The Books Blog

This blog isn't really a books blog. Sometimes it's maybe a stories blog, or a what-I've-been-reading blog. And other times it's a hey-I-got-something-published blog, or a this-is-what's-been-going-on-in-my-life blog.

When I want to know about what's going on in the book world, I check out Maud Newton on occasion. She's smart and links to cool stuff, but I feel a little isolated from the East Coast here in little ol' Galesburg, so not everything on her site--posts about events or readings, typically--interests me all that much.

So, when I want to get my book news from more Midwestern sources, I go to Bookslut or the Emerging Writers' Network. Each of these places does an excellent job of letting me know what I should be reading or paying attention to, and they also give a lot of coverage to indie presses and poets and short-story writers.

And when I want even more of that kind of information, lately I check out Matt Bell's or Blake Butler's websites. They're both excellent writers, but they're also terrific advocates for other writers and their work, as well as the people and places that publish those writers.

Just last week, after I'd been noticing a lack of updates in the Fiction section of Esquire's website for the past few months, I saw a link to Esquire's Books Blog. There's some news about books there, sure, but they also post a couple features that used to be found on Esquire's Fiction page--Napkin Fiction and Last Line. And...They've been publishing short-short works by solid writers, as well. Recently, they've published "The Duck" by Diane Williams and "My Race Speech" by Rebecca Curtis.

And...so that this blog post is part both public service announcement and self-promotion, I should say that Esquire is going to publish on their new Books Blog a story that I wrote on a napkin a few months back. It should go up next week--and I'll be sure to let you know what it does.

In other news, it's kind of a sad day around here, but I won't elaborate on that, because this isn't that kind of blog. It never really has been.