All I Have in the World

I've Moved...

2010-04-06T19:31:00.001-07:00

J.C. has been encouraging me to drop this whole Blogger site* forever, but I've resisted.

And then last week she took it upon herself to set up some new digs for me over this way.

So, like Doug**, I'm outta here...

*If you're reading this on Facebook, just pretend you're reading it on Blogger, OK?
**Does anyone at all get this reference? Anyone? Come on, somebody gets it, right?

Phantoms/Phantoms/Book Club

2010-03-18T08:40:00.000-07:00

Though I posted something about this on Facebook a while ago, I neglected to say anything on this here blog (which will later, of course, find its contents copied and transported to that same place where I've already been talking...)...

Issue Six of Freight Stories is live and contains my story "Phantoms," as well as stories by my main man Eugene Cross, and several other writers I admire, including Terese Svoboda, Robin Black, and Glen Pourciau. I am honored to be in this kind of company, and I owe much thanks to Andrew Scott and Victoria Barrett for having me.

And speaking of "Phantoms"...Phantoms the chapbook has a new cover:

It's no longer four-color, but it's still pretty bad-ass, I think.

Lots of folks have been pre-ordering, which is awesome, but there are still some copies available for those of you who might want this thing but haven't yet made your way here. (Will this be the last time I mention this? Maybe? Yeah, maybe. There aren't all that many left that aren't going to wind up in my hands, I don't think.)

And speaking of Andrew Scott (I did, above, I swear): Several months ago, he began Andrew's Book Club, a book club dedicated to both Big House and Indie Press short story collections. I became a member of this club on Facebook as soon as I found out about it because, well, what a fucking great idea. And Andrew's kept up with this thing, each and every month, supporting authors I've never heard of and authors I've loved for years who have been putting out collections.

To be honest, it got to the point not very long ago where I was all, "How can he keep up with all of this? Who else possibly could?"

And then, about a day later, I received an email letting me know that Andrew had released March's picks for the book club. My first thought was something like, "Just knock it off, already. Give me some time to catch up." I didn't even bother clicking over to see what his choices for the month were.

But then. Then. I eventually wound up over that way, and lo and behold: He'd chosen my chapbook as the Micropress selection of the month.

I'm still reeling a little from guilt. Please forgive me, Andrew. Thanks for doing what you do--and thanks, too, for choosing my little book.

I Heart Keyhole

2010-03-10T06:36:00.001-08:00

I'm excited about this.

I once read something about how Borges was fond of detective novels because detective novels tend to accept from page one that the way fiction works is not always the way life works. Thus, the form is always construct, language.

I work with a lot of students who are interested in fairy tales, and their interest in them has increased my own over the years. What I've realized: I think I'm beginning to like fairy tales for those same reasons that Borges was fond of detective novels.

Other writers--from Robert Coover to Kate Bernheimer to Molly Gaudry--have probably realized this already, but it's not so unusual for me to arrive to such things late.

But back to Matt Bell and Wolf Parts: I'm pretty sure that Bell's facility with language--his fondness for the utterance that makes up the construct--along with his ability to broach the human and feeling will yield an amazing fairy tale retelling.

I've already ordered mine. Now it's your turn.

*By the way, Peter Cole: Dang, man; that cover looks great. And so does the website. You're kinda my hero.

Phantoms

2010-02-11T17:01:00.000-08:00

My friend Rebecca King and her latest venture, Origami Zoo Press, are going to be releasing a chapbook of flash fictions and short-short stories by yours truly. It's called Phantoms, and it's available for pre-order now.*

Here's the cover:

Here's a little marketing copy:

The characters in Chad Simpson's Phantoms are lost and struggling but constantly in motion -- a brother upright after being run over by his own car, a retired father-in-law falling slowly off the grid, a young woman on a Midwestern bar stoop plotting a trip to Tunisia, a lonely sales rep whose mouth sags even when she smiles. In sixteen meticulously crafted short pieces, Simpson creates scenes covering vast emotional terrain where these characters emerge, imperfect and unfinished. In gestures large and small, kind and cruel, they push and pull at the fates laid out for them, constantly chasing the other versions of themselves they know will never quite become real.

Here's a blurb:

“I want to say impossible things about Chad Simpson's sentences: how, via discipline, they arrive at grace. How they serve as clean lineaments of experience. How they hum with the mystery they conduct. I want to say simple things about Chad Simpson's fictions: read them. Right this second. They're so well made and told.”
—Scott Garson, author of American Gymnopédies

And another:

"Chad Simpson's stories claim borders wider than their page counts might suggest, doubled as they are by the ghosts that flicker between their sentences. It is these ghosts that Simpson asks us to reckon with, and it is his characters’ attempts to chain or banish these specters--with memory, with miracle, with mathematics--that ultimately ties us to their lives, so that they might haunt us far beyond these intricately-inked pages."
—Matt Bell, author of How They Were Found

You can read sample stories here and here.

That's the end of my pimping this thing, at least for now.

*I think I've written about pre-ordering books before, but in case you forgot what I had to say: I love pre-ordering books. This thing is going to drop on April 16th, but if you order it now, then you'll forget all about it by then--unless you pay much attention to your credit or debit card statement. And then, sometime in mid-April, not long after you've filed your taxes, when you're waiting for all this stinking snow to finally melt, this cool little chapbook arrives in your mailbox like magic. I think I have three or four books that are going to be surprising me in just this way over the next few months, but, like I said, I'm not really thinking about them for now.

Joshua Cohen

2009-12-09T12:16:00.000-08:00

keeps a genizah as a part of his website.

A new story goes up each week, and so I'm not sure how much longer "Bibliothanatos, or epigraphs for a last book" will be there. Since it might not be long, you should hurry.*

Here's the first sentence:

Once, in the future, a man wanted to keep a secret safe from everyone. He wrote it down into a book.

*Although...if it's gone, something brilliant will certainly be in its spot.

House Calls

2009-11-27T16:17:00.000-08:00

A while back, NPR issued a prompt for their second Three-Minute Fiction Contest, which asked potential participants to begin their stories with the line: The nurse left work at five o'clock.

I started messing around with something that spoke to the prompt and eventually finished it. A couple of months later, that piece has been published in the November issue of Hobart. You can read "House Calls" here.

Huge thanks to Aaron and Jensen for having me.

For some (fairly) recent favorites of mine from Hobart, check out the following:

"My Hand, Dead Tissue, Severed at the Wrist" by Kevin Wilson

& two stories by a couple of friends of mine:

"Hunters" by Eugene Cross &

"The Secret of Healers and Monsters" by Justin Hamm

Umm...While I was linking to those, I noticed that Hobart is down. I'm guessing (hoping?!?) that Aaron's going to be all over that, and that things will soon be back up. So, I'm going to leave the links the way they are for now.

A Vocation Without the Competence

2009-11-27T16:00:00.000-08:00

I'm not a huge fan of the word "charming," but I found this interview with Mavis Gallant just that.

Of particular interest to me: Early in her career, Gallant feared that she might have "inherited a flawed legacy," like her artistic father, afflicted with "a vocation without the competence to sustain it."

This reminded me of a line from a play I attended when I was twenty-one. I don't remember much about the play at all--not even the title--just this, the gist of a single line spoken by one of the main characters: He worried the only talent he had was a talent for appreciation.

That bit struck home then, and it continues to strike, on an almost daily basis.

It made me feel a little good to know that Ms. Gallant once suffered from a similar affliction at the beginning of her career.

Why I Love Reading

2009-07-01T20:21:00.000-07:00

The new issue of SmokeLong Quarterly is live. I've only read two stories from it so far, but both of them are amazing.

If you want to feel a little crushed and weepy, head over to Dan Chaon's "The Hobblers."

If the story all by itself doesn't do you in, then read the interview.

And then, to recover, read Amanda Nazario's "Matt: How It Will Happen."

It'll make you laugh a little and then it'll bring the hammer right back down.

Still, you'll be glad for it. Just like always.

Alan Cedeno

2009-05-26T20:52:00.000-07:00

This is Alan Cedeno, and I kinda love it.

You Must Be This Tall...

2009-05-26T20:05:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, this is pretty exciting...*

My story "Especially Roosevelt," which appeared last April in The Sun, has been reprinted in You Must Be This Tall To Ride: Contemporary Writers Take You Inside the Story, edited by B.J. Hollars, and available now from Writers Digest Books.

It's an anthology of coming-of-age tales (loosely defined, especially considering my addition to the volume), supplemented by both craft essays about the stories and writing exercises written by the authors themselves. Imagine those little essays that accompany the bios in the Best American Short Stories series, only more extensive.

I worked on my craft essay and writing exercise last year at about this time, and though I knew that the book was eventually going to happen, it seemed like a long way off, like something I may not even live to see. But then, a few weeks ago, it showed up at my house via FedEx, and I could just, like, hold the thing in my hands.

For the past year, whenever I mentioned the anthology to people, I said something like, "The line-up is pretty sick. It's got all these great writers--and Chad Simpson." It always sounded merely self-deprecating, I knew, but I never meant it that way at all. I mean, have a look at the authors:

Steve Almond

Aimee Bender

Kate Bernheimer

Ryan Boudinot

Judy Budnitz

Dan Chaon

Brock Clarke

Michael Czyzniejewski

Stuart Dybek

Michael Martone

Antonya Nelson

Peter Orner

Jack Pendarvis

Benjamin Percy

Andrew Porter

Chad Simpson

George Singleton

Brady Udall

Laura van den Berg

Ryan Van Meter

Now you know what I'm talking about, no? Huge thanks to B.J. for asking me to be a part of this/allowing me to be the mutt amid a bunch of, um, pure-breads?

B.J.'s been doing what he can to give the book a proper launch. He's started a Facebook page, which you should all join, right now. And he also has a website, which looks like it's also going to be an online journal, as B.J. is accepting submissions of coming-of-age stories as I type. Head on over there, please. Maybe even think about submitting something.

*even for a guy who claims most of the time to enjoy the feeling he gets after spending a few hours writing to the feeling he gets when he receives any sort of external validation for the stuff he has written...but, hey, this is the first time anything I've written has appeared in an actual book, so I guess I'm allowing myself to get a little excited.

A little more...

2009-05-20T15:09:00.000-07:00

from Keyhole:

They posted some very cool little stories by Sherrie Flick recently, which are definitely worth checking out. I loved Flick's I Call This Flirting, and am looking forward to her novel, which I need to order soon.

