Laurel Zuckerman's Paris Weblog

25 high fat reasons why Americans outweigh the French

Laurel Zuckerman — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:24:00 +0100

Business Week looked at 25 of the best-known chains in the U.S. and ranked them by calories. Check out the amazing high-fat slide show .
Personally I was shocked to see how many calories could be squeezed into a taco SALAD.
Cassoulet and couscous look pretty dietetic compared to this!

For Business Week's complete 25 photo food-porn slide show,, click here!
With the right preparation, even fish can be fattening!

Not Chinese food, too !

Paris Writers News Update March 2010

Laurel Zuckerman — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:38:19 +0100

This month, news from Ann Mah, Elizabeth Bard, Kacper Bartczak, Aaron Belz, Joshua Clover, Michael Farrell, Jacek Gutorow, Paul Grimstad, Paweł Marcinkiewicz, Maria Muresan, Bob Perelman, Eugene Richie, Sarah Riggs, Rosanne Wasserman, Barrett Watten, Harvey Vincent, Roma Tearne, VANNINA MAESTRI, RUFO QUINTAVALLE, ALEXANDRA SASHE, MARK TERRILL, Nick Calderbank, Dmitri Keramitis, Robert McLiam Wilson, Ira Seidenstein, Stephen Clarke, Marc Duret, Helen Benedict, Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, information on workshops and new calls for submissions!

New books and Selected Events:

(for more see Jen Dick's Event List and PARIS WRITERS EVENTS on this blog's right sidebar.)

10 March – 3 April at 19h15 : THEATER in English “Relatively Speaking” by Alan Ayckbourn. Directed by Nick Calderbank. IN ENGLISH., Théâtre Nesle. Reservations 01 46 34 61 04.

10 March 19:30 Ann Mah discusses the regional cuisine of China and presents Kitchen Chinese: A Novel about Food, Family and Finding
Ann Mah’s articles about food, travel, fashion, style and the arts have appeared in Conde Nast Traveler, the International Herald Tribune, Washingtonian magazine, the South China Morning Post, the Insider's Guide to Beijing, as well as on her blog. From 2003-2007 she lived in Beijing, where she was a staff writer and dining editor for That's Beijing, an English-language entertainment magazine. Her experiences in China inspired her novel, Kitchen Chinese. In 2005, she was awarded a James Beard culinary scholarship to study Italian cuisine in Bologna, Italy. AT The American Library in Paris

11th March at 7p.m. Elizabeth Bard will present and sign her first book, “Lunch in Paris: A Love Story with Recipes. LUNCH IN PARIS is a memoir about a young American woman caught up in two passionate love affairs--one with her new beau, Gwendal, the other with French cuisine. Peppered with mouth-watering recipes for summer ratatouille, swordfish tartare and molten chocolate cakes, Lunch in Paris is a story of falling in love, redefining success and discovering what it truly means to be at home. AT: WH Smiths

13 March 15h-16h30 – A poetry reading at Charles V to close the Ashbery conference with guest authors Kacper Bartczak, Aaron Belz, Joshua Clover, Michael Farrell, Jacek Gutorow, Paul Grimstad, Paweł Marcinkiewicz, Maria Muresan, Bob Perelman, Eugene Richie, Sarah Riggs, Rosanne Wasserman and Barrett Watten. AT: Room 50, Charles V, 10 rue Charles V, 75004 Paris, M° St Paul or Sully Morland or Bastille. Details posted here:

14th March at 7.30 pm EN FRANÇAIS : MOVING PARTS presents a reading of a play by Harvey Vincent "Un Americain Delirant a Paris" (en francais) For more, or e-mail Stephanie Campionmovingpartsparis@gmail.com for listings! Tel : 06 14 67 18 58 AT: Carr's Pub & Restaurant, 1 rue du Mont Thabor, 75001 Paris, M° Tuileries

15 March 7pm Author and artist Roma Tearne will read from her acclaimed novels Bone China and Brixton Beach and present her Paris sketchbooks to the audience. A Sri Lankan-born artist and novelist living and working in Britain, Roma trained as a painter, completing her MA at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, Oxford. For nearly 20 years her work as a painter, installation artist, and filmmaker has dealt with the traces of history and memory within public and private spaces. Her first novel Mosquito, was shortlisted for the Costa First Book Award. AT: Shakespeare & Co., 37rue de la Bûcherie, Paris 5ème. M° St Michel.

