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A. Jay Adler

Goodreads Author

Born

New York City, The United States

Website

http://www.ajayadler.com

Twitter

@HomoVitruvius

Genre

Poetry, Fiction, Nonfiction

Influences

Gerard Manley Hopkins, W. B. Yeats, Wallace Stevens, T.S. Eliot, Hart ...more

Member Since

January 2021

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A native New Yorker who has lived in Virginia, Minnesota, and most of the past thirty years in Los Angeles, A. Jay Adler earned his M.A. and M. Phil degrees in English literature at Columbia University. After twenty years tenured in Los Angeles, Adler returned to live part time in New York City, where he taught at Fordham University and Queens College, CUNY.

The grandson and son of working-class Jewish immigrants from Ukraine, Adler grew up in the Queens, New York of Eisenhower’s America, relished and survived the Sixties, and came of age in the edgy, dystopian New York City of the 1970s. Along the way, he shocked no one more than himself by becoming successful in business. At a height of his success, feeling that existential inauthenticity A native New Yorker who has lived in Virginia, Minnesota, and most of the past thirty years in Los Angeles, A. Jay Adler earned his M.A. and M. Phil degrees in English literature at Columbia University. After twenty years tenured in Los Angeles, Adler returned to live part time in New York City, where he taught at Fordham University and Queens College, CUNY.

The grandson and son of working-class Jewish immigrants from Ukraine, Adler grew up in the Queens, New York of Eisenhower’s America, relished and survived the Sixties, and came of age in the edgy, dystopian New York City of the 1970s. Along the way, he shocked no one more than himself by becoming successful in business. At a height of his success, feeling that existential inauthenticity of which critical life choices are made, Adler gave it up to refocus on his love of literature and writing.

Since then, Adler has written plays and competition-awarded screenplays, published poetry, fiction, creative and other nonfiction, including memoir and film criticism, and written cultural and political analysis for a variety of online journals. A collection of some of the creative work was featured in Alternating Current Press’s 2015 premier issue of Footnote, a Literary Journal of History. Adler was also awarded a residency grant in poetry at the Vermont Studio Center, For nearly a decade, Adler blogged regularly at “the sad red earth” (Sal Paradise in On the Road). In 2006, he and his life partner, documentary photographer Julia Dean, drove the length of Route 66 for its 80th anniversary. Dean’s photography, shot with a 4X5 pinhole camera, and Adler’s exploration of the national mythos of Westward travel then appeared as “The American Road: Route 66 at 80” in the final issue of Robert Coles’ Doubletake magazine.

Adler’s most recent publication is “Hemingway in the Twenty-First Century,” appearing in the fall 2022 issue of The Hong Kong Review. In 2021 his first collection of poetry, Waiting for Word, was published by Finishing Line Press. Also that year, his writing on Native America, to accompany Dean’s images, appeared in the summer 2021 issue, “Americans,” of ProgressivE-Zine. Adler is currently at work on The Dream of Don Juan de Cartagena, a novel of the Magellan expedition. ...more

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Popular Answered Questions

How do you deal with writer’s block?

A. Jay Adler I have never experienced writer's block. Too often in life I have been kept from writing by the demands of making a living and other life business, so…moreI have never experienced writer's block. Too often in life I have been kept from writing by the demands of making a living and other life business, so that by the time I got the chance to write again, the words were burning a hole in me. I get stuck at various points in a poem or a story for a time. Many years ago, inexplicably, communion with a cigarette reliably broke that logjam. In the many years since smoking, I've had no such regular resort, but I break through to a solution, sometimes after a long time a way from a piece of work. But that is all different from what people call writer's block. That I have not had.(less)

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What are you currently working on?

A. Jay Adler I am currently adapting a California film noir screenplay I wrote twenty years ago into a novel. The screenplay was called Double Down. Now that is a …moreI am currently adapting a California film noir screenplay I wrote twenty years ago into a novel. The screenplay was called Double Down. Now that is a chapter title, and the novel is titled They Called It Paradise. However, I have interrupted that work because of my excitement over long short story / novela I was inspired to write from a great historical event. I don't want to say more about it right now.(less)

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Combine Editions
A. Jay Adler’s books

Average rating: 4.62 · 13 ratings · 1 review · 2 distinct works

	Footnote 1 by Leah Angstman (Goodreads Author) (Editor), A. Jay Adler (Goodreads Author) (Contributor), Jesseca Cornelson (Goodreads Author) (Contributor) 4.62 avg rating — 13 ratings — published 2015 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Waiting for Word 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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2 posts
A. Jay Adler's Blog

New Substack Newsletter: Homo Vitruvius

I have a new Substack "newsletter": Homo Vitruvius. I'll be sharing essays on all the matters that interest me, which are a lot, so the ideas will be wide ranging, but a prevailing focus will be literature, and the lens will be the writing. Writing counts! I'll be breaking from the novel I'm working on about once a week to offer some thoughts. You can also check out the About page, where along wit Read more of this blog post »

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Published on May 05, 2023 12:09

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Quotes by A. Jay Adler (?)

“Route 66 begins in the imagination. That there is a better place. That it lies in the westward distance.”
― A. Jay Adler, Footnote 1

tags: travel, travel-quotes

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“Human time is not a compiling of moments, layer upon layer, like old newspapers there to be drawn from down in the pile. It is a fuse, burning up our moments as we live them.”
― A. Jay Adler, Footnote 1

tags: history, memory, memory-and-imagination

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A.’s Quotes

“Sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.”
― Cool Hand Luke

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“Route 66 begins in the imagination. That there is a better place. That it lies in the westward distance.”
― A. Jay Adler, Footnote 1

tags: travel, travel-quotes

0 likes

tags: history, memory, memory-and-imagination

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