Dear Internet,

I am become a hermit!

Here are my favorite and most recent reasons for not falling into your black hole until today:



Maybe I should start hanging out more...

Dear Internet,

Clearly, I am the biggest. liar. ever. Be shocked if you ever hear from me again.

                 Liar.

Dear Internet,

I suppose we have been on break.

That is the kind way of saying: I broke your heart and now I'm back.

But I have been busy!

When last we spoke, it was April and I was excited about a trip to my alma mater, the land of eternal spring-time. Then I was completely and totally laid out by a bout of food poisoning at the 10th Annual Emerging Writers Festival (which is completely blameless and was actually a lot of fun. Up until that point, anyway.) You can guess which five of the six symptoms listed here I actually had!

Since then, there was the Juniper Festival where I met and fell in love with this man:

And by that, I mean his poems. I think you're romantic tricky, baby.

And then there was the Juniper Summer Writing Institute where I finally met and was hugged twice by this lovely lady:

Dottie Lasky (via Dodie Bellamy)

& reading "I Hate Irony" at Penn Sound

At long last, my review of Kevin Goodan's lovely second collection of poems, Winter Tenor, was published at Kenyon Review Online. While you're there, you should check out Hilary Plum's thoughtful blog posts on creating a sustainable, supportive independent fiction community--lots to think about there.

Also in the inter-sphere: the always good-natured, informative, and amusing No Slander podcasts hosted by Ish Klein and Greg Purcell. If you're in need of a summertime poetry pick-me-up.

So, you see, I've been out and about. Getting freckles. Chasing two-year-olds. And I've also been in, reading and writing and working.

I promise to pay more attention to you in the future!

xoxo Kristen

I am in love with Tiny Hermione

and with Kate Beaton, more generally.

(oh, god, the hair is still hilarious)

Head south! Head south!

Thank the lord, it is springtime.

Two big things are happening next week!

I'll be at the 10th Anniversary of the Emerging Writers Festival in Lancaster, PA checking out the jubilee and checking in with my alma mater. Springtime in Lancaster is basically heaven, so expect lots of pictures of blossoming dogwood and cherry trees, fried donuts from the Amish, large organic martinis, and affordable vintage shops...and I'll throw in some words of wisdom from the "up-and-comers," a rad group of poets, novelists, journalists, and song writers. The year I helped coordinate the festival, I met Lauren Groff, Jay Kirk, Amaud Jamaul Johnson, Cynthia Cruz, and Kevin Moffett, who have all gone on to lead super interesting careers and whom I am still compelled to check up on every once in awhile.

Then I'm rocketing back to Amherst (north!) for the Juniper Festival, where I'm very excited to see Sommer Browning and Timothy Donnelly read, especially. But more on that later.

(See that building? That is where I used to work. EVERY DAY. Sigh.)

(Just to compare, this is where I now work, photographed on a good day--i.e. no snow is falling.)

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Hey, ladies!

Sad. Sad and so true.

Whiz! Bang! Pow!

If I had an extra hundred dollars, I would buy each of my friends a copy of Swamplandia! & send it to them in the mail with a letter:

DEAR FRIEND, 

I LOVE YOU, HERE IS A BOOK YOU WILL LOVE TOO. IF YOU LOVE ME, OPEN THIS BOOK AND START FROM THE VERY BEGINNING, THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF SWAMPLANDIA!. KAREN RUSSELL CAN TAKE IT FROM THERE.

This is only a sneak attack post (bam!) because I have been mondo-sick for the entirety of February (stupid February), and I am working up some energy to write an essay on the Vida statistics, Betty Draper, and the article/extended-punchline-with-a-buried-moral Tina Fey wrote for The New Yorker, and, side note, why I kind of hate The New Yorker (spoiler alert!).

Meantime, here's some material for you to peruse:

If you would like to listen to Karen Russell on NPR's All Things Considered, click here.

If you haven't already read the thoughtful correspondence on the Vida statistics Jessa Crispin & Michael Schaub posted at Bookslut, click here (and here and here and here and here).

If you would like to read an interview with Emma Straub, whose Other People We Married just came out from Five Chapters Books and is almost at my house, click here.

If you would like to see Aimee Bender in person, you should show up at 8PM, this Thursday, at Memorial Hall, UMass-Amherst. Where I think there will be lemon-flavored cupcakes, but this is only a rumor.

If you would like to listen to Christy Crutchfield and CS Ward read some awesome fiction/poetry, you should come to Live Lit, this Friday, at Amherst Books.

Transmission ended (pow!).