18 March 7:30pm : The Paris-based literary journal UPSTAIRS AT DUROC invites you to a reading in honor of France’s Poetry Month, Le Printemps des Poètes, with work both in English and French (with English translations) from: VANNINA MAESTRI, RUFO QUINTAVALLE, ALEXANDRA SASHE and MARK TERRILL. AT: The American Library in Paris, 10 rue du Général Camou, 75007 Paris, Métro Ecole Militaire or RER station Pont de l’Alma.

18 March at 19h30: Café Littéraire First meeting around the novel Eureka Street written by Robert McLiam Wilson Reservation necessary. Places Limited. In English. AT : the Centre Culturel Irlandais, 5 rue des Irlandais, 75005 Paris, Res at : 01 58 52 10 30

21st March at 7.30 pm MOVING PARTS presents a reading of a screenplay by Alexis Niki "Momma's Office Boy" (in English) F AT: Carr's Pub & Restaurant, 1 rue du Mont Thabor, 75001 Paris, M° Tuileries

22 March 7pm Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier will discuss their new translation of The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir which marks the 60th anniversary of publication. First published in 1949, The Second Sex is a landmark in the history of feminism. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, both American, are longtime residents of France and former teachers at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris. AT: Shakespeare & Co., 37rue de la Bûcherie, Paris 5ème. M° St Michel.http://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/

Tom Reeves’ book, Paris Insights – An Anthology, published in the United States by DP Books in January 2010 has been called a “witty, incisive and always informative compilation of sights, sounds and good advice about enjoying the City of Light from an insider's vantage point,” by travel writer Jim Calio.

25th March at 7p.m. Stephen Clarke, author of the bestselling Merde series, will present and sign his new title “1000 Years of Annoying the French” Stephen Clarke lives in Paris, where he divides his time between writing and not writing. His first novel, “A Year in the Merde”, originally became a word-of-mouth hit in 2004, and is now published all over the world. Since then he has published three more bestselling Merde novels, as well as “Talk to the Snail”. AT: WH Smiths

28th March EN FRANÇAIS : MOVING PARTS presents a reading of a play by Marc Duret "Coach de Vies" (en francais) AT: Carr's Pub & Restaurant, 1 rue du Mont Thabor, 75001 Paris, M° Tuileries

31 March QLIC Café will be held Wednesday, March 31. http://www.hopeinparis.com/qlic_caf%C3%A9

Dmitri Keramitis' "Seven Ontological Proofs of My Non-Existence" will be published by Dawn, a Welsh literary review, in June.

** ** ** ** **

Part II) Workshops in Paris!

The Other Writers' Group! David Barnes' drop in writers' workshop (just turn up!) every Saturday 5pm till 7pm. Bring 8 copies of your prose or poetry for instant feedback and discussion. Length should be up to about 3 pages (prose) or 2 poems. Suggested donation 5 euros. Upstairs in the library at Shakespeare & Company, 37 rue de la Bûcherie, 75005

Helen Benedict, a former instructor at WICE’s PWW, is offering a week-long writing workshop with Stephen O'Connor this July in a beautiful part of France. Sponsored by VCCA (Virginia Center for the Creative Arts), it provides workshops, individual teaching, tours, food and a glorious environment. It helps fund VCCA, too.

