I've been interested in constraint writing lately so, instead of writing a book review(which is what you all can expect from this section of Et-Cetera newsletter in the future) I'm writing a review of the website www.spinelessbooks.com First, what is constraint writing and why is it awesome? It is writing that employs preconceived constraints during the writing process. Adhering to a rigid form or disrupting your usual creative process by restricting choice can make you focus on an aspect of writing that you would ordinarily take for granted. For example: a Lipogram is a piece written without using a selected letter, the letter "e" for instance. "E" is the most commonly used letter in the English language so you'll find that your process of word selection will change, you will have to use words that you would usually discard for easier more common words; you may also find that you write around these words, using metaphor or implying feeling or mood through imagery. Think of it like a boxer who is forced to box with one hand tied behind his back; he has to revise his tried and true strategies to compensate, and as a result becomes a better defensively and finally perfects the art of the left hook, thus becoming a wilier fighter as you will become, if you practice contraint writing, a wilier writer.

The website www.spinelessbooks.com provides constraint writing exercises complete with an explanation written as an example of the exercise. To get to the writing exercises, click on the "write" link and on the next screen click on the "table of forms" link, but look around while you're there: there are several other experimental writing techniques to peruse. Besides trying the writing exercises, you can listen to poetry and music, read constraint driven works and find links to like minded sites and organizations.

For further study of constraint writing I HIGHLY recommend looking into the OULIPO, a group of French and Italian writers including Raymond Queneau, Italo Calvino, Georges Perec and Francois Le Lionnais, who based their work on constraints and the application of mathematical formulae. They were interested in the role and questionable necessity of inpiration in writing. Georges Perec wrote an entire novel that is a lipogram for the letter "e" titled La Disparation. Check these guys out!

by Lindsey Boldt

Stone Reader

A book is a portal to a larger place, a way to make our world more full, and a way to step out of time. Someone who has read the same book as you have can be closer to you than someone who grew up in the same neighborhood; they have not only inhabited the same place, but they have lived in the same skin as you, experienced the same things; they are part of a fellowship. It is no wonder that reading, for many of us, becomes obsession: there is always more to read, and when you have friends who read, there is always someone there to say, "If you liked that, you'll love this."

Mark Moscowitz is an outgoing, enthusiastic, and instantly likable advocate of this fellowship and an inveterate obsessive. His documentary, Stone Reader, reminded me why I love literature. The plot of the film is that of a mystery, one that starts in 1972, when an 18-year old Moscowitz, after reading an effusive New York Times review, buys the novel The Stones of Summer. The book fails to draw him in and it is put aside--for twenty-five years. When Moscowitz finally reads it he is blown away, enthralled; he cannot put it down. He tries to buy copies for friends and find other books by the author, Dow Mossman, to no avail. The book and writer seem to have disappeared. The film chronicles Moscowitz’s year-long search for Mossman.

Finding out Mossman’s fate, although intriguing, is not the only reason you should watch Stone Reader. Moscowitz interviews fellow obsessives, armed with a pile of books, which he rapidly lays in front of them. He is that guy, with a paperback in his back pocket, that friend who always has another recommendation. The people he interviews, critic Leslie Fiedler; Frank Conroy, head of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop; and John Seelye, the author of the New York Times review which started the whole mystery, have even more recommendations; their faces change when they talk about literature; their eyes lose focus as they recollect the books that changed them. Moscowitz’s narration, his musing about the first books he bought, his chance encounter with a bright blue paperback, twenty-five-cent copy of Catch-22 nestled among the war stories he was obsessed with as a boy, his mourning of Joseph Heller’s death, and his musings about the phenomena of one-book writers, are poignant evocations of what it means to love books.

I can’t tell you what happens. I would never tell a friend how a novel unfolds; the journey of reading it is too important. Just go rent this movie.

by Matt Kreiling

Who wrote the book of love?
Dante Allgieri

If you were a vowel, which vowel would you be? Y?
Don’t most people say “I”? Seriously! I guess I could say “U”. If I were vowel I would “I”..because it’s logical, right?

Do you mind your Ps and Qs? Do you mind my Ps and Qs?
What’s that anyway? I don’t even know what Ps and Qs are! What does that mean? It sounds like vegetables. All I can think of is kumquat, but that doesn’t even start with q. Pennies and quarters? Do YOU mind your Ps and Qs?

Bro, if you could, like totally invent an exxxstreeeme sport, like
what would it be, dude?
If monster trucks hadn’t been invented already, that’s what I would invent.

Croquet or Crochet?
Frickin Croquet.

Thanks Erin!