Clifford Garstang is the author of six works of fiction including the novels The Last Bird of Paradise, Oliver’s Travels and The Shaman of Turtle Valley and the short story collections House of the Ancients and Other Stories, What the Zhang Boys Know, and In an Uncharted Country. He is also the editor of the acclaimed anthology series, Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet. A former international lawyer, he lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
>This is a great clip, thanks for posting. I like Lethem's advice on the revision process, I too think a lot is lost, or sacrificed, by computer editing. Haven't read too much of his stuff, though, only, incidentally, the excerpt from Chronic City that was featured in the NYer a couple of months ago.
Also, this is ODT (from yesterday) and I've decided to resuscitate my floundering blog and sometimes post the earliest ideas for stories and poems that I've been working on. Any comments or casual thoughts from someone who seems quite committed to this craft would be much appreciated!
>Yes, Lethem's advice on re-typing a manuscript is wonderful. I had a workshop teacher once, Chuck Wachtel, who said the same thing. I was already doing that for short stories, at least once in the process of writing, but I've since done that with a novel manuscript and the "alchemy" that Lethem refers to is real.
The only novel of Lethem's I've read is Motherless Brooklyn, which was wonderful. I liked that TNY excerpt, so I'll probably read Chronic City at some point.
Good luck with the blog. I'll pop by.