Words Alive O Theatre Classes and Workshops in English for Adults and Children : Theatre Workshop in English - Fridays 19h45 to 22h45 Théâtre de Ménilmontant 15, rue du Retrait 75020 Map. Open to native and fluent English speakers Try-out fee 15€ ; Intermediate Theatre Class in English - Wednesdays 20h15 to 21h45 23 rue de la Sourdière 75001 Map These classes offer a dynamic approach towards practicing English using theatre training, improvisation and work on texts. Open to anglophiles with a good level of spoken English who wish to improve their fluency and confidence. Also open to native speakers. Try-out fee 11€ : Theatre Workshop in English for children aged 7-10 - Saturdays 17h to 19h 35, rue St. Roch 75001 Paris Map The workshop is open to children who are bilingual or have an intermediate level of spoken English. The participants will work on improvisation, movement and theatre exercises to improve their speaking skills and create a play. Try-out fee 12€. Contact: wordsaliveo@gmail.com Tel 06 37 66 27 98 / 01 77 15 71 90

March 14th - April 11th Explorations in Voice at WRITING BY THE SEINE: A five-week Sunday writing workshop offering a creative and supportive space for hopeful, emerging and experienced writers. 11AM - 1PM at the Shakespeare and Co bookshop, 37 rue de la Bûcherie, 75005. Contribution: 50 euros for an entire 5-week cycle. Please contact the workshop leader, Susannah Elisabeth Pabot, atwritingbytheseine@gmail.com for more details and to reserve a place.

April 3,4,5: Ira Seidenstein will give a workshop via Improfessionals in Paris. See Ira’s notes He does courses on performance, clowing, etc.

May 9th - June 6th : Plot and Narrative Containers: at WRITING BY THE SEINE: A five-week Sunday writing workshop offering a creative and supportive space for hopeful, emerging and experienced writers. 11AM - 1PM at the Shakespeare and Co bookshop, 37 rue de la Bûcherie, 75005 Contribution: 50 euros for an entire 5-week cycle. Please contact the workshop leader, Susannah Elisabeth Pabot, atwritingbytheseine@gmail.com for more details and to reserve a place.

June 27-July 2, 2010: Paris Writers Workshop! France's longest running English language writers workshop will take place from June 27-July 2, 2010. For new and established writers are welcome. Small workshops in Memoir & Biography, Short Story, Poetry, Creative Non-fiction and the Novel with instructors: Memoir - John Baxter; Short Story - Sheila Kohler; Poetry - Alice Notley; Creative Non-fiction -Mimi Schwartz; & Novel - Matt Thorne. Special features include lectures, walking tours, evening events, and a closing literary dinner - all for one inclusive price. The Paris Writers Workshop is committed to providing inspiration and high-level instruction on craft to writers of all skill levels in a supportive environment. The PWW celebrates the diversity of voices within its community of writers. Email: pariswritersworkshop@yahoo.com

Submit !

SUBMIT: "COMPENDIUM, a new magazine of images and words, is accepting submissions for its inaugural issue.

SUBMIT and read current version ONLINE NOW : Read Paris’ gai-straight-bi-mixed everything and anything goes magazine HORS-MIC. Also seeking editors and editorial staff in French, English or open to other native languages! To see the new edition, click the link! Editor Dominic says “La nouvelle édition de notre mag parisien anglo franco et gay friendly! Lisez et pensez de nous aider avec tes ideas, photos et textes! » Seeking art, photos, fiction, nonfiction, essays/reviews and poetry. to see the issue. And to sign up for mailing list, send work, attend editorial meetings: contact Mag Litteraire, off_micparis@yahoo.fr

SUBMIT: Here we are on the verge of the first spring of the new decade, and we are celebrating the coming equinox with our Poetry Project—Fragments from Sappho contest. All poems submitted are eligible for inclusion on our April/May issue of the Poetry Project, an online journal from Tupelo Press, and for the first time, a print journal will be produced at the end of the year: Best of the Poetry Project. For the Fragments from Sappho project, our judge, Athena Kildegaard, will select one first prize ($500), one second prize ($250) and one third prize ($150) winner. The work of these winners will headline the issue, along with the balance of the poems for the April/May issue. See complete guidelines to submit

SUBMIT work for anthology: Following on from the success of our winter collection By The Winter Fires, we are now open to submissions for our summer collection. What does the summer mean to you? What memories does it hold? Is it all about holidays, or are there darker corners? “Crab Lines Off The Pier” is an anthology of summer. It can be recalled memories, present events or dreams, nature, journeys, sounds, sights and smells, joy or melancholy. Release your imagination to the theme and share with others. Indigo Dreams invites your poem to 40 lines or prose to 350 words. Please email just one selection with your submission as an attachment and your full name and address contained in the email Please use the anthology title as a heading to ensure it is considered. Closing Date is Friday 28th May 2010. Publication late June, early July.

