There’s a short scene in Fargo that nobody talks about much. It’s not one of the big scenes that everyone who sees the 1996 Coen brothers film remembers. Not one of the action scenes, like the kidnapping of the car salesman’s wife, or the sporadic bumbling violence of the two hired kidnappers, or the woodchipper scene and chase on the ice near the end of the film.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about the importance of feeding the spirit. It’s easy to go through the days of our lives caught up in the need to feed the body and its many cravings, whether we are the bold and the beautiful, or just the young and the restless, because as the world turns life has to be more than a soap opera, right? Don’t we yearn for more than dark shadows, somewhere away from the edge of night, seeking another world, a world that’s not filled with desperate housewives?!
What feeds your spirit? Yes, you, and please stop watching General Hospital for a moment. Just record it and watch it later. Or, better yet, let me give you the recap:
Read the rest of this entry »
Voices on the page, or on the computer screen of this blog, echo down the last days of 2009. Here are some of the voices that have brightened “A Little Romance” this year:
Read the rest of this entry »Local writer and teacher Cami Nihipali: There are discussions in literary circles about whetherTwilight is ‘good’ literature. I know my colleagues and I have had this discussion numerous times. The truth of the matter is that it doesn’t matter. Like the Harry Potter phenomenon, which became embroiled in a religious argument several years ago, Twilight and its subsequent books have gotten kids reading, and excited about reading nonetheless. As for romance, Meyer hits the nail on the head. Whether the reader likes Edward or Jacob, everyone can find that flutter of first love in this story.
Right after Thanksgiving weekend Richie, my friend from up the street, came over to watch Monday Night Football. It’s been a great season so far. After another sensational second half comeback the day before, Peyton Manning and the Colts were still undefeated, and we wanted to see how the other undefeated team, the New Orleans Saints, would do against the New England Patriots in the Monday night spotlight. The Saints did just fine, and we knew they would give the Colts a fight if they happen to meet at the end of the season.
But at halftime it isn’t the Saints that Richie wants to talk about. Instead he begins telling me about what happened that Saturday night when he and Noelle went out to dinner. I turn the TV sound down and settle back to listen to Richie’s latest adventure.
Read the rest of this entry »
Apart from the everyday world that I walk around in, there’s another world I enter when I’m writing a new story. It’s like a dream world because it has elements of my everyday world, but transformed somewhere in my mind into something strange and new. Just how strange varies from story to story.
In this dreamlike world, I quite willingly suspend my disbelief, and trust that most readers will be willing to do the same. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the Rime of the Ancient Mariner guy, was the one who came up with “willing suspension of disbelief” as a necessity in the dream world of storytelling. In return for entertainment—a good story—the reader agrees to accept some fantastic elements in the story.
Read the rest of this entry »
The new Bamboo Ridge collection, Issue #94, launches this Monday evening (November 23) at the UH Campus Center Ballroom. The event is free and open to the public, with a reception at 7 p.m. and reading at 7:30 p.m.
Featured readers: Ann Inoshita, Brenda Kwon, Michael Little, Wing Tek Lum, Alexei Melnick, Tyler Miranda, Janine Oshiro, K. L. Quilantang, Jr., Joseph Stanton, Delaina Thomas, and Kahikahealani Wight.
I want to spotlight two poems from the book, written by Ghislaine Chock. I asked Ghislaine to comment on the creation of these two poems and the inspiration for them.
Read the rest of this entry »
I couldn’t end an interview with Lisa Linn Kanae without asking her about romance in her new short story collection, Islands Linked by Ocean (Bamboo Ridge Press, 2009).
Follow us on Twitter
Fan us on Facebook
