Katherine

favorites marked in bold
rereads underlined

YOUNG ADULT NOVELS
The Thief of Always, by Clive Barker
Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins
The Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins
Every Day, by David Levithan

NOVELS
The Human Stain, by Philip Roth
The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
Wise Blood, by Flannery O'Connor
Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
The Handmaids Tale, by Margaret Atwood
The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood
The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde
The Milagro Beanfield War, by John Nichols
Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell
Silas Marner, by George Eliot
Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn
The Tiger's Wife, by Tea Obreht
The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins
The Age of Miracles, by Karen Thompson Walker
The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane
No Good Deeds, by Laura Lippman
Every Secret Thing, by Laura Lippman
The Most Dangerous Thing, by Laura Lippman
To The Power of Three, by Laura Lippman
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, by Douglas Adams
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, by Douglas Adams

SPANISH
Los Informantes, por Juan Gabriel Vasquez
El asombroso viaje de Pamponio Flato, por Eduardo Mendoza

SHORT STORIES/NOVELLAS
A Study in Scarlet, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Sign of the Four, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales, translated by Naomi Lewis
A House of Pomegranates, by Oscar Wilde
The Torturer's Apprentice, by John Biguenet
Beasts and Super-Beasts, by Saki
The Fall of the House of Usher and other tales, by Edgar Allan Poe
Ambrose Bierce's Civil War, by Amrose Bierce

PLAYS
Titus Andronicus, by William Shakespeare

NON-FICTION
Fire and Blood: A History of Mexico, by T. R. Fehrenbach
The Undercover Economist, by Tim Harford
Obscene in the Extreme, by Rick Wartzman
Salt: A World History, by Mark Kurlansky
No Gender Left Behind, by Rebecca Kling
Butch is a Noun, by S. Bear Bergman
Once in Golconda: A True Drama of Wall Street 1920-1938, by John Brooks
Living Justice, by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen
Tycoon's War, by Stephen Dando-Collins
A Popular History of Minnesota, by Norman K. Risjord
In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson

1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?

Bought a condo! And opened a Canadian bank account.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I said I'd try to cook more. I did. Yay! This year: to write more. (And to continue with the exercise, better eating and cooking more vows of years past.)

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

My step-sister-in-law!!!!

4. Did anyone close to you die?

My stepdad. In fact, his grandkid was born just a couple of days after he died.

5. What countries did you visit?

Canada again. And again. And again.

6. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Hmm... I passed some strength milestones in aerial, I finally ran the 5K Monster Dash (after injuring myself the week before the race for two years in a row), and I had houses above 100 people for my show.

7. What was your biggest failure of the year?

Hmm... nothing comes to mind.

8. What do you wish you'd done more of?

Hang out with friends not while working.

9. What do you wish you'd done less of?

Stress out and get miserable while I was waiting (forever) for my condo sale to go through.

10. What was your greatest musical discovery?

There isn't one in particular that stands out, but I like a lot of the music Theodore gave me (Mumford & Sons, Black Keys, to name the two that first spring to mind) and also Melody Gardot.

11. What kept you sane?

My mom was a big one.

12. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.

? Is the fact that I'm having a hard time answering this question a really bad sign or a really good one?

NOVELS
A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving
The Confessions of Edward Day, by Valerie Martin
Cats Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut (re-read)
Offshore, by Penelope Fitzgerald
Around the World in 80 Days, by Jules Verne
Un Chino en Bicicleta, por Ariel Magnus
Pudd'nhead Wilson, by Mark Twain
The Post-Birthday World, by Lionel Shriver
Neuromancer, by William Gibson
The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
East of Eden, by John Steinbeck
Union Dues, by John Sayles
The Dispossessed, by Ursula LeGuin
Inside Out, by Barry Eisler (audiobook)
La Tierra Incomparable, por Antonio Dal Masetto
China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston
All Over Creation, by Ruth Ozeki

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
The Task of this Translator, by Todd Hasak-Lowy
The Evil B.B. Chow and Other Stories, by Steve Almond
Don't Cry, by Mary Gaitskill
Rest Area, by Clay McLeod Chapman
Something I've been Meaning to Tell You, by Alice Munro
Twin Cities Noir, eds. Julie Schaper and Steven Horowitz

PLAYS
King Lear, by William Shakespeare
Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare

NON-FICTION
Mean Little Deaf Queer, by Terry Galloway
Transcending: Reflections of Crime Victims, by Howard Zehr
Picking Cotton, by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Ronald Cotton
The Heart of the Trail: The Stories of Eight Wagon Train Women, by Mary Barmeyer O'Brien
Breaking my Silence, by Jane McCormick with Patti Wicklund
Good Brother, Bad Brother, by James Cross Giblin
Sin in the Second City, by Karen Abbott

Hello! I am in Winnipeg! I have done four out of my eight performances of "Burning Brothels: Sex and Death in Nevada" so far and, as usual, I am getting small(ish) but appreciative audiences. The response has been great (both in terms of audience response during the show and comments made afterwards) and overall it's been fantastic for my general mood and well-being, even if it's not doing a whole lot yet for my bank account.