CONFERENCE:The Ashbery conference will take place in Paris this month.

SPOKEN WORD Share your work on any theme or work on the theme of the night.

15 March from 8:30pm to LATE: on Bread… du pain

22 March from 8:30pm to LATE: SpokenWord on Lies/lying

29 March from 8:30pm to LATE: SpokenWord on Needs

AT: Cabaret Populaire/Culture Rapide, 103 rue Julien Lacroix Metro Belleville/Pyrénées 75020 Paris

20 March 12:00 pm to 4:00 pm SOS ANNUAL BOOK SALE!!! Plenty of books in every category, with paperbacks for only 1 euro and hardcovers for 2 euros. To donate books please stop by on the day of the book sale and drop them off or contact soshelpbooksale@gmail.com to donate large quantities in advance. Chris Payne, Publicity Coordinator at 06 22 41 61 85 SALE AT: Orrick Law Offices, 31, avenue Pierre 1er de Serbie, 75016, Paris

Are you in the Paris Writers News Directory of Authors ? If you're a writer working in Paris, please contact me!

Ten Rules for Writing Fiction from the Guardian : Roddy Doyle

Laurel Zuckerman — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:41:00 +0100

1 Do not place a photograph of your favourite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.

2 Do be kind to yourself. Fill pages as quickly as possible; double space, or write on every second line. Regard every new page as a small triumph –

3 Until you get to Page 50. Then calm down, and start worrying about the quality. Do feel anxiety – it's the job.

4 Do give the work a name as quickly as possible. Own it, and see it. Dickens knew Bleak House was going to be called Bleak House before he started writing it. The rest must have been easy.

5 Do restrict your browsing to a few websites a day. Don't go near the online bookies – unless it's research.

6 Do keep a thesaurus, but in the shed at the back of the garden or behind the fridge, somewhere that demands travel or effort. Chances are the words that come into your head will do fine, eg "horse", "ran", "said".

7 Do, occasionally, give in to temptation. Wash the kitchen floor, hang out the washing. It's research.

8 Do change your mind. Good ideas are often murdered by better ones. I was working on a novel about a band called the Partitions. Then I decided to call them the Commitments.

9 Do not search amazon.co.uk for the book you haven't written yet.

10 Do spend a few minutes a day working on the cover biog – "He divides his time between Kabul and Tierra del Fuego." But then get back to work.

To see the complete article on The Guardian, click here.

Ten Rules for Writing Fiction : Geoff Dyer

Laurel Zuckerman — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:36:00 +0100

1 Never worry about the commercial possibilities of a project. That stuff is for agents and editors to fret over – or not. Conversation with my American publisher. Me: "I'm writing a book so boring, of such limited commercial appeal, that if you publish it, it will probably cost you your job." Publisher: "That's exactly what makes me want to stay in my job."

2 Don't write in public places. In the early 1990s I went to live in Paris. The usual writerly reasons: back then, if you were caught writing in a pub in England, you could get your head kicked in, whereas in Paris, dans les cafés . . . Since then I've developed an aversion to writing in public. I now think it should be done only in private, like any other lavatorial activity.

3 Don't be one of those writers who sentence themselves to a lifetime of sucking up to Nabokov.

4 If you use a computer, constantly refine and expand your autocorrect settings. The only reason I stay loyal to my piece-of-shit computer is that I have invested so much ingenuity into building one of the great autocorrect files in literary history. Perfectly formed and spelt words emerge from a few brief keystrokes: "Niet" becomes "Nietzsche", "phoy" becomes "photography" and so on. Genius!

5 Keep a diary. The biggest regret of my writing life is that I have never kept a journal or a diary.

6 Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire.

7 Have more than one idea on the go at any one time. If it's a choice between writing a book and doing nothing I will always choose the latter. It's only if I have an idea for two books that I choose one rather than the other. I always have to feel that I'm bunking off from something.

