Jonathan

Talkin’ ’bout TV

Let’s talk television, which just may be the new novel. Something that frightens me, being a writer and all. It’s so hard to compete with all of those great shows, even some of the not so great ones. Binge-watching is just so… addictive. I know reading is more relaxing and helps me get to sleep, but watching the tube appears to be more so—you’re just lying there, right?—when it’s not: it’s stimulating. Just one more episode, just one more. But let’s put that negative, sleep-depriving addictive quality aside, for the moment, and savor some of television’s serial pleasures. House of Cards – Season 4 I am a diehard fan and have been since the first episode. Kevin Spacey has found the role of his lifetime and he is brilliant, the perfect blend of snaky charm, humor and evil, he wears it on his face, in the pockets of flesh beneath his eyes, the smile that goes … Read more

Draw With Me in Italy

Imagine… Drawing in and around the hills of Assisi… Looking at nature, architecture, the figure, all the while soaking up Italian culture. Looking and learning from Giotto’s amazing & beautiful frescoes just a few steps away in the cathedral. All of this, and more. Like I’ve been saying: Come draw with me (sung to the tune of Come Fly With me). I can, and have taught anyone how to draw. Drawing will change your artwork, your writing, even (dare I say it) the way you view the world. So come. In the afternoons we’ll loll about, talking about art and writing and beauty or nothing in particular. In the evenings we’ll eat & drink and talk some more. For even more specifics, go to the website. http://www.artworkshopintl.com    

Food City

As most of you know, my wife, Joy, died suddenly and unexpectedly two years ago. At the time, she was close to finishing her 5-year book project, Food City: 400 Centuries of Food Making in New York. This epic, history-changing book is scheduled for release by WW Norton in June 2015 but there are still many things to be completed. Doria took it upon herself to create a Food City Kickstarter Campaign that is both pragmatic and a loving tribute to her mother. I know how hard she worked on this and how difficult it was emotionally. I hope you don’t mind that I offered your contact info to Doria. Of course you should not feel in any way compelled to donate, but we would appreciate it if you pass along the link so the word can spread. This is an important book, Joy’s life’s work, and we are making sure it gets the attention it deserves.

Summer Workshop at CFA

Dear Friends, I will be teaching a 4-day intensive short story crime fiction workshop July 13-16 at the Center For Fiction. My intention is to bring students from story inception all the way to a polished ready-for-submission piece of work. If you know anyone who has a crime story up their sleeve, wants to write it and get it published please send them my way. This is going to fun! Check details below and on the Center For Fiction website. Thanks. Jonathan Summer 2015 at The Crime Fiction Academy For the first time, The Center will offer a four-day summer writing intensive workshop at our Crime Fiction Academy. Join Jonathan Santlofer for this unique opportunity to polish your work for submission, from first draft to finished story. In addition to a daily workshop session, students will attend an evening panel with publishers and editors from prestigious print and online magazines to learn best practices for … Read more

Saul Bellow Centennial Celebration

A great night of Bellow readings to a SRO crowd at Housing Works NYC. Beena Kamlani, Saul Bellow’s last editor, who put the event together, introduced the evening with a few personal stories about working with the author later in his life. The poet and literary critic, Adam Kirsch, read an evocative passage from Henderson the Rain King. Romanian writer, Norman Manea, read from an interview he conducted with Bellow. The New Yorker fiction editor, Deborah Treisman, talked about editing Bellow and also read, proving she reads as beautifully as she edits; the terrific writer A.M. Homes read a beautiful short story; and the Irish writer Colum McCann was a knock out reading Bellow in his beautiful Irish brogue. Then it was my turn. I didn’t think it was quite fair to make me follow McCann, sort of like following Bono, which I actually said. Here’s the rest of what I said and read— My father was … Read more

The Line-Up: Hollywood Murder

Hey folks. A piece I wrote re-imagining the Lana Turner / Johnnny Stampanato murder case, in the voices of the participants, is on The Lineup today. I did a few sketches to accompany it as well. Please have a look. I hope you enjoy it. http://www.the-line-up.com/hollywood-homicide-lana-turner-johnny-stompanato/

Dark City Lights and Mysterious Book Shop

I have a new story in this terrific collection put together by the one and only Lawrence Block. Larry said, “Just write a New York story, Jonathan,” and that’s what I did. It may be a surprise because everyone else’s story is a mystery and mine is memoir, but there’s some darkness in this true tale from my distant past. The collection is great and I’m happy to be part of it, so check it out (that’s a none-too-subtle-way of saying, buy a copy!) And stay tuned. Next week I’ll have an illustrated story in “The Lineup,” and I’m finally going to get my act together and do a little catch up on what I’ve been doing these past months and what I’m working on. Thanks for tuning in and make sure to visit the upcoming event for the book at the Mysterious Book Shop. Thursday, May 7th, 6:30pm The Mysterious Bookshop 58 Warren Street New … Read more

2Young2Die

  I just saw Philip Seymour Hoffman’s posthumous last film, “A Most Wanted Man.” And maybe it’s too easy to say in retrospect but it was like watching a man on a suicide mission, chain-smoking, wheezing, overweight, rarely making eye contact with the camera as if he was embarrassed. (Yes, it’s an internal performance, but still.) No question he’s the most soulful of actors with a kind of sweet/tragic beauty but in this movie he just seems ill. Watching Hoffman was, for me, like a recent viewing of “The Misfits,” the last film for Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable (an unlikely romantic couple, Gable 59 and looking 65; Monroe 33 looking 40), though Monroe had once fantasized Gable was her father. Still beautiful though bloated, bad-wigged, boozy and sometimes dazed, Monroe’s is a brave performance but difficult to watch, almost too naked and revealing. I mentioned this to Joyce Carol Oates, who didn’t agree that Marilyn … Read more

Catching Up & Going Ape

Dear friends, It’s been a long time since I have written anything on my website and I apologize. It was a necessary break for personal reasons. But I have been working and will tell you just a few of things I’ve been up to. For the moment I have put aside the book I’d been working on for well over a year, a story about a cop who lost his family, a novel based in part on “Crime & Punishment.” The book was finished but not resolved and it needed time to percolate, so hopefully it’s doing just that while I work on other things. I’ve been thinking… That people often say a writer’s characters are variations of his or herself and I used to agree. Now, I’m not so sure. One’s art—writing, painting, music—is of course always a reflection of the person who made it. But the characters one creates on the page can … Read more