Kenyon Review Online

- Hilary Plum and I discuss families in fiction over at the Kenyon Review Blog. We each wrote mini-reviews of a few books. I talked about Chris Bachelder's Abbott Awaits, Karl Taro Greenfeld's NowTrends and Steve Yarbrough's Safe from the Neighbors. I really enjoyed revisiting these books with a particular theme or element in mind. Let's do it again.

Here are a few of the other books I read and enjoyed this year (they weren't all published this year):

If the Heart Is Lean, Margaret Luongo
Assorted Fire Events, David Means
It's Beginning to Hurt, James Lasdun
Alligator Dance, Janet Peery
Hunters and Gamblers, Ryan Ridge
The Family Fang, Kevin Wilson
The Boat, Nam Le
The Lonely Voice, Frank O'Connor
The Universe in Miniature in Miniature, Patrick Somerville
Us, Michael Kimball
Knuckleheads, Jeff Kass
Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, Maile Malloy

I really need to read more women writers next year.

Kenyon Review Online, NowTrends, NEA

- My review of Kevin Wilson's wonderful first novel The Family Fang is up over at KROnline. I really enjoyed this book and you will too. On the front page, my review is sandwiched right between David Bartone and Adam Parker Cogbill. I can't think of a better sandwich to be a part of. KROnline is doing great things.

I'm increasingly interested in how literary journals can use the web to do innovative and forward-thinking things--publishing on tighter schedules, incorporating a greater range of genre and focus, and including more materials--and I think the Kenyon Review is doing a lot in this area. It's good to see such a venue embrace the possibilities of the internet. That sounds lame, but I mean it sincerely.

- Karl Taro Greenfeld's collection NowTrends is out now from Short Flight/Long Drive Books. It's available in print (three different versions--collect them all); and if you order through the Hobart website, you'll get a code for a free ebook version too. Other SF/LD books are also available for your Kindle. Get Adam Novy's The Avian Gospels right here, for example.

- I was very excited to read that friends Al Heathcock, Belle Boggs, Ted Sanders and Sabina Murray had all won NEA Grants this year. Huge congrats to them and to all the winners!

November Hobart, Los Angeles Review

- November Hobart is live (I'm late again)! Stories by Matthew Purdy, Carmela Starace, Alan Steward Carl, James Flaherty and Ted McLoof. Plus and interview with David Meiklejohn! And a spotlight on Karl Taro Greenfeld's upcoming book, NowTrends, available 11/15! Go see him read this month in Philadelphia 11/10, Baltimore 11/12 and Washington D.C. 11/13.

- I got my contributor copy of the Los Angeles Review the other day. It features my story "Priest Lake, Idaho" along with lots of terrific stories, poems, essays, interviews and reviews by the likes of Nick Sansone, Randall Brown, Kyle Hemmings, B.J. Hollars and a whole bunch of others. It's a great issue and I'm really enjoying reading through it. Many thanks to Stefanie Freele and the Los Angeles Review staff for taking this story. Here's the beginning:

There is a man who lives at the end of a street on the outskirts of a medium-sized city in the state of Washington. The street is a cul-de-sac. His house is the one with the black shutters that were replaced upside down when the house was repainted. The man has since never been able to tell just what it is that looks so strange about his house, but he finds, every time he comes home, a deficit in its appearance. For a living he makes fine, artisan furniture.

 

October Hobart

- October Hobart has been published, featuring stories by Kitty Liang, Gene Kwak, Julie Brown, Amity Bitzel, and Rebecca Leece. Plus Lindsey Drager interviews Alex Shakar about his new novel Luminarium; and M Thompson interviews Kevin Murphy about Dark Sky, the books, the magazine, the wonder.

- Speaking of Dark Sky, they are now affiliated with the University of Houston-Victoria, which is excellent news for the press. They have also welcomed Gabe Durham, Christy Crutchfield, Brian Mihok and Sarah Boyer on as editors for the magazine. Exciting, exciting.

- Good book news lately from some good friends: Nat Otting, Gale Thomspon, Anne Holmes & Lily Ladewig. Exciting, exciting. Can't wait for these books!

- Fall was here but now it's hot again.

Ninth Letter, Stories & Beer

- If you're in Champaign-Urbana this weekend, come to the Iron Post in Urbana at 4 pm this Sunday, Oct 2 (the Patriots game probably won't even be on anyway) to see me read in the Stories & Beer reading series along with Katie Schmid, Mike Don and Eugene Cross! I hear there will be nipples, beer, rock anthems and probably even some more beer.

- My story "Water Festival" has been reprinted on the Ninth Letter website. Read it there, but you should also really go ahead and buy a copy of the most recent issue because there are some terrific stories, poems, essays and interviews in the issue. The Ninth Letter folks were also kind enough to interview me about telling the truth and making it up; memory; and the town of Jensen Beach, FL. I had lots of fun with the interview. Hope you do too.

- See you Sunday.

Hobart

- September Hobart is live. Stories by Robert Hinderliter, Ramon Isao, Megan Martin and Kevin Wilson! Visit, read, enjoy.

Hobart, Spork, Witness

- July Hobart is live, featuring stories by Glen Pourciau, J. A. Tyler, Lincoln Michel, xTx and Dustin M. Hoffman. Plus the next three Short Flight/Long Drive books have been announced! They are: NowTrends by Karl Taro Greenfeld, I Have Blinded Myself Writing This by Jess Stoner and Other Kinds by Dylan Nice. Whoa.

- My story "The Rågbjerg Mile" went up at Spork last week. This is part of my linked collection THE WINTER WAR and a companion story (sort of) to "Henrik Brandt Needed Help."It's about the Rågbjerg Mile, which is a huge moving sand dune in Denmark. Google image it. It's wild looking. Here's the beginning of the story:

The straight of Skagerrak and the Kattegat Sea meet and form a distinct line reaching northeastward from the tip of Skagen in Denmark to the southwest coast of Sweden. Here there are turbulent waves and strong, unpredictable currents. Odd is thinking about these currents as he takes his first steps into the frigid water. It is September, too cold to swim. But there is a girl in the water.

- Witness 2.0 has launched and it is exciting! It looks like they'll be publishing twice a year online and once in print. I think this model is really interesting and I'm eager to see how Witness will make use of it. Most exciting of all is this story by my friend and fellow UMass Alum Megan Turner!