Caroline Bock-BEFORE MY EYES
ON WRITING
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Posted on Wednesday, April 19, 2017 10:36 AM
Write, Write, the yowling of desire.
Do you have a six word memoir? Must be six words. Post it, here, there. |
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Caroline Bock author of LIE and BEFORE MY EYES: Posted on Sunday, March 12, 2017 6:25 PM
Where does a writer start?
The question WHY? Eventually, upon analysis, I’ve learned that my initial
why. My curiosity. My questioning
myself and the human condition – leads to what English teachers call
“theme.”
How, in the 21st century, in Long Island, New York, can a group of suburban teens—turn on people who lived among them? Strangers, but not strange. Two brothers who weren’t bothering anyone—just because they were not like them? And why did no one——parents, teachers, coaches, notice anything? Why did none of their wide circle of friends say: this is wrong? What is the nature of hate and prejudice in the 21
century? These are the questions my character struggle with in my 2011 young adult novel, LIE.
With my 2014 young adult novel–Before My Eyes– three intertwined stories – but also inspired by the why. Why did no
one see what was going inside with these three fragile teens–especially one
who is going through a psychic break–and who has so easily bought a gun?
The second thing I start with is: A character.
A voice in my head. A sense that something is
going to happen to this person–I’m not sure what, but I’m going on a
journey with him or her. It may end well; it may not. It may end unsettled—in a
question because my characters are complicated.
Ultimately, these novels end.
Yet life remains complicated, so I am starting a new novel; one I am aiming for adults, since our lives, these days, are more complicated than ever. STAY TUNED.
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Caroline Bock: Posted on Friday, January 06, 2017 5:20 PM
THE CRITIQUE GROUP
We
talk about giving birth and menopause, about celebrities we would jump in bed
with if we had the opportunity, about being married forever from one of us, and
not having a date in eighteen months, shit, maybe more— and about your
grandmother: How is she? Her home in Chevy Chase is being sold. Ninety years
old, and my parents have decided that she can not live alone anymore— the
unreliable furnace and those long flights of stairs leading to all those
unopened rooms. We gather closer to her, the youngest among us, and urge her to
write more, about her grandmother, about what matters and what terrifies. What
we think to ourselves: How did we find one another? How lucky we are— four
women poised between twenty-nine and fifty. What we say aloud: We should meet
more often. We drink more wine, weep, scream, howl, beat our fists against one
another, laugh gulping for air, a certain power in us to write about anything. And
he always arrives late, slick with sweat, riding his bicycle on even the
coldest of nights, changing the pheromones in the wide-open room. When he says:
Did I miss anything? We say: We haven’t even started.
----------- The Critique Group was included in the new anthology, ABUNDANT GRACE published by Richard Peabody and Paycock Press in December, 2016, and featuring women writers in the Washington DC area. My fiction selection is one of the shortest in this amazing collection. Praise be to Richard Peabody for including it. Copies of the anthology can be purchased at http://www.gargoylemagazine.com/paycock.
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Caroline Bock: Posted on Thursday, October 06, 2016 1:27 PM
A year or so ago I was watching the evening news and saw an image that filled me with anger and despair. The result was this piece of short or "flash" fiction entitled: "BEHEADED," which was just published in the wonderful online literary journal,FICTION SOUTHEAST.
Here is a link to this new short short:
Thank you for reading! |
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Caroline Bock BEFORE MY EYES: Posted on Saturday, July 02, 2016 10:27 AM
It's a fast read, only about 750 words, about a woman of a certain age: Lydia. I love Lydia, and I think I will be coming back to her someday. Read on!!
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Caroline Bock author of LIE: Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2016 7:55 AM
What is this? A mini-sweepstakes for LIE, my critically-acclaimed (*starred* reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, School Library Journal and more)young adult novel.
Why now? Today, Thursday, April 14, Donald Trump, GOP candidate for President of the United States, is having a political rally in Patchogue, New York on Long Island. What happened there, in 2008, a horrendous hate crime, the murder of Marcelo Lucero inspired LIE.
I wrote LIE to understand why this could happen in a town so near where I lived at the time.
I write to understand. I write to build bridges, not walls.
