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Months before Alysia Abbott's daughter, Annabel, left for her freshman year of college, they talked about how hard it might be to leave home -- how lonely and lost she might feel. They both had a sense of what was coming. And yet.
Mixing reality and invention in fiction and nonfiction might just allow you to say something even more “true.” We discuss how you can you deepen your prose by understanding your character's interior world, how that interior world makes itself known in exterior details, while also offering vulnerability and honesty to your reader. Authors Alysia Abbott and Lise Haines join us.For a list of my fave craft books and the most recent works by our guests, go to our Bookshop page.Alysia Abbott is the author of Fairyland, A Memoir of My Father, which was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice an ALA Stonewall Award winner, and winner of the Madame Figaro Prix Heroine in France. Her work has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Guardian, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Triquarterly, Solstice, NPR, and elsewhere. Last year, she was awarded an artist grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Earlier this year the film version of her memoir Fairyland premiered at Sundance and later this month will be showing at the Sarasota Film Festival. She currently teaches at Emerson college and leads the Memoir Incubator program at GrubStreet. Lise Haines's fifth novel, Book of Knives, was out by Sourcebooks in 2022. Her four earlier books are When We Disappear (Unbridled Books); Girl in the Arena (Bloomsbury USA), a 2011 South Carolina Book Award Nominee, optioned by HBO; Small Acts of Sex and Electricity (Unbridled Books), named a Book Sense Pick in 2006 and one of ten “Best Book Picks for 2006” by San Diego's NPR station; and In My Sister's Country (Penguin/Putnam), which The Rocky Mountain News selected as one of twelve “Stellar Debuts” for 2002.Check out our Bookshop page for my fave craft books and recent releases by our guests. Thank you for reading The 7am Novelist. This post is public so feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 7amnovelist.substack.com
Something profound happens here at the public pool, with all its vivid life on display, writes Alysia Abbott. It's a richness that makes space for all sorts of differences, including my son's.
OTTplay Sizzling Samachar of the day - 12th August 2022From Brahmastra to Russo Brothers, Quinta Brunson to Tosin Cole and more storiesThis is Sizzling Samachar on OTTplay , I'm your host Nikhil. News from Bollywood first.Shah Rukh Khan's look in Brahmastra leakedRanbir Kapoor's Brahmastra is one of the highly-anticipated Bollywood movies of the year. Now, a leaked photo and video of the film has emerged on social media platforms, giving us a glimpse of Shah Rukh Khan's role in the film. From the photographs, it seems like the actor will play Vanarastra in the film. The film directed by Ayan Mukerji also stars Alia Bhatt, Amitabh Bachchan, Nagarjuna and Mouni Roy. It is expected to hit theaters on September 9.More actors join Russo Brothers' The Electric StateLooks like the Russo Brothers have already begun work on their next project. The shooting for the film titled The Electric State is expected to begin later this year. Michele Yeoh, Stanley Tucci, Jason Alexander, Brian Cox will be joining the already announced cast of Stranger Things alum Millie Bobby Brown and Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt. The sci-fi film will revolve around a teenager who embarks on a journey in search of her younger brother along with a robot and a drifter. Russo Brothers's latest film The Gray Man has been dominating the Global Top 10 chart of Netflix since its release. Maria Bakalova to star in two upcoming filmsBodies Bodies Bodies actress Maria Bakalova is set to feature in not one, but two films. She has joined the cast of Andrew Durham's Fairyland, a feature-length film based on Alysia Abbott's book Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father which chronicles the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco