! [Read entire topic]

#67: Angus MacDonald (angus) Thu 10 Apr 03 22:33

Thu, 10 Apr 2003 22:33:00 PDT

Maybe. Even if it works, chewing zinc is worse than most colds. [Read entire topic]

#66: The Phantom of the Arts Center (tinymonster) Thu 10 Apr 03 20:09

Thu, 10 Apr 2003 20:09:00 PDT

Zinc, man. Lots of zinc.

(For the cold, not the endings.) [Read entire topic]

#65: Gavin Grant (gavingrant) Thu 10 Apr 03 05:55

Thu, 10 Apr 2003 05:55:00 PDT

I refute that I have a bad cold. I am bravely teetering on the edge of a cold and refusing to give in. This portion of the story is called "Vitamin C never tasted so good, Or, It's All About the Garlic."

The Peabody book group thing was fun. Long-time and a few new members. Everybody had read Stranger Things Happen, and they all had strong opinions.

One of the things that came up was endings (which brings me back to what we were talking about before -- I'd love to have as many epiphanic (keep you mind out the gutter!) moments in regular life as there are in short stories. (Do short story protagonists laugh at novel characters for the amount of words it takes to get there?)

Without asking a stupid general question (I'll get back to those later), what can we do about endings? How can they be made easier? (Oh, wait, generalizing.) Try that. [Read entire topic]

#64: The Phantom of the Arts Center (tinymonster) Wed 9 Apr 03 18:39

Wed, 09 Apr 2003 18:39:00 PDT

Get well, you two! [Read entire topic]

#63: Kelly Link (kellylink) Wed 9 Apr 03 11:37

Wed, 09 Apr 2003 11:37:00 PDT

>Aha! So, you're reading zines. Any others you've enjoyed? (Take a look at the stack on the top of the boookshelf in the office if you can't remember.)

I'm trying to get a short, weird story written for Christopher Rowe's zine, Say... I love the zine Peko Peko (which is all about food.)

Meanwhile, as Gavin says, it's snowing, and we both have colds. Tonight we go up to Peabody, MA, for a reading and book group. I don't have much of a reading voice, but at least I don't have to sing. [Read entire topic]

#62: Kelly Link (kellylink) Wed 9 Apr 03 11:33

Wed, 09 Apr 2003 11:33:00 PDT

>Films like The Ring and even The Sixth Sense stand out because the end is not the expected comfortable fiction where the bad monster is cleaned out from under the bed and the world is safe for bedroom slippers once again.

>Why is so much horror written to be comforting?

I completely disagree, by the way. Horror movies and horror fiction don't usually have tidy, comfortable ends, any more than any other kind of fiction -- i think ends in general are the most problematic parts of fiction, because they don't match up with how life works.

I don't agree about horror being written to be comforting, either. There are cosy kinds of ghost stories, just as there are cosy kinds of mysteries. One aim of fiction is to comfort, and another aim is to unsettle. The kind that makes the most sense does both. [Read entire topic]

#61: Kelly Link (kellylink) Wed 9 Apr 03 11:28

Wed, 09 Apr 2003 11:28:00 PDT

>Kelly and Gavin, your new house sounds very nice, but ... why did you leave Brooklyn? And do you miss it?

We both miss Brooklyn a ton. At the moment, we both have bad colds, and so I'm missing the chicken soup from an Israeli deli up on 51st street, in Manhattan, near 10th Ave. Every chance we get, when we go back for work, we eat dinner or lunch at Grand Szechuan International. I really miss browsing for CDs at Other Music, and at Kim's. And I miss friends.

On the other hand, we had over 3 tons of books in storage while we lived in Brooklyn. At night, this skunk comes up and looks in the door of our work studio, and then goes underneath the house. We're closer to Oishi, in Sudbury, MA: my favorite sushi restaurant.

I've never stayed in one place for very long -- when I was a kid, we moved every few years. So leaving Brooklyn didn't feel all that strange. What will feel strange is when we stay put, here. [Read entire topic]