NEWS:
11/17/07 - It's all over here now...
9/3/07 - Back from the Yucatan, we slipped in and out between Hurricanes Dean and Felix. The Bauman girls among our number were attacked by spider monkeys. Really. No worse for the wear, though, except for shattered nerves and a few missing hairs. Never seen anything like it.
7/07/07 - My piece from Living On the Edge of the World (S&S/Touchstone) is available now on IdentityTheory.com. It's called "The Commute (1996)", is about the mythical PATH train connecting Hoboken and NYC, and bears a striking but not identical resemblance to a chapter about midway through In Hoboken (Melville House), coming to a bookstore near you after the New Year (more on that later).
In other news: A few of us had a great conversation about the anthology and New Jersey in general on public radio's Leonard Lopate Show yesterday, Friday 7/6. 'Twas authors James Kaplan, Kathleen DeMarco, and myself, along with Julie Burstein. You can grab the aprx. 35-min mp3 of the conversation here.
In other other news, the Philadelphia Inquirer called to ask about my summer reading habits. Context in the article, list at the end.
6/01/07 - Thursday night I found myself at a thingy at the Center for Independent Publishing, 44th and Something, held in New York's oldest private library. Fun. I got to hang out with Matt Walker, the editor who bought my first book. He's doing other things now, in Queens and New Haven. Anywho, later on, Agent Diana invited me to join her uptown at a memorial for Kurt Vonnegut. Problem was it was already late-ish and I had a long train ride ahead of me. Anything with or for Vonnegut sounds like fun, but sleep is also important, and, let's face it, it's not like Kurt was going to be there...he's dead. My decision was made final when I recalled his quote about the how we're all here to do nothing more than fart around. I bade Diana goodnight and went to find my train. In the spirit of the occasion, though, I paid my respects in my own way: by re-reading the Paris Review interview with Vonnegut. And among so many quotables, this is what stood out to me that evening: "I'm on the New York State Council for the Arts now, and every so often some other member talks about sending notices to college English departments about some literary opportunity, and I say, Send them to the chemistry departments, send them to the zoology departments, send them to the anthropology and astronomy and physics departments, and all the medical and law schools. That's where the writers are most likely to be...I think it can be tremendously refreshing if a creator of literature has something on his mind other than the history of literature so far. Literature should not disappear up it own asshole, so to speak." I would add: send a few of the notices to the army, too. And the midnight shift at gas stations up and down Route 1. In other news: an article about the anthology below can be found here.
5/15/07 - I'm not stepping out much these days (the price of stepping out is stepping in, y'all), but I believe I'll venture forth on June 14 (my daughter Kristina's birthday, in fact) for a 7pm reading at Symposia Bookstore, 510 Washington Street in Hoboken, to celebrate the release of the new Living On the Edge of the World anthology. Fellow contributors Caren Lissner and Caroline Leavitt will also be reading. The evening promises to be both a hoot AND and a holler.
4/27/07 - A few days of spring there, and then today it's back to the wood stove and blankets on the couch, cold rain pouring down.
In other news: as mentioned below, the forthcoming novel is called In Hoboken. At a party last Saturday somebody asked me how long I lived in Hoboken. I never lived in Hoboken. I did have permanent-resident status on two couches in two different apartments in Hoboken, back in the mid-90s. And I was in a band, based out of Hoboken, called Camp Hoboken. Just to be confusing, the band wasn't actually named for the city. The band was named for the "camp" of mostly Hoboken-area people who all camped together at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival (near the Mass/NY/CT border), also back in the mid-90s. To add to the confusion, it was never clear whether it was really a band or even who exactly was in the band (although we were all very clear on who was not in the band). Unclear line-ups and mission statements aside, we played around a few years, usually didn't suck at all, and even got paid from time to time. Our great friend Don Brody died in December of 1997, and that took the polish off all our apples. Even the living can't really survive a death of that magnitude. Camp Hoboken still exists, of course. Not as a band, that would be impossible. But as it originally was: a camp, of sorts. And what's a camp, really, but a state of mind, a solid slice of summer square down the middle of your brain, sweet sun above, thunderboomers on the horizon, but your tent's right there and fuck it we can all fit inside if the rain gets too much. Hey man, you cool if I smoke in here?
