Danielle Evans

Ok, there’s no actual candy. But, I will be reading with Gary Shteyngart as part of the Pete’s Candy Store reading series in Brooklyn, this Thursday (December 16th) at 7:30.

Also, here are some gifts that are better than candy: I recommend some of my favorite 2010 books for NPR’s “outsider fiction,” list.

NPR was also good enough to have me on All Things Considered, to talk about the collection. The book also made Alan Cheuse’s list of best winter fiction, along with O Magazine’s list of the year’s top 10 books. I haven’t updated the reviews and press section in a while, but thank you also to all of the lovely people who have blogged about the book of late. I’ve also recently done interviews with Color Online and The Story Prize blog.

Finally, if you are in a book-related charitable giving mode, I had the occasion to meet some of the lovely people at 826DC. They are doing good work, and are collecting volunteers, office supplies and equipment and donations.

On Monday, November 8th,  at 6:30, I’ll be reading in DC at the  downtown Borders.  I hung out there a lot as a kid because my mother’s office building was across the street, so it will be fun being back as an adult. Speaking of growing up, the 8th is also my birthday, so I’ll be accepting gifts/drinks/ reassurances that I still have time to do everything I was trying to do before 30.

On Sunday, November 14th, at 5:00, I’ll be reading at Politics and Prose. I promise to read something different, but if that’s not reason enough for you to come out twice, I will be reading with Patricia Engel, whose book Vida is really fantastic, so even if you’re sick of me, you should come hear her read.

This weekend I’m off to Carbondale, IL, for the Devil’s Kitchen Lit Festival, where Ill be on a panel with Jennine Capo Crucet and Julie Schumacher on Friday, and reading with Adrian Matejka on Satruday. Hopefully at some point I’ll get to wear my Halloween costume.  I’ll be missing an action packed weekend in DC, so Happy Birthday to American University’s MFA program, which is celebrating its 30th year next weekend, and happy travels to everyone headed this way for the Rally to Restore Sanity.

That’s from Regina Spektor’s On the Radio, which is where I have been quite a bit over the past few weeks.

Here I talk to Celeste  Headlee at The Takeaway

Here I talk to Bob Johnson on Blog Talk Radio about lying, race, happiness, adolescence and Northern VA.

 Here my slightly underslept and giggly alter ego talks to T Hetzel on Living Writers about and families, editing, female friendships, and Mariah Carey. They let me pick my own music, but poor Kanye West did not make the cut, probably because he cursed too much for the radio, so just in case you needed the warning I’m known for running my mouth, I will not be accountable for what comes out…

DC folks, on Sunday at 11 am I’ll be on Washington Watch with Roland Martin.

I am trying desperately to write a blog post that it not about my book, but right now this blog is in line behind a stack of student papers that need grading.  I have been working on a blog post about “The Great American Novel,” and all of the visible and invisible assumptions that operate within that phrase, and I was thinking about Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom, and the book I’d vote for (based on both quality and content)were there a Great American Novel election, Colson Whitehead’s John Henry Days, and then out of curiosity I looked up some early reviews of John Henry Days to see if there was Great American Novel language being thrown around, and I found the New York Times Review of John Henry Days, which was actually written by Jonathan Franzen, and then I felt like I’d fallen into some sort of rabbit hole and needed a longer period of focus to say anything about any of it that hadn’t been said a million times before, and long periods of focus are exactly what the lovely but crazy past month of my life has lacked.

Non-self promotional posts soon, I promise. Also, pictures.

I’ve been trying to avoid super extra shameless self-promotion by posting new reviews on the reviews page, instead of the main page, but I am making an exception for Ron Charles’  Washington Post review, because a) there’s a snazzy video involved (Alas, I am not snazzy enough to figure out how to embed it, but the link should work b) It’s really fantastic when reviewers not only like the book, but really “get it,” c) As evidenced by the fact that typing “The Washington Post,” and “get it,” in close prioximity caused me to say aloud The Washington Post: if you don’t get it, you don’t get it,  The Washington Post is my hometown newspaper, and I grew up reading it, way back pre-internet, and so there’s something really special about actually being in it. On that note, wonderful as the video review series is, I would encourage you to snag a copy of the print edition, if only to see the really lovely Edel Rodriguez artwork that accompanied the review.

P.S. Also really excited about this review that ran yesterday at Postbourgie

P.P.S I do not endorse bacon.

