Ed Park
I'm the author of the novel SAME BED DIFFERENT DREAMS (2023). I started writing it in 2014, but the inspiration for parts of it reach even further back. I hope you like it.
My first novel, PERSONAL DAYS (2008), was named a top 10 fiction book by Time Magazine and one of the decade's top 10 pop culture moments by The Atlantic. It was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Asian American Literary Award, and the John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize.
My story WEIRD MENACE is available as an Audible Original. A short story collection is forthcoming.
What else? I'm a founding editor of THE BELIEVER, and I've written for The Atlantic, Harper's, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, and many other places. (Check out ed-park.com or https://linktr.ee/edpark for some recent pieces.)
NB, I am *not* the author of THE WORLD OF THE OTTER, by the late nature writer Ed Park, but it's worth picking up if you see a copy (and like otters).
“A few insect skeletons lay scattered on the narrow sill, shiny and precise and sad as broken jewelry.”
“A: Is this the copy that you read as a kid?E: Yes. Look at the edges--that turquoise color. It's lighter along the top, from where the sun hit it. Now look at this gorgeous color here, the long edge. Beautiful. Makes me nostalgic.A: For what?E: I don't know. The age of turquoise page edges. Somewhere there's a grad student doing her dissertation on the inks used in twentieth-century mass-market paperbacks. ”
“Maxine will sometimes compliment us on our hair or other aspects of our scruffy appearance. The next day, or even later the same day, she'll send an all-caps e-mail asking why a certain form is not on her desk. This will prompt a peppy reply, one barely stifling a howl of fear:Hey Maxine!The document you want was actually put in your in-box yesterday around lunchtime. I also e-mailed it to you and Russell. Let me know if you can't find it!Thanks!LaarsP.S. I'm also attaching it again as a Word doc, just in case.There's so much wrong here: the fake-vague around lunchtime, the nonsensical Thanks, the quasi-casual postscript. The exclamation points look downright psychotic.”