Christopher Meeks's Blog
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Jul.04.2010
Writing recently about attending Aimee Bender’s reading made me reflect on my own readings and how I approach them. Before I started teaching, I was deathly afraid of public speaking. In grad school, when I’d have to give a presentation to my class of just eight people—people I liked and could...
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Jul.02.2010
A reading is a special kind of entertainment. Over the last decade, I’ve landed at perhaps a dozen stand-alone readings, and many times that in catching authors at various panels, including those at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books each April. My trips to readings have been well-selected,...
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Jun.30.2010
I just finished reading Margaret Atwood’s new novel, The Year of the Flood, and I’ll gush about it. When I started the book, I hadn’t realized it related to her earlier novel of dystopia, Oryx and Crake. While I’m a fan of her novels and poetry, the opening of Oryx and Crake did not grab me, and at...
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May.31.2010
As I struggle with restructuring my novel in ways both productive and difficult--my most Herculean writing task to date--Spring calls out to me like never before. This last week, I created a whole new garden with rich black earth, then troweled holes for tomatoes, peppers, strawberries and...
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May.18.2010
A lancing, jaw-cracking lightning bolt of pain awoke me. From contented sleep to eyes wide open, I gritted my teeth--what the hell was happening? With the intense epicenter in my lower jaw, I knew it was my bicuspid, tooth #29. My dentist, Dr. Mark Tarica, a brilliant and caring dentist, had put a...
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May.14.2010
Up-and-coming writers want to hear how down the line things will get easier. Heck, I want to hear that. Thus, when I sent my current novel-in-progress, Ten Days to a Bad Habit, to my agent Jim McCarthy in New York, I wanted to hear how my first mystery was an amazing delight, staying true to the...
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May.13.2010
Caroline Leavitt, author of nine novels and book reviewer for People Magazine and The Boston Globe, happens to have an incredible blog, CarolineLeavittville, where she reviews and writes about writing. She’s also a friend, so I wrote her suggesting that she write about structure—mainly because that...
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May.08.2010
Last night about 11:15 p.m., I happened to go to my Red Room home page and saw that I’d reached a landmark 50,000 views. Even though that’s in just more than a year and a half, that’s pleasing. First to you, dear reader, thank you for coming here. Second, I’m still trying to wrap my head around...
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May.05.2010
I happen to teach a fiction class at UCLA Extension called "The Writer's Workout," where over a mere eight weeks, I hope to start people into a habit. People take classes in UCLA Extension's Writing Program because they've been harboring a desire to write, often for years, and are finally...
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May.02.2010
I’ve been feeling like Woody Allen in one of his early movies where he’s sitting among dour people on a stopped train, and he looks over and sees another train with happy, laughing people. For me, the other train is filled with people reading and loving the book, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by...
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Apr.17.2010
As I mentioned previously about attending the AWP writers conference in Denver, the mile-high city is dry. Chapstick is as important as water. While at times I felt like a potato slice on the Lay's potato chip production belt, my companions and I kept plenty busy during the conference--as much...
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Apr.15.2010
Just over two years ago when I was teaching creative writing at USC in the Master of Professional Writing Program, I'd volunteered to head up a search for fellow faculty to write proposals for the next AWP Conference.
We were between program directors then, and the associate dean who was...
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Apr.13.2010
Denver is like a giant bag of silica gel. Moisture is sucked right out of you the moment you land at the white teepee-covered Denver International. The first thing to do in Denver is drink a lot of water and kiss Chapstick like your new lover. Coat yourself in Aveeno. That's all in hopes your...
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Apr.12.2010
I just returned from the AWP Conference in Denver, which was a rich and intense experience that's still washing over me. The AWP (the Association of Writers and Writing Programs) puts on a yearly conference where writers and creative writing instructors from North America gather. Over three days,...
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Apr.03.2010
I’m not ashamed: I’m hooked on Lifetime Channel’s Project Runway. For some weeks, such as this week, it’s the only television I watch. That’s because the show, more than any other reality show, revolves around creativity--and that revolves around “desire.”
Each season Project Runway begins with...
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'Love At Absolute Zero' is a gift--and one of the many that continue to emerge from the pen and mind and brilliant trait for finding the humor in life that makes him so genuinely fine a writer.”
—Critic Grady Harp, Top-Ten Amazon reviewer
About Christopher
Christopher Meeks writes short fiction and novels. His book of short stories, The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea earned great reviews including the Los Angeles Times ("poignant and wise") and a blurb in Entertainment Weekly that said, "A...
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