“Something always happens to sustain us. A tenured professor goes on sabbatical and their course trickles down to the adjuncts. A university I applied to years ago finds my information at the bottom of a drawer and gives me a call. Brady Black’s wife hits his father over the head with a fire poker, putting him in a coma, and Kristen DiMera participates in scientifically impossible villainy and steals someone’s fetus.”
My latest article for the Toast is available here.
Top three favorite books:
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Last Letter From Your Lover by Jojo Moyes
Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty
Book I liked even more the second time around:
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
A reread that always makes me happy:
Mike, Mike and Me by Wendy Markham
Most read authors (3 books from each):
Jojo Moyes
Gillian Flynn
Kim Addonizio
Lonely male authors I read in a year of women:
Junot Díaz
Paul Gallico
Stunning books of poetry:
Lucifer at the Starlite by Kim Addonizio
My Brother is Getting Arrested Again by Daisy Fried
Nulls by Pattie McCarthy
Novels that were as disturbing as they were amazing:
Tampa by Alissa Nutting
Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
Books I read in interesting locations:
The Color Master by Aimee Bender (on a train from Rome to Naples)
The Last Letter from Your Lover by Jojo Moyes (at a beach club in Capri)
This is How You Lose Her by Junot Díaz (every time I was in line for the elevator at work. Thank you, ineffective elevators, for giving me extra reading time)
My latest essay for The Toast, “Actual Lifetime Movie Titles as Fairytales,” is here.
I have been named the 3rd runner-up in the 2014 Bucks County Poet Laureate competition, judged by the fabulous Kim Addonizio. This is my second time placing in the competition. Check out the Events page for information on the upcoming reading and reception!
LABOR DAY by Joyce Maynard
“Then again, he said, it’s an open question, which person is the captor here, which is the captive.
“He bent his head close to her ear and brushed her hair away, as if to speak directly into her brain. Maybe he thought I wouldn’t hear, or maybe he was just beyond caring.
“I am your prisoner, Adele, was what he said to her.”
THE SNOW GOOSE by Paul Gallico
“His body was warped, but his heart was filled with love for wild and hunted things. He was ugly to look upon, but he created great beauty.”
THE GIRL YOU LEFT BEHIND by Jojo Moyes
GOODNIGHT NOBODY by Jennifer Weiner
MY BOYFRIEND BARFED IN MY HANDBAG AND OTHER THINGS YOU CAN’T ASK MARTHA by Jolie Kerr
My essay, ” ‘Just a Doll in Dungarees’: Revisiting Gidget” has been published at The Toast. Here’s a quick preview:
While I can’t pretend to know how the filmmakers intended audiences to perceive Betty Louise, called B.L., they’ve presented her in such a way that it’s difficult to not read her as a lesbian. Using initials for a girl’s name was not common in 1959 by any means. B.L. is not invited to the manhunt; she has short hair several years before the pixie cut would come into style, and in every scene, her clothing is loose, monochromatic, and without frills. Plus, look at her in that chair: legs crossed in a way that takes up as much room as possible, she lets her face slip into an inaudible scoff as she eats an apple noisily.
The essay is here and also linked under “Writing” on this site.
I KNEW YOU’D BE LOVELY by Alethea Black
BRAIN ON FIRE: MY MONTH OF MADNESS by Susannah Cahallan
THE COLOR MASTER by Aimee Bender
THE LAST LETTER FROM YOUR LOVER by Jojo Moyes
GONE GIRL by Gillian Flynn
“Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer…Men actually think this girl exists.”
“Tampon commercial, detergent commercial, maxi pad commercial, Windex commercial – you’d think all women do is clean and bleed.”
Taking inspiration from Kayla, I’m going to start tracking the books I read.
ALBA FRAGMENTS by Audrey Niffenegger
SHARP OBJECTS by Gillian Flynn
WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE by Maria Semple
THE LONGEST DATE: MY LIFE AS A WIFE by Cindy Chupack
“Being single in your late thirties means you have to do some seriously stupid shit to prove you’re still fun, like ride in the back of a pickup, rappel down a waterfall, or go on a two-day river rafting/camping trip.”
DARK PLACES by Gillian Flynn
“I have a meanness inside me, real as an organ.”
A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN by Betty Smith
“On Sunday, most people crowded into the eleven o’clock mass. Well, some people, a few, went to the early six o’clock mass. They were given credit for this but they deserved none for they were the ones who had stayed out so late that it was morning when they got home. So they went to this early mass, got it over with and went home and slept all day with a free conscience.”
A writer at The Millions (“the indispensable literary site,” according to the NY Times) liked my “Literary Characters” article at The Toast, and mentions it here.
My essay, “Literary Characters I Would Not Invite to a Dinner Party,” is now available for your reading pleasure here. As a voice over on Bravo TV would say if the essay were a reality show, “watch what happens!” when characters from multiple authors and centuries collide. Look out for murderous twins and wild dogs.
kathryn ionata 