They also recently published this, by my pal Jamie Iredell.

I was excited and humbled, too, today to discover that Dan Wickett gave some attention to "Two Weeks and One Day," my Keyhole story. You can read what he had to say here.

As an aside: If you haven't been following Dan's coverage of Short Story Month, it might be worth your time. He's been saying all kinds of smart things about all kinds of great stories, and I'm grateful to him not just for having a look-see at my little story but for taking the time in general to discuss and promote short fiction.

If you're reading this and asking yourself, "What's Short Story Month?" then I implore you to head over Dan's way now, and you will have all your answers, as his coverage has been pretty exhaustive. Read what he has to say and then see where all his links take you. It'll be worth it; I promise.

Tri-Fold

2009-05-19T10:48:00.000-07:00

I have a little story over at Keyhole Magazine in their May 2009 Keyhole Digest. Here is Peter Cole, on what he's doing:

Keyhole Digest is a monthly printout, distributed for free in Nashville. Each month we'll fit as many stories and poems as possible onto a single sheet of paper, fold it into thirds, and hand it out...Feel free to print, fold, and hand them out yourself, wherever you are.

I printed a few copies this morning and folded them up and put them out on the coffee table outside my office at school. I'm going to distribute a few more around campus later this week. If you're so inclined, I think you should follow Peter's advice and do the same. You could maybe even leave a note here about where you dropped your pamphlets off...

Is that too much to ask? I don't know; maybe it is.

At any rate: Much thanks to Peter & Keyhole Magazine for having me.

The Lonely Voice

2009-05-17T21:23:00.000-07:00

And speaking of The Rumpus...

Most of the people who come around here frequent that place, no?

I hope so.

It really is one of my favorite sites to peruse, and I'm grateful to Stephen Elliott et. al. for the work that they do.

My favorite recent feature: Peter Orner is writing a column called "The Lonely Voice" about short stories. I've read three of the columns so far, and each one has twisted my little brain in just the right way. I can't wait to read the stories he's been talking about and then revisit what he had to say about them.

I also loved Dan Chaon's fairly recent tribute to his wife Sheila. It's honest and smart and heartbreaking and just about perfect.

About "The Lonely Voice"...

There are lots of people around the interwebs lately celebrating short story month, which is great, but I can't help but think that "The Lonely Voice" is the perfect title for a column about short stories. Since November, my agent has been shopping my collection around to the "big" houses, and while it's all been mostly positive, I can't help but think about the loneliness of it all.

Maybe sometime soon I'll contribute to the short story month discussion by posting excerpts of a couple of my rejections. It's not the kind of thing I would normally do around here, but it seems, right now, appropriate in some way.

Two Girls Arguing - Found Magazine

2009-05-15T13:45:00.001-07:00

I saw this recently over at The Rumpus and had to put it up here.

Oh, man.

So funny.

"Totally crossed out"*

2009-05-12T13:54:00.000-07:00

My main man...my brotha from anotha motha...my bromance...

Eugene Cross published two stories in the fairly recent past, and I have not yet sent you all his way.

Until now, of course:

"Loyalty" is up at Guernica

&

"The Brother" is over at Narrative Magazine

Narrative, of course, requires you to sign up, but if you haven't done it yet...it's free, and though the emails they'll send you can get a wee bit annoying, gaining access to the work they publish makes it all worth it, I think.

*Are the Kriss Kross lyrics a little dorky here?

Umm, I'm thinking, 'Yes.'

Frigg

2009-05-06T20:56:00.000-07:00

One of my colleagues asked me recently when I was going to update this blog. My response: As with writing, it's really easy not to blog.

I used to have some kind of unstated imperative that I would update this thing at least once a month, mostly because the links to my archives appear on the side, and I hate to see a missing month. Blame it on OCD. But once I realized that there wasn't going to be anything for January, it was soooo easy to go ahead and skip February, March and April.

That said, I'm going to do my best to keep this thing a little more active than it's been.

To begin:

Frigg Magazine

Their latest issue is devoted to micro fiction, and it's a real gem. Next year, I'm going to be teaching an entire course devoted to flash fiction, and I think I may end up beginning with this issue, particularly because I think what each writer has to say about micro fiction could be a nice jumping-off spot for a lot of our discussions.

My immediate recommendation from Frigg: Scott Garson

Here's his one-sentence story, "Chorus":

What I want to know is if I can decode what you said when you did what you did to me, baby.

Man, I love that. The "baby" tacked on to the end feels pretty perfect to me.

Really, go and check out the rest of the issue now.

Please?

Holiday Miscellany

2008-12-26T10:20:00.000-08:00

I posted a little something about Kevin Wilson a while back, so for now, I'll say only this: He has an amazing story, "No Joke, This is Going to be Painful," in the new issue of Tin House.
* * *
I've linked a number of times to things by Matt Bell, as well, but still: "How They Were Found and Who They Were That Found Them" at Wigleaf and "This Showroom Filled With Fabulous Prizes" at Night Train should be read. Immediately.
* * *
And another thing I came across this past week...

A while back, I posted a photo of Justin Torres and me and sang a brief song about his kick-ass work. Now, his story "Lessons" can be found in the new issue of Granta. Please, go and read. Marvel.
* * *
In non-story news: J.C. and I each received an iPod touch for Christmas. Last night, we were snuggled up on our beanbag couch, earbuds in our ears, ignoring one another for hours.

My mother-in-law likes to say that simple minds are easily amused, and it's true: The iPod touch kind of blows my simple mind away.
* * *
Since I've linked back to a couple old posts here, I suppose it's appropriate that I post the following, which is a story I put up on the blog a few years ago:

Garbage, or One Thursday in August

It’s earlier than usual, 6:10, and after Kyle makes coffee he’s going to go and wake Anne. Then he’ll put on shoes and carry garbage to the curb.

Last Wednesday they returned from Chicago by train and he drank whiskey until three a.m. and missed getting the garbage to the curb by seven. So there are some extra bags of garbage, six or seven total, and some old boxes he needs to get rid of sitting damp in the old garage.

Glenn, their landlord, built them a new, two-car garage behind the old one, and he has half the thing sided. The doors are already installed—both the garage doors and the side door you walk into. Two days ago, Glenn rang their bell and walked Kyle out to the new garage to show him how the doors will work until he runs the electricity. They walked in the side door, and Kyle was a little stunned. He’d never seen such clean concrete; and the garage door tracks, they gleamed like new dimes.

All summer, he had done nothing, and Glenn, a retired history teacher, had built them a two-car-garage.

While Glenn showed him how to work the doors, Kyle couldn’t take his eyes off the tracks. He told their landlord, “I don’t think I’ve ever been in a new garage before.” Glenn looked at him like he was speaking in only vowels.

Kyle didn’t stay up until three a.m. last night drinking whiskey. At dinner, Anne ordered a margarita, and he told her he was on the wagon—until December. Anne said, “That means I can order two,” and smiled.

For the whole meal, the salt on the rim of her glass was dull lightning; it filled his guts with hollow warmth.

In the kitchen, Kyle pours water into the coffee maker’s reservoir, scoops grounds into a filter, and turns the machine on.

Then he walks upstairs to wake Anne.

Next, the garbage.

The above story isn't all that good, I don't think, but I still kind of like it for personal reasons. For years, I did "morning pages," as espoused by Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way. I acquired the book as an undergrad, and I never read more than thirty pages of it, but her morning pages stuck with me. I wrote three pages of garbage by hand as soon as I woke up, off-and-on for about nine years. The above story was written as part of one of those morning-pages sessions, only I ended up tweaking it quite a bit, trying to make it better. So, it was pretty much autobiographical. The deal was: I hadn't been writing anything worthwhile other than morning pages all summer, and my landlord had built us this huge two-car garage. I wanted hard for a project like that--something that could be completed.

And the reason I'm re-posting the story now...I've felt a little unproductive over the break. I've revised two new stories, and I've written a ton of letters of recommendation, but I've still felt for the most part like I'm not getting anything done. And then, last week, J.C. and I went out to eat with her mom, and she mentioned that she and my father-in-law had made fifty pounds worth of potato bologna for the holidays.

I love potato bologna, and will probably eat about five pounds of it before the holidays are all over, but still, I thought of all the freezing hours I've spent down in my office basement over the break, typing until my fingers go numb. And then I thought about those fifty pounds of potato bologna, all sectioned off and bagged up and sitting in the deep freeze, waiting to be prepared and eaten. I felt like I was staring at those new garage door tracks all over again.

Hobart

2008-12-05T20:08:00.000-08:00

The December Hobart is live. I feel close to this issue. It has stories by my friends Eugene Cross and Kyle Minor, as well as stories by Edward Mullany and Molly Gaudry. I don't know Edward or Molly, but I've been reading enough of Molly's cool little stories that I'm starting to feel like I know her. And her story is kind of perfect for a December web issue, especially if your family is anything like mine.

That last part is a joke.

Kind of.

The issue also includes an interview with John Brandon, conducted by Matt Bell. I skipped this one, because Brandon's Arkansas is in my soon-to-be-read pile, but I'll be sure to return to it in a couple weeks, after I've finished the book.
* * *
And in other Hobart news...

I've had the Hobart calendar on the wall in my office all year. For all of November, my pal Benjamin Percy was looming over my writing desk, holding a shotgun in his hand.

This month, Aaron B. and Elizabeth E. are looking all sexy in Santa gear. Aaron is even holding a bottle of Maker's Mark in one hand. It's like he knows just what I want for Christmas.

My office is something of a cave.

It's in the basement, and nobody goes down there really except for me. Until yesterday, when my brother and his girlfriend came over to use my printer.

As soon as my brother walked into the office, he saw the calendar--the photo of Aaron and Elizabeth. He was all, "What the hell?"

I figured I could try to explain what Hobart is, but instead I just said, "They're writers."

My brother said, "Oh," as if no further explanation was needed.

Hippies Wail For Dead Trees

2008-12-03T12:47:00.001-08:00

This is me, as I finish grading fiction portfolios.

Okay, not really.

I mean, I'm all for reducing the size of one's carbon footprint, but this kind of cracks me up.

...

2008-11-24T05:05:00.000-08:00

J.C. took the above photo on the first day of the term, a little over two months ago.

