J.C. was wielding the camera, so the photo credits are all hers.
8.23.2008
Obama
This afternoon, J.C. and I drove to Springfield to see Barack Obama introduce Joe Biden as his running-mate for the upcoming election. It isn't very often that we get to see history taking place this close to home.
J.C. was wielding the camera, so the photo credits are all hers.
J.C. was wielding the camera, so the photo credits are all hers.
Wishes
This post isn't necessarily related to the post that precedes it, but I suppose it could be interpreted that way.
Last week, J.C. and I were watching TV when...
Well, how about I write it out as a short play:
[Man and woman sit on couch, watching television. The digital clock nearby reads 11:11.]
Her: It's 11:11. Make a wish.
[She closes her eyes, then opens them.]
Her: Wait a minute. What were you wishing for?
Him: I thought it's bad luck to say.
Her: I'm just saying: If you were over there wishing, "Let the Big Toe Review publish my story. Please," while I was wishing to win the Lotto, and then you get your wish instead of me getting mine...well, just so you know, you'd be screwing us both.
Him:
Her: That better not have been what you were wishing for.
Him:
Her: Seriously.
[End scene.]
Last week, J.C. and I were watching TV when...
Well, how about I write it out as a short play:
[Man and woman sit on couch, watching television. The digital clock nearby reads 11:11.]
Her: It's 11:11. Make a wish.
[She closes her eyes, then opens them.]
Her: Wait a minute. What were you wishing for?
Him: I thought it's bad luck to say.
Her: I'm just saying: If you were over there wishing, "Let the Big Toe Review publish my story. Please," while I was wishing to win the Lotto, and then you get your wish instead of me getting mine...well, just so you know, you'd be screwing us both.
Him:
Her: That better not have been what you were wishing for.
Him:
Her: Seriously.
[End scene.]
7 Lines
I found out about this a couple weeks ago.
While it's cool that to have something like a 1-in-14 chance of winning $1,000 for seven lines of prose, it all makes me a little nervous, because this amazing author is doing the final judging.
Since I've published quite a few stories now, and shared magazine space with some pretty great writers, I'm fairly certain that my work has been in the hands of at least a few writers whose work I admire. And while I should probably be comfortable with this by now, for some reason I'm not really.
While it's cool that to have something like a 1-in-14 chance of winning $1,000 for seven lines of prose, it all makes me a little nervous, because this amazing author is doing the final judging.
Since I've published quite a few stories now, and shared magazine space with some pretty great writers, I'm fairly certain that my work has been in the hands of at least a few writers whose work I admire. And while I should probably be comfortable with this by now, for some reason I'm not really.
8.15.2008
8.14.2008
Summer
Right now, J.C. and I are sitting on the front porch. She's reading the book I mentioned in the last post, and I've been reading from the latest issue of The Oxford American, which I picked up at the bookstore today. I've read and really liked the essays by Pia Z. Ehrhardt, Mary Miller, and Sarah A. Strickley, as well as the short story, "The Pentecostal Home for Flying Children," by Will Clarke.
J.C. and I have spent a lot of time this summer on the porch, looking at the world from that view in the photograph above. Soon enough, my summer's going to come to an end.
Last week, I was visiting family, and one of the first questions out of everybody's mouth was, "When does school start up again?"
And I answered them truthfully: "I'm not even sure what day school starts. It's sometime in September, but I haven't checked the date."
I keep thinking that if I remain ignorant of the day that school is supposed to start, it will somehow not ever arrive.
I want to know: Is that so wrong?
Surely it's not.
Foreclosure
In my last post, I mentioned the various book blogs I visit on a nearly daily basis. A few weeks ago, both Ms. Maud and Ms. Crispin linked to "Foreclosure," an essay by Doug Crandell published in The Sun Magazine. I didn't click either of the bloggers' links to the essay because I knew I had the magazine itself lying around the house somewhere, and then a few days ago, I finally read it. It was excellent. So good that I immediately handed it over to J.C. and told her to read it right away, which she did.
This afternoon, J.C. and I visited the Quad Cities, where we ate sushi and visited The Figge Art Museum and shopped for books at the chain stores, because they're pretty much all we have available to us.
J.C. decided to browse for some story collection or novel that she'd never heard of and she came across Doug Crandell's The Flawless Skin of Ugly People.
She's reading it right now, and giving me updates about what's going on in the story. I imagine that when she finishes it, it's going to end up in the growing stack of books on my nightstand. I hope I manage to get to it by next summer.
This afternoon, J.C. and I visited the Quad Cities, where we ate sushi and visited The Figge Art Museum and shopped for books at the chain stores, because they're pretty much all we have available to us.
J.C. decided to browse for some story collection or novel that she'd never heard of and she came across Doug Crandell's The Flawless Skin of Ugly People.
