Suspend Your Disbelief

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Sarah Van Arsdale

Contributor

Sarah Van Arsdale teaches creative writing at New York University. Her third novel, Grand Isle, will be published in spring, 2012, by SUNY Press; it was a finalist in the 2008 University of Michigan Novel Contest. Her second novel, Blue, won the Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel and was published by the University of Tennessee Press in 2003, and her first novel, Toward Amnesia, was published by Riverhead Books in 1996. She also makes short animated films from her watercolors, and works as a manuscript consultant (sarahvanarsdale.com). ne of her all time favorite writers is Iris Murdoch, but currently she’s reading a lot of poetry as April is National Poetry Month; a favorite poet is Elizabeth Bishop, from whom the line “The art of losing isn’t hard to master” is taken. Visit her blog at http://sarahvanarsdale.blogspot.com.


Articles

Shop Talk |

Stories We Love: "A&P"

by Sarah Van Arsdale

Sarah Van Arsdale teaches creative writing at New York University. Her third novel, Grand Isle, will be published in spring, 2012, by SUNY Press; it was a finalist in the 2008 University of Michigan Novel Contest. Her second novel, Blue, won the Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel and was published by the University of Tennessee Press in 2003, and her first novel, Toward Amnesia, was published by Riverhead Books in 1996. She also makes short animated films from her watercolors, and works as a manuscript consultant (sarahvanarsdale.com). ne of her all time favorite writers is Iris Murdoch, but currently she’s reading a lot of poetry […]


Shop Talk |

Perseverance Triumphs Over Despair At AWP

by Sarah Van Arsdale

Sarah Van Arsdale teaches creative writing at New York University. Her third novel, Grand Isle, will be published in spring, 2012, by SUNY Press; it was a finalist in the 2008 University of Michigan Novel Contest. Her second novel, Blue, won the Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel and was published by the University of Tennessee Press in 2003, and her first novel, Toward Amnesia, was published by Riverhead Books in 1996. She also makes short animated films from her watercolors, and works as a manuscript consultant (sarahvanarsdale.com). ne of her all time favorite writers is Iris Murdoch, but currently she’s reading a lot of poetry […]


Shop Talk |

Europa Editions celebrates publication of its 100th book

by Sarah Van Arsdale

Sarah Van Arsdale teaches creative writing at New York University. Her third novel, Grand Isle, will be published in spring, 2012, by SUNY Press; it was a finalist in the 2008 University of Michigan Novel Contest. Her second novel, Blue, won the Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel and was published by the University of Tennessee Press in 2003, and her first novel, Toward Amnesia, was published by Riverhead Books in 1996. She also makes short animated films from her watercolors, and works as a manuscript consultant (sarahvanarsdale.com). ne of her all time favorite writers is Iris Murdoch, but currently she’s reading a lot of poetry […]


Shop Talk |

Stories We Love: "The Lottery"

by Sarah Van Arsdale

Sarah Van Arsdale teaches creative writing at New York University. Her third novel, Grand Isle, will be published in spring, 2012, by SUNY Press; it was a finalist in the 2008 University of Michigan Novel Contest. Her second novel, Blue, won the Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel and was published by the University of Tennessee Press in 2003, and her first novel, Toward Amnesia, was published by Riverhead Books in 1996. She also makes short animated films from her watercolors, and works as a manuscript consultant (sarahvanarsdale.com). ne of her all time favorite writers is Iris Murdoch, but currently she’s reading a lot of poetry […]


Reviews |

The Art of Losing, by Rebecca Connell

by Sarah Van Arsdale

The skill of disclosure is often at the heart of good fiction; never more so than in The Art of Losing, by Rebecca Connell, just out from Europa Editions. Contributor Sarah Van Arsdale explicates what makes this book work so well by looking at it alongside The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins.


Shop Talk |

Bloggers: Give Quote, Get Promo

by Sarah Van Arsdale

Sarah Van Arsdale teaches creative writing at New York University. Her third novel, Grand Isle, will be published in spring, 2012, by SUNY Press; it was a finalist in the 2008 University of Michigan Novel Contest. Her second novel, Blue, won the Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel and was published by the University of Tennessee Press in 2003, and her first novel, Toward Amnesia, was published by Riverhead Books in 1996. She also makes short animated films from her watercolors, and works as a manuscript consultant (sarahvanarsdale.com). ne of her all time favorite writers is Iris Murdoch, but currently she’s reading a lot of poetry […]


Essays |

Hobbling Up The Magic Mountain

by Sarah Van Arsdale

I just read Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. The whole thing. Starting on page one and ending on page 706. The events in the book span seven years, and reading it seemed to take almost as long. When I embarked on this project, I was recovering from orthopedic surgery … Why, then, would I want to read a lengthy book packed with intellectual digressions set in a tuberculosis sanatorium in the Swiss Alps prior to the start of World War II? Hadn’t I been through enough? How about something light, or at least short? A Carol Goodman murder mystery, or something by Nick Hornby? As it turned out, The Magic Mountain was a choice so perfect I’m thinking a copy should be handed out with every pre-admission packet given to surgical patients…


Essays |

AWP: Hope Takes Flight in the Basement of the Hilton

by Sarah Van Arsdale

At first, I didn’t care too much about the economic troubles of Wall Streeters, or people living off their investments, or people with things called “401ks.” Let them give up their limos and learn how to take the bus; let them eat at the table next to me at Ali Baba’s Kebab House. But then the publishing world followed. Has the prospect of getting a literary novel published plunged from very unlikely to totally unlikely to absolutely-forget-about-it-impossible with each drop of the Dow Jones average? Or is there hope?



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