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NC-area novelist and writer Leslie Pietrzyk on the creative process and all things literary.
Friday, January 29, 2016
Writing Conference in Portugal! Win a Scholarship!
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Upcoming Events!
Monday, February 8, 2016
7:30 pm – 8:30 pm
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA
Merten Hall, Room 1203
Reading/Q&A
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
6 pm – 7 pm
Towson University
Towson, MD
College of Liberal Arts building/CLA, Room 3150
Reading/Q&A
Saturday, February 13, 2016
3:00 pm – 5 pm
St. Elmo’s Coffee Pub (in Del Ray)
2300 Mount Vernon Ave
Alexandria, VA
Reading with the Neighborhood Prompt Group
The reading will feature work by Mary Daly, Nina Sichel,
Charlotte Safavi, Joanne Lozar Glenn, Michelle Berberet, Mark Morrow, Grace
Morsberger, and me. Each of the pieces was generated by a prompt and developed
during a 15-minute writing session.
Valentine's Day Fast Approaches....
From one of my favorite literary magazines, The Sun:
Flowers
wilt, chocolate is fattening, and lingerie is a gamble.
Why not share
the gift of great writing with your beloved this Valentine’s Day?
In The Mysterious Life of the Heart, fifty writers explore the enigma of romantic love in personal essays, short stories, and poems that originally appeared in The Sun. With candor and humor, Cheryl Strayed, Poe Ballantine, Steve Almond, Sparrow, and many others lead us through ecstasy and heartbreak, anger and forgiveness, fleeting crushes and lasting relationships.
Order today to save 20 percent off the cover price and ensure delivery before Valentine’s Day. (Only $15!)
In The Mysterious Life of the Heart, fifty writers explore the enigma of romantic love in personal essays, short stories, and poems that originally appeared in The Sun. With candor and humor, Cheryl Strayed, Poe Ballantine, Steve Almond, Sparrow, and many others lead us through ecstasy and heartbreak, anger and forgiveness, fleeting crushes and lasting relationships.
Order today to save 20 percent off the cover price and ensure delivery before Valentine’s Day. (Only $15!)
(Disclosure: One of my stories in included in this
collection, “Ten Things,” which is the first story in THIS ANGEL ON MY CHEST.)
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Book Review from The Potomac Journal: "A Really Impressive Piece of Work"
I’m very pleased to read this smart review of THIS ANGEL ON
MY CHEST in The Potomac Journal, a
journal of poetry & politics. I’ve heard of writers who claim not to read
their reviews—an impressive feat, if true—but I’m too nosy not to. Writing
thoughtful reviews is hard work, and I appreciate when one hits the mark, as
this one does. No, not just because the reviewer says nice things! But because
the reviewer seemed to me to “get” what the book was trying to do and be, and
that is always exciting for any writer, to feel the reader understands.
Also, I will have to confess that I like this last paragraph
a lot, even with its criticism:
This Angel on My Chest is a really impressive piece of work, viewing a core event as through a prism, an ingenious concept for a book and fully deserving of any prize out there that recognizes literary brilliance. If I have any criticism at all, it's that the book is a little too tour–de–force–y. Stories like "What I Could Buy" and "Chapter Ten: an Index of Food (Draft)" seem too clever, written in service of the general theme. If it weren't for the bedrock existential seriousness of the subject, one might accuse Pietrzyk of being too clever at times in trying to balance irony and sincerity. But in the end I think she pulls it off. This is serious work.
Read the rest here: http://bit.ly/1SIxZtQ
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Reading in Baltimore!
Thursday, January 21at 7 PM
The Ivy Bookshop
6080 Falls Rd, Baltimore, Maryland 21209
Come hear DC writers David Ebenbach and Leslie Pietrzyk, and
Baltimore writer Kathy Flann read from new books.
David’s newest book, his first full-length collection of
poetry, We Were the People Who Moved, is “a journey across America…a journey
you will be grateful for having taken” (poet Jesse Lee Kercheval), and “a
post-modern ‘wagons west’ of dislocation, brief homesteading, and the threads
of regeneration” (poet David Gewanter). Poet Kelly Cherry calls We Were the
People Who Moved “a book of continual brilliance.”
Leslie's short fiction collection, This Angel on My Chest,
won the Drue Heinz Prize at University of Pittsburgh Press. It's a collection
of unconventionally linked stories, each about a different young woman whose
husband dies suddenly and unexpectedly. Ranging from traditional stories to
lists, a quiz, a YouTube link, and even a lecture about creative writing, the
stories grasp to put into words the ways in which we all cope with unspeakable
loss.
Kathy's collection of short stories, Get a Grip, all set in
Baltimore, won the George Garrett Award at Texas Review Press. Writer Stephen
O'Connor says, "In her smart and beautifully observed stories, Kathy Flann
drops us straight into the complex lives of a collection of imperfect strivers,
who want love, want to be good, or want somehow to transcend their makeshift
existences, and who are often their own worst enemies. Each of these tales is
simultaneously a portrait of its grim-funny, yet touching protagonist and of a
land, very like the United States, where everything is possible, and nothing is
quite what it should be."
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
February 13: Meet the Prompt Group at Our Reading!
I'm pleased to announce that St. Elmo's Coffee Pub (billed
as the living room of Alexandria's Del Ray neighborhood) will be hosting our
prompt group as we read some of our favorite short writings on Saturday, Feb.
13, from 3 - 5 pm.
The reading will feature work by Mary Daly, Nina Sichel,
Charlotte Safavi, Joanne Lozar Glenn, Michelle Berberet, and more (including
me!). Each of the pieces was generated by a prompt and developed during a
15-minute writing session. Come share this chance to meet and socialize with
the writers in a relaxed and convivial setting. Refreshments will be available
for purchase from St. Elmo’s.
Free! And a wonderful way to learn more about the benefits
of starting your own prompt writing practice.
3PM ~ Purchase coffee/social
3:30 ~ 4:30 ~ Reading/discussion
4:30 ~ 5 ~ Q&A/social
St. Elmo’s Coffee Pub
2300 Mount Vernon Ave.
Alexandria, VA 22301
703-739-9268