I'm Off to...Denver

Going to AWP this year seems to be a little contentious. Maybe it is every year and I just don’t pay attention. I don’t pay much attention. At any rate if you’re not going, you can attend Meg Pokrass’s A Barbaric yAWP Party. Same difference. Probably more fun—less flying at least.

But I’m bound for Denver, and I am ready for my AWP experience. I have everything I need:

√A leather bound notebook so that I can write while other people are just talking about writing.

√A laptop to sit in the free Wi-Fi lobby and blog about the conference.

√An odd hat so people will look at me.

√An odd pair of shoes so that when people are looking down and don’t see my hat they will notice my shoes and look at me.

√Pre-prepared questions/comments (mostly comments) that are so good they will prove that I am smarter than the people on the panel and that I should have been up there in the first place.

√A limber neck so that I can scan the Bookfair as I talk to someone in case there is someone more important I should be talking to.

√Nonalcoholic whiskey to use for shots with other writers who are using actual whiskey so that I can drink them under the table and thus prove I am a better writer.

√My wife--step one in entourage creation.

Away we go.

Me on JMWW

So my flash fiction "Kill Tig!" is in the Spring 2010 Special Flash Issue of JMWW edited by the incomparable and ubiquitous David Erlewine. My flash is about two brothers. I have brothers. Don't read anything into it. Unless you want to, which would mean you would have to read it, which I would not be opposed to. The issue is full of luminaries like Rusty Barnes, Matt Bell, Michael Czyzniejewski, Erin Fitzgerald, Meg Pokrass, Kevin Wilson and more. I especially enjoyed Robert Swartwood's hint fiction "10 Items or Less."

Brick

No, it's not that Ben Folds Five abortion song. It's a reading. It was last Friday night so you missed it unless you were there or were watching the streaming video, in which case I'm sure you enjoyed it. Good news, though, they'll be more I hear and you should watch out here. I think.

Anyway, I happen to be in Nashville area because of Heather, and I saw the word about the reading so we headed out. It was put on by Todd Dills of THE2NDHAND and Peter Cole of Keyhole Press. The reading was worth it. Jason Jordan started it off and read a great story you should look for in the future at The Northville Review, though you'll miss his deadpan delivery (also he has a better rundown of this reading). Then, Eric Durchholz in a bloody shirt (fashion, not murder, I think) read from Heartless. Lydia Ship rounded it out with two fun and poignant flash fictions, one of them made Bank of America change its overdraft policy--check out the other one at Night Train. Then, Todd Dills and the three readers round-robined on the theme of building with brick. Good stuff.

In related news, Heather very much liked her Husky mug of cafe au lait at the Portland Brew.

More Stuff I've Been Enjoying (Spring Break Edition)

You'll remember that last time I had a list of stuff that I'd been reading online and was trumpeting their value. So I'm doing that again. Why? Because I should get credit for reading these things. In order to be listed here, I had to actually read most, if not all, of the article--that is true commitment in Internet reading...at least the way I do it.

1. The JMWW interview of Kevin Sampsell.
2. "John T. Reed's analysis of Robert T. Kiyosaki's book Rich Dad, Poor Dad." Unlike Poe who thought beauty was all dead young women, I think there is nothing more beautiful than a charlatan being exposed. This thing is long. I went to a coffee shop to work on THE NOVEL (which is not this NOVEL) and spent my hour reading this instead. I can't get enough.
3. "The Injustice Collector: Is James Joyce’s grandson suppressing scholarship?" by D. T. Max. Not sure who I pull for in this one.

By now, you'll have realized none of this reading seems particularly Spring Break related. The key connection is that I'm reading it while on Spring Break! I have also been reading lots of student work that does not appear online (I hope), but some of which is also very nice. Go Spring Break!

A KFC Triviality is a Terrible Thing to Waste

So I'm watching Celebrity Jeopardy the other day which is strange because I never watch Jeopardy, I mildly hate it because I don't know the answers. I also can't do crosswords and only the easy sudoku. I fear this means I'm only moments away from senility. I tell myself that writing will be enough mind exercise. Then I read that those who write in long sentences are less likely to contract Alzheimer's. But what's long? So be a Faulkner and not a Hemingway, not that it helped with the alcohol and shotgun.

Where was I? Am I mental already? These sentences aren't nearly long enough. Celebrity Jeopardy: David Duchovny was in the lead but lost it all because he didn't know who Colonel Sanders is/was (how does one verb a dead person who lives on as brand pitchman?). So the rough beast keeps slouching towards Bethlehem.

61 ACROSS Place to get drunk in the kitchen?

David Gessner Is Transformative

It's snowing again. Maybe I will just blog exclusively during snow. This particular post was meant to be up last week when David Gessner actually visited the college and my class. He showed the below video of him mocking both the hum and haw professor and the bovine blankness of the worst classes. That's my take. Or maybe he's just enjoying himself.



Ha. Also, give his essay Those Who Write, Teach a look.

Me on Thuglit, again

That's right, I'm back with the thugs (I say that with all respect) at Thuglit in Issue 35. Remember the last time I had a story in Thuglit about Russian roulette? Well this time it's a sweet tale called "Come to Roost" about a couple settling down with banana hallucinogen, a missing bulldog named Roost, and a sociopath thrown in.