Back then, the house was clean, and I was all gung-ho to start teaching again. Now the house is a ridiculous mess and I have two bags of fiction portfolios to grade. After I finish those, I have a few letters of recommendation to write, and then I can call it quits on this teaching thing until the beginning of January.

What all has transpired in the last few months? Not all that much, it seems.

I've read more student work than anything else, but I did find some time to read the following books this term:

Vacation by Deb Olin Unferth
Invite by Glen Pourciau
American Youth by Phil LaMarche
The Colorful Apocalypse: Journeys in Outsider Art by Greg Bottoms &
Kissed By by Alexandra Chasin

I don't have anything intelligent to say about the above other than that they were all pretty great. I was happy to have them to turn to on my bedside table each night.

I'm pretty sure Greg Bottoms has a new book out, and I need to order it. Some other books I will be ordering along with it:

In the Devil's Territory by Kyle Minor &
Dear Everybody by Michael Kimball

There are probably more, but I know I want those two and the Bottoms book for sure.*

I started out the term pretty strong, writing-wise, but I got a little overwhelmed by other kinds of work about a month ago and so haven't written all that much since then. I'm ready to get back to it. I wrote a story about Sarah Palin a couple months ago that I'm going to turn into a choose-your-own-adventure story. And I did quite a bit of work on a robot story that I want to finish up.

J.C.'s been bugging me to join Facebook, and so I'm probably going to do it sometime soon. Hopefully it doesn't keep me from getting any work done on that robot story.

But first, before I do anything else, I'm going to clean the house today. I'm actually kind of excited about it. I love cleaning the house.

*If anybody has any book recommendations for me, leave them. I'm anticipating a kind of monster book order.

Interruption

2008-10-14T14:30:00.000-07:00

I was reading some stories over at Titular Journal a few days ago--some great stories by Scott Garson, Claudia Smith, Blake Butler, and quite a few others; really, all of the stories I read were pretty good--and I realized that a story I had sitting around called "Interruption" could be titled "White Noise."

You see, if you haven't been over Titular's way, then you might not know that all of the stories they're collecting--and it does feel a little like a collection--are named after TV shows, novels, or movies. So, I went with "White Noise"--after, of course, the Don DeLillo novel, not that movie with Michael Keaton in it--and sent it off.

And now, after some excellent edits suggested by the editor, the story that used to be called "Interruption" and that is now called "White Noise" is up.

"Everybody's head once cupped...

2008-09-18T22:28:00.000-07:00

in the palm of another."

The above is from an amazing poem by a friend and colleague extraordinaire of mine. You can read it here, in the new issue of Diagram.

I hope to know M. in other times, too.

Promotion

2008-09-09T13:11:00.000-07:00

A few announcements and whatnot:

Before J.C. and I took off for a week-long stay at my parents' lake cabin a few weeks ago, Randall Brown interviewed me for SmokeLong Quarterly's blog about serving as the Selecting Editor for Wigleaf's Top 50 [Very] Short Stories of 2007. You can read it here--and get all the links to the good stuff, as well.

* * *
While J.C. and I were gone, the new issue of New South arrived in the mailbox. It contains my story "The First Night Game at Wrigley," as well as some much better work by Stephanie Reents, Derek Nikitas, Michael Martone, and many others.

* * *
Barry Graham picked up the Dogzplot Flash Fiction Anthology 2008 at the printer the other day. My story "Preparation" is in there, as well as work by more talented and more attractive people like Aaron Burch and Elizabeth Ellen and Kim Chinquee and Scott Garson, etc. Go and order a copy. Barry needs a moped.

* * *
And, finally: I received an update about this. Still no word of a winner, but I'm one of seven finalists, which means I now have a 1-in-7 shot at the cash. And regardless: My story "Infidelity, or The Rice Cooker" will appear in Opium7, along with two stories by one of my favorite writers, Etgar Keret. And many more, of course.

* * *
This afternoon I was gathering up some of the magazines that my stories have appeared in (they were scattered all over the house, and I was trying to organize them) so I decided to fan them all out on the couch and take a photo.

I suppose the timing of this shot is pretty on. I'm just now putting the finishing touches on my collection of stories, All I Have in the World. It's been about six years in the making, and this will be the first time I try to sell/place the thing. I have to say, I'm pretty excited. Even if nothing comes of it, I want to spend this term focusing on the YA novel, and sending the collection out into the world will help get me ready for that, I think.

Books

2008-09-09T11:52:00.000-07:00

J.C. used to work at a bookstore, and it used to really annoy her when customers would talk about how much they just love books. "You should see my house," they would say. "There are books just everywhere."

J.C. would think something like, Well, I suppose it makes sense that you would be shopping here, then.

Along those lines: We have way too many books in this house. I imagine that someone like Dan Wickett has it worse than I do, but it's still pretty bad. As I've been cleaning, I've been shuffling some books around, and I found several that I'd purchased in the last couple years and completely forgotten about. So, it was kind of nice finding them, but I have no idea when I'm going to get to them all.

Two photos of a couple of problem areas:

The Buffet:

The night stand (displayed on the bed):

I've aready read quite a few of these; the problem now is figuring out where they will be relocated.

J.C. and I were having monk fantasies the other day, imagining our life without so many possessions in general. And after cleaning for the past couple hours, those fantasies have intensified. I keep imagining myself in a room with white walls, surrounded by nothing. In my head, I'm dressed in a burlap robe.

Tunneling

2008-09-09T10:51:00.000-07:00

School starts on Thursday, and I'm cleaning the house today. I like to start each term with clean bathrooms and shiny floors.

And since I haven't been around this blog much lately, I'm going to post something new each time I take a break from cleaning to come down to the basement and sit in my office and smoke a cigarette.

I know: Smoking is filthy. I'll quit eventually, I imagine.

Up first...

Kevin Wilson has a story up at Juked. I'm not quite sure what the title of the story means, but I loved the story anyway. You should really go and read it.

And in other Kevin Wilson news...His collection, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, will be available at the end of March 2009. I've been reading Kevin's stories, it seems, forever, and I can't wait to pick this one up.

Obama

2008-08-23T19:05:00.000-07:00

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.

Wishes

2008-08-23T18:57:00.000-07:00

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.]

7 Lines

2008-08-23T18:49:00.000-07:00

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.

Pre-Algebra

2008-08-15T06:17:00.000-07:00

My napkin story--"Let x"--is up over at the Esquire Books Blog.

That is all. For now.

Summer

2008-08-14T18:01:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-14T17:49:00.001-07:00

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.

The Books Blog

2008-08-11T13:27:00.000-07:00

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.

Throwaway

2008-08-05T19:31:00.000-07:00

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.

Another One...

2008-08-05T19:24:00.000-07:00

by Glen Pourciau:

"Window" from the latest issue of The Barcelona Review.

Belated...

2008-08-04T20:23:00.000-07:00

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.

Landlord

2008-08-04T20:11:00.000-07:00

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.

Hobart

2008-08-04T19:56:00.000-07:00

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.

Dear Glen Pourciau

2008-07-27T17:59:00.000-07:00

I read this story by you back when I was a juvenile probation officer, about a year before I went to grad school. I remembered the story for a long time, but for some reason I always thought it was in The Gettysburg Review. I'm not sure why. Did you ever even publish a story in The Gettysburg Review?

Since then, I've read a number of stories by you. In case you didn't realize it, your name is fairly peculiar, at least where I'm from, and whenever I see it in some journal's table of contents, I read what you've written. You haven't let me down yet.

And then, a few days ago, I was at one of the chain bookstores around here and saw the latest issue of The Paris Review. Your name was either on the cover or it was, as I've been so excited to see it so many times before, in the table of contents. I sat down on the bench in the store and read your story, and then I flipped to the contributor's notes, to see what else you've been up to, what I might have missed, when I saw this.

Man, I know I'm a little late getting to the news, but the good thing about it is that your book is going to be coming out soon. Very soon.

I can't wait.

Huge congrats,
Chad

Fishing with D.--Again

2008-07-27T17:44:00.000-07:00

I've told these types of stories before...but Wednesday, I took D. to my parents' lake cabin for the afternoon.

He fished from the shore for a while, and then, after I'd read and relaxed for a bit, I took him out on my parents' fancy-pants paddle boat, so I could do some fishing, too.

Before we took off, though, I put on a little sunscreen. Usually, I only like to wear sunscreen when I'm wearing a swimming suit. I don't like getting it on my clothes. That afternoon, though, I decided to put some sunscreen on my arms, on my face, and on my ears. I realized that I should put some on my legs, but I couldn't make myself do it. I didn't want the sunscreen rubbing up against my shorts.

Just this morning, for the first time, the sunburn on my knees has stopped hurting. For a while, my knees were almost plum-colored.

And in case you were wondering: We caught next to zero fish. D. snagged a few babies, but there was nothing at all on our lines worth taking home.

The Dark Knight--Update

2008-07-27T17:34:00.000-07:00

I caught the three o'clock show last Friday, and I liked it.

My expectations were, obviously, pretty high, and it didn't quite live up to them, but still, it was very good.

My primary complaint: I thought it was going to be a little bit darker than it was, and I wanted it to be. I wanted to see some blood. I wanted to see the Joker and the Batman as just a little more human, in a gritty way.

Maybe that's what I'll have to look forward to in the next one. I certainly hope so.

Voyeur

2008-07-27T17:28:00.000-07:00

This local story reminded me of something small, trivial, but, I suppose, worth sharing.

When I was between the ages of ten and fourteen, my bedroom looked out on the parking lot of a church across the street. Almost always parked in that parking lot: Two school buses, painted pale blue and decorated with smiley faces and crosses.

I had a habit when I was a kid (and still do, I suppose) of getting up and walking through the darkened house as if it were a new place, and I was exploring it. Back then, on several occasions, I saw a man sucking on a garden hose that had been dipped into the gas tank of one of the buses. He would siphon the fuel, and once he got it going, he would stick the garden hose directly into his own car's gas tank until he filled it up. Once or twice, I even caught him in that pivotal moment where his mouth filled with fuel and he had to spit it out.

I never once thought of calling the cops.

It was kind of a beautiful thing to watch, in the dark, as the man was lit only by the parking lot's flood lamps. He went about his business in a way that was almost poetic in its simplicity, and I liked being on my side of the window, where I could fumble around in the darkness and watch it all go down.

