R.I.P. Eddie Little. Author of ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE and STEEL TOES, has passed. May 20th I believe. See update below. A true junkie voice. Rave reviews in the New York Times Book Review. An award-winning column fro the LA Weekly, which will hold a memorial service for Eddie Thursday, May 29th, from 6 to 9 at Boardner's in Hollywood. R.IP. Eddie Little.
PICK-OF-THE-LITTER, WRITE YOUR HEART OUT CONTEST. This week I'm posting for real. Now that I'm done with the grueling spring semester at Chapman and a ton of other teaching and deadlines. Gear up for some incredibly powerful, searing pieces. Stay tuned.
PUBLICATIONS, CURRENT AND UPCOMING:
THE DICTIONARY OF FAILED RELATIONSHIPS (Three Rivers Press), with my story "'M' Is For Muay Thai," comes out May 27th. Other contributors include: Susan Minot, Eliza Minot, Darcey Steinke, Anna Maxted, Maggie Estep, Dana Johnson, etc.
"Man and Woman: A Study in Black & White," the first erotica story I ever penned specifically for an erotica antho, appeared in BEST FETISH EROTICA, reappeared in BEST WOMEN'S EROTICA 2002 (also Cleis Press), and was just chosen by Susie Bright to be in BEST AMERICAN EROTICA 2004 along with people like Jerry Stahl.
The big news is I'm hard at work on a new book. I needed to give the former a rest. Too dark for all the darkness in the world right now. The one I'm working on is faster, easier, more comic. I'm writing about Topanga, and about romance, and female friendship, neo-hippiedom, and a girl who's told by a bad shrine fortune that she has "lost her heart" -- with all the implications there. I'll post some excerpts as I go along if you're interested.
STUDENT NEWS
After teaching at UCLA, and Antioch, Chapman, various private workshops for the last five plus years -- I've got a bunch of former students who are making the news with their publishing, MFA'ing, or general antics! PLEASE SEND IN NEWS TO ME IF YOU ARE A FORMER STUDENT, OR KNOW OF NEWS OF ONE! And click on back issues to see earlier news.
Yasmine Lever, a former UCLA Kirkwood winner, found out she was a finalist last year for the Ray Bradbury fellowship, as well as an honorable mention in the Zoetrope-All Story contest.
Many former Topanga workshop students are writing for the local rag, the Messenger, including Kathie Gibboney, Sarah Margolis, and Lee Michaelson.
Mia Taylor is now Associate Editor of THE BOOK LA. In the recent issue with astonishing photos by Gregory Colbert, she interviews Colbert, and also the mother-sister of deceased photo-journalist Daniel Eldon, whose posthumously published collage journals have created a cult following.
Two Chapman MFA grad students won fiction awards in the recent Calliope Contest. They are: Gaya Ekuan, first place; and Kristen-Paige Madonia, third place. Congrats!
Thea Klapwald is writing a piece for the TLS (Times Literary Supplement) on Los Angeles writing.
Current workshop member Aaron Jacobs, founding editor of forthcoming Los Angeles mag Quench, has a story coming out this month in the excellent Surfer's Path mag out of London. Here's the link where you can get a salt-tang taste of his story, "Living With Water": The Surfer's Path: "Living With Water"
Thursday, May 22, 2003
Dear all,
Today is my father's birthday. He is a Talmudic scholar, for real, and a helluva basketball player still at 62.
I don't have time to write as much as I'd like, and will fill in more later, but for now, I wanted to acknowledge my father's birthday, and the death day of a writer I knew.
R.I.P. Eddie Little. Yesterday morning I found out Eddie Little, author of ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE and STEEL TOES, passed away. The word from the beautiful Rita Fabra, Eddie's ex and the mother of the beautiful Li'l Rita, says he was found "on a bed lying back with his feet over the side looking very peaceful as if he lied back for a second of shut eye." There will be a memorial service for him on the 29th from 6 to 9 at Boardner's in Hollywood.
Eddie and I met at the LA Weekly party for the BEA or Festival of Books, I forget, three years ago I think. He was accompanied by his guard, a grizzled Latino guy, from the half-way house where he was detoxing after leaving jail. We hit it off, spent a few months hanging out a lot. Planned on writing a reimagining of the Bonnie & Clyde story, with alternating chapters. Eddie would write the Clyde chapters and me the Bonnie chapters. I did a ton of research, began dreaming Bonnie & Clyde. Heard a lot of Eddie's wild stories, some chilling, some outrageous, all entertaining. More on those later when I fill this update out.
Eddie totally hit it off with my always beloved Severe macaw, Lima -- whom some of you know I lost to a bobcat two years ago this July 1st. Eddie would "spring" the bird from the cage. Fresh out of jail himself, he was sensitive to caging. Lima and he would play around the world, with Eddie balancing Lima on a chair back and bobbing it around the deck, all the while chain-smoking Camels. He also used to call me "Homes." To start the day, Eddie Little would drink coffee, very strong coffee -- eight espresso shots worth. Those three months were highly caffeinated, and always entertaining.
The project didn't work out in the end for various reasons, nor did the friendship. Suffice to say, when Eddie used, he was another creature. Unrecognizable. But when he was straight, he was a pleasure. Vibrant, charismatic, great storyteller, a gentleman. And he wrote like a goddamn fallen angel. The last time I saw him, I ran into him at muay thai fights at a hotel out in the valley. He was grinning like mad, buffed out, hanging with gym homeys, and having a ball. I'll hold on to that memory. R.I.P. Eddie.
Peace,
Rachel
Click to get back issues of updates -- more gossip, ranting!
December-February 2003: India! White Tigers, Cremations, Maharajas & A One-Legged Sadhus from Texas
Winter 2002 -- Back-to-Back Black Book Covers -- All Things Cusackian & "Meant Work"
Summer Splash 2002: Entering Beckworld and Other Self-Tanning Adventures in Scribbling
December 2001-January 2002: General Holidaze, & The Erotic Side of the Flu
September-November 2001 -- the 9.11 Spread, This New World Of Ours
September 2nd Update: Loss of Lima, and, other ramblings from the days before The World Changed
June-August 2001: Off the Rails at Track 16 Gallery & Other Tales
April/May 2001: Second Pick-of-the-Litter Winners! plus Snap and trash from Tin House bash
December/January 2001: Happy Kwanzaa Send-Off, Holidazing
November 2000 Update: Seven Deadly Sins Contest! Plus Bonus Political Rant
June 2000 Update: Hell's Angels, Rocking the Tin House, and More!
February 2000 Update: My Bloody Valentine