A PDF of In the Key of New York City: A Memoir in Essays by Rebecca McClanahan sits on my desk, held together with a big clip. The top page is stained with coffee and food and notes scribbled all over the surface. Squirrel, 9/11, cancer, God, cookies. When I first started reading the book, I had a trip to New York scheduled to present at a conference. It would be my first time there.
But as the country shut down, travel was cancelled, and New York became a spotlight of the pandemic, Rebecca’s book filled me with a sense of nostalgia for a city I’ve never been to. In the Key of New York City is perhaps Rebecca’s most intimate work. The stories interweave and bob like a heavily populated pedestrian street, and yet we are privy to the solitude of neighbors that inhabit apartments like ghosts. The pages capture and hold the days preceding and following 9/11, her cancer and recovery, her marriage, and the reading and writing that helped her survive it all.
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TBR [to be read] is a semi-regular, invitation-only interview series with authors of newly released/forthcoming, interesting books who will tell us about their new work as well as offer tips on writing, stories about the publishing biz, and from time to time, a recipe!
Read the full interview here.
In her new book, In the Key of New York City: A Memoir in Essays, slated for release on September 1, 2020, Rebecca McClanahan recounts the decade that she and her husband lived in New York City. Not only are these essays individually rich in texture, they are expertly woven together to create a vibrant and resonate tapestry about that experience.
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I loved In the Key of New York City: A Memoir in Essays. I read The Tribal Knot during my MFA, so it was a treat to read another book by [Rebecca McClanahan].
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In 1998, with a sublet lined up but without jobs, Rebecca McClanahan and her husband left North Carolina and moved to New York City. They were well into middle age. (“Isn’t that backwards?” asked one of McClanahan’s nieces. “Don’t most people go to New York when they’re young?”) Expecting to stay for two years, they stayed for eleven – a time frame that included 9/11 and a serious illness.
Out of this experience comes McClanahan’s new book, In The Key of New York City: A Memoir in Essays (Red Hen Press). Nancy Geyer talks with McClanahan, who has made a dozen contributions to Brevity over the years, about the crafting of her memoir, with a focus on conveying setting.
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Join Zyzzyva managing editor Oscar Villalon with Jonathan Escoffery, Wendy C. Ortiz, Siel Ju, Andrés Reconco, Kathleen Mackay, and Nina Revoyr
ZYZZYVA closes out its year-long celebration of its 35th anniversary with the publication of Issue No. 119—the L.A. Issue. A complement to the journal’s Bay Area Issue published last winter, the L.A. Issue features some of the exciting work being done by writers, poets, and artists who make Los Angeles County their home or place of work. At more than 300 pages, and including a republication of a classic Ray Bradbury story as well as in-depth interview with the late Wanda Coleman, it’s one of ZYZZYVA’s biggest issues ever, and six of its contributors will be reading from their work in it. Come join us for this special event!
Thursday, November 12, 2020, 6:00 p.m. PST / 9:00 p.m. EDT, This is a virtual event to be held on the Zoom platform. Click the link in the event description for info.
Click here to learn more and register for the event.
Risher’s memoir shares conversations with friends and family and her own inner dialogue, following her evolution after realizing that she and her husband were not just successful professionals but hugely wealthy beyond anything they ever imagined. Everything about their lives was transformed. They grapple with their awareness that “it doesn’t feel right that some people have more money than they can spend in a lifetime while nearly 40 million Americans are living in poverty.”
Walt Whitman, Judith Harris And Whitman Again: What To Read On Election Day
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
And now to help you stay steady through this long night, some poetry, shared with us by Tess Taylor.
TESS TAYLOR: Having a poem nearby can actually make any of us feel less lonely because it’s as if we have this force – the poem – that invites us into conversation and reminds us what human breath and human language can do.
While writing this and the next few stories in the collection, I was interested in exploring the threshold between childhood and adulthood and how fraught this period is with anxiety, fear, shame, and desire—feelings children don’t yet understand when anticipating their adulthood. Throughout the years, my focus shifted to the concerns of adulthood, wifehood, and motherhood—the various roles women accumulate throughout their lives.
Following her live Women Lit conversation with Robin Richards Donohoe, Jennifer talked with us about the dream of wealth versus the reality, how to do philanthropy right in the midst of a broken system, and how important it is for women, in particular, to talk about money with frankness and fearlessness.
Women Lit: You’ve mentioned that you grew up with frugal middle-class values: one reason why suddenly having a lot of resources was disorienting, from a self-identity perspective. Can you elaborate on how your “idea” of what wealth meant as a middle-class person contrasted with your later lived experience of having wealth?
Jennifer Risher: When I was in high school, my best friend and I asked each other what we’d do if we had a million dollars. Thinking about all that money, I imagined a fantasy come true: I’d have a cute boyfriend and a fancy car. But really, I thought a million dollars would change everything, and my life would be perfect. Somehow, I’d be smarter and more glamorous too.
My lived experience of wealth hasn’t matched that fairytale. Yes, money makes life easier. I am very lucky. But I’m still me, complete with insecurities. My feelings get hurt. I make mistakes. And I’m not living in a fantasyland…
Watch Jennifer’s conversation with Robin Richards Donohoe and Women Lit here.
Subduction by Kristen Millares Young
In this debut novel by Cuban American journalist Kristen Millares Young, Mexican American anthropologist Claudia flees Seattle for the Olympic Peninsula Makah reservation after her husband leaves her for her younger sister. She hopes to disappear into the whaling village of Neah Bay under the cover of interviewing an elderly woman she had previously befriended, aware of her connection to all the well-meaning but flawed interlopers of Neah Bay’s past.
In today’s episode listen to the conversation between host Daniel Chacon and poet Francisco Aragon about his most recent work ‘About Rubén.’ Aragon’s poems and translations have appeared in various print and online journals, as well as numerous anthologies. His work as a translator includes four books by Francisco X. Alarcón, as well as work by Spanish poets Federico García Lorca and Gerardo Diego.
On October 30th, Keith Flynn wowed us with poems and music, including new work from “The Skin of Meaning.” Thanks, Keith, for a wonderful afternoon, and we look forward to seeing you again Spring 2021!
Watch the video here!
The occasion was the publication of Seismic: Seattle, City of Literature, a collection of essays and poems about literature and social change, curated by author and journalist Kristen Millares Young. The work was published by Seattle City of Literature, a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving Seattle’s literary community by connecting it to the world.
“Plot does not come naturally to me. Instead of staring at a blank page hoping for inspiration, I take a long walk and dictate to myself using my phone’s recording app. I pose a single question like: In this scene, how does character A anger character B?”
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