Update

2008-07-17T23:16:00.000-07:00

I drank a latte at ten p.m. so that I would be sure to make it through the film, and then I left for the theater at about 11: 30.

Earlier tonight, I thought about buying tickets online, but then I realized that if the theater was going to be sold out, or even close to it, I would rather just go and see the movie tomorrow. Maybe I've been spoiled growing up in small towns, but I can't stand crowded movie theaters.

When I arrived at Kerasotes, the parking lot was as full as I've ever seen it. I didn't think much of it until I parked my truck and headed for the entrance, when I saw that there was no one waiting in line to get in.

As soon as I walked in the door, I heard the cashier tell the people in front of me that The Dark Knight was sold out. I quickly turned around and headed for my truck, though I wish now that I would have stuck around to scope the place out, see what all was going down.

Looks like I'm going to have to go to a matinee tomorrow.

* * *

Since I haven't been around this place much: This summer has been one of the most productive I've ever had. I've written a longish story, two essays (for a specific purpose; more on that when the information becomes more relevant), five short-shorts, and tomorrow, I should wrap up a second longish story that's going to clock in, I think, at around 8000 words. I've also written about 3000 words already on the next story I'm going to write.

And I've started working out a little, and eating better.

Maybe that whole shaving-my-head thing ended up paying off, gave me just the kind of fresh start I needed.

* * *

After I missed out on the movie tonight, I decided to stop off at a bar to have a drink or two, hoping that the alcohol would counteract the espresso I had earlier. When I got home, I wrote the following little micro fiction based on a conversation I overheard at the bar:

Tunisia

He asks her how long it is now until she takes that trip.

Two weeks, she says. And one day.

Her feet bounce in their flip-flops. They curl and flex.

She is sitting on a brick step outside the bar. A beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other.

For the past few days, she has been asking herself, Why Tunisia? She doesn't know thing one about the place.

Looks like you're going to have a good time, he says. A great time.

She wonders: What language do they speak in Tunisia?

What color is the natives' skin?

Where do they fly off to when they want to just get away from things, when they want to wake up and find themselves in an entirely different world?

Dilemma

2008-07-17T14:06:00.000-07:00

I can't decide whether I should go to the midnight opening of The Dark Knight--and be that kind of dork--or to the first matinee they have showing tomorrow afternoon--and be that particular kind of dork.

Really, I'm not sure I'd be able to stay awake for the midnight show. I'm getting old. It might be fun, though, to see who all gets dressed up, or arrives via Batmobile, whatever.

Regardless...I don't think I've ever looked forward this much to a movie. Maybe when I was nine, and I went to see Back to the Future for the second time, because I loved it so much the first time. But I think my excitement this time around is a little more thorough. A little purer. I was just over at the movie's website, and the background music alone was giving me chills.

I think I'm going to have to go tonight.

Links

2008-07-02T06:36:00.000-07:00

Last week, the always excellent Five Chapters serialized Pia Z. Ehrhardt's "Closer, Still."

This week, they're running Ron Rash's "The Gatsons."

* * *
The Comics Reporter recently posted an interview with Lynda Barry, whose What It Is I read a few days ago.

I pretty much loved this book. It's part memoir, part creativity theory, and part workbook, all by way of stunning collages and text. And the above interview does quite a bit to further illuminate the ideas Barry gets down in the book.

I'm thinking I may use this book in an undergrad fiction workshop some time. It would be a cool change of pace.

* * *
And speaking of teaching...

I spent most of May talking about narrative journalism in my Beginning Nonfiction course, and I have to say, I've come to really love the genre.

Last week, Esquire posted online a story from their September 2007 issue: "Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die" by Luke Dittrich. I began reading it mostly out of curiosity but became totally swept up in the narrative spun by Dittrich. I taught narrative journalism using The Best American Crime Reporting 2007, and I'm betting this article winds up in next year's edition.

Boil Order

2008-06-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

Due to the flooding of the Mississippi, Galesburg's water treatment facility in Oquawka has been threatened, and the city issued a precautionary boil order earlier this week.

That first day, I put off buying extra water, and by the time I went out into the world, every store in town had been cleared out. The following morning, feeling very much as if I were Ma on Little House on the Prairie, I boiled two pots of water for back-up, and went out early to buy bottled water and gallon jugs.

I thought we might use that boiled water to refill the gallon jugs, or to cook with, but we haven't touched it at all.

The boil order is supposed to be lifted this afternoon, which will be good. The situation with laundry and dishes is getting pretty dire around here.

But things are still pretty tame in general, compared to a lot of nearby places*, and really, the boil order hasn't meant all that much to me. It has made me realize, though, just how much water I waste when I brush my teeth and wash my hands, because I've been performing these activities using the gallon jugs. It's ludicrous, how much water I use, how much I take getting it out of the tap for granted. I would say I've learned a lesson or something, but odds are, once that boil order is lifted, I will immediately resort back to my wasteful ways.

*J.C. and I went to Iowa City last Thursday to see Iron & Wine, just as the Iowa and Cedar Rivers were getting bad. By Friday morning, when we were leaving town, there was only one way out of Iowa City, and I-80 was closed. So, we went on a little 200-mile detour through Iowa in order to travel about 50 miles. But...we did get to see firsthand the terrible devastation in Cedar Rapids. Plus, the detour took us within three miles of the Field of Dreams, so we stopped off to see it, only it, too, had been devasted by storms.

Summer

2008-06-16T06:23:00.000-07:00

I took the above photo a couple weeks ago when J.C. and I walked over to my office on campus. What you see: Mostly Aldi sacks, filled with portfolios. I've found that Aldi sacks, which are large and durable, are perfect for holding a class' worth of three-ring binders and folders. The above--along with some work that's inside that black filing cabinet--is what I've accumulated over the past three years.

As of the middle of last week, I now have two more Aldi sacks to add to the floor of my office, which means the summer has begun.

I still have a few recommendations to write and some bureaucratic details to take care of, but for the most part, it's just me and all of the writing I hope to get done.

I'll probably provide a few more details about what I'm working on and how I'm going about it in the days to come, but I'll spare you for now.

Instead, I'll say this: I think I'm going to get my head shaved today.

I doubt you will see any photos of me for a while in which I am not wearing a Cubs hat.

Makeover

2008-06-15T20:23:00.000-07:00

J.C. made me a new masthead this weekend and generally spruced up the place. She even finally made sure I was updated to the new Blogger, which I have to admit does seem to be quite a bit more functional than the old Blogger.

I shouldn't be so averse to change.

And speaking of change...I may end up playing around with my sidebar in the next few days, so be on the lookout.

In the meantime: We usually surf the web in Firefox, and everything with the blog looks pretty solid in Firefox to us. If anything looks screwy to you in my new digs here, though, feel free to let me know.

Yessir, Yessir

2008-06-10T15:21:00.001-07:00

J.C. took a video of me playing pre-school Singstar (a game we made up, as far as I know) with my niece.

Then she put this together.

My apologies to all of you out there who truly love "Baa Baa Black Sheep."

Indianapolis

2008-06-08T20:31:00.000-07:00

J.C. & I outside our hotel, right before we took a "cab" to Broad Ripple for the night.

I had asked the desk clerk at the hotel about cabs, and she gave me the business card of the company they use. The card said only "Taxi Service" at its top, followed by some phone numbers. After calling one of the numbers to request a pick-up, I didn't think much of it, until a pristine white Town Car showed up in front of the hotel and a guy exited the car and entered the building.

I realized a few minutes after J.C. and I took the above photo that someone had called my cell phone, and when I called the person back, the guy who'd walked into the hotel was coming back outside. The guy was white, about our age. "I thought you stood me up," he said.

When we got into the cab, he told us it would be a flat rate, cash only. There was no meter on the dash; there were no certificates anywhere. It seemed to be just this guy and his clean car. We agreed with the price, and we were on our way.

Topics of conversation on the way there included (but were not limited to): snakebites, pizza vs. burgers, displaced turtles, water buffalo, nature hikes in South Dakota.

A strange man.

We decided not to call him back for our return trip.

The marquee for the concert, our reason for visiting Indianapolis this past weekend.

The everybodyfields opened for The Avett Brothers at the Vogue, and all in all, it was the best show I think I've ever seen.

I know it's a bit of a cliche to say something like that, but The Avett Brothers were amazing. If you've ever heard and liked one of their songs, you owe it to yourself to go and check this band out live. What I personally loved was how obvious the band's love for playing music was. "High-energy" is an understatement. But to say it was just that undersells how amazingly they played and sang. Really, an unbelievable show.

And the everybodyfields were great as well. I now have a minor crush on Jill Andrews. And probably on Sam Quinn, too; he seemed to me just the right kind of unique.

Yes, We Can--by will.i.am

2008-06-03T12:00:00.001-07:00

Wigleaf/Dogzplot

2008-05-17T09:51:00.000-07:00

Those of you who check this blog regularly may have noticed that I was pretty much absent for the entire month of February. I was busy teaching and writing for a lot of that month, and when I was online, I kept myself busy by reading stories for Wigleaf's Top 50 (Very) Short Stories of 2007 rather than by posting any blog entries.

If you're not sure what all I'm talking about, here are some links:

Scott's foreward to Wigleaf's Top 50 (Very) Short Stories of 2007

My introduction to the same

Wigleaf's homepage, where you can find a link to the stories

If you can't tell from my intro, I had a blast reading the stories from the long list. The only problem, really, was figuring out how to narrow the number of stories down to fifty. Or, err, fifty-five.

Much thanks to Scott and Wigleaf for asking me to play along.

* * *
And speaking of very short stories...

I have a little thing called "Preparation" up at Dogzplot.

You can read it at the Dogzplot blog or at Dogzplot's MySpace page.

Much thanks to Barry Graham and the cool folks at Dogzplot for having me.

And if you haven't yet done so, you should check out the latest issue of Dogzplot, which contains work by Elizabeth Ellen, Steven J. McDermott, Dawn Corrigan, and Yu-Han Chao, among many excellent others.

Chris Ware...

2008-05-14T21:56:00.000-07:00

doing work with This American Life.

(via)

Summer of Skin

2008-05-01T22:42:00.000-07:00

No, the post's title is not a reference to my impending summer vacation. We're on terms here, which means I still have four-plus weeks to go. With all that's left to do, though, they should pass by pretty quickly.

