I've Moved...

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

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

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

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

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.