So, does this have anything to do with the new novel? Oh, you know...it's a novel. Novels are fiction, yo. In Hoboken ain't Camp Hoboken. But you can smell it from here.
My parting fun moment of the week: was visiting dear Linda's website recently and found this ol' gem of a picture. You'll recall that Calvin was all the rage back in the day, and it was all Just Be back then. Connie set up the photo shoot with someone fabulous in NY whose name escapes me now, and she designed the poster. Big fun. Left to right, that's Linda, Rich Grula of Big Happy Crowd, moi, Gregg Cagno, then Con and Don (aka, The Marys). A better group of peeps I never knew.
4/13/07 - More detail on this later, but I'm happy to report that In Hoboken will see bookstores etc. perhaps as early as March 2008. Details to follow. Off to New Hampshire tomorrow with one kid to visit the other...I think there might still be snow up there (we hope). Here in Pennsylvania, all melts.
In other news, IdentityTheory continues to keep up with our reading lists...
12/23/06 - A small portion of my forthcoming third novel In Hoboken will see the light of day June 2007, in a Simon & Schuster/Touchstone anthology called Living On the Edge of the World: New Jersey Writers Take on the Garden State edited by Irina Reyn, with contributions from Jonathan Ames and Joshua Braff and a lovely handful of others (not sure who, I haven't yet seen a list). Careful readers will note that I live not in New Jersey but in the fair Commonwealth of Pennsylvania...however, I'm told that having grown up in the Garden State was quite enough, the damage has been done, and I am and will forever be a New Jersey writer. I'm okay with that.
In other news: the warm weather is bringing me down; I need some snow.
In other other news: So, Fiona, who is 7, has completely memorized Revolver and Beatles 1. You haven't lived until you're driving down the street with your 7 year old and hear a full, a cappella rendition of "Doctor Robert." (Just for context: Kristina, now 18, at that age seemed to gravitate more toward Abbey Road, another admirable choice, but very different.)
So Fiona makes me buy these Beatles mugs, one of which has the image from Meet the Beatles. We're having breakfast the other day and I show her which Beatle is which ("Beatle George, Beatle John," etc.). Then she asks me who sings what.
"Well," I say, "John, for instance sings 'I'm only sleeping.'" This is a favorite of Fiona's and she is impressed.
"Ringo sings 'Yellow Submarine.'" Again, impressed.
George...well, it's harder for George to impress a 7 year old. I think and think and finally go with the safe choice of "Here Comes the Sun" as my example.
And then Paul. This is a no-brainer. Although statistically Fiona seems to be a John girl (that's my daughter), her undisputed favorite song (this month) is 'Get Back.'"
I tell her, "Paul sang 'Jo Jo Was a Man.'"
At this, Fiona sits back. But she's not impressed, she's contemplative. She thinks for a moment, then looks hard at the picture of Paul on the mug. Finally, she says, and I quote exactly, "I always imagined that the singer of 'Jo Jo Was a Man' was a brown-skinned person with very big poofy hair."
Hallmark moments, baby. From the mouths of babes.
In closing, I'm pleased to report that upon visiting Kristina at college this fall, I found both The Beatles and Edward Gorey represented on her dorm-room wall. Clearly, the future will be in safe hands.
Merry merry ho ho and all that.
See you next year.
11/03/06 - Over at IdentityTheory, Matt Borondy has been checking in with us editors every few weeks to see what we're reading. He's been keeping track of the answers here. In a parallel universe, my friend Nick DiGiovanni recently asked a diverse goup of folks (i.e., the people he regularly emails) what their favorite books of all time are. His report is here.
