The Sara Lippmann is most appreciatedly "Can you say 'spaghetti' for me?"

"Can you say 'spaghetti' for me?" @BenTanzer pic.twitter.com/dPdVgvtwyE

— sara lippmann (@saralippmann) October 14, 2015

Lippmann​ Ortiz​ Bustle Wonderbar.

Yup. Excerpt? Totally. And word. Of course.

The voices, too, feel disparate, while both uniquely yours. The voice of Excavation is driving, immediate, while the narrative voice of Hollywood Notebook is more sensual, wistful, even, layered in a different poetry, sometimes more distant, as if not geared for public consumption, and yet not the least closed off, but rather with an awareness of and welcoming the reader. Here, too, it seems that the content is the driver, with the abuse detailed in Excavation demanding a certain directness, clarity in tone, while HN, which is very much a memoir about writing, could be a bit more playful.

Interesting! I’ve not thought of HN as a memoir about writing. I see it as a slice of a period of time when I struggled with relationships, who I thought I’d become and who I thought I still wanted to become, and yes, writing was part of that. Trying to imagine a process I could rely on was part of that. I agree that content is the driver. Even as I write this, though, I think, what if there had been more playfulness in Excavation? I believe there’s some there — in the smallest of doses. Trying to maintain a certain tone, though, felt more crucial for that book. HN is to me like an amalgamation of voices, trying on ways of being, with a through-line underneath of a woman returning “home” and trying to understand where and how she fits even while she’s transforming.

The New York Stories is awesome blurb from the endlessly awesome (and quite freshy fresh mother) Sara Lippmann.

"In his beautiful and deeply American The New York Stories, Ben Tanzer returns to the upstate place where it all began: childhood, adolescence, the buds of adulthood. Caterpillar guts ooze out on the pavement, as do restless hearts. 'Thirsty's still serves beer, the Susquehanna River still flows, and you are here by the window, watching, waiting, wondering how you got here at all.' Characters may come and go and circle back in the fictional town of Two Rivers, but through it all Tanzer's voice is a transporting constant: intimate, immediate, full of wisdom and grace. Spanning three masterful volumes, brimming with lust and longing, humor and heartbreak and a healthy helping of what-ifs, this collection is for anyone who has lived and loved or loved and lost or any whirling, churning combination of the three. In other words, it's for all of us." --Sara Lippmann, author of Doll Palace

And more to come. Not to mention more information at CCLaP for those who want it.

This Podcast Will Change Your Life, The AWP 2015 Edition Part I - The Jew Factor, starring the Sara Lippmann.

Can we be more Lippmann? Or podcast? No, we cannot. Though we can be Doll Palace, Meg Wolitzer, gender, Jewey, sexual abuse, AWP 2015, Philadelphia, and any number of things sure to change your life as it has ours too.

(Sketches from the) AWP 2015.

Kicked off yesterday with best panel of day with @annamarch, @WendyCOrtiz, @meganstielstra, and @BenTanzer. Hope today's is 1/2 as good.
— Susan Lerner (@susanlitelerner) April 10, 2015

#ff #babecity residents @silverbackedG @JDaugherty1081 @dreamingauze @notsolinear @geatland @eshonkwiler @wyllinois @BenTanzer @joelhans
— Lockjaw Magazine (@lockjawmag) April 10, 2015

This Book Will Change Your Life - Doll Palace by the Sara Lippmann.

