IS THAT YOU, JOHN WAYNE?

IS THAT YOU, JOHN WAYNE?

I should say some basic things here.

My book of stories--IS THAT YOU, JOHN WAYNE?--is forthcoming from Queen's Ferry Press.

I've been working on these stories, and on this book, for a while. I'm all happy on it. It's better than I am. Lots better.

The individual stories range kind of wildly in length-- from 25 words to about 12,000. Most of the stories first appeared in journals: New Orleans Review, New Ohio Review, New York Tyrant, No Colony, Kenyon Review, Redivider, Carolina Quarterly and others.

The collection is lucky to have ended up w/ a great editor and advocate, Queen's Ferry's Erin Knowles McKnight. Am thrilled to be on the list there w/ some super-fine writers: Corey Mesler, Kristine Ong Muslim, Bayard Godsave, Michael Nye, Kevin Grauke, Elizabeth Frankie Rollins, Ethel Rohan, Phong Nguyen and others. The collection's also lucky to have found its way to cover designer Jason Hieronymus.

Okay. That's all for now.

Wait. Release date! (Spring 2013)

Goodbye, elimae

Some of you have heard that the current issue of elimae is the final one. I feel like we should be making more of this! elimae was a pioneer web journal—started up by Deron Bauman way back in ’96 (when most people still didn’t have email accounts, when you had wait long seconds for each web page to load). Under Bauman and subsequent editors (and super-fine writers) Cooper Renner, Kim Chinquee and Brandon Hobson, elimae specialized in a kind of fiction that was more or less disappearing in New York. Gordon Lish’s final year at Knopf was ’95, and New York was starting to narrow down to the two types of literary fiction it could hope to do profitably: moral entertainment and authorial spectacle. elimae did neither. Under Renner’s stewardship, the journal solidified its reputation for a distinctive sort of fiction—tight, minimal, sentence-aware, often very short (under three hundred words). As a reader, I didn’t always love everything I found in elimae, but I was always excited to read through the monthly issues. I always felt like an elimae story might find a way into me, changing my brain or the way I saw fiction or life on earth…

Laura Ellen Scott's DEATH WISHING

Still tying up loose ends from '11....

Death Wishing: a fave read of the year. Here's my Amazon take on it:

This is a good book in lots of ways—but one really basic one: when you set it down, after finishing a section, it’s going to call you back to it; and when it’s over, you’ll miss its people—maybe a lot. Scott’s narrator, Victor, is a piece of work. Lives with his kid, works for his kid in the back of his kid’s vintage clothing shop. As for which one of them is the more together individual, it’s kind of an open question. But he’s a wonderful narrator—really wonderful, with a touch that’s warm and amused, sometimes sardonic but never closed off. With Victor as narrator, Scott’s able to deliver some knock-out prose. And with Vic as our guide, Scott’s New Orleans becomes—for me, at least—something like a recurring dream: a twisted, innerly glowing place, one that follows a logic you don’t fully get but will recognize, still…..

Wigleaf 2011 (Props + Thanks)

Cezarija Abartis
Krammer Abrahams
Steve Almond
Kate Axelrod
Kyle Beachy
Lauren Becker
Lena Bertone
Michael Bible
Robert Bradley
Ryan W. Bradley
Craig Buchner
Amy Butcher
Kate Hill Cantrill
Brian Allen Carr
Doug Paul Case
Lucy Corin
Christy Crutchfield
Shome Dasgupta
Tim Dicks
Claire Donato
Trent England
Ashley Farmer
Michael Fischer
Kathy Fish
Jane Flett
Jen Gann
Rachel B. Glaser
Luke Goebel
Amanda Goldblatt
Carissa Halston
Casey Hannan
Kyle Hemmings
Frank Hinton
Jessica Hollander
Tim Horvath
Joanna Howard
Emily Howorth
Lindsay Hunter
Ashley Inguanta
Travis Kurowski
Catherine Lacey
Molly Laich
Suzanne Lamb
Jeff Landon
Catherine LaSota
Sean Lovelace
Ling Ma
Lacey Martinez
Tara Masih
Courtney Elizabeth Mauk
LaTanya McQueen
Rob Mentzer
Brian Mihok
Greg Mulcahy
Edward Mullany
Darlin Neal
James O'Brien
Brian Oliu
Ellen Orleans
David Peak
Adam Peterson
Jennifer Pieroni
Glen Pourciau
Sam Rasnake
Ryan Ridge
James Robison
Andrew Roe
Nicholas Rombes
Jim Ruland
Joanna Ruocco
Ann Rushton
Niloo E Sarabi
Ben Segal
Gregory Sherl
Curtis Smith
Lauren Spohrer
Angi Becker Stevens
Terese Svoboda
Robb Todd
J.A. Tyler
Valerie Vogrin
Chelsea Laine Wells
Bonnie ZoBell

Bunch of Shit about Me Cause This Is My Blog about Me

Yesterday and the day before and the day before that I drove across Iowa. It's not that bad a state to drive across, if you stay off I-80 and I-35, which I did.