during the 70s and 80s. Bakalova has also signed to star in the Netflix's film Unfrosted: The Pop-Tart Story. The film features a star-studded cast of Melissa McCarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Amy Schumer, Hugh Grant, and James Marsden. Set in 1963 Michigan, the film will depict the origin story of the popular breakfast delicacy Pop-Tarts.Tosin Cole to lead Netflix's superhero series 61st Street star Tosin Cole is set to headline Netflix's upcoming superhero series, Supacell. Cole will essay the role of Michael Lasaki, a van driver, in the series which revolves around six people with superhuman abilities. Adelayo Adedayo, Nadine Mills, Eric Kofi Abrefa, Calvin Demba, Josh Tedeku, Rayxia Ojo, and Giacomo Mancini complete the cast of the series. Quinta Brunson signs deal with Warner BrosQuinta Brunson, the creator and star of Emmy-nominated TV series Abbott Elementary, have signed an overall deal with Warner Bros. TV. As per the agreement, the actress will create new projects for the studio. Her show Abbott Elementary which revolves around the teachers and students of a Philadelphia public school has been nominated for seven Emmys. It is available to stream on Disney+ Hotstar in India.Lauren Ambrose joins season 2 of YellowjacketsSix Feet Under alum Lauren Ambrose has joined the second season of Showtime's Emmy-nominated series Yellowjackets. Created by Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, the series is centered on a group of teenagers who get involved in a plane crash in 1996. Ambrose will play the adult version of a character named Van in the second season. The show also features Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci, Juliette Lewis and Tawny Cypress.Well that's the Sizzling samachar for today on OTTplay, until the next time it's your host Nikhil signing outAaj kya dekhoge OTTplay Se poochoWritten by Arya Harikumar
Monday Reading Series: A Steve Abbott Reader— February 24th, 2020 Hosted by Kyle Dacuyan. Join us in celebration of Beautiful Aliens: A Steve Abbott Reader (Nightboat Books, 2019) edited by Jamie Townsend, with an afterword by Alysia Abbott. In this long awaited, first ever retrospective of Steve Abbott's work you'll find writing, illustrations, and comics by this Gay Liberation hero and foundational Bay Area underground writer. Throughout the night we'll hear from the book's editor Jamie Townsend; Steve Abbott's daughter, Alysia Abbott; as well as friends, correspondents, and admirers of Abbott including Nayland Blake, Alexander Chee, Todd Colby, Ariel Goldberg, Hugh Ryan, Rakesh Satyal and Sarah Schulman. About Beautiful Aliens: A Steve Abbott Reader— The first retrospective collection of writing, illustrations, and comics by a hero of the Gay Liberation movement and Bay Area underground writing. Beautiful Aliens: A Steve Abbott Reader (Nightboat Books, 2019) is a landmark collection representing the visionary life's work of beloved Bay Area luminary Steve Abbott. It brings together a broad cross-section of literary and artistic work spanning three decades of poetry, fiction, collage, comics, essays, and autobiography, including underground classics like, Lives of the Poets and Holy Terror, rare pieces of treasured ephemera, and previously unpublished material, representing a survey of Abbott's multivalent practice, as well as reinforcing his essential role within the contemporary canon of queer arts. Steve Abbott (1943—1992) was a poet, critic, editor, novelist, and artist based in San Francisco. Jamie Townsend is a genderqueer poet and editor living in Oakland. They are half-responsible for Elderly, an ongoing publishing experiment and hub of ebullience and disgust. They are the author of Pyramid Song (above/ground press, 2018), and Sex Machines (blush, 2019) as well as the full-length collection Shade (Elis Press, 2015). An essay on the history and influence of the literary magazine Soup was published in The Bigness of Things: New Narrative and Visual Culture (Wolfman Books, 2017). They are the editor of Beautiful Aliens: A Steve Abbott Reader (Nightboat, 2019) and Libertines in the Ante-Room of Love: Poets on Punk (Jet Tone, 2019).