09/04/06 - Home from a week near Xpu-Ha and Akumal, sunburnt and happy. Kristina is off to college, Fiona is off to second grade, and I'm off for some strong coffee and my growing strange scribblings about a house full of dogs. In other news: Just got an email from the the LSV-4, a US Army Waterborne ship currently deployed in the Persian Gulf. They sent a crew picture. In the front, that's CW4 Chuck West and CW3 Rodney Burnett, both of whom I served with ten years ago. Chuckie West bears a striking resemblance to a certain second mate in Voodoo Lounge. Later today I found these two pictures on my hard drive: that's a scarily young-looking me and Mike Bauden in Mogadishu circa 1992, and our mike boat (the LCM-8593) with a welldeck full of grain and Beglian paratroopers we were delivering somewhere way down south of Kismaayo.
07/12/06 - Here's that story I was going to tell you about NPR, Joel Rose, and the fastest drive ever from Cape May...
06/26/06 - Oh, you know, it's the small tastes of progress that keep us moving, right? Finished In Hoboken, the third novel. Finished in one sense of the word, anyway. Editorial to come, etc. And no idea on publication timing. One hopes for 2007, doesn't one, but one never knows, do one. So sayeth Fats. But anyway. In Hoboken. The title is an homage of sorts. I guess third novels are where you do an homage, if you were to do one. So the title of this book. The hat gets tipped once to a certain book by Penelope Fitzgerald, then gets tipped again to a certain book by Bruce Chatwin. Not that In Hoboken has anything to do with either of those books. But title-wise...well, hat tipped. The novel (In Hoboken, that is) is set in (wait for it, wait, wait...okay) Hoboken. Which is in New Jersey. Which is where I grew up, for the most part. New Jersey that is. Not Hoboken. I didn't grow up in Hoboken. I played a lot guitar in Hoboken, long after I'd (in theory) grown up. Hoboken is on the Hudson River. I live on the Delaware River, in Pennsylvania. I can see New Jersey across the river. It looks okay over there. I think they're all doing okay.
05/14/06 - My latest piece for NPR's All Things Considered aired tonight. Titled "First Day on the Job," it's about the first job interview I went on after I got out of the army (circa September 1995), nine months after I returned from Haiti, about two years post-Somalia. (There's a funny story to go along with the airing of this piece; I'll try to post it in the next few days...)
05/03/06 - Over at IdentityTheory, Birnbaum has a long talk with my friend Bill Wright. I'm on the masthead at IDt, so am not to be trusted, but I think you should read IDt every week. Really, I do. In other news: 3a.m. magazine says I'm one of the 50 Least Influential People in Publishing...which is just great, because I didn't think I even cracked the top 1000 Least Influential. Drinks all around today.
02/01/06 - My daughter Kristina Bauman and I wrote a short story called "We're All Green About Something" for a forthcoming anthology called It's Not Like I'm Jealous Or Anything (Delacorte Press, Feb 14). Kristina makes her literary debut by reading this selection at the book release party at Barbes in Park Slope, Brooklyn, on Sun Feb 19 at 6pm.
01/12/06 - Tomorrow (Friday) night, I'll be chatting for five or so with host Greg Dahlmann on Northeast Public Radio, somewhere between 9 and 10 pm. (Northeast Public Radio are those great people who keep you awake late nights and early mornings as you cruise the neverending NY State Thruway to Albany and the Northway beyond to Montreal.) Update 11/14/2006: Here's the download.
01/11/06 - I have a new short essay up today at IdentityTheory.com, titled "Jumping For That Elusive Truth."
Here's the preview: "'If you were Tom Clancy we'd know what to do with you,' quipped one rejecting editor in response to an early draft of The Ice Beneath You. 'But you're not Tom Clancy. You're Darcey Steinke, with a hand grenade.' I took this as a compliment."
