Eric Barnes's Blog

• Food Obsessions and Me – A blog post from Eric Barnes, writer of the novel Shimmer

  November 5, 2009

  • At some point early on in the marketing of Shimmer, someone at Unbridled, the publisher, asked me to write up a quick blurb about where I like to eat in Memphis. It seemed like a simple request, I'm sure. My response: You of course have no idea how deeply you've stepped into one of the strangest of my habits. I am a person with many particular habits, rituals in a way, each day structured around ...
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• William Eggleston and Tacoma

  October 16, 2009

  • I bought a book of William Eggleston’s photographs recently at Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi. They are the photos collected in the book titled Paris.Eggleston’s photos, when I first saw them more than ten years ago, were disturbing and thrilling to me in the way that it was, many years ago when I first started writing, disturbing and thrilling to read the short stories of Raymond Carver ...
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• The First Day of School

  September 2, 2009

  • It’s the first day of school for most of our kids on Tuesday. All of the kids go to a great, truly remarkably school called Grace St. Luke’s here in Memphis. One of the kids has moved on to another school now, but GSL has shaped so much of our lives and the kids’ lives. It’s a sweet, smart, deeply goofy, nicely imperfect-in-a-very-genuinely-human-way-sort-of-way place. I can’t ever ...
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• Shimmer Update - Book Clubs, Tulsa & Thacker Mountain Radio

  August 31, 2009

  • In some ways things have quieted down, but then I look up and realize they haven’t. I’m doing Thacker Mountain Radio at Off Square Books this Thursday at 6 pm, go to Tulsa for Tulsa BookSmart soon, and on it goes. I sent an update to some people on things that have happened and are happening for Shimmer. Here it is: A quick update on the book, book tour, reviews and the first day of school. ...
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• Book Tour Secrets & Other Updates

  August 2, 2009

  • If I could write what I wanted to write, this would be a note about a man throwing chairs at one of my readings or the fairly hyperactive “meditation” a person was engaged in prior to a morning TV talk show. No one was injured in either instance, but they are great stories nonetheless. However, some combination of age, maturity and especially the cautionary place occupied by a new writer ...
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• The Spreadsheet That Launched a Novel (Guest Post on Beatrice Blog)

  July 28, 2009

  • (This appeared as a guest blog post on Beatrice, http://beatrice.com/wordpress/2009/07/20/eric-barnes-guest-author/. Thanks.) It must have been 1998 when Bob, the owner and CEO, turned to me in a meeting at that big metal conference table in the corner office on the 2nd floor. “Eric,” he said slowly, staring at me, “do you think you can put together a spreadsheet?” Bob was and is one of ...
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• Nature Didn't Make Nutrasweet: Shimmer, Towery and the Dot-Com Days

  July 16, 2009

  • From 1995 to 2002, I worked at a company called Towery Publishing Inc. that, in largely vague and indirect ways, influenced this novel I’ve written, Shimmer. Shimmer isn’t about Towery. And it isn’t about the people who worked there. But in thinking about the relationship between Shimmer and Towery, I keep coming back to the old tag line for the artificial sweetener Nutrasweet: “Nature ...
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• Writing, Publishing & Waiting

  June 26, 2009

  • June 4: Rumor has it that I'll be getting some actual copies of Shimmer today, with the book hitting the stores over the coming weeks. So I thought I'd post this, a version of a talk I gave to students at MUS (Memphis University School) recently, and that will go into a kind of loose video soon, combined with the slides that went with the talk. I posted a few of the slides here also. I had to ...
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