At first, she wrote essays as a distraction from her fiction, but over time, Grace Talusan felt the pull of the experiences that would form the foundation of her memoir, THE BODY PAPERS. From immigration to cancer to sexual abuse, the book depicts a life marked by trauma, and yet through it all there is humor, family, and hope. Grace tells James how she embraced her own story, faced honesty, and escaped despair. Plus, Grace's editor and Restless Books marketing director, Nathan Rostron. - Grace Talusan: http://gracetalusan.com/ Buy THE BODY PAPERS: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781632061836 Grace and James Discuss: UC-Irvine Joanne Diaz Restless Books Ilan Stavans ONCE MORE TO THE RODEO by Calvfin Hennick Ross White's THE GRIND Bread Loaf Writer's Conference Tell All Grub Street Alysia Abbott Celeste Ng Porter Square Books Whitney Scharer Chunky Monkeys Jeff Rubin THE FACT OF A BODY by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich Tufts University Counseling Center - Nathan Rostron of RESTLESS BOOKS: https://restlessbooks.org/ Nathan and James discuss: Graywolf Press New Directions Publishing Farrar, Straus and Giroux W.W. Norton & Co. Simon & Schuster Regan Arts Judith Regan Ilan Stavans Amherst College THE BOY by Marcus Malte, Translated by Emma Ramadan & Tom Roberge Riff Raff Richard Pevear and Larissa Volohonsky Prix Femina Editions Zulma THE INVISIBLE BRIDGE by Julie Orringer Cormac McCarthy THE BODY PAPERS by Grace Talusan THE IMMIGRANT WRITING PRIZE TEMPORARY PEOPLE by Deepak Unnikrishnan George Saunders Salman Rushdie Hindu Prize - http://tkpod.com / tkwithjs@gmail.com / Twitter: @JamesScottTK Instagram: tkwithjs / Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tkwithjs/
Sabrina Jalees, Klee Wiggins, Naz Osmanoglu and Nadia Kamil join host, Dave Holmes for bartender life advice, celebrity drinking puns, and stories about waking up with weird things in your mouth. Sabrina Jalees wants to plug her comedy special on Netflix and her Instagram account @sabrinajalees and recommends Mae Martin and Lisa Traeger. Klee Wiggins wants to plug her upcoming appearance at LA Comic Con and recommends Fairyland by Alysia Abbott. Naz Osmanoglu wants to plug his Facebook page and recommends Nadia Kamil's medical expertise. Nadia Kamil wants to plug becoming a doctor and recommends This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay. And finally, Dave Holmes is on Twitter @DaveHolmes. Dave would like to recommend Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood. You can let us know what you think of International Waters and suggest guests through our Facebook group or on Twitter. Written by Riley Silverman and John-Luke Roberts, recorded at MaxFunHQ in LA and GuiltFreePostin London, produced by Christian Dueñas and Laura Swisher.
In 2014, Boston became the first American city to have a Literary Cultural District. Last year we spoke with Eve Bridburg, Executive Director of GrubStreet and Founder of the Boston Literary District, and Alysia Abbott, Director of the Boston Literary District. They discuss what it takes to support long-term collaboration between organizations of different sizes … Continue reading "Episode 63: Boston’s Literary District Engages Writers of Today with the City’s Rich Past"
ABOUT MELANIE BROOKS I am a writer, teacher, and mother living in Nashua, New Hampshire, with my husband, two children, and yellow Lab. I grew up in the Canadian Maritimes, and the deep ties to water and rugged spaces that live in me are rooted in that background. I graduated with a degree in English from Gordon College and then earned a Bachelor of Education from Dalhousie University. I later earned a Master of Science for Teachers of English from the University of New Hampshire. I began my career teaching high school social studies and then went on to teach middle school English. After my children were born, I began teaching college writing. I currently teach professional writing at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, and Merrimack College in Andover, Massachusetts, and creative writing at Nashua Community College in Nashua, New Hampshire. I completed my MFA in creative nonfiction through the Stonecoast Creative Writing Program at the University of Southern Maine. I love words. And I love to play with words on the page. My head is a busy place. An endless film reel plays in there, its frames alive with images and moments, actual and imagined, that I’ve tucked into the folds of my memory. I watch them over and over again, shaping and reshaping, ordering and reordering, trying to make sense of them, searching for the story they want to tell and the language with which to tell it. Unpacking experiences of life and loss is at the core of my writing. When I was thirteen, my father was infected with HIV after receiving tainted blood during open-heart surgery. He died of an AIDS-related illness ten years later. The complicated nature of his disease and the grief of his death have had a lasting impact on me. My writing is the vehicle through which I'm learning to understand that impact. The stories filling the pages are helping me to better understand myself. https://www.melaniebrooks.com/ I first read about Melanie Brooks in Poets & Writers Magazine. Her book, Writing Hard Stories, grabbed my attention and I just had to invite her on my show! Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma "An inspiring guide to ennobling personal stories that travel to the dark sides of life." - Kirkus Reviews “Writers of all genres will glean golden nuggets of advice about writing and living from this book, while all readers, because they, too, have unique personal stories, will be comforted and inspired by the everyday and creative struggles of some of their favorite authors.” - Booklist "[I]t unearths gems of insight, especially about the natures of truth, memory, subjectivity, and fact, and about what memoirs can mean to readers. And it leaves no doubt about the strength required to confront old ghosts." - Publishers Weekly PUBLISHED WITH BEACON PRESS (February 2017) Order Your Copy Here In Melanie's own words Two years ago, I began writing a painful family story that has now become a memoir, A Complicated Grief. Writing into the memories of this part of my life left me with some difficult questions: What does it take to write an honest memoir? And what happens to us when we embark on that journey? Would I survive the process? I decided to approach the writers whose memoirs moved me and ask these questions. Their replies – honest and soul-searing – comprise Writing Hard Stories. This book profiles my conversations with some of our country’s most prolific writers including: Alysia Abbott, Richard Blanco, Kate Bornstein, Edwidge Danticat, Mark Doty, Andre Dubus III, Jessica Handler, Richard Hoffman, Marianne Leone, Michael Patrick McDonald, Kyoko Mori, Suzanne Strempek Shea, Sue William Silverman, Kim Stafford, Abigail Thomas, Jerald Walker, Joan Wickersham, and Monica Wood. These writers invited me into their homes, into their lives, to share the intimacies of finding the courage to put words to their stories. Their candid descriptions of their own treks through the darkest of memories and the details of the breakthrough moments that opened up their stories gave me the mooring I needed to keep writing my own.
Twenty Summers welcomed authors Alysia Abbott (Fairyland) and Joan Wickersham (The Suicide Index) to the Barn, who have both written critically acclaimed memoirs about the fathers they loved and lost too soon. The two authors discussed their memoirs, their writing lives, and their other work in this deeply personal and fascinating conversation. WCAI was a media sponsor for this event. This event took place on May 13, 2017.
Litquake's new "Lit Cast Live" continues with a panel discussion between Alysia Abbott, Clane Hayward and Joshua Safran, moderated by Gabe Meline of KQED Arts. For decades, Northern California has been Ground Zero for countercultural communities, rejecting conventional suburbia in favor of individualism and personal freedom. But what happens to children with this background, growing up amid such unorthodox family dynamics? These three Bay Area authors with recent memoirs meet on the summer solstice to discuss their experiences growing up in the shadow of the Summer of Love. Recorded live at the California Historical Society in San Francisco. https://www.facebook.com/litquake https://twitter.com/Litquake
ABOUT MELANIE BROOKS I am a writer, teacher, and mother living in Nashua, New Hampshire, with my husband, two children, and yellow Lab. I grew up in the Canadian Maritimes, and the deep ties to water and rugged spaces that live in me are rooted in that background. I graduated with a degree in English from Gordon College and then earned a Bachelor of Education from Dalhousie University. I later earned a Master of Science for Teachers of English from the University of New Hampshire. I began my career teaching high school social studies and then went on to teach middle school English. After my children were born, I began teaching college writing. I currently teach professional writing at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, and Merrimack College in Andover, Massachusetts, and creative writing at Nashua Community College in Nashua, New Hampshire. I completed my MFA in creative nonfiction through the Stonecoast Creative Writing Program at the University of Southern Maine. I love words. And I love to play with words on the page. My