The kids aren't alright. This is what we thought when we read Doll Palace by the Sara Lippmann. Which is not to say the adults are alright. Because they're not. They're fucked too. But how couldn't they be? What we also learned, is that "The Kids Aren't Alright," is a song by The Offspring. Which we might have known? So not clear. Still, check out these sample lyrics:

"When we were young the future was so bright

The old neighborhood was so alive

And every kid on the whole damn street

Was gonna make it big and not be beat"

The song goes on to talk about shattered dreams, and having children, and what not, and while we be may talking different neighborhoods, different kids, and even different social strata, this is the thing about Lippmann's tragic characters, and they're all tragic, which should not be confused with to be avoided. Well, maybe avoided in real life. You might even want to run from them. But Lippmann's writing is much too rich to run from the pages themselves, and way too absorbing, with her shifting time frames, attention to detail, near, but not quite there moments of raunch, and her knowingness about class, especially the middle class, particularly of the Jewish and quasi-urban variety. And has anyone recently written so eloquently about the dashed dreams of the middle class? How little it can all mean when you marry the wrong person, get cancer, and all the rest of the modern day ills that will trip us up when we should otherwise be happy in the supposedly more advanced world we live in today? But dreams will be dashed, people will suck, children will be sick, drugs will take hold of old friends, the mistakes we made in our youth will linger like shadows, and we will get old. It's unavoidable, all of it, and what we we're left with, outside of the lingering vibrations from having this electric book in our hands, is two-fold. First, how well can we hope to function as adults, or at least how likely are we to find some fucking happiness, regardless of class, when our childhoods and families of origin, are so fucked and lacking in care? And second, how can anyone with any knowledge about what our children may be up to, want to raise children in the first place? Maybe we need to avoid knowing anything at all? Which we suppose is one of Lippmann's points, even if she's not consciously seeking to jam it in our faces: we will fuck our children up, and they will become fucked-up adults, and while happiness, if any, may only come in the cracks between the pages, we just may be able to change our lives. We just shouldn't count on it. 

"I'd follow his voice anywhere." Lost in Space. The Lippmann. Love. Much.

The Sara Lippmann is most kind indeed. Excerpt? Word.

"The pieces here are honest and humble, conflicted and complex, always loving. On top of all that, his spot-on prose clips along with incredible rhythm that makes this book impossible to put down."

Dispatches from Space - Gigantic Sequins, Philadelphia Sculpture Garden, Pen Parentis, Kyle MacLachan, the Michael Paige Glover, and home.

I just walked by Kyle MacLachlan, and though we didn't hug or anything, I think we can both agree that something happened.
— Ben Tanzer (@BenTanzer) April 8, 2014

 

Strong story by @saralippmann and a Nas nod from @BenTanzer are my @PenParentis highlights so far pic.twitter.com/OzXPZP7wId
— steve caputo (@caputosteve) April 9, 2014

. @bentanzer held us rapt w one of my favorite essays from his collection LOST IN SPACE cc: @penparentis http://t.co/aepVzt9oOT
— Brian Gresko (@briangresko) April 9, 2014

Wherein we are Writers On The Verge Pen Parentis reading with the quite amazing Sara Lippmann, Caeli Wolfson Widger, and Julia Fierro on April 8th in New York City and look forward to seeing you there thank you cool done.

Like totally. More here. Seriously. Nice.

"Orphans is a marvel." Orphans gets some Goodreads love. And likes it. A lot.

It does. We do. And big thanks to the Sarah Lippmann for all of it. That, and drinks, many, on us. Excerpt? Word.

"Forget genre. I do not know anything about sci-fi, but I do know this is a book of taut, muscular prose, impeccably paced, so you can't you won't want to put it down, propelled as it is by a story that is all human heart."

Orphans. Mellow Pages Library. The Brooklyn. Beautious. Totally.

(The) Orphans is coming to Brooklyn.

It's true. There is Orphans reading on November 30th, 7:30 pm, at the Mellow Pages Library and we would like you to join us.

There will be disco balls. Sparkly and true. Books. So many books. Words. Endless words.  Dogs and Cats living together. And rock star readers who are sure to change your life:

Joseph Riippi - Because, A Cloth House

John Reed - Tales of Woe, Snowball's Chance

Sara Lippmann - Sunday Salon, Girls Write Now

And TBWCYL, Inc. Spokesperson Ben Tanzer - Orphans, out now from Switchgrass Books and NIU Press, among others.

So please join us. Please spread the word. And please don't stop being you, because we think you are quite awesome at that.

Word.