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Thursday, September 30, 2004 Operation Ohio Day 3 It's morning in Ohio as I write this. It's morning lots of places but for me there is nowhere else. Ohio is a spaceship, an island, the conquering state of this great nation. I'm in the house of Julie Orringer's parents. Julie and Ryan are asleep upstairs as are Josh Bearman and Jonathan Ames. It's a big house with a curiously small coffee maker and lots of bedrooms and in the room Josh and I stayed in there was a fish tank. Josh couldn't sleep with the tank on so he unplugged it. He pointed a long, bony finger at me before turning out the lights. If the fish dies he made me promise not to tell. Yesterday's reading was great. Ryan Harty, Jonathan Ames, and Dan Chaon joined us as Anthony Swofford, Rick Moody, and Dave Eggers peeled from the state. Swofford is already going through Ohio detox and wrote me a frantic letter, if we just get one more vote it was worth it, he wrote. 150 kids showed up to see us at Oberlin College, a small school an hour outside of Cleveland. Ames read a story called I Shit My Pants In The South Of France, which was probably the funniest story I've ever heard. Note to all writers, never follow Jonathan Ames, make him read last. We signed up a hundred students to receive phone calls on election day. After the reading the students followed us to the bar and I told stories about working as a stripper in my year after college and selling tickets to live sex shows in Amsterdam. I told everyone that I was sober all through college and as a result I have no memories of school because for me nothing happened. Most of the students hanging out at the bar with us were writing majors. Oberlin gets a lot of visiting writers and the kids were free and easy with who they liked and didn't. "So and so (a very famous poet) came to our workshop and didn't like my poetry, but I don't think his poetry is very good either." Students are the harshest critics. I thumbwrestled with this one kid, a senior. He kept cheating but accusing me of cheating. Truth is, I'm one of the greatest thumb wrestlers the world has ever known. Hanging out with young people keeps you young. Or at least older people believe that and I believe it too. And like the young Oberlin students I felt alive and like I could change the world, which is what youth is. Around midnight Josh and I ordered Grasshoppers, which are these chocolate liquor things covered in whip cream and syrup and served in martini glasses. We intertwined our arms before taking our first sip. People thought we were gay and we had to explain the principle of bromance to them. Bromance, which is neither gay nor not gay, but rather a profound affection displayed between two men. Yesterday was Vendela and Shepard's last night. I see Vendela a lot in San Francisco but this was my first time meeting Jim Shepard, who is one of my literary idols. I told him so at the end of the night, throwing caution to the wind, and we hugged and then he got himself a room at the Oberlin Inn. Today we add Andrew Sean Greer, Robert Olmstead, and Ann Packer for a daytime reading at Cleveland State University. We're getting coverage from the local PBS and NPR. And here's something exciting. Last night, in my half drunken state, lying in bed in the Cleveland suburbs, I came up with the idea for the Operation Ohio Street Team. I've started emailing flyers to students that have signed up for a phone call from Operation Ohio and they're putting up flyers in their schools to let more people know about us. So you see, among other things, beyond my mad thumbwrestling abilities, I am a deft Viral Marketeer. If you'd like to hang a flyer in your school in Wisconsin, Florida, or Ohio, you can download one here. Also, soon we're going to add a fax number so people under 25 can sign up to receive a phone call from an author without a university email account by faxing a copy of their drivers license and relevant information. Also, so many authors are signing up that I'm considering adding another state. I'm kind of leaning Iowa. Hmmmm... posted by Stephen Elliott 5:55 AM | link | |
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"Any true love story, if told with the urgency and animal intelligence of love, isn't for the fainthearted. On every page of this profound, distilled work of art, Stephen Elliott wrestles with the unknown and unspoken essences of love, and articulates that unknown so beautifully, with such clear-eyed fearlessness... Imagine a glass of pure water with one drop of blood hanging in its center, about to dissolve... Then drink it and be transformed." -Nick Flynn, author of Another Bullshit Night in Suck City "There's an emotional courage to these stories, and a sense of urgency, that are thrilling to encounter. Elliott writes as if his life depended on each sentence. It is not overstating the case to say that he does for the BDSM community in this book what Denis Johnson did for lost druggies in Jesus' Son." - Steve Almond, The Believer Magazine Best of the year: Salon.com, San Francisco Chronicle Reviews: Salon.com, LA Weekly, The Believer Excerpts: My Stripper Year, Just Always Be Good Purchase from Amazon, Powells, Cleis, and your local bookstore 
"Happy Baby is surely the most intelligent and beautiful book ever written about juvenile detention centers, sadomasochism, and drugs." - Curtis Sittenfeld, The New York Times Book Review Best of the year: Village Voice, Salon.com, Chicago New City, The Journal News Awards: Finalist Young Lions Award, Silver Medal California Book Award Reviews: The New York Times, Salon.com, Village Voice Excerpts: Stalking Gracie Part 3 Purchase from Amazon, Powell's, and your local bookstore 
"Hunter S. Thompson, Norman Mailer, Richard Ben Cramer: the great, all-American genre of the political campaign in extenso (and in extremis) has had its Homers and Boswells. To that list we can now add Stephen Elliott. Hilarious, strange, electrifyingly written, and heart-pumpingly idealistic, Looking Forward to It wins every literary caucus and primary in a landslide." -Tom Bissell, author of Chasing the Sea Best of the year: Village Voice Reviews: New York Magazine, New York Times Excerpts: The Dennis Kucinich Polka, A John Edwards Almanac Purchase from Amazon, Powell's (cheap!), and your local bookstore 
"A Life Without Consequences was harrowing, hard as nails, brutal, and soaring. Stephen Elliott has to be watched, because he knows things almost no one else could." - Dave Eggers, author of A Heart Breaking Work of Staggering Genius and What Is The What Excerpt: Adlai Stevenson House Reviews: Austin American Statesman Purchase from Amazon |