head is a busy place. An endless film reel plays in there, its frames alive with images and moments, actual and imagined, that I’ve tucked into the folds of my memory. I watch them over and over again, shaping and reshaping, ordering and reordering, trying to make sense of them, searching for the story they want to tell and the language with which to tell it. Unpacking experiences of life and loss is at the core of my writing. When I was thirteen, my father was infected with HIV after receiving tainted blood during open-heart surgery. He died of an AIDS-related illness ten years later. The complicated nature of his disease and the grief of his death have had a lasting impact on me. My writing is the vehicle through which I'm learning to understand that impact. The stories filling the pages are helping me to better understand myself. https://www.melaniebrooks.com/ I first read about Melanie Brooks in Poets & Writers Magazine. Her book, Writing Hard Stories, grabbed my attention and I just had to invite her on my show! Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma "An inspiring guide to ennobling personal stories that travel to the dark sides of life." - Kirkus Reviews “Writers of all genres will glean golden nuggets of advice about writing and living from this book, while all readers, because they, too, have unique personal stories, will be comforted and inspired by the everyday and creative struggles of some of their favorite authors.” - Booklist "[I]t unearths gems of insight, especially about the natures of truth, memory, subjectivity, and fact, and about what memoirs can mean to readers. And it leaves no doubt about the strength required to confront old ghosts." - Publishers Weekly PUBLISHED WITH BEACON PRESS (February 2017) Order Your Copy Here In Melanie's own words Two years ago, I began writing a painful family story that has now become a memoir, A Complicated Grief. Writing into the memories of this part of my life left me with some difficult questions: What does it take to write an honest memoir? And what happens to us when we embark on that journey? Would I survive the process? I decided to approach the writers whose memoirs moved me and ask these questions. Their replies – honest and soul-searing – comprise Writing Hard Stories. This book profiles my conversations with some of our country’s most prolific writers including: Alysia Abbott, Richard Blanco, Kate Bornstein, Edwidge Danticat, Mark Doty, Andre Dubus III, Jessica Handler, Richard Hoffman, Marianne Leone, Michael Patrick McDonald, Kyoko Mori, Suzanne Strempek Shea, Sue William Silverman, Kim Stafford, Abigail Thomas, Jerald Walker, Joan Wickersham, and Monica Wood. These writers invited me into their homes, into their lives, to share the intimacies of finding the courage to put words to their stories. Their candid descriptions of their own treks through the darkest of memories and the details of the breakthrough moments that opened up their stories gave me the mooring I needed to keep writing my own.
Alysia Abbott's essay tells the story of romantic risk--the risk of letting someone go in the hope and belief not only that it's the right thing to do, but also that it may be the only way to hold on. A Cat Power song, a striped shirt, and a Ukrainian restaurant all play a role in this tale of love.
This week, The New York Public Library Podcast features personal stories from adult children who have lost their parents to AIDS, including Alysia Abbott, author of Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father.
When Alysia Abbott was young, her mother died in a car wreck, and her father took her to San Francisco, where he was determined to raise her on his own. She thought he was never able to love another woman after her mom's death; the truth, she would discover years later, was more complicated than that. Fairyland is a powerful memoir of growing up with a gay parent at a time when that was still virtually unheard of -- and a vivid recreation of what that was like from her father's perspective, as well.
It is that rare event that happens when a life and a time come together in a way that better enables us to understand both. Alysia Abbott has lead such a life.Her father, poet, writer and literary figure Steve Abbott was one of the early leaders of the gay rights movement, first in Atlanta and then in San Francisco. Alysia’s mother would die in a car accident when she was two, and she would be raised by her gay father in 70’s San Francisco. Long before being a gay parent would become mainstream.Shortly after his death from AIDS, in 1992, Alysia would find her father's journals. Now she tells her story and his, in her memoir Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father.My conversation with Alysia Abbott: