Rachel Resnick's official site


	TAHITIFLASH!!! Or should I say ‘flesh’?! The Tahiti article is finally finally out! Run, no, sprint to your newsstands before the spring 2006 ‘Are We There Yet?’ travel issue of BlackBook magazine, sporting a very pouty Jonathan Rhys-Meyer, disappears. The cover promos our piece with MANHUNTING IN TAHITI. The duet essay, with BB title “The Seekers,” which I wrote with fabulous fellow writer and friend Emma Forrest (see www.emmaforrest.com) is also featured online: http://www.blackbookmag.com/Features/2006/Issue44/The_Seekers.aqf The pic above is of me and Emma knocking knockers and being tropical on the insanely beautiful lagoon of Bora-Bora. The response to the article has been stunning so far. I tell you, after writing that piece, I have renewed respect for all the memoirists and personal essayists. There is nowhere to hide. It’s very strange how deep you have to tunnel, how private you have to be, ruthlessly searching and exposing, before you can get somewhere truthful. No fictional flourishes or invented digressions allowed! So close to the bone. But, as always, I think about being of service. And I have a hunch there are other women out there of ‘a certain age’ who might just resonate with my situation. The yearning for a child, the rapidfire race of time – that phenom of facing the end of fertility – redefining one’s self – all intense. A Caribbean backdrop the perfect catalyst. Here’s your teaser, and how BB opens the piece: “In Bora-Bora, even the fish look like sperm. Emma Forrest and Rachel Resnick journey across Tahiti in search of solace and the perfect mate.” Look forward to hearing your responses. PHAIRFLASH!!! Looks like the JUNE ISSUE OF WOMEN’S HEALTH MAG will feature my interview with ultra-groovy down-to-earth rockstar Liz Phair. I think the issue will hit stands on May 23^rd or so. My way cool editor, Nicole Beland, who’s got a fun column on dating advice – was fantastic to work with, and really appreciated how raw and open Liz Phair was in the interview. I think they’ll post extra stuff on their online site. I’ll post more info when it comes out… SWAYFLASH!!! The first excerpt of SWAY, featuring the ‘orgiastic beach club’ otherwise known as the Shanghai Pleasure Palace located in Santa Monica…is forthcoming. Following is the write-up in a recent www.laobserved.com – with a helluva cool mention for SWAY: Black Clock 5 The fifth issue of Black Clock, the literary journal edited by Steve Erickson and published by California Institute of the Arts, focuses on Los Angeles fiction reaching from "the Hollywood Sign and Pacific Palisades to Echo Park Lake and the far reaches of the San Fernando Valley." Pieces are from a variety of writers. The media release says that Tom Carson, critic for Esquire and GQ, "collapses all of Hollywood history into 'The Victor Muet Mansion, 6601 Callia Lily Canyon Road, Brentwood: A Brief History.' Rachel Resnick encapsulates everyone's idea of L.A. hedonism into the orgiastic beach club of all our fantasies (or nightmares) - the Shanghai Pleasure Palace. Howard A. Rodman and Alan Rifkin satirize what everyone thinks L.A. is supposed to be and Susan Straight and Lou Mathews write about what everyone forgets L.A. really is -- the geographical and social fringes of Greater Los Angeles. Francesca Lia Block contributes an elegiac love story told by the city itself, in its various neighborhoods and incarnations, and Mary Yukari Waters writes about why she can't write about Los Angeles." Joy Nicholson, Yxta Maya Murray, Lynell George, Bruce Bauman and Jonathan Lethem also appear—among others. Black Clock 5 arrives on newsstands and in bookstores in May. Looking ahead, Black Clock 6 will be devoted to poetry and number seven will focus on fiction about sex. The mag’s premiering NO LATER than June 15^th (Bruce Bauman, co-editor along with editor-in-chief, the legendary Steve Erickson! promises me…) Meanwhile, the book is poised to circulate amongst the publishers in New York once BEA closes out. I am extraordinarly blessed and lucky to have the superagent Lydia Wills (daughter of Pulitzer-Prize winning writer Gary Wills, original agent to Elizabeth Wurtzel of BITCH and PROZAC NATION fame…and longtime agent to the prolific living legend and master fantasist Francesca Lia Block of WEETZIE BAT fame and most recently, NECKLACE OF KISSES and the forthcoming RUBY – www.francescaliablock.com ) – totally psyched and behind SWAY. Fingers crossed…I’m long overdue for a second book. The time is ripe. I’m ready to break on through… Some of you know, there is this sophomore slump that can happen – where you publish one book but get stuck on the next. You know, all of a sudden, you’re self conscious. You’ve got the critics cackling in your head. You’ve got Great Expectations. You want to Overcome. You want to Trump what you’ve done. You want to Prove Yourself. Yeah, and that might just keep you – bottled up, or writing a buncha unfinished manuscripts, like I’ve done over the past few years. Money is an issue of course. How do you support the fiction habit? You’re no longer innocent. You know the cost, to your time, psyche, bank account. One way I broke it was by getting invited to write something for hire. Getting paid to start? Man. That gave me the concrete kick I needed. From thereon, it was wildfire writing. I had a blast, messing with genres, writings something so unlike the first because it’s a) from a male pov (!) and b) it’s all about page-turning…I’ll keep you posted on the adventures of SWAY… READINGS AND/OR BLOGS, APPEARANCES: TONGUE ‘N GROOVE: Sunday, May 28^th from 6:30pm to 8pm. The theme’s SuperSexy. Great way to usher in a sultry summer. This should be a blast. The Hotel Café on Cahuenga in H’wood is one of the hippest spots for music and night happenings. Thanks to ravishing Pali poet Vicki Whicker for suggesting me to host of series, Conrad Romo. Other performers include: the so-hot-she’s-cool woman-wrassling cult writer Bett Williams (WRESTLING PARTY); ex-preacher, Louisiana-born, Lemeirt Park-World Stage groomed charismatic Conney Williams scorching us with sexy spoken word poetry; Chiwan Choi, urban poet cowboy; Alec Cizak, dystopian noir novelist; and musican TBA…I still have not read from SWAY. This will be the first reading from the mod noir novel. It’s a perfect fit – hell, it’s tongue and groove, don’tcha know. ROUNDTABLE: 8 AUTHORS DISCUSS THE BUSINESS – Susan Henderson kindly hosts a bunch of us on her awesome blog. Thanks to Bruce Bauman for once again generously including me and so many others in this experience. I’m honored to be included with these other incredible writers: Sam Dunn, Seth Greenland, Kate Gale, Amy Wilentz, Susan Straight, Bruce Bauman and Joy Nicholson. Check out the posting on: http://blog.myspace.com/susanhenderson or http://publishersmarketplace.com/members/SusanHenderson Feel free to post a response. And don’t forget to go out and support Bruce Bauman on tour for the PAPERBACK of his critically acclaimed debut novel, AND THE WORD WAS. He’s reading with Sue Henderson (who wrote an exclusive Amazon short inspired by the ear and skull-splitting band Motorhead – doesn’t get cooler than that – and has been published in Zoetrope, among many other places, as well as being a judge for a recent McSweeney’s contest), the most excellent Tom Lutz (who helmed the CalArts writing program recently, and has a forthcoming book about SLACKERS!) and for the Opium Magazine Reading Series at Happy Endings Bar on 302 Broome Street at 7pm in New Yawk, May 25^th. Then Bruce’ll be reading and signing at Pete’s Candy Store in Brooklyn on June 1^st at 7pm. Back in La-La, June 13^th at Dutton’s/Brentwood and June 29^th at Skylight. WRITERS ON WRITING series: Sam Dunn, editor of the antho WOMEN ON THE EDGE, invited me to join her on a radio broadcast with lovely host Barbara DeMarco-Barrett's "Writers on Writing" show for KUCI to talk about the antho and writing in L.A. We both read from our work that appears in the antho. The broadcast is now archived and available at: http://writersonwriting.blogspot.com/2006/03/samantha-dunn-and-rachel-resnick.html Make sure to check out Barbara’s many other fantastic interviews with a wide range of authors…