But back to the post's title: My story "Summer of Skin" appears in the May/June 2008 issue of The Rambler, which is available now. The magazine looks great, and, as always, I'm pretty thrilled about it all.

The story isn't excerpted online or anything, but you can check out the full table of contents here.

Also, the cool artwork that accompanies the story, done by James Gustavson, can be viewed over at his blog. Just click here. I really like how he portrayed the dad in the story. It's pretty much perfect.

Erased

2008-04-28T22:04:00.000-07:00

A couple years ago--my first year teaching here at Knox--I received a story from a student in my Beginning Fiction class that kind of blew me away. Students have done this since then, of course--blown me away with stories--but this may have been the first time it happened.

Not long after that, I received an email from the student letting me know that her story--the one she'd turned in to me in class--had been accepted for publication at Fantasy Magazine.

Now, after a little bit of a wait, it is available online.

You can check it out here.

And if you're someone who may be deterred by the fact that the story's been published in a magazine devoted to fantasy--this is very much a fantastical story, more akin to Aimee Bender than anything else. I really think you should go and read it. Elena's an exceptionally talented writer, and I'm thrilled to see her publish her first story.

Amy Hempel...

2008-04-23T22:33:00.000-07:00

in a cool, two-minute video, can be found here.

Rail City

2008-04-20T19:27:00.000-07:00

My story "Rail City" is keeping excellent company in the latest issue of 5_Trope.

You can view the full table of contents here.

And my story, a kind of ode to the trains in Galesburg, can be found here.

Ellisville

2008-04-12T22:14:00.000-07:00

This morning, J.C. and I drove to Ellisville for the Sassafras Festival. We ate ham and beans and drank sassafras tea and took a few photos. Here are a couple of them:

Key West

2008-04-12T22:02:00.000-07:00

J.C. and I went to Key West back in December, and I've been slow to upload the photos. Here are a few:

Hemingway's writing spot.

A pier, from the booze cruise.

Me, on the booze cruise.

Avery: An Anthology of New Fiction

2008-04-08T20:20:00.000-07:00

Matt Bell says everything you need to know about Avery: An Anthology of New Fiction in the post* you will find yourself at if you click anywhere on this text. Go ahead. Do it.

And as a side note, Mr. Bell has been updating his blog quite frequently lately. Whenever I feel like I'm on top of things in the literary world, I check Matt's blog when he's updating and quickly realize I know nothing. But he always sends me in the right (and some very cool) direction.

*He mentions my name in the post, but ignore that; it's not the reason I'm sending you over his way. For reals.

Brevity

2008-04-08T18:59:00.000-07:00

This is the third week of spring term, and I'm teaching Beginning Nonfiction for the first time. Prepping for the course, I was fairly stressed out. New preps always require more work, of course, but there was something so daunting to me about teaching a class called "Beginning Nonfiction." The possibilities seemed practically endless, and I wanted to cover as many topics in our ten-week term as I could. Eventually, I narrowed what we would cover down and so far am happy with how things are going.

Last week, I used two different packets consisting of pieces of creative nonfiction and craft essays from the always fantastic Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction.

Included were the following excellent essays:

"Nine Days" by Suzanne LeFetra

&

"The Sloth" by Jill Christman

as well as the following craft essays, which I also loved:

"On Miniatures" by Lia Purpura

&

"Nonfiction is Translation" by Brian Goedde

The Sun

2008-04-01T20:57:00.000-07:00

Exciting, amazing, wonderful, (etc.) news: My story "Especially Roosevelt" appears in the April 2008 issue of The Sun Magazine.

The story isn't excerpted online, but you can check me out in the table of contents here.

This issue, like pretty much every issue of The Sun, has a lot to offer, so I encourage you all, if you're so inclined, to seek it out.

the everybodyfields

2008-03-30T20:18:00.000-07:00

Have you all heard of the everybodyfields? If you haven't, they might be worth your discovering.

I found out about them because J.C. is abandoning me next week. She's going to Chicago to see friends and 1) attend a concert, where the everybodyfields will be opening and 2) watch a Cubs game during their home opening weekend.

At first, I was only jealous about her sitting at Wrigley in early April. Now, I'm a little pissed about the fact that I'll be here in Galesburg while she's watching the everybodyfields.

She'll also, I'm guessing, get to eat good sushi, which irks me some, too.

But, alas, I have work to do.

I finished a story this morning that I'm pretty excited about. It's a kind of sequel to the first ever story I published, way back in 2003 in McSweeney's. I thought this story was going to do a certain thing, but it didn't end up doing that, and now that means there's going to be a third story in the cycle. I'll be visiting the coffee shop tomorrow night to give this story a final lookover to see what I think of it.

For fun, here's the first few sentences:

Peloma left the consent form on the dining room table with a sticky note attached to it. The form was folded into thirds as if it had been in an envelope, and the yellow note rose from the paper like a little ramp.

On the note, she had written, “Please?” and beneath that, in small block letters inside parentheses, “I can help pay.” I had to squint to see it, but she’d drawn a tiny smiley face—with X’s for eyes, no nose, and a smile no bigger than a comma—beneath the word “help.”

Postcards From Yo Momma

2008-03-30T19:28:00.000-07:00

This site is very funny.

Reading it makes me feel a little voyeuristic, but I haven't come across anything too terrible yet. Mostly it just makes me laugh.

My mom could have given some of the emails a run for their money back in the day. Lately, sadly, she just forwards me lame things that circulate around her office.

Hilarious

2008-03-26T21:23:00.000-07:00

Novelists Strike Fails To Affect Nation Whatsoever

LOS ANGELES—The economy has seen no adverse effects, as American consumers easily adjust to the sudden cessation of any bold new sprawling works of fiction.

Pop Culture

2008-03-24T15:13:00.000-07:00

When I was studying White Noise as an undergrad, I thought that a class on Elvis would be ludicrous. I was an English Lit. and Classics double major, and I was a bit of a snob; I was certain that the reason people attended college was to get away from pop culture, not to immerse themselves in it.

Ten years later, however, my thoughts on all that have changed quite a bit. One of the professors in the psychology department at the school where I teach is researching the positive effects of gossip. One of the philosophy professors teaches gangster films and The Sopranos in order to probe philosophical conceits. And one of my colleagues in the English department teaches a class on Jane Austen and Bridget Jones.

And me? I'm fine with bringing up in fiction class how flashbacks are used in The Family Guy in order to contrast those methods with how they are used in some short story we've just read. Or I'll outline on the board the complexity of Tony Soprano's character. I even used to incorporate The O.C. into my lecture on meta-fiction.

But a couple weeks ago, right as Winter term was ending, I may have reached a new low, by pure accident. A student had written a creation tale, and in this tale he'd incorporated a number of poems. The poems were a little odd to me, and at the bottom of one of his manuscript pages, I wrote that the poems seemed to be equal parts Robert Blake and Shel Silverstein.

Then, in class, when the poems in the student's story were brought up, I said out loud that the poems seemed equal parts Robert Blake and Shel Silverstein. Not one student noticed, but after I'd said Robert Blake instead of William Blake out loud, I certainly did.

I wonder if Baretta ever wrote any poems.

Lady Lazarus

2008-03-24T14:47:00.000-07:00

Dear Andrew Foster Altschul,

Do you remember reading the opening of your new novel, Lady Lazarus, (pictured below) at the Sewanee Writers' Conference?

Do you remember how after you finished reading everybody was all "Ooh" and "Ahh" and telling you "Oh-my-god-that-was-so-brilliant" and asking "When is it coming out? Can I buy it right now?"

And then do you remember how I walked up to you and said, "Dude, seriously? That's the best you got?"

Well, Andrew Foster Altschul, I just want to say that I was only joking. I mean, if I'd really hated what you read (and I didn't, I swear. I mean, I loved every frickin second of it) I probably wouldn't have said anything at all. I would have just left the building, wiped my hands of you completely.

But I didn't hate it, Andrew. I just didn't want to be like everybody else (and by everybody else I mean the seventy or eighty people who were all super-stoked and standing around asking other people who were still in the auditorium, "Did you see that? Were you here for Andrew Foster Altschul's reading?" Like, duh. It was two minutes ago. You think I walked in here right after he finished?). I didn't want to be like the rest of those people, those Altschul-lovers. That's why I told you your reading was terrible. But, like I said, I didn't mean it at all.

And just to prove that I didn't mean it, and that really I was probably only jealous of you and the amazing opening to the novel you'd written, I want you to know that I just pre-ordered Lady Lazarus from Powell's. In fact, I ordered five copies, so that I can give one to my mom and one to my wife and the remaining two to strangers I pass in the street. Those strangers may think it's odd, my handing them a book, but what I'm going to tell them is, "Read this. Right now. Andrew Foster Altschul is a god."

I hope they don't freak out.

And I hope you'll forgive me, Andrew Foster Altschul.

Your (kinda, maybe) friend,
Chad S.

P.S. I think it's cool that Calliope Bird Morath, the protagonist of Lady Lazarus, has her own MySpace page. I'm going to send her a friend request right now.

P.P.S. I think it's cool, too, that you worked with Stephen Elliott on that new book that arrived at my house the other day, Where to Invade Next. I've been reading bits of it before I go to bed, and holy crap does it give me nightmares. You and Stephen and McSweeney's are all awesome.

P.P.P.S. I hope this whole post isn't funny to only, like, two people.

Barrelhouse

2008-03-06T01:56:00.000-08:00

And speaking of recently released literary endeavors...The new issue of Barrelhouse is available for mass consumption.

It includes fiction by Jim Ruland, Emily Doak, some guy named Rob McClure Smith, and many more, as well as an essay by me, in the magazine's tribute to "Dive Bar Stories."

I've long admired Barrelhouse, and not too long ago, I took this issue to bed with me, intending to read only the other Dive Bar essays. However, once I finished them, I ended up reading several stories in the issue, along with a number of fine poems.

No joke, the work in this issue kept me up for hours. I am humbled and grateful to have something written by me included among such excellent work. Seriously, go and look for yourselves at all this issue has to offer.

Storyglossia

2008-03-06T01:52:00.000-08:00

The new issue of Storyglossia, guest edited by Katrina Denza, is live, with excellent work from some of my favorite writers--including Kathy Fish, Myfanwy Collins, and Claudia Smith--as well as a couple of pals (and also great writers)--Eugene Cross and Laura van den Berg.

