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The April Spring Sports Extravaganza continues with a tribute to soccer - er, you know, football! Quite possibly the world's most popular sport, soccer certainly has a great number of fanatical fans!

Penguin also pays tribute to this worldwide wonder sport with several new publications!

Kick the Balls by Alan Black
An Offensive Suburban Odyssey

Listen to a podcast with the author. 

Coming to Paperback May 26, 2009!

Book: Hardcover | 9.25 x 6.25in | 272 pages | ISBN 9781594630477 | 12 Jun 2008 | Hudson Street Press | 18 - AND UP

$23.95 - Add to Cart

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Blogging on a publisher's Web site, while I'm also in the process of writing a new book, editing a new anthology, reviewing two books, and writing an introduction to a classic novel about to be reissued, naturally leads me to think about books and reading and writing and what used to be called rather grandly "the life of the mind."

Recently a college prof told me that one of her students was in her office talking about future plans and casually remarked, "As a child all I did was sit around and read books." My friend thought that this was not necessarily a bad thing and was expecting the next remark to express this idea. Instead the student muttered, "I was such-a-loser."

Remember in It's a Wonderful Life, when that squeaky annoying angel Clarence is showing George Bailey what the lives of other people would have been like had he never been on Earth? We zoom in on the life of Donna Reed's character-actually a pleasant and beautiful woman, who no doubt could have taken her pick from the men in Bedford Falls or anywhere else. But what is poor Mary Hatch doing in a world that never had a George Bailey in it?

         GEORGE: Where's Mary? . . .

         CLARENCE: You're not going to like it, George.

         GEORGE: Where is she?

         CLARENCE: She's an old maid. She never married.

         GEORGE (grabbing his collar): Where is she?

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An author of fiction gets to discover characters.  (I could say "invent" characters, but I feel that they are already out there and I discover them and listen to their voice and their story.)  One of my favorite things about characters is naming them.

A name comes to me very early in the writing process.  I don't think hard about it, I just accept it, and the more I use it, the more it fits.  It is extremely rare for me to change someone's name once I find it. 

The names in the family of Anke came to me as I wrote about them, right at the beginning.  All except her father.  Very odd for me, but he didn't have a name until almost my last edit. It isn't actually used much, but in the end he needed a name as part of a statement his power. Dr. Laren Feld.

Anke's name is one I thought about early on, after writing the first ten poems and believing this could be a novel.  I love the feel of ahn-keh in my mouth. This character needed a name that was not too strong for the start of the novel, and not to plain for who she was to become.

Anke's mother was named Anne, and this name is presented mainly as a description of Anke herself.  Anke calls her mother "mom" with a small m.  I wanted to show her mother's passive role, her lack of power.

Yaicha is a name I always thought was beautiful as a kid, and it really did come from a song by the Pousette-Dart Band.  By giving Anke's sister a beautiful name (to me as the writer,) I could imbue this mean and sad sister figure with some love, and it didn't have to come directly from Anke.