Some bizarre and/or awesome things that have happened:

1. Super fucked-up guy at my late night show, who was definitely engaged and paying attention but who would make inappropriately loud and weird responses, like "Ooooooh, homophobia." I initially opted to ignore him, but after another audience member actually yelled "shut up!" at him from across the room, I broke and said, "Yeah, it would be really nice if you could stop talking during my show."

And the guy, sounding 100 percent sincere, replied, "I'm trying! It's really hard!"

My tech finally had to throw him out, which was the right thing to do, because he was really distracting, but it meant she missed one of her cues, so that was another irritating side effect. Though I have to say that the thing I hated most about it was all of the well-meaning audience members who told me the next day how well I handled it. It was nice of them, but somehow it almost felt condescending. "I know I know," I wanted to say, "but did you like the show?!?!?!"

2. Someone left a gift for me with the box officers on opening night -- a brass plaque that says "bordello." I have no idea who or why. Mysterious. Intriguing.

3. A woman who wrote an article on the history of prostitution in Winnipeg came to my show, along with a guy who just a released a documentary on the same subject, and they introduced themselves to me after the show and said they loved it. That made me very happy. In general, I love audience members who appreciate the fact that my stories are well-researched and (to the best of my knowledge) accurate -- since, honestly, researching the show was a lot more work than writing it, and I had to cut some wonderful details that I couldn't verify.

I also wound up flyering a woman who told me she did walking tours about Winnipeg's naughty history and she was already planning to come to my show. So that was also awesome. Hooray!

4. I have a line in my show about having to look up Rock Hudson on Wikipedia. It got fantastic laughs in Fresno, and it's getting laughs here, but they're almost amused groans of disgust and disbelief. Apparently everyone in Winnipeg knows exactly who he is, and I've had to defend myself several times in conversations with people later on, saying, "No really! I watch old movies all the time! Yes, of course I've heard of Doris Day! Just... not him." I guess it's because none of his movies are in the top 100 or Oscar-nominated? Anyway. I feel shame.

Okay, I just put up a photo essay type thing about my hike to Angel's Landing at Zion National Park... It is hosted on my website but my site does not actually link to it anywhere, so it's pretty much JUST FOR YOU!

These pictures are worth 17,000 words.

Not much to say in words, so I will use pictures.

Part Two of my trip was in Death Valley, and it was beautiful, but my mom took most of the pictures, and for some reason her computer doesn't want to read my flash drive. So that will have to wait until we get home and I can sort through the photos on my own machine.

For now I will just say that it was during Part Two that I first compared my mother to a puppy dog, jumping on the bed and licking your face and saying, "Get up get up get up get up!!!!!!!!" She didn't actually do the jumping or the licking, but the general feel of it was more or less equivalent. I'm not awful at mornings, generally, but I would also not call myself a 'Morning Person.'

My mother's premature exuberance was immediately forgiven, however, when she suggested that we stay at a brothel in Pahrump, Nevada. Apparently her friends wound up staying there once when all of the other hotels in town were full, and they thought it was an interesting experience.

I was skeptical that a brothel would actually double as a hotel, but she found the place listed online -- under "hotels and motels," with no mention of its other function -- and she called and made a reservation. My mom is awesome.

( Part Three: At the BrothelCollapse )

This was started as a travel journal and I have actually been traveling, so this is actually a real entry!

On the road at Fringe Festivals, I don't feel much of an urge to post, I've discovered -- probably because that is work and kind of a different thing: less about on-the-road adventures and more about ticket sales and audience response (or lack thereof) and self-loathing (or love) and other angsty artist things.

BUT, after this last Fringe festival (the Fresno Rogue, where I debuted my new show) my mom flew out and now we are driving back together via all sorts of awesome places.

PART ONE: Lone Pine and Alabama Hills



Our first stop was Lone Pine, the site of about a million old Western films, including silent Westerns (I didn't even know they made silent Westerns) and singing cowboy films and films starring really really famous actors I've never heard of.

The film industry completely transformed Lone Pine's economy back in the day -- locals worked as extras or stuntmen, and they raised horses and other animals or built old-fashioned stage coaches, all for use in the movies.

I went to the Lone Pines Museum and saw all of this memorabilia from all of these Westerns I'd never heard of, much less seen, so it was kind of hard to really get excited about any of it. But then...



TREMORS!!!!

Tremors was also filmed at Lone Pine, though in a slightly different location. We drove the road where it was filmed, in fact, but sadly, I don't have any good pictures. By which I mean, it's a lovely road, but there was nothing about it that screamed "Tremors!" I would never have recognized it if it hadn't been labeled in the map.

Still, it was fun.

1. What did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before?

So much! Aerial Acrobatics! Canadian Fringes!

Plus, I had my first sold-out show. And I learned to play Scrabble. And use a netty pot.

Also, cocaine.

( Read more...Collapse )