under the covers

Fiction

The Food Issue:
Book Yourself Some Eats

Serving suggestion: Chew on these five brief snacks, as compiled by our bibliophilic Brenner from books that aren't mostly about culinary matters, then order the complete meals of food-for-thought from your favorite booksellers … Read More | Comment »

12:30PM Mon. Jun. 10, Wayne Alan Brenner

A Thousand Splendid Words

Khaled Hosseini transcends borders through books. We caught up with the international bestselling author (The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns) about Rumi graffiti, happy accidents, and compulsive writing. Read More | Comment »

4:45PM Sun. Jun. 9, Jessi Cape

Book Review: 'Golden Boy'

Max Walker, the 16-year-old protagonist of Abigail Tarttelin’s Golden Boy (Atria), is the popular, handsome, well-regarded son of a well-to-do British family with hands in local politics. But he and his parents, since his infancy, have been concealing a secret from the world. Read More | Comment »

12:15PM Tue. May. 21, Jeanne Thornton

The Write Way

Kids, get to work! Read More | Comment »

2:12PM Thu. May. 2, Monica Riese

Pub Date Announced for Doug Dorst + J.J. Abrams Collaboration

Yes, yes, we’re all very excited about J.J. Abrams’ newest project – that would be Star Trek Into Darkness, opening May 17 – but his next project should prick your ears, too, especially as it involves a collaboration with Austin writer Doug Dorst. Read More | Comment »

5:17PM Tue. Apr. 30, Kimberley Jones

War and Pieces

Kevin Powers’ debut novel, The Yellow Birds, looks like a war novel, but it is really a novel about pieces, about the massive rents in identity caused by war, and the difficult work of repairing them. Read More | Comment »

9:00AM Tue. Apr. 30, Amy Gentry

Recommended Reading: ‘The Carriage House’

In her debut novel, The Carriage House (Scribner, 288 pp., $26), Louisa Hall takes a relaxed approach to reinterpreting Persuasion. Read More | Comment »

3:00PM Tue. Mar. 19, Kimberley Jones

Mayor's Book Club Titles Announced

The key to a successful book club – we've heard – is the perfect balance of participants. You need brainy, bookish folks who are likeminded enough to agree on selections but outspoken and confident enough to engender productive discussion. If the sum total of Austin's residents doesn't embody that description, we don't know who would. Read More | Comment »

3:03PM Fri. Mar. 1, Monica Riese

Aliens in America

Edgar Award-winning Austin author Robert Jackson Bennett takes on the aliens and the atomic age in his latest book, American Elsewhere (Orbit). Read More | Comment »

9:00AM Thu. Feb. 14, Amy Gentry

Not Quite the Usual Holiday Gift Ideas

And not all just things, of course. Read More | Comment »

4:12PM Wed. Dec. 12, 2012, Wayne Alan Brenner

Movie Rights to Ernie Cline's 'Armada' Sold

It's not like the guy needs another Delorean, but the feature film rights to Ernie Cline's upcoming novel, Armada, have already been sold to Universal Pictures to the tune of at least a million dollars according to Variety. Read More | Comment »

5:09PM Thu. Dec. 6, 2012, James Renovitch

Michael Madsen, Last of the Warrior Poets

Ask Michael Madsen about the toughest part of filming Reservoir Dogs, and it wasn’t the low budget – he’s used to that. Not the famous ear-slicing scene, improvised in four takes. It may have been getting veteran actor Lawrence Tierney through his big scene, where gangster Joe Cabot gives his jewelry heist crew their nicknames. Read More | Comment »

2:29PM Mon. Dec. 3, 2012, Richard Whittaker

Dig This: Jesse Sublett's Continuing e-Book Adventures

Austin novelist Jesse Sublett first tackled the enhanced e-book market earlier this year, when he reissued his novel Rock Critic Murders digitally via the then-new iBooks Author app. Read More | Comment »

4:15PM Fri. Nov. 30, 2012, Kimberley Jones

'Type So Hard You Bruise the Screen'

In the late 1950s, Jack Kerouac typed out a list of thirty points describing his writing practice in a piece titled “Belief and Technique for Modern Prose: List of Essentials.” Some of it makes solid sense – “4. Be in love with yr life” – others are a kind of enjoyable nonsense – “11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest.” Read More | Comment »

11:00AM Fri. Nov. 30, 2012, Owen Egerton

Just Start Talking

Two things happened for me as a writer that got me over a hurdle – one was winning the Chron contest in 2005, I think it was, and the other was running across a writing exercise suggested by David Milch, who created Deadwood and did a lot of good writing on NYPD Blue back in the day. Read More | Comment »

11:00AM Thu. Nov. 29, 2012, Bob Byington

Collecting Ideas

This list is a remix of the points in my book, Steal Like An Artist. The big idea is that writing isn't a magical ability that some people have and some don't. Writers learn to write by reading a lot and by writing a lot. Read More | Comment »

11:00AM Wed. Nov. 28, 2012, Austin Kleon

Uncorking Creativity

The most important advice I've ever received about writing came from my friend, Andrew Sean Greer. We were having lunch in San Francisco, and Andy said, "Let's order Champagne." I told him I hadn't written anything wonderful that day, and didn't deserve bubbly.  Read More | Comment »

11:00AM Tue. Nov. 27, 2012, Amanda Eyre Ward

Let’s Start at the Very Beginning

As we near the Dec. 10 deadline for submissions to our annual ‘Austin Chronicle’ Short Story Contest, some of you may still be staring at a blank page. Need a little inspiration? We’ve collected some of our favorite first lines from some of the greatest short stories ever written. Read More | Comment »

9:00AM Tue. Nov. 27, 2012, Kimberley Jones

Kickstarter Appeal: Weinberg Wants 'Panophobia'

Scott E. Weinberg is many things: Film fanatic, manic Tweeter, cat lover, Best of Austin winner. Now he's trying to make the jump into fiction writing, and he's opened up a Kickstarter campaign to help him find the time and the cash to concentrate on a horror anthology. Read More | Comment »

1:00PM Mon. Nov. 26, 2012, Richard Whittaker

Mysterious Ways

You should know that we aren’t dealing in fact here, but superstition. Read More | Comment »

11:00AM Mon. Nov. 26, 2012, Katie Williams

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