11/28/05 - One reader writes: "What's with that whole folk music thing on your bio?" Which led me on a file search that led me to this forgotten gem below
That's my old band Camp Hoboken, singing with Dar Williams on the mainstage at Falcon Ridge, many moons ago (1997? 1998? not sure). The Sharar sisters on the far left, Grula, myself, and Cagno on the far right, the Divine Ms. DW in the middle. We were singing Pierce Petis's song "Family." We've all scattered to the four winds, since. There'll be some of the flavor of those days, though, in the third novel, almost done now, knock wood and all that. Meanwhile, it's been getting cold here in Pennsylvania. Work on the house continues without end (for those following along). The dogs are mostly patient with the process; the cat, less so. Be merry, and happy holidays to you
10/24/05 - The Philadelphia Inquirer shows pictures of my pool. Ah, the writer's life. Never mind the cinderblocked pickup and growling dogs just out of view. There's an article about Voodoo Lounge there, as well. In the Inquirer, I mean. Not in the pool. No articles about Voodoo Lounge in the pool. Just a lot of leaves
10/04/2005 - Tune in online or at 91fm Philly today at 11 am for an hour with WHYY's Marty Moss-Coane, talking about, of all things, The Future of Literature. Indeed. With novelist Damian McNicholl and editor/writer Kevin Smokler. Last night I was at U Penn to tape XPN's Live From Kelly Writer's House with Michaela Majoun and a motley cast of writers and drunkards; the program will air Thursday night at 10 pm. Last Sunday evening we stepped out to Esca in New Hope for the talapia and an evening of Gregg Cagno...smooth, baby. Haven't heard him? Stop by his site for a listen. And finally, Friday's guestblogging at The Elegant Variation was both a hoot and a holler. Have a read: Mark's introduction / Welcome to Voodoo Lounge / Haitian Vacation / Scribbling / Reviews / Borondy, Birnbaum, and the Price of Tea in China / Copyediting / Crystal Meth and a Case of the Ass / A List
09/26/2005 - I'll be Mark Sarvas's guest blogger this Friday over at The Elegant Variation, chatting away all day about Voodoo Lounge and whatever else strikes my (or your) fancy. Fun for the whole family
09/24/2005 - Tune-in (radio in Philly, online elsewhere) for two readings/interviews coming up: WXPN 88.5 fm on 10/3 (program: Live From Kelly Writer's House) and WHYY 91 fm on 10/4 (program: Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane), details on the calendar page. 10/6 I'll join Damian McNicholl and Kevin Smokler for a reading/discussion/Q&A event at the 215 Festival
09/19/05 - Voodoo Lounge is officially in stores. So...what's it about? Oh, you know. About 300 pages. And addiction (real and imagined) and love (real and imagined) and Haiti, religion, the secret lives of soldiers, HIV, and a little bit of this and that. In other news, Marc Cohn got shot and is okay but that guy next to him, the road manager with the glass shards in face, was Tom Dube. Dube produced Linda Sharar's amazing album Participate, among other amazing things he's done behind the scenes in music. Speedy recovery, Tom
07/14/05 - I received a few copies of Voodoo Lounge in the mail today from Simon & Schuster; very satisfying to hold in hand. It's not available until September 1, but you can see the cover etc here
05/24/05 - A new anthology titled Bookmark Now has just been released, with original essays by a bunch of cool kids including Nell Freudenberger, Meghan Daum, Neal Pollack, Tracy Chevalier, a bunch more, all good. A new piece of mine, "Not Fade Away," opens the fandango. The first few paragraphs of the essay bear a striking (although not identical) resemblance to a certain NPR essay I did (see 10/16/04), but then goes off in left field from there. IdentityTheory has the essay online here. UPDATE: USA Today gives the anthology the double thumbs up; nice review here
05/01/05 - My piece "Doylestown, 1977" was broadcast on NPR's All Things Considered last night. This was one of the infrequent occasions where they asked me to write on a particular topic: how I learned to write. This piece kind of answers that, and some other stuff, too. I was 7 in 1977. Doylestown is not far from where I live now. The audio link is here
04/10/05 - Can I just say...there is little in the world that can make me smile like a John Prine song (any John Prine song) on a spring day. Except for maybe a John Prine song on a summer day. With a hot dog
03/12/05 - Long time no chat, friends. Here we are on the other side of winter, or almost, or something. Many happenings this year; more on all that later. Simon & Schuster/Touchstone is publishing Voodoo Lounge on September 1. Meantime, the latest piece for NPR's All Things Considered aired tonight. Titled "Traveling Companion," you can find the audio here. It's 3 minutes about my daughter Kristina, the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton, Mass., and I-91 through New England
10/16/04 - "Reading Hemingway in Somalia" is the title of my most recent contribution to NPR's All Things Considered. The audio link can be found here (aprox. 4 min.)
