I own a bookstore in Point Reyes, California. My essays and interviews have appeared in Tin House, the Paris Review Daily, Numero Cinq, Music & Literature, & elsewhere.
Email: r.stephen.sparks [at] gmail dot com | Twitter: @rs_sparks
Before moving to this site, I blogged at Invisible Stories, which contains an archive of passing fancies, long-cherished obsessions, digressions, and asides from 2009-2015.
Extracts:
“Identity is gradual, cumulative; because there is no need for it to manifest itself, it shows itself intermittently, the way a star hints at the pulse of its being by means of its flickering light. But at what moment in this oscillation is our true self manifested? In the darkness or the twinkle?” – Sergio Chejfec, The Planets
“It seemed his whole vocation was to look into himself, to analyse what was going on inside him, as if the very accumulation of details could convince him he was really alive.” – Roberto Arlt, The Seven Madmen
“All of the influences were lined up waiting for me. I was born, and there they were to form me, which is why I tell you more of them than of myself.” – Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March
“Personality is only a persistent error.” – Max Jacob
“Who has not asked himself at some time or other: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?” – Clarice Lispector
“To disappear, but not completely, so that you can know it.” – Elias Canetti
Stephen Sparks 