I write and I teach. Here’s what I’ve written: the short story collection, The Way That Water Enters Stone; three chapbooks, Lethe, Cupid, Time and Love; Well Enough Alone; and I Will Eat a Piece of the Roof and You Can Eat the Window; the novels Louisiana Power & Light, Love Warps the Mind a Little, and Deep in the Shade of Paradise; the story collection Johnny Too Bad, and The Lie That Tells a Truth: a Guide to Writing Fiction. I was one of the thirteen authors of the mystery novel, Naked Came the Manatee. My short story “The Timing of Unfelt Smiles” is included in Miami Noir and in Best American Mystery Stories 2007. I wrote a full-length play, Trailerville, which was produced at the Blue Heron Theatre in New York in 2005. I wrote the screenplay for the award-winning short film The Freezer Jesus. My friend Don Papy and I wrote the screenplay for To Live and Die in Dixie, based on the book by Frances Parker, which will premiere this April. And I’ve got a new novel coming out this July called Requiem, Mass. I teach in the MFA program at Florida International University in Miami. When I’m not writing, I’m reading or walking or playing tennis. I suppose I’m an unreconstructed old new lefty. I still like baseball and still believe in the ideals of socialism. When I’m confused or beside myself, I try to ask, What would Chekhov do?
Welcome to your new home, John. Love the Chekhov test.
🙂
[…] writer JOHN DUFRESNE (Requiem, […]
I’m a new fan of yours. I just finished reading the Johnny Too Bad collection of stories and I love it. With Johnny, Annick and Spot – and the monkeys, squirrels, raccoons, roseate spoonbills and lizards – it has this wonderful Tarzan and Jane in Florida feel to it. I’m not sure what to make of the blend of love and death that you’ve concocted, but it’s so much easier to face the harsh meanness, violence and human ugliness knowing that Spot has his chin on the bed and his tail is wagging. It’s the kind of narrative mishmash that just might pass for a sensible world view.
Thanks.
You might enjoy Wordle . . .
http://wordle.net
. . . I “Wordled” your blog as an example . . .
http://wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/52708/Dufresne
It’s interesting to see what it can do with a good batch of text.
Take care.
Wow. I just finished Requiem Mass. As usual, the only thing I hated about it was that it ended. Thought I’d read every book you’d written, but I see from the list above that a couple are missing from my bookshelf.
Thank you for years of fun and escape. When I can bear to part with them, I give your books to people who I think will appreciate them, when I can’t, I buy or make them buy their own copies. There are a few authors whose books I covet and devour, but nobody makes me feel like I do when I visit with your folks.
One day I am going to make it to the east coast of Florida, or maybe you will come to the west coast. I would love to have a coffee, or what the hell, a scotch with you.
Just to keep it clean, I am married and not a psycho or stalker or dangerous in the way most people define the term. I have met and spoken or corresponded with Jeffrey Eugenides, Jonathan Frantzen, Jane Juska, Charles Baxter, Thomas Lynch, and Joyce Maynard. That makes me something of a literary groupie, I guess, but books like yours, and some of theirs, get ahold of me and don’t let go.
Thanks,
n.