Go and check it out now.

The Avett Brothers - November Blues

2008-01-18T21:02:00.001-08:00

Probably my new favorite band.

Poll

2008-01-04T20:32:00.000-08:00

One of J.C.'s friends who really enjoyed "A Man and His Fork" is encouraging her to shoot a movie of me every week. So, J.C. has come up with some options for the next video. If you feel like it, you can comment or email me with your vote.

This is so like the primaries.

Or not really.

Here goes:

Chad chops an onion ("A Man and His Tears")

Chad cross-stiches ("A Man and His Needle")

Chad performs "Tricky" by Run DMC on Singstar ("A Man and His Rhythm")

Chad watches ultimate fighting ("A Man and His Pay-Per-View")

Chad takes a nap ("A Man and his Sleep Apnea")

Best of 2007

2008-01-04T20:23:00.000-08:00

I came across Sewanee-pal Derek Nikitas' new blog and Best of 2007 list the other day, and he inspired me to put together my own little list. So, here goes:

Best Film

Hands down: No Country for Old Men. I read the book about a month ago in anticipation of seeing the film and finally got to check it out last week. Everything about it--the acting, the cinematography, the script--was gorgeous. And the Coen brothers' adaptation of McCarthy was so faithful I almost wish I hadn't read the book beforehand. Which, I know, is an odd thing to wish for.

Runners-Up

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Into the Wild

Actually, those may be the only three movies I saw in the theatre this year.
* * *
Best Book

Three-way tie: The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid, The Interloper by Antoine Wilson & The Sky is a Well and Other Stories by Claudia Smith. Actually, these are the only three books published in 2007 that I read, but they're all fantastic.

Some books sitting around the house that were published in 2007 but won't be read until 2008:

Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
The Sabotage Cafe by Joshua Furst
Pyres by Derek Nikitas
Ovenman by Jeff Parker
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
Yes, Yes Cherries by Mary Otis
Refresh, Refresh by Benjamin Percy
The Secret Lives of People in Love by Simon Van Booy
Famous Fathers by Pia Z. Ehrhardt

And there are probably a few more, but that's all that's springing to mind right now.

Yes, I have a lot of reading to do.

But lots of good reading.
* * *
Best Snack

Roasted, unsalted peanuts.

I've eaten a lot of them this year.
* * *
Best Album

In Rainbows--Radiohead

A few others vying for contention:

The Shepherd's Dog--Iron & Wine
Sky Blue Sky--Wilco
The Stage Names--Okkervil River
Boxer--The National
* * *
Best Thing to Cook at Home

Nachos.

J.C. and I have been getting pretty creative on the nachos-front.
* * *
Best Dessert

Tiramisu.

Always Tiramisu.

Okay--Sometimes cheesecake.
* * *
Best Music I was Unaware of Until 2007

Okkervil River
The Avett Brothers
Sigur Ros
* * *
Best Websites

Amy Stein's Photography Blog
Clusterflock
NPR Music
* * *
Best Joke

Two Pickets to Titsburgh, as told by Jamie Iredell at Bread Loaf. Pure comic genius.
* * *
There's more, always more, but I don't want to wrap 2007 up quite yet.

2 X 2

2008-01-02T15:00:00.000-08:00

by Scott Garson:

"Loop"

&

"The Happy Family"

by Mary Miller

"A Detached Observer"

&

"My Old Lady"

* * *
Happy New Year.

Now go and read some stories.

A Man and His Fork

2007-12-29T12:27:00.000-08:00

J.C. shot and edited a video of me this morning.

It's pretty hilarious, and you can check it out here.

Recipes

2007-12-26T12:48:00.000-08:00

This Christmas both my grandmother and my favorite aunt returned gifts to me that I had once given them.

My grandmother returned a Thank You note I had written to her and grandpa after I graduated from high school. I'll spare you the details on that one.

My favorite aunt returned a cookbook I had given her that one of my elementary school teachers had put together. I think it was from second or third grade. Basically, we students and our mothers contributed recipes and the teacher wrote them all out and photocopied (or mimeographed--the ink is a kind of purple color) them into recipe books.

I'll share my recipe, and then one more, which is pretty hilarious. Okay, mine's a little funny, too.

Here's mine:

Star Cookies

3 C. powder
2 1/2 C. sugar
3 1/2 C. milk
3 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs

Mix the ingredients to make a dough. Flatten the dough with clean hands. Cut cookies out with a star cookie cutter. Bake for 1/2 hr. in 50 degree oven.

Frost cookies when cool and decorate with Christmas sprinkles.

Frosting

3 1/2 C. sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
1 stick butter

Mix all ingredients together and beat until creamy.

Here's Tony G.'s:

Cotton Candy

1 1/2 C. cotton
1 C. sugar
1/2 C. cherry flavoring

Roll the cotton out flat. Put sugar in. Then put flavoring in. Now it's ready to eat.

* * *
If anybody happens to try either of these out, be sure to let me know about it.

Sister Winter--Sufjan Stevens

2007-12-24T22:22:00.001-08:00

I think I posted a different video for this song about this time last year, but it remains one of my most favorite Christmas songs ever, and so I'm posting it again. Seriously--it's right up there with "O Holy Night."

Happy holidays, all.

If you're up for it...your favorite holiday songs in comments. A couple more of mine: "Let Me Sleep (It's Christmas-time)" by Pearl Jam and "Another Lonely Christmas" by Prince.

Update: Jennifer Love Hewitt

2007-12-21T15:17:00.000-08:00

First: Did you know Raymond Carver has a MySpace page? I'm currently awaiting approval to be his friend.

I do hope he says yes.

Second, a poem. I'm working on a little sequence/series of poems. Well, I conceptualized a little sequence/series of poems a while back, and I recently started working on some, mostly as a way to get me working on the stories and essay that I really want to be working on.

This is an early draft, but what the hell--I never claimed to be a poet.

* * *
Which Party of Five Character Are You?

I confess: I used to love
Jennifer Love Hewitt. There was

something imperfect about her nose or ears, her teeth
were crooked, and her breasts

were amazing. I don’t remember
the name of her character on the show,

only that she was somebody’s
girlfriend and that she used to say

Bailey in this way that was so real and full
of hurt she made me

want to change my name.

Update: In the Mail

2007-12-21T14:34:00.000-08:00

Right now, I'm drinking espresso made from this...

the Francis! Francis! X3 Light Blue Espresso Maker, which just arrived via UPS, an early Christmas gift I bought for J.C.

And, you know, for me, too.

My first effort isn't spectacular, but it isn't bad, either.

Hilarious

2007-12-20T10:24:00.000-08:00

Koalas are weak.

(Via)

Update: Pittsburgh

2007-12-20T09:53:00.000-08:00

First, I want to thank those of you who have been stopping by here on a regular basis even though I haven't. Second, I apologize for not being around. I'll try to do better. And, for the next couple days at least, I'll be posting some updates.

I mentioned a few weeks back that I was on my way to Pittsburgh to see my pals Ben and Eugene.

Eugene, he was easily the hostess with the mostest.

I arrived starving on Thursday night, and Eugene took me to Primanti Bros. for a Pittsburgh-style sandwich. I didn't know Pittsburgh had its own style of sandwich, but it does, and it involves cole slaw and fries. Eugene said egg was pretty popular, too, so I got a steak sandwich with cole slaw and fries and egg on it, and it was amazing. Plus, we drank several Yuengling drafts. I'd had Yuengling a couple times, but I'd never had it on draft, and I have to say it is one of my favorite draft beers. And it's perfectly matched with a steak sandwich served with cole slaw and fries and fried egg.

We bounced around to a couple bars that night, and the next day Eugene drove me around Pitt, where I got to check out the Cathedral of Learning. I've been on a lot of college campuses, and that cathedral may be the coolest academic building I've ever seen.

Friday night was the reading at Gist Street. I'd read about people giving readings at Gist Street for a while, but because I live in the Midwest, it had remained this kind of mystery, like the Happy Ending Reading Series or the KGB Bar, these places I see referenced on websites and such. Because I always read about these kinds of places on the Internet, I tend to think that they must be overrated--that nobody actually shows up, they're not all that special, etc. So, I set myself up a little to be letdown. And then, of course, I was blown away. There was this amazing space, a sculptor's loft, I think, and it was filled with people and food and a table stacked with bottles of wine and a bathtub filled with ice to which Eugene and I contributed a twelve-pack of ten-ounce cans of Coors Light.

And the reading, of course, was awesome. David Griffith read first and read from one of the excellent essays I linked to a few weeks back. Then Ben read.

I first saw Ben read about five years ago, when he read for a bunch of high schoolers at SIUC's Young Writers' Festival. It was in the afternoon, in a little room, and he blew those high schoolers away. A few may have even asked for his autograph.

And this summer, I saw Ben read at Bread Loaf, where he also dazzled the crowd.

But this one was even better. I spent a lot of the time looking at the crowd, and they were all so into it. I had my eye especially on one woman. She seemed not to want to like Ben--maybe because he's young or because he's had a lot of success already or because he's young and he's had a lot of success already, whatever. At the beginning of the reading, she was giving the man sitting next to her these looks that seemed to me rather dismissive. About five minutes later, though, she was riveted--alternately laughing and looking solemn.

Once the reading was over, Ben sold out of the books he'd brought, and several people took the books back to their seats, ignoring the buffet table and the bottles of wine, and finished reading the story Ben had begun.

So cool.

The rest of that night is a bit of a blur. It involved a bar and lots of talking, etc.

And then Saturday I came home and got ready for the trip J.C. and I took to Key West on Monday. I'll put up some pictures or something from that trip sometime soon, along with a few more updates.

Thanks for stopping by--and again, sorry for the absence.

Randomness

2007-11-29T19:11:00.000-08:00

i don't care much one way or the other
about Neil Young

but it happens every so often, as it did
two nights ago

when i was driving back from Abingdon,
and i saw the moon--

this too large and too heavy-looking
thing in the sky

shaped like a half-eaten hedge apple
but red, or orange

or some color in between--and even
though it's December--

two months past the proper time for it,
the sowing,

i thought, driving north on forty-one,
that's a harvest moon

and i thought of some song i've never really
cared for all that much

one way or the other. i'm not even sure now
what it was

i was actually listening to.

