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Category Archives: Commentary

The Vonnegut Challenge
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April 11, 2013 by Marcus Speh (Birkenkrahe)

At the writing community Fictionaut, Ramon Collins started in interesting debate on an old issue, a challenge for the modern writer thrown out …
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Category: Commentary, Philosophy, Question, Writerly Advice | Tags: anniversary, Bertrand Russell, D. H. Lawrence, David Shields, fictionaut, H. G. Wells, Henry James, Kurt Vonnegut, Matt Robinson, Ramon Collins, Shakespeare, Watch and Ward, Yareah
Factory of blind infants
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April 7, 2013 by Marcus Speh (Birkenkrahe)

“An achievement in art or in letters grows more interesting when we perceive its connections.” —Henry James In preparation of …
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Category: Commentary, Published, TYFYS | Tags: Audrey Hepburn, berlin, Cary Grant, Chechens, Finnegan Flawnt, Kiez, NRA, Sam Rasnake, Sand, Schmock, TYFYS
Bezos Loves Books
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March 29, 2013 by Marcus Speh (Birkenkrahe)

In fact, the Amazon CEO loves them so much that he has just bought Goodreads, a social media site for …
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Category: Commentary, Writerly Advice | Tags: Amazon, amen, author, Bezos, book, capitalism, consumer, Goodreads, hate, Hitler, love, publishing, purchase
The breath of death
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March 19, 2013 by Marcus Speh (Birkenkrahe)

“An achievement in art or in letters grows more interesting when we perceive its connections.” Henry James. In honor of …
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Category: Commentary, Podcast, Stories, TYFYS | Tags: A-minor, asthma, life, Nicolette Wong, Shel Compton, suicide, TYFYS, William Blake
Linguistic Cross-Dressing
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March 6, 2013 by Marcus Speh (Birkenkrahe)

«If I cannot love the typical modern German, I can at least pity and understand him. His worst fault is …
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Category: Commentary, Goings-on, Tools, Writerly Advice | Tags: Beckett, bilingual, cross-dresser, culture, dictation, G B Shaw, German, Joseph Conrad, Julio Cortazar, Klaus Mann, language, Lucy Renner Jones, Mad Hatters Review, MadHat Annual, Nabokov, nation, Pei Ying-Lin, Ring, Thank You For Your Sperm, The Atlantic, torment, W G Sebald, Wagner, Walter Benjamin
How to start a novel
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December 9, 2012 by Marcus Speh (Birkenkrahe)

“The world is very big.” Writer and musician Stephen Hastings-King (SHK) said this in a recent discussion on Fictionaut titled “starting …
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Category: Commentary, Goings-on, Guest Post, Interview, Writerly Advice | Tags: facebook, fictionaut, flash, formalism, Gaston Bachelard, novel, outline, Plato, political, Rene Girard, sebald, Sigmund Freud, spiritual, Stephen Hastings-King, Tyler Findlay, writing
“Muscles and sex” at the Frankfurt book fair
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October 13, 2012 by Marcus Speh (Birkenkrahe)

The e-book seems to small a concept to me sometimes. My writer’s heart refuses to beat in the new pithy …
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Category: Commentary | Tags: editor, Frankfurt Book Fair, Mo Yen, Nobel, Richard Ford, Schwarzenegger, writer
Aller avec Maigret
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October 1, 2012 by Marcus Speh (Birkenkrahe)

Finished Simenon’s (first) Maigret detective novel: somehow I know that I read this one and many others about the inspector …
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Category: Commentary, Review, Writerly Advice | Tags: 1929, Crime, Detective, Georges Simenon, Lucia Joyce, Maigret, Mystery, paris
What does it mean to be published now?
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September 16, 2012 by Marcus Speh (Birkenkrahe)

I can’t believe that I’m publishing yet another post on publishing. But when David Ackley asked the question last week …
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Category: 100 Days Of Summer, Commentary, Writerly Advice | Tags: Alt Lit, Alt Lit Gossip, digital, facebook, fictionaut, James Joyce, Marcel Proust, publishing, Virginia Woolf
Surveillance Surprise
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August 17, 2012 by Marcus Speh (Birkenkrahe)

Your biometric image, scanned this morning while you dreamt of perfect love Alternative titles for this post were: “You’ve Been Recognized, Sucker” …
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Category: 100 Days Of Summer, Commentary, The Picture Goers | Tags: 100 days 2012, Disney, surveillance, totalitarianism

Click pic to order...

«At a party, I stood next to a bald guy with a beard who didn’t say anything. I noticed a nearby couple put their heads together and whisper while pointing at me. They were smiling so I went over and inquired if I could help them in any way. “No, not at all,” said the woman, “but listen, isn’t that Sir Salman Rushdie who stood next to you just now? We’re such fans.” The man nodded.»

Excerpt from: My Friend Salman Rushdie, in: Pachydermini Pack 4 (Turtleneck Press); donation dependent download.

«Tara, I look at us in that photo, taken so many years ago, I look at you sandwiched between Tom and me, with our left arms in casts, so ridiculous, it makes me think of music that is ridiculous also, music by Charles Ives with two bands playing against one another, or two melodies backpacking a third, or an instrument entering a dialog of two other instruments like a dangerous stranger. It makes me think of your musical voice and your rich hair, Tara, I’m thinking of you as my ship begins the landing process.»

Excerpt from: Friends, in: In Those Days We, available online at Issuu. Paperback version to appear.

Now at Amazon as paperback and on Kindle. See also goodreads.

RT @mtthw_rbnsn: #FF @abhayasondra (newcomer!) @marcus_speh (buy his book!) @lx69 (ditto!) @primawesome (dog's ok!) @ravi_mangla (terrific … 4 hours ago
RT @BobbiLurie: @marcus_speh Thank you so much for dedicating the book to Carol ! Thank you so much madhattersreview.com/issue13/novack… 7 hours ago

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Marcus Speh

(Birkenkrahe) — Storyteller & Professor

I am German writer who lives in Berlin. My short fiction has been published in elimae, Mad Hatter's Review, kill author, PANK and elsewhere. First published in 2009 at Metazen, I've been nominated for a Micro Award, two Pushcart Prizes, two Best of the Net awards and two Million Writers Awards, and a novella of mine was longlisted for the Paris Literary Prize. My short fiction collection "Thank You For Your Sperm" is published in 2013 by MadHat Press. My mosaic novel "Gizella" is forthcoming from Folded Word Press. I have a lush web site at marcusspeh.com (English), I blog on Tumblr und Deutsch auf marcusspeh.de. Join me on Facebook, on Twitter, Pinterest or send me an email.