{i miss paper letters}

1. Possibly my all time favorite poet, Frank O’Hara has some really dedicated disciples who have obviously created this site for him, what with his being dead and all.  I like the way it is laid out, the menu bar in the upper right is great, and overall I find it very aesthetically pleasing.  It also houses a sh*t-load of content, so ENJOY!
2. Nick Flynn is a fantastic poet with a great memoir called Another Bullshit Night in Suck City that was recently made into a Focus Features film starring Robert De Niro & Paul Dano (*which, by the way, I highly recommend!  I was lucky enough to attend its premier earlier this year at the AWP conference in Chicago!).  I love the design of this site, the way the green & yellow pop against the black.  It’s easy to navigate, and again, chock-full-o-content!
3.  C.K. Williams has a nice looking page, very clean and keeping it simple–all you need to know is there.
4. A good friend of mine, Chris Janke, has a pretty good looking site as well.  Another aesthetically pleasing layout, very well organized, and–you guessed it–content out the wahzoo!
5. Another friend, Matthew Zapruder, has a great blog on which he posts prolifically about a range of subjects under what could be considered a general heading of something like, “issues in and around contemporary poetry”, or something . . .  He’s also an editor at Wave Books, and they have a great site as well, not to mention some really exciting titles up for grabs!  And if you like blogs, which clearly you must at least a little, check out Mark Doty’s for some insightful thoughts and criticisms.
6. It doesn’t get any simpler than this page for the poet Mary Oliver, but hey, whatever’s clever!  Much like the C.K. Williams site, the content doesn’t suffer under the simplicity.(*A couple of prose writers made the list as well, because their pages are wicked sweet . . .)
7. First up is Haruki Murakami, whose page is quite possibly the most amazing website I’ve ever had the privilege of losing myself inside!  Visually stunning, hypnotic sound, and of course–Mad content!
8. I recently discovered the short story collections The Shell Collector & Memory Wall, as well as the novel About Grace by Anthony Doerr, all three of which I DEVOURED as though my life depended on it, and basically, that was the feeling I had reading his work!  This beautifully understated website is full of content.  I also felt that ever-so-rare-on-the-internets personal connection while tooling around, because (it seems, anyway) that he’s putting it all up there himself.  The illustrations are amazing, and there’s also various other forms of visual stimulation to feast upon here.
9. Last, but certainly not least, Michael Chabon.  First of all, we’re greeted by an illustration of a stereo receiver, a couple of speakers, and an LP.  How cool is that!?  The same style illustrations carry through the site, and I really like the typeface, as well as the color palette in play.  There’s a cool “time-line” of his life under the heading “About”.  This guy is the author of my all-time-favorite-book-to-movie situation, Wonder Boys, directed by Curtis Hanson & starring Michael Douglas, Frances McDormand, and some other heavy hitters.  A great story on its own, they really outdid themselves bringing it to the screen!  Did I mention this is, in my opinion, the best adaptation!?  How much do I totally love this?  I own it on VHS AND DVD!
   So, do yourself a favor and take a look!

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