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I got home from a weekend out of town and found a little package on the front porch from Amazon. Inside: Finch, by Jeff VanderMeer, and Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer by Peter Turchi.
Finch is on my list of must reads for 2010. It just so happened that I finished The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss on Saturday (more on that in an upcoming post), so I jumped into Finch last night. So far it’s every bit what I hoped it would be. I’ll be posting a review of sorts once I finish and have time to digest.
Maps is a different thing altogether. Published by Trinity University Press, I had this book on my wish list based on a recommendation from VanderMeer (not personal, mind you, but from his book, Booklife). I’m excited about this one.
Check out the American Library Association’s blurb:
It’s not uncommon to compare the writing of a story to the mapping of a world, but no one has so fully, or so seductively and rewardingly, performed as extended a meditation on this illuminating metaphor as Turchi. A fiction writer, anthologist, and the director of the MFA writing program at Warren Wilson College, Turchi parses with equal insight, knowledge, and elan the making of maps and the writing of fiction. Both involve purposeful omission; both require compression; both are subjective in their perspective, orientation, and emphasis; and both create illusions.
Look for a future post on writing reference materials that I’ve found useful over the last few months.
Look forward to hearing what’s worked for you (and what has not!).
I’ll be sure to share. Finch is working for me right now. There is no question why Jeff VanderMeer is considered one of the foremost authors of the New Weird, carrying on the Lovecraftian tradition.