Friday, November 13, 2009

This Book Will Change Your Life - Put Your Head in My Lap by Claudia Smith. And an Orange Alert interview. We know.

It is time to roll out the current edition of This Book Will Change Will Your Life and today's entry is Put Your Head in My Lap by Claudia Smith. Claudia packs more emotion, loss and empathy into a handful of words than most writers do in stories than run on for pages and Put Your Head in My Lap is a terrific collection of flash fiction and short stories in a year that has already seen a number of terrific collections. We also had the chance recently to talk with Claudia and interview her for the Orange Alert. You can check out that interview here and for an excerpt feel free to just look down below here, yes, right there, perfect.

I wanted to ask you, “why your lap,” but then realized we’ve never actually met and that could be offensive. Is it, and either way “why your lap?”

Oh, I'm not offended at all. I just wish I had a clever, funny, enticing answer. I'm better in person with those. Kevin Sampsell liked the part in the story "Valentine" where the man falls asleep with his head in the narrator's lap. That story is in second person. And we thought "Put Your Head in My Lap" might be a warm, enticing, and vulnerable title. The chapbook is what it is now, in large part, because of Kevin. We worked together very well; he spent as much time pouring over those stories as I did. I can't imagine it with a different title.

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