I read from the Gymnos @ Defunct Books in Iowa City Sat. Nite. Where was Barry G? I think Michigan. So I didn't finally get to meet Barry G. But the reading was great and it was good to hear and meet the others (readers): Charly Fasano, Becca Roberts, Amy Ganser and Jesus Angel Garcia.

My set list: Buffalo, Flagstaff, Asheville, Omaha, Albuquerque. (As an intro to that last one, I slipped in a Neil Young reference: something like, All I know about Albuquerque in real life is that they say Sante Fe is 90 miles away...)

David McNamara was there, and he verified that the snow of Buffalo is often a wet snow.

So that was the reading.

Also: new story at The Literarian: "Kiss of the Underachiever."

Also: me and Tim Horvath and others converse in Polish @ Minimal Books, thanks to the excellent Piotr Siwecki. ( Mine--"Kosciol"--was first seen as "Church" in Unsaid #4.)

Also: new story in Midwestern Gothic. When I heard there was a mag called Midwestern Gothic, I saw that I had no choice but to try to publish something there. This story, "Extravaganza," is set in the Twin Cities in the 90s, largely in St. Paul's Union Depot (which lets me pull in The Great Gatsby).

Also: Matt Bell gave my Redivider story, "Desultory," some nice consideration in one of his Short Story Month posts (This was late in the month, and I'd really enjoyed a number of the earlier ones, so seeing the "Desultory" post was super fun). Among other things, he gave some thought to the title and how it might be taken. Reading that part helped me expose for myself one interesting (and sort of wrong-headed) way I'd been thinking of the word: as being akin to the word "offertory" -- like they have in church.

That's two church references for this post. Three, if you count the words of the Flagstaff Gymnopédie.

Happenings in the House of Wigleaf

In his Foreword to this year’s Top 50, Ravi Mangla mentioned a few changes, which I’d like to highlight in this space.

First, I’ve stepped down as Series Editor for the Top 50. Among the factors in that decision (there are several): I’ve come to see that a formal separation between the editors of the Top 50 and the editors of Wigleaf proper can only enhance the status of our award annual.

Joining Ravi, who becomes Series Editor (three cheers!), are two new Associate Series Editors, Greg Gerke and Laura Ellen Scott. It’s fair to say that I’m ecstatic about having them with us.

Greg is the author of THERE’S SOMETHING WRONG WITH SVEN (BlazeVox), a collection of stories. He’s got fiction in or coming from Denver Quarterly, NOO Journal, Quarterly West, Puerto del Sol and lots of others.

Laura is the author of a forthcoming (and much anticipated!) novel, DEATH WISHING (IG), and a collection of shorts, CURIO (Uncanny Valley).

As writers, both Greg and Laura are great (objective fact), and in different ways they’re both inimitable (another objective fact). And as readers and people, they’re great too. Welcome, Greg and Laura!

Okay Other New Stuff

New CutBank. Sweet cover. Looks kind of New York Tyranty. Includes a short of mine, "Sixteenth Street."



Missed out on getting this @AWP: the new JMWW annual. Their '10 (awesome, w/ lots of writers I love) is documented. Includes--I think--the second of the two I pubbed there last year, "On the Bifurcation of Garments for Men."

And then Nicolle Elizabeth's supa gr8 diy zine, the 1 AM project. If you can't get hold of this--and getting hold of it will be tough--you can check it out in pdf thru NOO Journal. Includes another of my shorts, "Human Being."

AWP '11: Highlights and Regrets

Am still in recovery mode so I guess it's a good time to sloop back through stuff.

Will use the highlight/regret motif, see how that works...

Highlite: getting to see, on successive nights, Robert Lopez and Randall Brown read stuff from that great lost issue of Mississippi Review that Kim Chinquee edited.

Highlite: spending time w/ Ben Loory and Gabe Durham at/after the Thurs nite reading in Columbia Heights. Surefine human beings there, both.......

Regret: not getting to meet Cathy Day, who I saw at the Friday reading in Adams Morgan but couldn't get to before she left.

Highlite: getting to meet Steve Almond that same night and talking some Gary Lutz.

