Between the Lines: Monica Fambrough, Brett Fletcher Lauer, and Ginger Ko
<i>CL</i> asks the three featured writers performing a poetry reading at MOTHER on Sun., Feb. 28, about the page turners they're into these days.
CL asks the three featured writers performing a poetry reading at MOTHER on Sun., Feb. 28, about the page turners they're into these days.
“I recently finished The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood — two sweet and tragic novellas describing the world of artists, transvestites, communists, and other misfits swirling just beneath the grim surface of pre-WWII Berlin. And I recently started I Want My MTV by Rob Tannenbaum and Craig Marks, an oral history depicting (among other things) the collection of artists, transvestites, feminists, and other misfits upon whose ingenuity the success of MTV depended during the "music video revolution" of 1981-1992. Both books have a sort of ominous, combustible tone, but the former will inspire you to write, and the latter will inspire you to watch a bunch of early Duran Duran videos on YouTube.” — Monica Fambrough, author of Softcover, a collection of poetry just released from Natural History Press
“I picked up The Possession by Annie Ernaux because it was French, it was less than 100 pages, and the translator, Anna Moschovakis, is a poet I admire. I read the first few sentences and then the entire book in one sitting. The book creates a portrait of a woman after a love affair, and explores her jealousy and fixation on information pertaining to the new woman — what she looks like, where she lives, the particulars of her academic scholarship. The book is meditative and obsessive, not only about the narrator’s replacement but on her compulsion to suffer, which perhaps I identify with too much.” — Brett Fletcher Lauer, author of the memoir Fake Missed Connections: Divorce, Online Dating, and Other Failures
“I just finished bell hooks’ memoir, Bone Black. I’ve always loved hooks’ clear, proportioned prose — reading her writing has always felt like returning home. It is such an affirming book, and it gives me an important reminder about the sacredness of an inner life made real through writing. I was affected by how hooks is able to balance this clear eye, that unflinchingly perceives the flaws and weaknesses in people, with an empathy that recognizes the social forces that pervade everyone’s consciousness. Her considerations of how the patriarchy is not only deadly to women, but also disrupts and destroys lives through toxic paradigms of masculinity and abusive family dynamics is adding important nuances to my understandings of feminism.” — Ginger Ko, Ph.D. student at the University of Georgia's Creative Writing Program and author of Motherlover from Bloof Books