She's reading it right now, and giving me updates about what's going on in the story. I imagine that when she finishes it, it's going to end up in the growing stack of books on my nightstand. I hope I manage to get to it by next summer.
8.11.2008
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.
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.
8.05.2008
Throwaway
The past six months, I've finished two shorter and three fairly longish stories. In the order in which they were finished, the longer stories tallied 6500, 7000, and 8500 words.
While I was writing the last two stories, I would often write some flash fictions as little warm-ups for the day's work. When I was really not wanting to face what I had to write on a particular day--because it involved some summary I did not know how or want to write--I would spend quite a bit of time working on little stories. Specifically, I was trying to write something to submit to Opium Magazine's latest Shya Scanlon Seven-Line Story Contest. I wrote about seven or eight seven-line stories, and eventually submitted one, though I'm still not sure I like it all that much. What follows below is one of my throwaway attempts, though I've added some paragraph breaks, because I like it better that way.
* * *
Our Move to the Suburbs
The neighbors said tomato plants were an impossibility. “Don’t even try,” they said.
Our hands twitched for a spade and some seeds. An impossibility? Go to hell.
They must have read the defiance on our faces. “Seriously,” they said. “An impossibility.”
They’d tried. They’d planted seeds, and those seeds had grown into vines, and those vines had sprouted tomatoes—enormous, red, and perfect. And then the rats had come.
“You’ve never seen so many rats,” they said.
We decided we would plant our seeds at night, and water them at night, all summer long. We would watch the plants grow, bit by leafy bit, until the tomatoes hung plump from the vines. We would wait for whatever might come to come.
While I was writing the last two stories, I would often write some flash fictions as little warm-ups for the day's work. When I was really not wanting to face what I had to write on a particular day--because it involved some summary I did not know how or want to write--I would spend quite a bit of time working on little stories. Specifically, I was trying to write something to submit to Opium Magazine's latest Shya Scanlon Seven-Line Story Contest. I wrote about seven or eight seven-line stories, and eventually submitted one, though I'm still not sure I like it all that much. What follows below is one of my throwaway attempts, though I've added some paragraph breaks, because I like it better that way.
* * *
Our Move to the Suburbs
The neighbors said tomato plants were an impossibility. “Don’t even try,” they said.
Our hands twitched for a spade and some seeds. An impossibility? Go to hell.
They must have read the defiance on our faces. “Seriously,” they said. “An impossibility.”
They’d tried. They’d planted seeds, and those seeds had grown into vines, and those vines had sprouted tomatoes—enormous, red, and perfect. And then the rats had come.
“You’ve never seen so many rats,” they said.
We decided we would plant our seeds at night, and water them at night, all summer long. We would watch the plants grow, bit by leafy bit, until the tomatoes hung plump from the vines. We would wait for whatever might come to come.
8.04.2008
Belated...
Congratulations to Matt Bell, who recently won the 2008 Million Writers' Award for his excellent story, first published in Storyglossia, Alex Trebek Never Eats Fried Chicken.
You can read Matt's response to the news here. And if you haven't been keeping up with his blog lately, you should be. He will pretty much always send you in an excellent direction or two.
You can read Matt's response to the news here. And if you haven't been keeping up with his blog lately, you should be. He will pretty much always send you in an excellent direction or two.
Landlord
Blake Butler has a cool little story in the new issue of Memorious.
And he also wrote a great blog post recently.
Go now and check them both out.
I suppose I should comment on Blake's blog post, but I honestly don't have too much to add. He covers just about everything.
And he also wrote a great blog post recently.
Go now and check them both out.
I suppose I should comment on Blake's blog post, but I honestly don't have too much to add. He covers just about everything.
Hobart
The latest Hobart is live. I haven't read quite everything, but I dug these:
You, Too by A. Papatya Bucak
&
Colossal Crimson Crop by Gabe Durham
Also: Bryan Furuness interviews Cathy Day, author of the amazing The Circus in Winter.
I spent a good deal of my formative years twelve miles from the real town on which Day's fictional town where her linked story collection takes place was based, and I really like what she has to say in the interview about the similarities between the Southern and Midwestern sensibilities.
And speaking of Hobart: Their "Games" issue is hot off the presses. I'm pretty sure my subscription is still valid, which means I should get mine soon. If you aren't subscribing, you should go and take care of that as soon as possible.
You, Too by A. Papatya Bucak
&
Colossal Crimson Crop by Gabe Durham
Also: Bryan Furuness interviews Cathy Day, author of the amazing The Circus in Winter.
I spent a good deal of my formative years twelve miles from the real town on which Day's fictional town where her linked story collection takes place was based, and I really like what she has to say in the interview about the similarities between the Southern and Midwestern sensibilities.
And speaking of Hobart: Their "Games" issue is hot off the presses. I'm pretty sure my subscription is still valid, which means I should get mine soon. If you aren't subscribing, you should go and take care of that as soon as possible.
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