Highlight: huge flappy pizza w/ Lauren Becker in an overlit cubby of a place in Adams Morgan in the rain. And Tim Jones-Yelvington there, in black pumps, the full Tim J-Y splendor, saying, "I do not eat pizza." (that was a mishearing, it turns out, but Tim and I have agreed to let it stand).

Highlight: having Beth Thomas as a co-staggerer late late Thurs nite in Dupont Circle as we looked for our fancy hotel.

Regret: not meeting Terese Svoboda.

Regret: not meeting Mary Caponegro, who Greg Gerke was just about to introduce me to when I walked off.

Wandering around w/ Greg at the Book Fair, taking the slow ride of my hangover.

Highlight: talking w/ Erin Fitzgerald at the Black Cat about the deejay, who'd put on "Footloose." Our conclusion: not cool, never cool, never to be cool.....

Regret: not buying more books/mags when I was standing at the tables and had the chance.

Highlight: having the waitress @ Kramer Books ask me, when she realized I was at the conf, "Oh, what have you written!?" and being able to just pull out the AG's instead of stammering in my usual way.

Highlight: Getting to see Mary Hamilton read her Wigleaf story, "It Is True that Me and Theodore Swallowed Pop Rocks and Pepsi Cola and Now We Are Dead" (I told her afterwards, It's like I went to see Skynryd and they played "Freebird")

Highlight: Having Ryan Bradley as a tablemate at the bookfair. I wasn't there much because Wigleaf has no physical product, but people still came up looking for me, and Ryan didn't get too annoyed. Really enjoyed hanging w/ him when I was there: top notch man.

Regret: Attending two great readings and so missing two other great ones (particularly bummed not to have seen Divination at the 4 P's and Vermin on the Mount.

Regret: speaking of Vermin: not meeting Jim Ruland!

Highlight: meeting Mary Miller in a red hallway at Millie & Al's when we were both trashed (so I didn't have to worry about how trashed I'd been, later)

HIghlight: meeting Jurgen Fauth and talking to him and having the woman he'd been talking w/--a short woman in a dark coat--slowly turn around: Nicolle Elizabeth.

Regret: not meeting Dawn Raffel

Triple Highlight: texting Molly Gaudry from the too-loud/crowded Madam's Organ and having her call back to say she was across the street, and going over there and finally meeting her and then having her there for my reading Friday nite...... big hearts for MG...

Highlight: my reading Fri nite. Is that bad form, to have yr own reading be one of yr highlights? The thing: I hadn't read for a while, and I'd never read for a crowd like that, w/ so many people knowing my stuff..... Was super fun, and I feel good about how it worked out (I was going to read a passage from a novel in prog but let myself get pulled into going on w/ the AG's).

Highlight: Roxane Gay's line: "Facebook is in my face!"

Highlight: Smoking outside the Black Cat w/ a manic dude who turned out to be Corey Zeller, watching him propose switching lids w/ a third guy, and watching the third guy bristle and say, "No, no, it's my birthday."

Regret: saying a bunch of really stupid things to people, and having them say stupid things back.

Highlight: saying a bunch of really stupid things to people, and having them say stupid things back.

Highlight: getting to meet Myfanwy Collins and talk for a while. What an excellent person!

Highlight: Lily Hoang. That's it. Just Lily Hoang.

Another highlight: Matt Salesses. Just Matt Salesses.

Regret: not meeting Michael Martone (yes, Rob S told me to go that panel....)

Highlight: finally meeting Amber Sparks, after missing her for what seemed like the whole weekend.

Highlight: meeting Zach Dodson at the Featherproof/Make table, and having a guy on the Make side ask, "Are you Chris Garson's brother?" (turned out to be Joel Craig, who I'd met once half a lifetime ago--now poetry editor for Make)

Regrets: Not getting to talk more w/ all the very good people I met. Tim Horvath! Mitch Parker! Heather Fowler! Blake Butler! Rob Swartwood! Nicole Monaghan! Tara Laskowski! Mike Young! Randall Brown! Bess Winter! Jamie Iredell! Kirby Johnson! Glenn Shaheen! Brooks Sterritt! Luke Goebel! Jensen Beach! Jen Michalski! Dave Housley! Extie Ecks! David Erlewine! On and on........

Hightlight: Dinner w/ old friends and one new in Cleveland Park Sat. nite. Then debriefing w/ Laura Ellen Scott at her place in Northern Virginia.