Enter for a chance to win a copy of LIE. It's only two copies, LIE is widely available these days in public libraries, but if you haven't read or heard of my young adult novel (appropriate for ages 14 and above and adults), I thought it timely to do a FREE giveaway. The link is live only through April 16th:
Peace. |
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Posted on Tuesday, March 29, 2016 3:01 PM
I ’ve been reading a lot of work this past month by Elizabeth
Strout, known most famously for her novel-in-stories Olive Kitteridge. The three works
I’ve read seem to blend into one book. In the last that I read, My Name Is Lucy Barton, her new novel,
one of the characters, a writing teacher tells her, “We all only have one story
to tell,” and she goes on to say that we tell it, in many different, over and
over and that’s okay. I felt this way with her recent work. It was all one
story. I began this journey without a plan; picking up the O. Henry Prize Stories 2015 collection
and discovering her short story, “Snow Blind.”
A rural, small town. A tightly knit family, the Applebys, and a terrible family
secret. One of the children, Annie, ultimately does leave the small town,
almost miraculously, becomes a star of screen and stage, but even she cannot totally
leave behind her small town family and her history. I found a link to the story
here: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/public/stefg/article1509841.ece
I learned soon after reading this masterful short story that
her novel, The Burgess Boys, was
being made into a HBO mini-series, and realized I hadn’t read this book. It’s
the story of two brothers, both lawyers, one more successful than the other in
New York City. Along with their
sister, who never left their small town in Maine, they harbor a deeply-held
family secret. When the nephew does something stupid and terrible in the
hometown, all breaks loose between the siblings. However, ultimately, (no
spoilers here), the ties of the siblings to one another and to their history in
that Maine village bind them to one another more than to anyone or anything
else.
I then thought: I must read her new novel. In My Name Is Lucy Barton, the main
character, nicknamed ‘Wizzle’ by her mother is very ill. She’s in a New York
City Hospital (what I take to be Cornell Presbyterian, though it’s never named.
There is a view of the famously art deco Chrysler Building and having spent a
lot of time there in recent years, I can imagine the view of the building,
glistening, in my mind’s eye). Her mother on her first visit to New York City,
and the first visit between them in years. Staying at her sick bed for several
days, the mother tells story after story, of people from their Illinois farm town
and their impoverished life together. In many ways, My Name is Lucy Barton is a story about how stories heal us.
But at the end of my reading I thought: Can we never move
far away enough to leave our family, our hometown, our dark family secrets, no
matter how we try to re-make ourselves? The answer for the characters in these
Strout stories is: no. We are bound to our family, our siblings, our towns. This
is the essential story that gets told again and again in these works by Strout.
Have you ever spent time with an author and felt you knew
their story?
PS you can always spend time with my newest young adult novel: BEFORE MY EYES! |
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Posted on Friday, March 18, 2016 3:12 PM
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Caroline Bock: Posted on Wednesday, January 27, 2016 5:08 PM
I was going to write a long blog about the value of entering
contests, but what I really want you to do is read my short story,
"Gargoyles and Stars,"winner of the 2016 Writer Magazine short story
contest judged by Colum McCann. I rarely enter contests so I truly have
no wisdom to share except to enter them once in a while, if you admire
the work of the judge or the publication, if you feel lucky, if you
don't feel lucky and want to feel lucky for a moment. ——Caroline
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Posted on Wednesday, December 23, 2015 4:35 PM
News From... The Writer Magazine Imagine
Write
Publish
December 23, 2015 Twists, turns, double meanings and double lives. These are some of the
recurring themes for our Two Roads Diverge contest. Guest judge Colum
McCann chose the three winners and an honorable mention. We are happy to
announce them here.
Read the winning story in our March issue, on newsstands February 9, and read all three on writermag.com in January.
FIRST PLACE Caroline Bock and her submission "Gargoyles and Stars" introduces us to the cheerful and humorous Lydia, on the hunt in New York City for her parked car. Despite many vibrant memories, her loyalty to the past is trumped only by the fact that it doesn’t exist in the present except in her imagi nation.
Guest judge Colum McCann noted Bock's style, saying, "It’s a brave story with many different strands nicely helixed together."
A young adult novelist, Bock has published poetry and short stories with F(r)iction, Ploughshares and Prometheus. Her poetry has been nominated for a 2016 Pushcart Prize. She currently lives in Maryland, where she works as freelance bookseller.
The Best Holiday Present ever! Here's to a 2016 filled with inspiration and creativity for us all!
Caroline
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