The Next Big Thing

I was tagged to participate in the Next Big Thing by my friend, the beautiful writer Sari Wilson. It’s a sort of blog-oriented chain mail where writers ask some other writers to post answers to questions about their current projects, and those writers post and ask more writers, and so on. Sari’s responses appear on her blog Muttering. Next up will be Laura Bogart,…

The Beautiful Anthology

The Beautiful Anthology! I’m so pleased to be in this velvety book, exploring one of life’s hot topics alongside writers such as Gina Frangello, Melissa Febos, Greg Olear, Jessica Anya Blau, M. J. Fievre, Angela Tung, and more more more.  Check out the trailer, with music by Rich Ferguson. And buy the book! It’s the only place my essay will live. I wrote about…

Christmas with Marie Calloway

Orchestrating capital C Christmas for two kids takes a lot of labor and attention, but throughout the wrapping, unwrapping, cooking, and cleaning, I’ve been distracted by the story “Adrian Brody” and by the reactions it’s provoked. Won’t you join me in my obsession? You can read the story here, at Muumuu House. I recommend you do. But if you’re going to skip it (it’s…

CURRENY is Traveling. I’m Staying Home.

This spring, we went back to Isla Mujeres for our second time as a family and my third time overall. I left a copy of Currency at PocNa, the hostel where I stayed when I visited the island as a backpacker round about 1995. In the book, I pasted the same note that I have in the other copies I’ve sent out into the…

My Dad: Veteran, Author, All-Round Great Guy

It’s hard for me to write about my dad, Paul Zolbrod, in anything other than sentimental clichés: He’s been my life-long inspiration as a parent, a person, a thinker, a writer. A Native-American scholar for over forty years, he was made fun of, at first, for attempting a poetics of the oral tradition, but the world caught up with him: His translation of the…

Haven’t I Seen You Here Before?

(I posted this missive last week on The Nervous Breakdown last week, so if you read it there, skip this. If you haven’t heard of The Nervous Breakdown and you like to read short nonfiction on screen, you should totally check out the site. ) Getting ready for my recent trip to L.A., I told anyone who would listen that I’d never, ever been…

Review Round-Up

Well, Currency‘s been officially out for a little over six weeks now. I’ve read from it maybe a dozen times in a half-dozen different towns. I’ve gotten some reviews and done some interviews. I’ve been absolutely drunk on the kindness and enthusiasm of friends and acquaintances, and, despite attempts to keep my focus on my many book-related blessings, I’ve also succumbed to moments of…

My Great Editor, Interviewed

Now that CURRENCY has been published, a number of people are asking me tactful versions of the question How come this took so long? and Why with a small press? In this excerpt from an interview with Leah Tallen, Other Voices editor Gina Frangello explains better than I ever could. You can see the full interview at Knee-Jerk, and if you read it you’ll…

Smoking: A Dream Come True

It’s settled: The release party for CURRENCY is going to be at The Hideout on May 16, from 5:00-7:00. A string of exclamation marks cannot express how unduly happy I am. During the last few months, it’s seemed that the securing of this particular venue has had about as many ups and downs as my decade-long struggle to get the novel published. You know,…

Kind Words for CURRENCY

“From skins to skin to golden Buddhas, CURRENCY is a moving and lucid look at how beauty can fall prey to our very love of it.” —Alex Shakar, author of The Savage Girl “From the first page to the last, Zoe Zolbrod’s CURRENCY had me hooked. I loved the boldness of voice, the visceral and intoxicating landscape, the engrossing and masterfully woven story. CURRENCY…