I’ll be reading Friday, September 24th at the Barnes and Noble, Bethesda Row (right off the red line, near the Bethesda Metro). It’s my first post-book release reading, and my first hometown reading, so I’m looking forward to seeing my friends and family, who will hopefully still be speaking to me once they’ve actually read the collection.  Event details here: http://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com/event/67129

Also, it has come to management’s attention that we’ve been a little heavy on the shameless self-promotion of late. We still care about the physical book, and race, and thanking people, and we have things to say about Great American Novels and books we love a lot, and plan on saying them as soon as we finish grading journals and reading books and drinking a few glasses of champagne because we are in fact, a little shameless, and we’ll only write a first book once and even though we are still not the Danielle Evans who won ANTM, seeing our book on Gawker makes us feel a little bit fancy.

Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self will be officially released in 20 days! I just got my advanced copies of the hardcover, which as Circe is helping demonstrate in the photo above, looks really lovely.

New York Magazine listed Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self as one of the 20 most anticipated fall prose titles, and I’ll be reading in Brooklyn with Tayari Jones, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Jeffrey Renard Allen at Ringshout’s Brooklyn Book Festival Event on September 10th. If you’re in the city, please come if you can:

ringShout: A Place for Black Literature kicks off its new reading series. Join us for an evening of readings by four acclaimed African American writers. Featuring Ta-Nehisi Coates, Tayari Jones, Jeffrey Renard Allen, and Danielle Evans. DJ sounds by Rob Fields.
Location: Littlefield, 622 Degraw St. (between 3rd and 4th Aves.)
Time: 7–9 p.m.
Price: $5 (suggested donation)

1) I always forget how pretty the Smithsonian grounds and National Mall are. I’ve been hanging out there, writing with pen and paper, and taking museum breaks. I’ve also been wandering around neighborhoods where portions of my novel are set, picking out actual locations for my character’s fictitious homes. Luckily, as confirmed by numerous airport security workers, I look substantially incapable of nefarious action, and no one has yet reported me for casing their house.

2) The King of a Vast Empire, a story from my collection, was featured on Five Chapters this week. All five sections of the story are now up.  

3) Ms. Magazine published an excerpt of the story Snakes in their summer issue, which is now on newsstands.

4) I am really excited about the series of readings I’ll be doing surrounding the book’s release. Check the events page in a week or so for full details once everything is pinned down. Also, if you are a friend or loved one or would like to be, check your inbox soonish for an invitation to a party featuring books, liquor, and chocolate.

Once upon a time I lived in the middle of an isthmus. Toward the end of a lovely year made possible by the fine people at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, I gave a reading. This reading was noteworthy partly because I was wearing the best shoes ever, but also because people seemed to enjoy it, so much so that an audience member emailed me a few days later and asked if he could buy the story I read.

This request both flattered and amused me, because it was not, at that point, possible to buy anything I’d written. It was terribly exciting then that every once in a while someone would like what I’d written and buy me a vodka tonic. Actually, that still is terribly exciting. Point being, I told kind audience member that I could not, in fact sell him the story, but I’d be happy to give him a copy.

When he came by to pick up the copy of the story, he said that he was a visual artist, and because he appreciated my willingness to give him my work, he’d brought me a sample of his– a photo of a sculpture he’d been working on, accompanied by a note describing its creation process.  The sculpture was glass and metal and read, in its entirety, “living language,” and he said it seemed like something I’d appreciate. Upon reading the note,I discovered the red in the sculpture came from the artist’s own blood, which he’d been methodically extracting pint by pint over a long period of time, and incorporating into the sculpture, which had some method for controlling temperature and oxygen level. ( I wish I could be more precise here, but alas, Madison was four moves ago, and the note itself got lost during one of those moves. Also missing: one half of the aforementioned awesome pair of shoes.  Not a lot a girl can do with only one red patent leather and cork pump.) 

I shared my office with the other institute fellows, and when one of my esteemed poet friends came back into the office and saw my gift, he said something like:

“Someone came by the office and gave you a picture of his blood?”

We had some sort of conversation about the degree to which this was odd and the degree to which this was cool, and I decided it was both, and also that I was going to hang the picture over my desk, because it seemed most appropriate there. The picture has stayed above my desk in all subsequent moves, because it is sort of oddly appropriate, and because it was the first tangible and non-consumable thing anyone ever gave me for my writing.

I say all that to say, I have reached the point in my novel where the writing process feels a bit like methodically extracting one’s own blood to make it into something different– a little bit painful, a little bit tedious, a little bit lovely, a little bit exhilarating, a little bit frightening, a little bit undeniably personal, a little bit clinically sterile, a lot of trying to turn something ordinary into something else. In order to speed this process up, I am trying to step back from the internet for the next few weeks. In the meantime, I’ve posted a page for additional early reviews of Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, and made a facebook page for the book (see below). I’ll check back in if there’s any major book news, but if not, I shall be back to more interesting blog posts in a month or so. Happy midsummer, blog readers.