Happy Double-Post Day!
(Check out today’s other post: “January 14: Jen Beagin“)
Today is a great day for me because it has provided me two new authors that I can add into my “favorites” category: Jen Beagin and Jensen Beach. Even though I’ve shortened the amount posts that are scheduled on Literary Cobblestones, I’ve had to read more for this month than ever before because the featured posts must be writers that are new to me (hint: NewLitJanuary). I can’t grab an anthology on my bookshelf and pick out my favorite stories. No, for this month I have to read and search and read and search until my eyes are red and there’s a vein poking out by my temple. But, when I finally find a piece that speaks to something within me, then all the time spent with my eyes glued to the screen becomes worth it.
One of my all-time favorite quotes is from Frank O’Connor’s “Guests of the Nation,” which is actually the final line of the story: “And anything that happened to me afterwards, I never felt the same about again.” That line is exactly how I felt upon finishing O’Connor’s story, and it is now how I decide which writers I will happily give my time and money — the pieces that make me feel like they’ve somehow changed me, like I’m a different person when I finished them than I was when it began. Beagin and Beach are definitely two writers who I feel like that about, and I’m so glad I’ve found them.
That’s enough feels, let’s get into it. The second featured quote of today is taken from Jensen Beach’s “The Apartment”, which I came across on The New Yorker’s website. It will be released in his new collection entitled “Swallowed by the Cold” later this year.
The Links You Need in Your Life
The one link that you absolutely need to click: “The Apartment.” You will not be sorry, I promise you. If you need any other enticement, here’s another quote from the piece: “We all inhabit our memories so differently. Or, rather, our individual memories of shared events can mean such different things.” Yes.
Get to know Beach with an interview that accompanied his piece in The New Yorker, by Cressida Leyshon: “This Week in Fiction: Jensen Beach.”
Do you like Tweeting? Then check out and converse with Beach on Twitter: “@BeachJensen.”Also check out his website (Jensen Beach) for info regarding his upcoming release as well as checking out his previous collection “For Out of the Heart Proceed.”
Need more Beach? Then check out an older interview (2012) with Jensen from The Kenyon Review, by Weston Cutter: “A Brief Interview with Jensen Beach.”
Alright, that’s it for today. Check back Friday for a double-post-day, but both posts will be lists of my favorite literary themed things.
Literary Cobblestones 