8 Beware of clichés. Not just the clichés that Martin Amis is at war with. There are clichés of response as well as expression. There are clichés of observation and of thought – even of conception. Many novels, even quite a few adequately written ones, are clichés of form which conform to clichés of expectation.

9 Do it every day. Make a habit of putting your observations into words and gradually this will become instinct. This is the most important rule of all and, naturally, I don't follow it.

10 Never ride a bike with the brakes on. If something is proving too difficult, give up and do something else. Try to live without resort to perseverance. But writing is all about perseverance. You've got to stick at it. In my 30s I used to go to the gym even though I hated it. The purpose of going to the gym was to postpone the day when I would stop going. That's what writing is to me: a way of postponing the day when I won't do it any more, the day when I will sink into a depression so profound it will be indistinguishable from perfect bliss.

To read the complete Guardian article click here.

Great Writers Ten Rules for writing fiction from guardian.co.uk : today Jonathan Franzen

Laurel Zuckerman — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:34:59 +0100

1 The reader is a friend, not an adversary, not a spectator.

2 Fiction that isn't an author's personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown isn't worth writing for anything but money.

3 Never use the word "then" as a conjunction – we have "and" for this purpose. Substituting "then" is the lazy or tone-deaf writer's non-solution to the problem of too many "ands" on the page.

4 Write in the third person unless a really distinctive first-person voice offers itself irresistibly.

5 When information becomes free and universally accessible, voluminous research for a novel is devalued along with it.

6 The most purely autobiographical fiction requires pure invention. Nobody ever wrote a more auto biographical story than "The Metamorphosis".

7 You see more sitting still than chasing after.

8 It's doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.

9 Interesting verbs are seldom very interesting.

10 You have to love before you can be relentless.

To see complete Guardian article click here.

Energy saving contest ! Slate Magazine calls for best ideas for a cheaper, more energy efficient life

Laurel Zuckerman — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:18:00 +0100

Everybody wins!

Many thanks to Daniel Gross of Slate online magazine for launching a call for suggestions on how to save energy in the home.

He'll showcase the best ideas at the end of March, and promises to LIVE BY THEM.

Categories include :

•Personal behavior. What can I do—in a non-obsessive way—that will best reduce my energy use without ruining my life? (You could, for example, suggest that I turn the heat off entirely, but that’s not realistic.) How much can be gained just by making marginal—not radical—changes?

•Software. I’d like to outsource as much energy saving as possible to smarter technology. For example, you could tell me the absolute best, easiest way to program a thermostat.
•Hardware. What capital investments should I make that will save me the most energy and money? (A particularly interesting related question: What is the best way to take advantage of tax credits to defray that spending?)

• Information. What information should my utility company (or others) be sharing with me that will spur me to use less energy?

But you can also add your own.

Here are some of the ideas submitted so far:

1. lose the lawn, use plants that don't need watering

2. wash and dry clothes less

3. Create a low cost solar shingle

4.Air dry

5. Close the blinds (works against heat or cold)

6. Live in cities, apartments

7. Sleep more!

8. Heat your room, not the whole house

9. Replace electric water heaters with propane heaters

10. What is your idea?

Nicola Keegan talks with Laurel Zuckerman about stunning debut novel SWIMMING

Laurel Zuckerman — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:19:00 +0100

Authors interview Authors:

In this new segment, writers talk about their work with other writers.

This month, Laurel Zuckerman interviews Nicola Keegan about her acclaimed debut novel, Swimming.

Nicola will be talking at the American Library on September 30.

LZ In reading Swimming I was struck by the narrator’s powerful and unique voice. Judy Bloom said “It’s the most original novel I’ve read all year. I can’t get Pip’s voice out of my mind.” Where does PIP’s voice come from?

NK Writing is not living but sometimes living annoys me so deeply, I pretend writing is living which injects a certain type of energy into my work because everything becomes essential, necessary, important, and real.

LZ You claim that you started to write “bad poetry” because you couldn’t find a writers group in Paris that would take you and finally ended up with a bunch of poets. One of the most remarkable things about Swimming is the language, which I have to suspect is influenced by your intense exposure to poets and poetry. What is the relation between prose and poetry in your writing? Should we all hang out with poets?

NK People talk about that a lot; prose and poetry, poetry and prose. I don’t know what the relationship is honestly—perhaps how you hear the words in your head and hanging around with poets does affect the way one hears. It affected me anyway. Poets help you listen which makes you think which makes you pay attention which helps you see—so yes, we should all hang out with them…but something tells me they have other things they’d rather be doing. On another note, I didn’t think anyone like Alice Notley existed until I actually met her so that was a surprise. I think poets should have their own special house and they shouldn't have to pay for anything and they should be revered and taken care of and read they should be read. They are the opposite of what is wrong with the world right now.

LZ James Joyce’s The Dead is one of your favorite works. Why?

NK The snow. I must have been about 18 years old. I was reading in bed. Christmas had just passed and I had a couple of days before going back to school. It was late, way after midnight and I kept reading although I was tired. My bedroom had a long rectangular window that overlooked an empty swimming pool and the dense forest beyond. I was reading smoothly, you know when you read with interest but a certain sense of detachment--like that. The story took over my senses in a wave felt even more intently due to the silence of the house, the insulation of winter, the visibility of the sky, sharp winter stars, a low moon. I had a physical reaction; my heart beat faster and my mind quickened, I looked out the window--the snow was falling slowly, I went back to the story, the dinner table was breaking up, the wife was weeping, the husband was realizing something about the human heart. Both worlds, the real one, my pillow, the central heating purring in the background, and the James Joyce world sort of muted together. Falling gently gently falling. It was the first moment in my life I felt consciously connected to the whole of the human race. I think of James Joyce often, whenever I see a tall thin man, whenever light flashes off someone's spectacles, whenever it snows, when I'm in Ireland. Sometimes I write what he wrote just to see what it feels like.

LZ The humor in Swimming is little short of ferocious. God, death, sibling love and hatred, priests and even nuns—nothing is spared. Is there any subject we can’t laugh at?

NK Oh there are subjects I cannot laugh at, but you have to admit being human is often funny. And the Irish are the WORST by the way. Poor old Michael Jackson's body wasn't even cool yet and the jokes were flying. Horrible awful jokes; something about turning his body into legos so children could play with him for once. See? Awful stuff. Does that mean that they don't give a damn about poor old M. Jackson. No, they care. When they finished laughing they said “poor old sod.” Humor is just a way of dealing with things, a form of decompression and an expression of the meaningless misery and ridiculousness of being human. It often gets misinterpreted as a type of hardness, but it’s the contrary. I once sat on the steps outside a funeral and laughed myself into cramps. I couldn't go in. It was horrible. How many terrible moments of high drama did I catch my sister's eye and just lose it. More than I can count. I know it's awful. A curse. Very black etc. But I just cannot help it.

LZ Why an Olympic swimmer? What is it about high level sport that attracted you?

NK An elite athlete begins as a child who loves something and I think that kind of love is good. I’ve always admired people who try really hard and swimmers try really hard every day for years and years and years. When I started to study water I loved the language that scientists used to describe it. There’s a lot of water in SWIMMING in all its forms; it rains for months, it snows in spirals, people sprout like fountains, feelings evaporate. I like the fact that in water people are unburdened by gravity. I like the image of swimmers flinging themselves into water and pulling as hard as they can. I like the idea of beating the clock, being your own principal adversary, human velocity. And there is a solitary lonesomeness about spending so many hours in an element in which you cannot breathe that I found deliciously melancholic. I love female locker room talk, any sort of ridiculous chatter about body parts, the fact that success is a temporary flame. Also, and I might as well admit it--when I started studying swimmers, I grew very attached to them, and when I continued to follow them, I fell in love. That's what happens I guess.

LZ An admirer of yours told me that, in early drafts, you wrote “like an animal”. How did you manage to channel this intensity into story? By what process did you make your themes, which are rooted in profoundly personal events, comprehensible to the reader?

NK Yipes—the Big Questions. Yes, I wrote like an animal. The intensity is there naturally so I didn't have to conjure it--it just sort of channeled itself into the work. I had some hard knocks while I was writing this novel and it is at these moments that one must decide what is important. It’s easy to have a good philosophy when things are fine, but when you get your mettle tested and things are a mess, it’s a bit more problematic. I had to choose. Writing anchored me—I felt like giving my best. That's the job of a writer I think--to make deeply personal feelings accessible to people. If they are incomprehensible then I'm not doing my job. I spent a lot of my life being incomprehensible, even to myself, so I know. Actually, when you meet someone one-on-one and talk to them, you can make anything comprehensible—even your most craziest story because bottom line; we are all human and understand human things so I talk to people. And I listen. And, not to sound like a dork, I care, so empathy seems a prerequisite.

LZ What role did your agent play in your writing?

NK My agent, Bill Clegg, is the first person who connected to my creative mind in a way I'd always wished for. He sort of obliterated this intellectual loneliness that one can accidentally find themselves locked in. The mind is a vast complicated affair that to find someone with whom you can work in such an effortless funny respectful loving way, honestly, is the biggest gift this whole process has brought me. I love working with him.

LZ You have a husband, three beautiful children and are president of the PTA. Isn’t this enough? Why write?

NK I don't think writing is about getting or having--I think writing is about giving essentially and I don't know what you mean about enough. The time I spend with my children has to be about who I am as a person and who I am as a person is all about what I do with my time (sorry that seems like a riddle.) I don't want to live in this world, eat ice cream, drink a couple of beers, admire the beauty and grace of my children, fight with my husband, battle with existentialism—lose, grow old, get saggy boobs, complain, then pop off and die toodle do. I want to try to give something back. That’s exceedingly important to me.

French university tuition averages 175 euros per year for a BA and 235 euros for a masters

Laurel Zuckerman — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 15:08:58 +0100

Attention bargain shoppers!

Each university student costs French taxpayers 9132 euros on average per year, while tuition fees amount to only 175 euros for a bachelors and 235 euros for a masters. As a result, the number of foreign students--in particular from China--has been rising. In 1999 2000 Chinese students enrolled in French universities; this year it's 22,000!

Jean-Pascal Gayant, writing in Le Monde, asks if it still makes sense to subsidize relatively affluent foreign students in a time of economic crisis. China has evolved. Perhaps France should too.

Don't count on French universities to be able to discuss this calmly and come up with a solution, he warns. Their budgets depend on the number of students, and they have no incentive to risk ruffling feathers by suggesting tuition hikes or quotas. A former university vice-president, Gayant suggests that it may be time for law makers to get involved in order to preserve the tradition of welcoming foreign students in universities that have become "Chinese auberges"*.

*"Il est donc opportun que le législateur s'empare de cette question et que la tradition d'accueil d'étudiants étrangers en France ne soit pas remise en cause, à terme, par les errements d'une Université devenue auberge chinoise…"

French university libraries to open longer !

Laurel Zuckerman — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:21:51 +0100

In excellent news, President Sarkozy's BIG LOAN (grand emprunt) will finance longer opening hours for France's university libaries.

One of the big mysteries for foreign students in France is why the libraries are so frequently closed. According to Les Echos, France is well under the European standard (less than 60 hours a week compared to 65 in Europe). When you factor in strikes and real availability, it's probably even worse.

Students had been quietly complaining about the state of the libraries for years, even staging a pyjama sit-in at the Law library in Nancy (see Le Monde).

Valérie Pécresse, Minister of Higher Education, is expected to announce the details of the plan soon.

French post office attacked by men in burqas

Laurel Zuckerman — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:43:00 +0100

Two men in burqas attacked a French post office last week, making off with 4500 euros.

About twenty clients were waiting when the robbers gained entrance to the post office in a "quartier sensible" (slum) of Atis Mons in Essonne. The post office employee let them in thinking they were women. Once inside, they uncovered their faces, demanded the money, then sped away on foot (in tennis shoes) towards a parking lot and disappeared.

Whatever the outcome of the burqa debate, it is generally considered illegal to rob post offices in France.

via www.leparisien.fr