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	May 19, 2006 Dear all, I can’t believe it took me so long to update – yes – but also, to read BLOOD MERIDIAN. I am still haunted. I have what some writer calls a Reading Hangover. Experiencing that book has bled into my daily life and sleeping dimension – it is like a dream world, the caul of Cormac’s vision pulled over the here and now. The West – this concept, this place, this history, this energy – keeps morphing, shapeshifting, taking on new geological layers snatched from fiction, from life experience, from the land, from history. I now feel the lawlessness, the blood-soaked layers beneath my feet here on the deck overlooking Topanga State Park. I feel the Judge out of the corner of my eye, or looking over my shoulder. And I am afraid. And inspired. Trusting my instincts, after plunging into Cormac McCarthy’s BLOOD MERIDIAN – I turned next to Jon Krakauer’s INTO THE WILD. Why? I think – I wanted to see how someone searched for a challenge in the wilderness, an encounter in the wild, when so little is left – and when the world is so much changed. This brave, unusual, troubled young guy – subsisting for 100 days in a part of Alaska – on a deserted schoolbus – when, unbeknownst to him – a way back across the swollen river was only a mile or so up the way, and cabins were nearby, not to mention major highways and roadways – is – somehow even more moving. And references the savagery, the boundlessness of possibility in the Wild West – where men could indulge their darkest selves with no fear of retribution – where borders and fences were barely in existence – boggles the mind. Where does one go to prove oneself? To test one’s morality? One’s strength? I’d say La-La has its own crucible effect. If you can maintain your morals, integrity – or sanity here, you’re golden. I’m curious to see Ed Norton’s new film – where the stranger he plays, the ‘cowboy,’ who also seeks that edge – and yet, there ain’t much left – I want to see that vision of the West, today – how it has been co-opted, adulterated, by sprawl – does any of it remain? The spirit? And is that spirit a ‘good’ thing? I suppose much of this reading is in preparation for a June weekend of the Touch Of Evil: Writing Unflinching Fiction course I created some years ago. I want to re-visit the concept. Juice it up. Reconsider the West. The roots of evil, the possibilities. I’m also reading Celine’s JOURNEY TO THE END OF NIGHT which I’d never finished. I’d forgotten how frickin’ funny he is! Dipped in dark…MORE TK… Peace, Rachel
	PREVIOUS UPDATES: Click to get back issues of updates -- more news, gossip, ranting! Swaying into 2006: Twelve-Stepping at the Playboy Mansion, Getting Raw with Liz Phair & Women On That Edge Tahitian Odd-yssey, OR, Thelma & Louise Do Paradise OR Encounters With The Third Sex and My First Tattoo: Summer-Fall 2005 Bullfighting, Black Clocks, & The Bermuda Triangle of Holidays: 2004-2005 Seoul & Shanghai Surprise: Spring/Summer 2004 Pornification with All-Star Susie Bright Falling Into Winter Into Spring Renaissance: Nov. 2003 - Feb. 2004, With Scent of India September 2003: Lusty Divorcees!!! A Different Drumbeat -- LA Times essay on Topanga May & Summer 2003: R.I.P. Eddie Little 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 Feb/March 2001: A LA Times Front Page Boogie!!! Look, Ma, No Murder, No Mayhem, Just Saloneering All The Way! and other crap December/January 2001: Happy Kwanzaa Send-Off, Holidazing November 2000 Update: Seven Deadly Sins Contest! Plus Bonus Political Rant August/September 2000 Update: First Pick-of-the-Litter winners! Beam Me Up, Fran! Penetrating NY's Swank Nat'l Arts Club June 2000 Update: Hell's Angels, Rocking the Tin House, and More! March/April 2000 Update: Birthdays, Blazing Hair-Do's, & The Amazing Wonders of Erotic Spud Sculptures! February 2000 Update: My Bloody Valentine