A Pacific Grove author explores what it means to live a life led by the internet.

David Schmalz here. There’s a question I always love to hear asked and answered: What are you reading right now? (Or some version of that, like a recommendation.)

Every answer is interesting. As for me—outside of what I’m reading for work—it’s Madame Bovary, which was on my shelf but I’d never read and am now about halfway through. I’m thinking about putting it down for a while though, as I’m craving a more contemporary voice, something that moves a little faster and lives in the world we do. 

Which is one reason why I was drawn to my colleague Agata Popęda’s story about Pacific Grove novelist Mark Sarvas, who recently published his third novel, @UGMan, which he started writing a few months after the 2020 election. It’s a novel that is very much rooted in this moment, one that explores the consequences of our terminally online culture. 

It’s a subject I don’t think our society wrestles with nearly enough—the internet has changed us, and will keep changing us, in ways we don’t fully understand. 

Popęda also asked Sarvas how he broke into fiction writing (you’ll have to read the story for the answer), something that, as a writer, I’m always interested in learning. I hadn’t heard of Sarvas before reading the story, so I looked him up and saw he taught fiction writing at UCLA Extension for some years before moving to P.G. in 2020. 

I took a fiction writing class at UCLA Extension in 2000, half a lifetime ago, but still haven’t written that debut novel yet. I can recall only snippets of wisdom from my professor Lou Mathews, a beautiful writer and generous teacher. “Don’t quit your day job” was the first piece of advice for the class, and he noted that only about 200 fiction writers made a living from it in America (at that time), mostly genre writers, and the rest teach. 

The other two snippets: “God is in the details” and “Read like a thief.” 

I’m sure Sarvas has plenty of pearls of his own, so I’m hoping I can make it to BookWorks in Pacific Grove tomorrow, July 27 at 6pm, where Sarvas will be talking about @UGMan. 

I do need to pick up a new book. How about you? What are you reading?