08/11/04 - I joined a group of like-minded authors for an OpEd in today's Salon.com. (Alternate link for the text here.
08/08/04 - "It's Only Stamina," my newest piece for NPR's All Things Considered, was broadcast this evening. Audio link here. A quote: "They say you learn from mistakes -- I don't know. We didn't learn much those first few years. We were just young enough, somehow strong enough, to keep standing up each time we got knocked down. That's not intelligence; it's only stamina.
04/30/04 - Chris Hedges, Anthony Swofford, and I will be talking together on The Laura Flanders show on Air America Radio this Sat. 5/1 from 8 to 9 pm. Update:...and again (exact line-up uncertain) Tues. 5/4 1-2 pm eastern, the Marc Steiner Show, WYPR NPR/Baltimore
04/25/04 - I used to play guitar for a job (more on that here). My newest piece for NPR's All Things Considered (broadcast yesterday) is about touring on the cheap and things musicians have to remember. An excerpt: "My experience wasn't so much Kerouac-spiritual as Waffle House-practical." Audio link for the piece is here
04/19/04 - It's official: my second novel, titled Voodoo Lounge, will be published by Simon & Schuster/Touchstone. More details later on. Publication is scheduled for mid-2005, just shy of three years past the release of The Ice Beneath You. I don't know why it took me so long. I'll try to be faster with the next one
04/01/04 - If you're up early this morning (say around 9:20 eastern), I will be talking for ten minutes or so with Chuck D, Lizz Winstead, and Rachel Maddow on the new Air America Radio network (1190 AM in New York City, other cities and online streaming link here)
03/07/04 - New commentary on National Public Radio's All Things Considered last night. It's about mail call in a combat zone, radiated brownies, and revealing self-photographs from the Pacific Northwest. The audio link can be found here
02/03/04 - The fiction page of Identity Theory has a short story titled "The Soldier, the Squid, and the Dancer.
01/26/04 - Merry Crimble and a Happy Goo Year to all. I just finished a good draft of the new novel; fingers crossed it will be out before 2010. In other news, check out Marissa Walsh's fun Camp Kerry diary from New Hampshire here
12/07/03 - You can listen to my second short piece for NPR's All Things Considered here. Titled "Deployment Order," it runs about 3 minutes
11/26/03 - Thanks to the St. Paul library for inviting me to fly out last week, and thanks to Joel Turnipseed for sharing the stage and being such a gracious host. His book is out in paperback now from Penguin, and if you haven't read it you should. Thanks also to Minnesota Public Radio and WCCO. I'm back in ol' Pennsylvania now, for a rainy Thanksgiving
10/11/03 - You can listen to my first commentary for NPR's All Things Considered here. (Or, if the link breaks, by doing a quick search at the main NPR site.) Titled "Somewhere Else," it's a memory of flying out of Mogadishu on a C-130 transport plane in March, 1993: "I knew what he was seeing...white-orange flashes near the center, dark holes and flat shadows within shadows...like looking at the outline of a slow-breathing thing buried shallow beneath a dusting of black sand.
07/24/03 - I'll be onstage at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival this coming Sunday morning, doing a reading at 11:30 (along with Ellis Paul and Scott Alarik, who also have new books). F.R. is like an old home to me, but I haven't been since 1998, in my old life, when I was there as a performer. It's worth the drive if you can make it this weekend. The small literary bent aside, also on the bill this year is Arlo Guthrie, Richard Thompson, Greg Brown, Dar Williams, and the great John Gorka
07/02/03 - Senior correspondent Beth Nissen interviewed me about The Ice Beneath You and my experience as a veteran for a feature titled "The Face of the Military" scheduled to run tonight (Wednesday, July 2) on CNN's NewsNight with Aaron Brown (sometime between 10 and 11 p.m. eastern)
06/06/03 - There's a profile (and Somalia-era photo) in the July 2003 issue of The Writer magazine (on sale this week). In an article titled "Position Wanted," I talk about why gas-station attendant is a great job for a writer ("Out in my garage, I have a shoebox filled with poetry-scrawled credit card slips"), and writing while in the army ("In Somalia, when I filled the notebook I'd brought, I wrote in my Mike Boat's battery-maintenance log. If some poor soldier out there today is looking for the battery log of the LCM-8593, I've got it."). In other news: Long-time compadre Karl Dietel is the new keyboard player for The Samples on their summer tour
05/28/03 - The new book by author Chris Hedges, What Every Person Should Know About War, is available for preordering now on Amazon. An FAQ for life during war-time (among other things), I was one of the veterans/writers who advised on the manuscript. Hedges is also the author of the bestseller War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning
04/03/03 - I've been doing some guest-writing for Neal Pollack's blog. There's a new piece up today, on the subject of war and TV. Here's one on morale mail, and one on book reviews
03/12/03 - Thanks to Nora Guthrie, an autographed copy of The Ice Beneath You is being added to the Woody Guthrie Archive collection. (Careful readers may have noticed ol' Woody's name in the text of the novel, and maybe even Woody's spirit sprinkled between the lines here and there.
