Elizabeth Eslami's Blog
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Aug.23.2012
For some reason, I’m the one standing up here, but the truth is, if we’re going to talk about writing, if we’re going to dissect a story, we should be on our knees. Not to worship – although yes, reading a great story is like being inside a cathedral, the power of the words hushing you, turning...
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Mar.01.2012
An excerpt:
1985, we stole fistfuls of change, slipped fingers into jean pockets and cup holders, mined pennies from the asphalt. In school, the nuns lowered their papery eyelids. Ethiopians are dying, they said, and offered us build-your-own UNICEF boxes, corner to corner, flap into slit. We...
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Jun.23.2011
They tell me I’m better on the Internet. Funnier on Facebook, more oomph than “IRL.” I’m not sure how to feel about this. I suppose my avatar is something of an improvement, a jovially connected version of myself, my greatest hits, quickest comebacks, and most “likeable” observations. Version 2.0...
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Jun.02.2011
June fever burning
Can’t tell
the difference, under the skin, under the sun.
Stand there all day, skin red to white
like bird shit smeared down a metal screen.
June fever burning
Cook the meanness out
Peel skin, boil cells, kill germs.
Turn up the heat,
Run to my lungs, to the...
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May.08.2011
When I was 10, my mother took me out to the shed behind our house to ask me if she should divorce my father.
"I'm thinking of leaving him," she said. "But you need to know what that would mean."
She explained that she would have to go back to work for the first time since my...
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Feb.02.2011
A great perk of having a book out in the world is that it acts as a kind of calling card, bringing people into your world, and you into theirs. Beth Hoffman, author of the New York Times bestselling novel Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, is one of the most generous people I've ever met, in addition to...
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Nov.15.2010
Consider this a love letter. As such, it requires patience.
Settle in. Fold under your legs. Curl your tail around the bean of your body, keep the ashy tip poised over your nose. But be quick about it. It is cold tonight, and my voice will carry.
There are many places to begin. One day I...
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Sep.06.2010
In some distant corners, the border bushlands of Botswana, for example, there are writers so unaccustomed to human contact that they journey into London for their book tours only to jump at sidewalk cracks, thinking puff adders are underfoot. Authors living in remote Rocky Mountain cabins built...
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Aug.24.2010
I'm thrilled and honored to have a short story published in this week's Fifty-Two Stories! http://www.fiftytwostories.com/
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Jun.24.2010
Though I'm still hoping to squeeze in a few stops in the Northeast, yesterday's reading at Cherokee County Public Library in South Carolina marks the end of the six month Bone Worship book tour. I'm incredibly grateful to all the writers, friends, bookstore managers, and librarians who helped make...
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May.26.2010
For weeks now, I’ve been carrying Walking With Zeke, by Chris Clarke, around with me. I’ve squeezed this book into my purse and taken it across the country by plane, its pages rifled through by security at LAX. It has endured my tears, my fingers pinching and dog-earing its pages in wonder, my...
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May.25.2010
On why it's always a good idea to research the title of your book. To read my new essay in The Nervous Breakdown, click here.
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May.12.2010
Elegy for a Stillborn Story, my new essay in The Millions, is up here.
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Apr.14.2010
My essay, "I Dreamt a Review in the New York Times," about bad reviews is up at The Nervous Breakdown. Check it out here.
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Apr.04.2010
Excerpts from my novel, Bone Worship, are up at Iranian.com and Sarah Lawrence Magazine, official magazine of my alma mater, Sarah Lawrence College. (The latter has a wonderful illustration by Grady McFerrin!)
To have a look, click here and here.
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The scene in the forest had become for me, without my knowing it, the foundation for the real story I am now trying to tell. The fragments, you see, had to be picked up slowly, long afterwards.”
—Sherwood Anderson, from "Death in the Woods"
About Elizabeth
Elizabeth Eslami is the author of the forthcoming story collection, Hibernate, for which she was awarded the 2013 Ohio State University Prize in Short Fiction, and the novel Bone Worship (Pegasus, 2010). Her essays, short stories, and travel writing have...
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Causes Elizabeth Eslami Supports
Willamette Writers, The Association of Writers and Poets, The Association of Iranian American Writers