Read--Promise Breaker

2007-11-27T12:18:00.000-08:00

The other day, at the urging of Ms. Maud, I printed out a copy of Chris Adrian's "Promise Breaker," from the new issue of Esquire. I printed out a couple stories that day, though, and so I didn't get around to reading it right away.

Then, this morning, I saw that Ms. Crispin, a.k.a. Bookslut, recommended the same story. In fact, I think she said that everyone should go and read it right now.

And so I did. About a half hour ago. And now I'm telling you to go and read it, too. Right now. Here. You'll be glad you did.

Read--Percy and Griffith

2007-11-27T12:00:00.000-08:00

Next week I'm heading to Pittsburgh to visit my pal Eugene and attend a reading at Gist Street by another pal, Benjamin Percy. I am wholly fired up about this little trip, even if people keep making fun of me when I tell them I'm going to Pittsburgh over break. Well, actually I tell them I'm going to Key West (because I am, with J.C.), but before that, I tell them, I'm going to Pittsburgh. And sure, perhaps Pittsburgh and Key West are a bit incongruous. But Eugene's going to be there. And Ben. So.

Ben's second collection of stories, Refresh, Refresh, has been getting great reviews and is sitting very near the top of my to-be-read pile. I suggest you all run out and get a copy. Or click on the cover below and order one from Powell's.

I did a little perusing on the Internets to see if anybody else was going to be reading with Ben, and I found out that David Griffith will be. I hadn't heard of Mr. Griffith or his book, A Good War is Hard to Find: The Art of Violence in America, but after reading two essays by Mr. Griffith the other night, I'm looking forward to both his reading and picking up a copy of the book while I'm there.

Read "Prime Directive" here. And "An Orchestrated Attack: War's Sound Track Echoes from Dresden to Iraq" here. Both of them are worth your time.

Read--Deathly

2007-11-27T11:56:00.000-08:00

A poem by my main man Rodney Jones.

Handle With Care

2007-11-09T19:26:00.001-08:00

I was twelve years old in 1988, when this song was first released.

I really liked it, but I didn't think about it much until about a year or so ago, when Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins covered it.

Now, looking back on it all, I realize that back in 1988 I knew who Tom Petty and Roy Orbison were, but I had no idea who Bob Dylan and George Harrison were.

I know, it's sad. I blame my parents.

I still don't know who Jeff Lynne is.

On a related note, I'm pretty sure that the collection of stories I've been working on forever was at one point tentatively titled "Handle with Care."

For now, it remains "All I Have in the World."

Nerves

2007-11-08T09:16:00.000-08:00

This summer I got to hang out with a lot of writers, right?

And, you know, writers are regular people and all that, even the ones that are really good.

Really, I tend not to care so much about writers as people. I mean, unless they're friends. If they're not friends, I'm usually most interested in the work they produce.

If I happen to meet certain writers whose work I admire, as I had the opportunity to do this summer, then that's cool and all, but it doesn't, like, make me nervous or anything.

Because, as I said, writers are just regular people.

Most writers, that is.

There are still a few who, to me, are not really regular people at all. They're superhuman. And these writers, I don't really want to meet them, because I know I'll just stare dumbly at them most of the time.*

Tonight, I am having dinner with one of those writers whom I consider superhuman.

I know I'm being a tease, but I'm not even going to type the person's name.

Instead, I'll give some hints. If you want, you can see how many hints it takes you to figure out the person's name.

1. His initials are the fourth and tenth letters of the alphabet.

2. His most famous book is a book of short stories, but he's published volumes of poetry and novels, too.

3. After he leaves Galesburg, he's flying to New York to attend the National Book Award ceremony, for which he has been nominated this year.

Yeah. Him.

Here's hoping I don't spill wine down my shirt, say something too stupid, etc.

*This happened to me once, about five years ago, and I'm working on an essay about that experience.

The Real and True Story

2007-10-22T21:30:00.000-07:00

My story "The Real and True Story" appeared in the Spring 2007 issue of Red Wheelbarrow, and Randolph Splitter and the fine folks at Red Wheelbarrow recently updated the website and posted the story's full text.

If you'd like to, you can read it here.

And if you're one of those people who actually goes and reads it: I'm in the process of doubling this story's length. As it is, the piece kind of pretends to be the real and true story, which initially was an exercise in ethos. In recent drafts, I'm playing with the real and true story a little more, and it's becoming a story I truly love working on.

I think I may end up submitting the final version to a chapbook contest or two, depending on how it all turns out.

Highlights

2007-10-22T21:18:00.001-07:00

My wife sent me a call a couple weeks back for a contest hosted by Highlights Magazine. They're looking for stories of fewer than 800 words. The theme: The Future.

I didn't think I'd actually work on a story for kids, but a day or two later, I ended up writing six hundred or so words of the beginning to some story. For fun, here's the first paragraph:

Carlos Padilla had always imagined what Rio, Illinois, would look like in the year 2998. Rio was the Spanish word for river, but in Illinois, they pronounced it rye-oh. Carlos thought rivers were sometimes beautiful, especially at night, when he and his parents drove on a bridge over one. The lights were like stars on the water, and the river, it was like another solar system, right there beneath him. He could have sat in the back seat of his parents' car and stared at the river forever.

SNL Digital Short

2007-10-22T21:16:00.001-07:00

I wanted to post a different digital short, but apparently, NBC isn't letting the stuff stay up on YouTube.

This one probably won't last all that long, but I'm putting it up anyway, because Andy Samberg, he's awesome.

Public Service Announcement

2007-10-22T20:55:00.000-07:00

From Avery: An Anthology of New Fiction:

November 3rd, 8:00 p.m. at Stain Bar in beautiful Brooklyn, NY.

Avery will have a reading/fundraiser in order to kick off our second issue! Come hear Leigh Newman read from her story "How Monster is Monster," which appeared in Avery 1. And stay for Jonny Diamond (real name), who will read from his story, "Notes on an Elevator Man: A Story in Thirty Chapters," which appears in Avery 2!

We promise action, adventure and, best of all, words!

From me: Avery has excerpts of issue two's stories up at their website, along with the new issue's gorgeous cover. I implore each and every one of you to go and check it out. And while you're there, do what you can to support Adam, Steph, and Andrew. They are cool, cool people, and they're doing all they can to put good stories out into the world.

Don't let this kind of deed go unrecognized.

Comic--Yesterday was a Sunday

2007-09-28T19:09:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Issue 13 of McSweeney's, I was introduced to the work of John Porcellino, author of, among other things, King-Cat Comics. At the time, I wasn't all that familiar with comics and/or graphic novels--I think I'd read only Christopher Ware's novel, and Porcellino's work, like Ware's, was different than anything I'd ever seen. I was really drawn to it (pardon the pun) and immediately wrote a kind of imitation.

The problem, though, was that I can't/couldn't draw at all.

So, I sat on the story and figured someday I'd find a collaborator. Last year, I considered sending out an email to the art majors at Knox, but I never followed through with it, because, honestly, I wasn't sure I wanted to mess with all the work that can ensue during a collaboration.

While I was at Bread Loaf, though, I met a writer of fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and, yes, comics, named Amanda Nazario. During an email exchange after the conference, I told her about that I'd written a comic a few years ago that had no pictures and asked her if she'd like to work on it. She said she would, and she offered several notes right away. She told me how she envisioned the guy, his apartment, all these little details, and they were pretty much exactly in line with what I'd imagined. Then she got to work drawing.

The results of her efforts arrived in the mail today, and I have to say, I think it's pretty cool. I have, oh, I'm not sure how many copies, but if you want one, I'd be glad to mail it to you. For free, of course. Just e-mail me your address, and, eventually, I'll get it sent.

I've already finished writing comic story number 2 and I'm working on numbers 3 & 4, and, if I can get Amanda to keep working with me, I'm curious (and excited) to see how they'll all turn out.

Flattering...

2007-09-25T20:32:00.000-07:00

Because I'm surrounded by some amazing people. I could list off their names and accomplishments, and just how awesome I think everybody in this photograph is, but it would somehow defeat the purpose. So, I'll just let it be.*

*And Amy, this doesn't mean I love the Sewanee folks any less; all it means is that I have no decent pictures of y'all.

Forthcoming

2007-09-19T19:49:00.000-07:00

A while back, I saw that Barrelhouse put out a call for "Dive Bar Stories," and I knew right away that I wanted to write one and submit it--for two reasons: The more obvious one--Barrelhouse has been doing some great work for the last couple years, putting out a great magazine. The less obvious one (at least to you, that is)--I didn't have a specific dive bar story I wanted to tell, but I had a particular dive bar I wanted to write about.

Well, there was a story I pretty much wanted to get at, and I wanted to get at it by way of a particular bar, but I wasn't quite sure how to go about it. What I did: I took my laptop to the bar one afternoon while the Cubs were playing. On my way from the parking lot to the bar, I ran into a former student, and we chatted for a bit, and I told him over the course of our conversation about my plan to go to the bar to write for a while. He chuckled like I was telling a joke, and I didn't bother to let him know that I was telling the truth.

I ended up doing just as I planned--going to the bar, ordering a Coors Light, and starting the essay. I wrote a couple thousand words that afternoon and eventually went home and then spent the next few days away from the bar, shaping what I'd written.

And the good news: My essay "Home of the Poor and Unknown" is forthcoming in the next issue of Barrelhouse.

I couldn't be happier, though I'm a little worried some part of my brain is going to start encouraging me to write in bars while drinking more frequently.

Slightly More Flattering...

2007-09-19T19:12:00.000-07:00

(because it's dimly lit):

The first night my fellow waiters and I didn't have to serve dinner at Bread Loaf, we hightailed it to Middlebury so that we could sit down at a restaurant and have people wait on us.

This is me after that dinner, hanging with Justin Torres, in a photo taken by Emily P.

I got the great chance to meet and hang out with a lot of terribly talented writers this summer, and I think Justin T.'s work may have impressed me more than anybody else's.

And since I'm posting a photo, a reminder: J.C.'s been pretty impressive at keeping up with our photoblog. You can check it out here.

Wow

2007-09-17T16:09:00.000-07:00

The latest issue of elimae celebrates the best of the online journal's archives from 1996-2004 and includes work by Brian Evenson, Diane Williams, Gary Lutz, Norman Lock, Stephen Ausherman, and Matthew Derby.

