Monday, December 29, 2008

Carrie Jones

Carrie Jones graduated from Vermont College’s MFA program for writing. She has edited newspapers and poetry journals and has won awards from the Maine Press Association and also been awarded the Martin Dibner Fellowship as well as a Maine Literary Award.

Her books include Girl, Hero, Love (and Other Uses for Duct Tape), Tips on Having a Gay (Ex) Boyfriend, and the newly released Need.

Last week I asked her what she was reading. Her reply:
I am reading Daphne and Chloe. It’s the version by Prestel with pictures by Chagall.

The good part about reading Daphne and Chloe is that it makes love seems so innocent and quirky in this touching way. It’s hard to be jaded when you read about the two of them falling in love, and the obstacles they face are so wild. It puts modern romance to shame. Plus, the sentences are so fantastic.

Check out these two:

There must be something in it that will be more effective than kissing.

After such thoughts as these they naturally had dreams about love, about their kisses and their embraces and what they had failed to do during the day, they did in their dreams – they lay with each other naked.

The bad part about reading it is that it makes me want to fall wildly and awkwardly in love again somehow. It almost makes the reader expect all love to be untamed and touching and lyrical. Longus makes it all seem possible and magical and then I wonder how I can ever do that as a writer.
Visit Carrie Jones' website.

--Marshal Zeringue