Christopher Barzak

Category: Happiness

  • Susan and Me

    My friend Kelly Bancroft has a video essay up at Time.com today.  “Susan and Me” is about my beloved Susan Boyle (who, in her last performance, was not as beguiling as her first) and Kelly’s connections to her as a singer from a post-industrial town where your talents may or may not go undiscovered.  It’s…

  • Days like today

    Today was a good day.  Three really nice things happened, and I’ll go backwards in the order of their appearance. Tonight I went to Kent State’s Trumbull County campus, a satellite of the main campus which is actually in Kent, Ohio.  The Trumbull campus is a place where a lot of students in this region…

  • Fullest

    Recently, while communicating with friends and acquaintances on Facebook and MySpace, I’ve been reading the user status posts, and also the information sections where people describe themselves, and have been coming across self-descriptions in which people state that they are happy and live life to the fullest.  It’s an interesting statement to make, and I’m…

  • Party, party, party

    Dear All You Youngstowners and those who will be hereabouts come this weekend,   This Saturday will be one big party downtown.  Why?  Because I’m throwing a party for the release of my new book, which comes out tomorrow, The Love We Share Without Knowing.  There will be food (cross-cultural selections, since the book is…

  • Mail from Japan

    My Japanese mom sent this picture to me today.  Apparently the new book has arrived at her doorstep earlier than it has here.  I love seeing this photo of the book, in Japan now, where I wrote it.  

  • Starred review in Booklist

    First starred review ever. Happy!

  • Writing and publishing update

    It seems like ages since I gave a writing (or publishing?) report, but here it is. In August my short story “The 24 Hour Brother” will appear in the new issue of Bantam Spectra Pulse. At the end of November, my second novel, The Love We Share Without Knowing will be released by Bantam Books…

  • Good things

    1. It is beautiful outside today.  I am going to spend most of the rest of the day out in it after writing this. 2. My kittens are adorable.  Seriously, no one has better ones.  They’re sitting in the window watching birds together at the moment.  Last night, after a serious catnip binge, they chased…

  • Locus Award Nominees

    It’s been brought to my attention that my novel One for Sorrow has made it onto the list of finalists for Best First Novel in the Locus Awards this year (thanks Rick and John!).  Very excited, of course, especially to be named among that list of other first-time novelists.  Congratulations to everyone in all the…

  • Fixer-uppers

    Via my friend Meghan, David Giffels sounds like a guy who is as crazy about Akron as I am about Youngstown. He bought a nearly condemned house a little over a decade ago and has been restoring it with his wife ever since, and even wrote a book about it. Can’t wait to read it.…