The list goes on, but I'll let you discover the rest for yourselves.

Glass

2007-09-14T09:23:00.000-07:00

I have a new story up at Guernica: A Magazine of Art & Politics.

You can read it here.

And thank you, Meakin, for helping make it a little better.

Unflattering

2007-09-12T22:38:00.000-07:00

This is (from left to right) Me, Emily, and Shane on our third and final night as part of Team Bus at Bread Loaf. My glasses are sliding down my nose, and I'm sweaty and smell like bleach, but I actually had some of my favorite moments at the conference back there in the kitchen, scraping food from plates into the compost can and singing, "Ain't to Proud to Bus" (to the tune of TLC's "Ain't to Proud to Beg") & "Bussin'" (to the tune of The Grateful Dead's "Truckin'"). Seriously, it was a good time.

And since I'm in a photography frame of mind: J.C. and I are starting a little photo blog. It's still in its nascent stages, but if you'd like to, you can check it out here.

I'll be posting another Bread Loaf photo or two here in the next couple days. Hopefully, I'll look a little better in them than I do in this one.

September 6, 2007

2007-09-06T07:42:00.000-07:00

It's the official end of my summer: school starts today. I'm really looking forward to it. To hanging out with students and talking about books and stories and poems and what they're writing. To having a schedule. To getting back to writing.

And since Steph was kindly enough to ask: I'm teaching Introduction to Literature & Beginning Fiction Writing. I pretty much love teaching both of them, especially Beginning Fiction, which I haven't taught since last fall. To celebrate, and to show in a way how much I appreciate the ways in which my students lay it all out there, I'm going to do a bit of self-exposure here, by putting up a story that I wrote as an undergrad. I did this a while back, and I could link to it, but I don't feel like digging through my archives right now. So, here's the story--my impulse, of course, is to edit it, but I'm putting it up pretty much the way it appeared in my undergrad literary magazine.

The Girl Who Lives Beneath Me

At the English Pub, Maria, an American, watched the shadows play on on the wall. The bartenders spun statues hanging from the ceiling in front of bright tract lights and kept the shadows constantly moving. One was a tribal version of "The Thinker" that twirled and made the shadow of a large cylinder. The other was a man who sat in the middle of two curved pieces of wood. It made a shadow that looked like an enormous eye on the wall.

Maria sipped her cider and mostly watched the wall--the cylinder, the large eye.

Another American, Paul, was telling stories and a crowd soon began to gather. He spoke entirely in English and both the Italians and the Americans watched and listened as he spoke.

Maria was fascinated and moved her stool close to where Paul would raise his arms and gesture.

Soon, the crowd fell away and Maria was left with Paul.

He spoke of his European travels and marveled her with strange Machiavellian philosophies, which she did not recognize.

"And men in general judge more by their eyes than their hands; for everyone can see but few feel. Everyone sees what you seem to be, few touch upon what you are," he said.

Maria thought he was sincere, and she wanted to go home with him. When he asked her to, she got up immediately.

At his apartment, the boy talked more about how to be a prince, but Maria began to feel he was being less than sincere.

When she returned from the bathroom, he undid his pants and said, "Why don't you give me head now?"

She thought for some time before making her decision.

* * *
And another thing I'm looking forward to, besides the beginning of school: I hear George Saunders is going to be on Letterman tonight.

I think it's pretty awesome and all, but it also makes me wonder: Is that how it works--one of the best short story writers we got has to write a book of non-fiction in order to guest on the talk-show circuit?

At any rate, I'll be tuning in.

Update: The super-cool author of Ovenman, Jeff Parker, has a little essay-type-thing about both George Saunders and his appearance on Letterman over at the Emerging Writers' Network blog. You can check it out here.

Part Son of a Fallen Star

2007-08-30T20:30:00.000-07:00

I'm a small-town kid.

At the age of twenty-two I moved to Urbana, Illinois, the largest city in which I had (and have) ever lived.

I was pretty into reading and writing at the time, and I was reading a number of "local" authors: Richard Powers, Jean Thompson, Mark Costello, Michael Van Walleghen, and Brigit Pegeen Kelly. I was especially in love at the time with the works of Costello and Kelly. And it hit me at some point, living in Champ-bana, that I might actually come across one of these writers--at, say, the grocery store, or the coffee shop. I knew, based on sketchy author photos, what each of them looked like, but I wasn't always so sure what they would look like outside of the natural habitats of their dusk jackets.

And so I would wonder, when watching some woman thump a melon at Schnuck's, is she a brilliant poet? Or I would guess, while observing a guy sitting down with a double espresso and Tolstoy at Cafe Paradiso, that's the guy whose books I've been reading.

And so I was in Vermont for two weeks recently, where Brigit Pegeen Kelly happened to be on faculty. I spotted her a few days into the conference, and I circled her name on the calendar that let me know when she would be reading.

A few days passed, and then we waiters found out that we had the night off; we didn't have to serve dinner. Plans were made, and we all headed to Middlebury for a group dinner at a restaurant, where no one would ask us to get them coffee or wipe down their table. The idea was: We'd have a nice dinner and then get back in time for that night's reading; we'd be able to see Ms. Kelly and Rishi Reddi at 8:15. But, of course, things don't always work out, and we didn't get back in time to see the reading.

When we got back, I asked a friend how the reading went, and he had this kind of stunned look on his face. "Oh my God," he said. "Brigit Kelly, she read this poem about a scorpion." It went on from there, and he wasn't the only one. I heard from at least seven people about how great Ms. Kelly's reading was. Nearly all of them mentioned the scorpion poem.

Though I didn't get to hear her read it, I've printed out a copy and read it four or five times. Those people who were so amazed, they weren't kidding. Now you can read it, too:

Iskandariya
Brigit Pegeen Kelly

It was not a scorpion I asked for, I asked for a fish, but
maybe God misheard my request, maybe God thought
I said not "some sort of fish," but a "scorpion fish," a
request he would surely have granted, being a goodly
God, but then he forgot the "fish" attached to the
"scorpion" (because God, too, forgets, everything
forgets); so instead of an edible fish, any small fish,
sweet or sour, or even the grotesque buffoonery of the
striped scorpion fish, crowned with spines and
followed by many tails, a veritable sideshow of a fish;
instead of these, I was given an insect, a peculiar
prehistoric creature, part lobster, part spider, part
bell-ringer, part son of a fallen star, something like a
disfigured armored dog, not a thing you can eat, or
even take on a meaningful walk, so ugly is it, so stiffly
does it step, as if on ice, freezing again and again in
mid-air like a listening ear, and then scuttling
backwards or leaping madly forward, its deadly tail
doing a St. Vitus jig. God gave me a scorpion, a
venomous creature, to be sure, a bug with the bite of
Cleopatra's asp, but not, as I soon found out, despite
the dark gossip, a lover of violence or a hater of men.
In truth, it is shy, the scorpion, a creature with eight
eyes and almost no sight, who shuns the daylight, and
is driven mad by fire, who favors the lonely spot, and
feeds on nothing much, and only throws out its poison
barb when backed against a wall — a thing like me,
but not the thing I asked for, a thing, by accident or
design, I am now attached to. And so I draw the
curtains, and so I lay out strange dishes, and so I step
softly, and so I do not speak, and only twice, in many
years, have I been stung, both times because,
unthinking, I let in the terrible light. And sometimes
now, when I watch the scorpion sleep, I see how fine he
is, how rare, this creature called Lung Book or Mortal
Book because of his strange organs of breath. His
lungs are holes in his body, which open and close. And
inside the holes are stiffened membranes, arranged
like the pages of a book — imagine that! And when the
holes open, the pages rise up and unfold, and the blood
that circles through them touches the air, and by this
bath of air the blood is made pure . . . He is a house of
books, my shy scorpion, carrying in his belly all the
perishable manuscripts — a little mirror of the library
at Alexandria, which burned.

(Link)

Back From Bread Loaf

2007-08-27T19:38:00.000-07:00

I'm having a hard time processing it all at this point, but I think I can safely say that the past twelve days was one of the best stretches of time I've ever experienced.

I met such cool people, had such an amazing time.

I started getting almost teary on the plane ride home yesterday, but I couldn't really tell if it was from sadness or exhaustion.

I'll write a little more about my time on the mountain some time soon.

Until then...for a good laugh, go and check out this.

Bread Loaf

2007-08-13T10:50:00.000-07:00

I'm off in the morning for writers' conference #2. I've said the following to a few people in emails and MySpace messages, but I'll repeat it here, for those of you who haven't been privy to it: These conferences are exhausting. When I got back from Sewanee, I talked to my mother-in-law, a retired high school English teacher, on the phone one day, and she expressed how jealous she was that I was going to Bread Loaf. My immediate reaction was to ask her if she wanted to take my place.

That may sound like a joke, but I was utterly sincere. I'd only been back from Sewanee for a day or two, and I couldn't imagine experiencing all that I'd experienced in the previous two weeks--the good and the great and the not-so-great--all over again.

Despite the exhausting bits, Sewanee was a great time, though, and all it took for me to get amped for Bread Loaf was a few good nights' sleep.

The only "problem" I foresee is this: The first few days at a conference like this involve a kind of feeling-out period, lots of getting-to-know-you conversations. Those are good and all, if a bit stressful, but by the end of my time at Sewanee, I'd met so many very cool people, and was so comfortable talking to them, that I'd forgotten about the less comfortable times. And it's just now hitting me that when I get to Bread Loaf I'm going to have to start at the beginning all over again.

The good news, though: I actually know a few people who are going to be at Bread Loaf. Plus, I'll have a job to do--waiting tables. And I suppose, too, I'm more easily able to anticipate the better days that lay just ahead of the more difficult ones, which ought to make things a little easier.

While I'm gone, again, I most likely won't be updating here. I may check out my newly founded MySpace page, where I've been blogging a bit as well. I still haven't figured out exactly how I'm going to manage the two spaces, but my first impressions of MySpace are this: Creating a post is a pretty speedy activity, even if I haven't quite figured out how to link and everything yet. Also, I like being able to post "friends-only" entries. Not that I want to deprive y'all of anything, but I had some good news that I didn't quite want to make public, and those "friends-only" entries are a nice little option in such cases.

At any rate, I'll be back in a couple weeks, and I'll probably keep posting entries at both places once things are back to normal. Or, you know, when things are as normal as they ever are.