Christopher Barzak

Category: Writing

  • Towards the end of something

    One of the things I’ve become conscious of after writing two books and being in the latter stages of a third one is when I’m nearing the latter stages of narrative.  I’m not a plot outliner; I write forward, sometimes at a charge, sometimes groping in the dark.  This makes for an organic, non-linear process,…

  • Summer Stock

    It is now August, and I’m at the tail end of what has been a very busy summer.  I managed to move forward a bit with the novel, wrote two short stories, and an essay, and also took two classes toward my MFA degree and will be taking a third one beginning at the end…

  • One resolution accomplished

    Back around New Year’s, I made one writerly resolution.  From that blog post: “One of my goals for the year is to write something joyful instead of melancholy, extroverted instead of introverted, playful instead of serious.  I suspect I will have to change some of the ways I perceive things to do so.  But that…

  • Wherefore art thou, Juliet

    Today we bring you an awesome interview with the editor of my first two books, Juliet Ulman.  Okay, so “we” don’t bring it to you, Jeff Vandermeer does, over at Amazon.com’s blog, Omnivoracious.  Here’s a connecting pass to it.  And if you like reading Juliet’s really smart and insightful perspective on editing, publishing, and the…

  • 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…

  • Writing a novel

    I am writing a novel.  I’ve written one other novel, and a novel-in-stories.  They both took me a decent amount of time to write, but for some reason in my memory I can’t remember how difficult it was to write them.  I think this must be something akin to what I’ve heard from some of…

  • Why I love Dr. Seuss

    I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.   – Dr. Seuss

  • Familiar Strangers

    Over at Bookspot Cenral, Jay Tomio has reposted an essayistic thing, “Notes Towards a Sort of Supreme Fiction”, which I wrote a very. long. time. ago.  In my mid-twenties.  Reading over it again is like reading the work of a familiar stranger.  It also makes me feel just a little bit old. 🙂 Here’s Jay’s…

  • On Reading

    I spent today on a date with my laptop that lasted hours and hours, ranging from the home writing room, living room, bedroom, to the coffee shop and a restaurant downtown, then back again.  Reading stories for Interfictions 2.0 is what I’ve been doing, really.  It’s a really pleasurable yet difficult task.  There are all…

  • That’s the dream, right?

    I laughed so hard I nearly cried. No, I did cry. I cried tears of…painful truth. And then I laughed some more. Link via Barth.