Me at A Tribute to Novello

So for nineteen years the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County put on the incomparable Novello Festival of Reading. This year it went down with all the budget cuts, but thanks to the tireless work of Mark West (here's a great article about that work) there will be a tribute to Novello, with the hope that it will support the library system and that there will be a return to Novello in the future.

On October 2nd, I'll be taking part in the Short Story Writers Panel with Robert Boisvert and Aimee Parkison. There will be other great events that day at the Main Library, 310 North Tryon Street, Charlotte. Here's the press release.

Me in the Journal of Microliterature

So my flash fiction "The Substitute" is now up over at the Journal of Microliterature. This piece has some of my favorite stuff, like Poor Richard's Almanack and the god Set.

Let me also recommend John P. McCann's "Death Honk" there. Read it just to have context for the line, "'Pie that damn bear!'"

Out of the The Red and The Black

So I actually finished this some time ago, but was not up to chattering on about it, what with the beginning of the semester, the relative joys of advising and syllabus writing--so relative. I can say reading Stendhal's The Red and the Black over the summer felt like an accomplishment. I can also say it wasn't always a pleasure, as I sympathize with others who feel it is slow to modern tastes. But also it is shockingly fast in places, like where Julien gets his military dream and then is drawn back all in the space of a few small paragraphs. And I guess I wasn't prepared for the focus on romance though I have to say it's an unusal love triangle.

What I found very modern was the creation of Julien, a character so irreligious in a religious time (even if it were all hypocrisy) and so bent on social climbing, he would do splend in contemporary America--replace all that talk of class with celebrity. My favorite line comes as he finds a sort of peace with himself in prison but is plagued with visitors: "'The worst of all prison's miseries,' he thought, 'is not being able to close the door.'"

a la carte!

That's right; it's here: A La Carte: Short Stories that Stir the Foodie in All of Us, a 2010 MSR Short Fiction Anthology edited by me. It contains amazing stories from the likes of:

Ted Chiles
David Erlewine
Hugh Fox
Molly Gaudry
Kathie Giorgio
Russell Helms
Ann Hillesland
Carol K. Howell
Jac Jemc
Jason Jordan
Michael Kardos
Letitia L. Moffitt
Joseph R. Quinlan
Mary McLaughlin
Nicole Louise Reid
Ben Tanzer
Eric Vrooman

Please enjoy their fabulous food tales. Buy it here.

Me on MicroHorror

So my flash fiction "I Love Medusa!" is up on MicroHorror. Because Heather thought "Giant Panda Monster" was about her, I accidentally didn't share this one with her, but she ended up reading it on MicroHorror. And it turns out it's about her too, which I deny. Sure she claims she won a costume contest by dressing up as Medusa, and sure she claims she told me about this, and sure she claims she showed me pictures. But I don't remember that. And I certainly can't be held responsible for what my subconscious does.

Me on Hobart

My story "Giant Panda Monster" is in the August Issue of the online Hobart. It's a story straight out of my fascination with giant pandas, big monster movies, and love. And according to my wife, it's an allegory for my marriage. Many thanks to Andrea Kneeland for including it in such an excellent issue.

Here are my favorite lines from fellow contributors:

Lauren Becker, "Do You Know Jesus Christ?": "Jed and Lark started to make out by the refrigerator and I talked to a cute guy and watched the lonely hot dogs move slowly around the cooker."

Rachel Lyon, "The Whale and the Waterslide": "'Whales don’t like the same things people do, Dale.'"

Matt Mullins, "Arion Resigns": "typing my own ransom memo for the corporate pirates who pay me in somnambulistic days."

Kristine Ong Muslim, "We Figure the Leaves": "In time, the leaves learn to take our postures, to talk, to make themselves look beautiful in the eyes of other leaves."

Justin Taylor, interviewed by Matthew Simmons: "And what about Michelle Trachtenberg?"

Check it out.

The Indomitable Jason Jordan

So my title just came to me, and I fear it's because of the Robert Jordan book The Indomitable Conan. Okay, a quick Google check and it turns out that actually Steve Perry wrote Conan the Indomitable. Stay with me a second, I'm still going to say it makes some sense since Jason is clearly a Conan of the literary world (for god's sake, look at that picture...that's clearly a literate badass), slaying his enemies and whatnot, not with violence but with his scimitar sharp writing...okay, I'm pushing this, but here's why:


Now out for your reading pleasure, Jordan's new story collection Cloud and Other Stories and a new version of his earlier collection Powering the Devil's Circus: Redux. Jason Jordan is a widely published writer of powerful stories and the editor of the literary magazine decomP. These books contain his stories, stories full of dark absurdism and compassionate realism. These are stories that make you feel the primal essence of life, like Conan screaming over a battlefield.

All right, forget Conan. But read Jason Jordan's new collections.