Rumble: 5th Anniversary Issue

here, w/ stories by Krishan Coupland, Cami Park, Michelle Reale, Ryan B. Richey, and J.A. Tyler.

From the splashpage: "How intense is this issue? This issue will apply sufficient emotional force to your blunt skulls so as to cause their collapse!"

Dialogue w/ 7 yr old

My daughter's friend was over for dinner last night.

N: I think H was just being so nice because she was at somebody else's house.

Me: Maybe

N: I do that. Do you do that?

Me: Pretty much.

SUmmER FRiGG

Vsf's by Robert Bradley, Charles Lennox and Richey Piiparinen. Poetry by Molly Gaudry and others. Here.

Will Want to Hear Stories about This One

Put Them out to Pasture

Shouldn't there be a list? Media types who really, really need to be put out to pasture?

I'll start.

1. Anthony Lane, NY'er film critic

This dude has been bad for a long, long time. But he's reached a kind of apotheosis in his review of Bruno. What I say: let him be prissy, self-satisfied and dense all day long. Let him do that while chewing grass in the back acre.

Bart-Ho #10

I craftily declined to tag any lit mag as my favorite when answering q's for Ravi Mangla's Recommended Reading. But I notice that a number of writers, maybe a plurality, say Hobart.

I say no surprise.

No. 10 is now available for pre-order. Do I need to say anything about it? Just do a little window shopping there.

Okay I'll say more:

If you look thru the back catalog, you'll notice that Hobart has reliably pubbed people before you knew who they were: Roy Kesey, Pia Ehrhardt, Pasha Malla, Jeff Parker, others.

Okay more yet:

Probably forever I'll be on the side of Hobart, even if they start running automotive porn or Junior League recipes. I'd list the pub. of my short @ Hobart online, "Acquired from Ex-Girlfriends," as one of maybe two life-changing pubs for me. Both were in late '96 (the other was my story "Lucky" in QF). At that point I'd become a little cynical about publishing. As compensation for the web pub, the Hobart guys gave me a one-year subscription, and when I got the first one -- #6 -- I was pretty blown away. I began to ask questions that seem 'duh' to me now -- like, is it a given that you should be subbing your stuff to mags you aren't even all that pscyhed about reading?

I'm going out of my mind waiting for new Unsaid to appear in my mailbox. After that happens, focus switches to Hobart #10.

The Date, the Names

August 1st. Wigleaf restart.

Not in any order, but here are the names: Dave Housley, Conor Madigan, Cherie Hunter Day, Craig Snyder, Tirumal Mundargi, Kirsty Logan, Claudia Smith, Jimmy Chen, Paula Ray, Robert Swartwood, Catherine Zickgraff, Nicolle Elizabeth, Fortunato Salazar, C. Robert Miller, Andrew Borgstrom, William R. Hamilton, Greggory Moore, Roxane Gay, Lauren Becker, Ben Loory, Mary Hamilton, Jason Norman, Spencer Dew, Corey Mesler, Shellie Zacharia, Sean Lovelace, Tree Riesener, Thomas Kearnes and Sarah Hilary.

Is good so help me prop it, all.....

Keyhole Digest for July

I’ve got a short in the new Keyhole Digest. The first two of these have featured work by friends and fantastics like Chad Simpson, Jennifer Pieroni, Charles Lennox, Ravi Mangla, Amelia Gray and Matt Bell. So I’m super pleased.

The new one has writing by Kim Chinquee, David Erlewine, Kathy Fish, Robert Krut, and Suzanne Lamb. My piece is the “Nashville Gymno.” The Digest is distributed for free in Nashville. At certain points of my vacation day here in Northwestern Iowa, I’m going to be imagining Nashvillians at certain points of their own days. I’m going to be imagining them reading my Nashville Gymno. They’re going to be imagining telling me how to dock a boat.

Quick plug: if you like the July Digest, remember to get yourself a copy of the awesome new issue of Keyhole Mag.

Bonus quiz: if you can guess which recent Keyhole Digest contributor has boyhood memories of the lake where I'm currently luxuriating, you win something or other. Haven't figured out what.

Bloody and a Bump (or, Vacation)

Monkey

I left a blank word processing doc open on the computer.

My 4yr old boy, Levin, did this:

"10987654321
BASTOF

BiLEViN
siNG"

I'm Pretty Sure This Will Be the First Time Anyone Has Ever Connected Dr. Seuss to Teenage Fanclub

I woke up w/ an old Teenage Fanclub song in my head, "Everybody's Fool." From 1990. That's a great one. "I don't fucking care / how you wear your hair / you're still fucking square-ehyeeaireahaireahaire..."

It's kind of like the anti Sneetches song. I love the Sneetches. Another great song. But if you really think about it, why the hell would the Sneetches without stars upon thars worry so much about not getting the invite to the Star Bellies' frankfurter roasts..... I can imagine that certain Plain Bellies would find themselves in a kind of hell at those parties.... They'd start to be glad that the Star Bellies had thought to mark themselves, so they could be thereafter avoided....

Buffalo Gymno @ Buffalo Artvoice

Did this one after the line-up for the chapbook was set. Shout out to Greg Gerke. It was kind of a tricky one, and his work on it was key.

Of course you'll have to check out Nicolle's stuff too if you hit the link. Super happy to be there w/ her.

Hint Fiction Guidelines

here.

Opens Aug. 1.

Writing Journal

I used to keep a writing journal. In it I'd put story ideas, consider problems I was having w/ longer stuff, give reactions to great shit I was reading, etc.

I still have it but don't write in it any more. One possible reason: I have less time. Another: I write less longer stuff. Another: I don't have as many problems.

Maybe my favorite: lately most of the stories I write don't come from story 'ideas.' The Gymnos were probably key in this. Only one of them -- out of the forty-some -- came from an 'idea,' something I might have written down in advance. Since none is longer than 200 words, that seemed obvious -- to have them come during the composing.

But lately, writing slightly longer stuff, I've been doing the same thing. I've noticed this: if I write a story of 700 words that way, it feels to me like fifteen hundred afterwards, after I read it. No clue why that is.