. . . is another Maud Newton interview. She did one with Tom Beller that's pretty funny. The question is whether Maud ever makes a commitment to simple honesty. It'd be a novelty.
Tom is actually a nice guy (when he's not drinking), but his trust-fund endowed magazine Open City has always been lame. He ran an essay of mine about zines way back in 1994-- mangling it horribly to fit into his circus animal "New Yorker" style mentality. He has no sense of the natural rhythmns of language.
Yes, Beller can create, with much effort, serviceable, even pleasant, cookie-cutter short stories, rather clunky but reaching almost to the narrow limits of the well-crafted "literary" story; albeit completely lacking in originality. Strictly paint-by-the-numbers. Picture Tom's large form sitting at a child's table as he searches in his paint box for the correct coded color. Oops! The wrong one. Try again, Tom. Eventually you'll get it.
That's how he writes.
I don't pretend to be much of a writer-- I'm a ranting promoter who dabbles in fiction and poetry. My best love is designing covers for my zeens. With that, I still have more writing ability in my smallest toe than Beller has in his 6'7 totality.
(Don't ever make the mistake of listening to Tom read-- though he's more entertaining at least than Maud's "215" buddies.)
American Lit: A Parade of Propped-Up Fakes.
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