03/03/03 - I'll be speaking at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. on Thursday 3/6 9:30 a.m. as part of an event featuring Congressman John Conyers and Ralph Nader
02/06/03 - Correspondent Chris Hedges wrote a feature about me and The Ice Beneath You in today's New York Times
01/25/03 - My Fresh Air interview (along with that of actor Kevin Spacey) will be rebroadcast for Weekend Fresh Air today and/or tomorrow on many NPR stations. The interview is a shorter version of the one broadcast on Wednesday. If you missed the full interview, you can find it archived here
01/21/03 - I'll be Terry Gross's guest on the national broadcast of NPR's Fresh Air program tomorrow (Wed, 1/22/2003), discussing The Ice Beneath You, Somalia, folk music, and whatever else comes up. Most public radio stations carry the program; many play it twice in the day. You can find your station and time of broadcast here. You can also listen online, here
01/10/03 - Novelist Tony Buchsbaum has some very nice words about The Ice Beneath You here. And while you're there, take some time to explore January Magazine's archive of author interviews. A fascinating, diverse collection of writers and ideas. January's sister-site BlueCoupe.com is also worth its weight in cyber gold
06/01/02 - Simon & Schuster has set the publication date for The Ice Beneath You as October 2, 2002. It is up for preorder on Amazon and BN.com now, though. Amazon says they will ship preorders by Sept. 17. See inside for preordering links
See copyright information here
Author photo (c) 2002 Maggie Wallace-Cullen
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INTERVIEWS:
Fresh Air with Terry Gross
NPR, January 2003
(audio link, aprox. 40 min.)
Radio Times, Marty Moss-Coane
WHYY fm, October 2002
(audio link, 1 hr.)
Radio Times, Marty Moss-Coane
WHYY fm, October 2005
(with Damian McNicholl and Kevin Smokler, previewing the 215 Festival)
(audio link, 40 min, begin at 19:45)
WXPN Live From the Kelly Writer's
House with Michaela Majoun
October 2005 (interview and reading
from Voodoo Lounge) link
SHORT WORKS:
First Day On the Job
The obituary of Christian Bauman
Not Fade Away
Doylestown, 1977
(or, On Becoming a Writer)
Traveling Companion
Five Writers Walk Into A Bar...
Remembering Rachel Bissex
Confessions of a Common Eater
From the Outside
Reading Hemingway in Somalia
It's Only Stamina
Rules of the Road
Topless From Tacoma (Mail Call)
The Soldier, the Squid, and the Dancer
Hopping Back Onboard
Somewhere Else
Deployment Order
On the Way to CNN
War TV
Floating Home to Jesus
Bauman Goes to Washington
Death Becomes Her
FOX-TV's "Boot Camp"
Etc.:
2005 profile from Philadelphia Inquirer
(text link)
2003 profile from New York Times
by Chris Hedges
(text link)
2005 Q&A from Simon & Schuster
(text link)
2002 Q&A from Simon & Schuster
(text link)
2002 Interview at Fiction Forum
(text link)
READING GROUP GUIDES:
The Ice Beneath You
Voodoo Lounge
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