Highlight: this exchange w/ a stewardess on the flight back:

me: I'll have--no. I'll just have a coke.

woman: what were you going to say?

me: I'll have a coke.

woman: no. say it.

me: it's fine.

woman: what were you going to say? tell me. I bet you'll be glad that you did.

me: did you say it was a 'cashless' bar?

woman: ah but i have these coupons! someone didn't want them up front. you could have one and be drinking for free.

me: then I'd love a Bloody Mary (translation: I love you very very much)

Highlight: Meeting and talking w/ Michael Nye on the shuttle ride home from the airport.

Regret: Being too whirled to mention--later, now--everybody I probably should mention here.

Regret: What yesterday was like.

New Ones

In the new issue of Carolina Quarterly, a longer story: "The Goth of SecurityOne Field." Other fiction there by Caitlin Horrocks and Samar Fitzgerald; thnx going out to Phil Sandick and Lindsay Starck at CQ, and also to Melissa Marconi, wherever she is, who gave me some feedback on a radically different first-version of this story in a coffee shop in Santa Clara.


And a 700-word piece, "Desultory," in the new Redivider, which also contains stuff by Randall Brown, John Oliver Hodges, Matthew Kirkpatrick and others. Brooks Sterritt helped w/ this one and so will get free beer if I run into him in DC.

Wrap-up: Wigleaf in Twenty Ten

Last 2010 post @Wigleaf today: Nicolle Elizabeth's FOUR STORIES, with maybe her best-ever postcard.

Thanks again to Brian Evenson, for selecting the Top 50, and thanks to everyone on the following list for what I think has been our biggest and brutalist year:

Grace Andreacchi
Arlene Ang
Meakin Armstrong
Adrienne Bard
Kyle Beachy
Michael Bible
Ann Bogle
Eric Bosse
Mel Bosworth
Jessica Breheny
Randall Brown
Edmond Caldwell
Kim Chinquee
Ryder Collins
Dawn Corrigan
Sara Crowley
Stephen Dunn
Nicolle Elizabeth
David Erlewine
Nina Feng
Erin Fitzgerald
Tuere T.S. Ganges
Roxane Gay
Vanessa Gebbie
Greg Gerke
Barry Graham
Tawnysha Greene
Tina May Hall
Jim Heynen
Eric Higgins
Donora Hillard
Steve Himmer
Laura Hirneisen
Colleen Hollister
Tim Horvath
Jennifer A. Howard
Joe Kapitan
Matthew Kirkpatrick
Andrea Kneeland
Darby Larson
Sarah Layden
Charles Lennox
Lisa Lim
Sean Lovelace
Sarah Malone
Michael Martone
Susan McCarty
Natalie McNabb
Jen Michalski
Hans Michaud
Megan Milks
John Minichillo
Kyle Minor
Tirumal Mundargi
Thomas Mundt
Mark Neely
Cami Park
Gary Percesepe
Dan Piepenbring
Lloyd Phillips
Glen Pourciau
Dawn Raffel
Andrew Roe
Sophie Rosenblum
Matthew Salesses
Kevin Sampsell
Kathryn Scanlan
Evan Schaeffer
Peter Schwartz
Laura Ellen Scott
Chad Simpson
Andrea Slye
Lucas Southworth
Amber Sparks
Brooks Sterritt
Rose Sullivan
Jack Swenson
Chantel Louise Tattoli
Beth Thomas
Girija Tropp
J.A. Tyler
Anne Valente
Ben White
Bess Winter
Robley Wilson
Kate Wyer
Anne Valente
Donna D. Vitucci
xTx
Mercedes Yardley
Salvatore Zoida

COUNTDOWN: FIFTEEN BEST TRACKS OF 2010

15. All Saints Day, "You Can't Be Alone" (from S/T)

Bent-up, low-fi would-be anthem. I pretty much love this shit.

(free download @ One Track Mind)

---

14. Kurt Vile, "Invisibility: Nonexistent" (from the SQUARE SHELLS ep)

Kurt Vile is easily the musician I'd most like to get stoned with.

(free download @ Hippies Are Dead)

---

13. Japandroids, "Younger Us" (from the YOUNGER US 7")

Great song. Soundwise they channel The Replacements here, which makes frontman Brian King's unhealed nostalgia seem right.

(free download via Pitchfork)

---

12. Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings, "I Learned the Hard Way" (from I LEARNED THE HARD WAY)

Amy Winehouse might not have reminded you how great Motown was, but Sharon Jones will.

(free download @ Aquarium Drunkard)

---

11. Japanther, "Spread So Thin" (from ROCK 'N ROLL ICE CREAM)

It hasn't ever taken that much to make a great pop song. Just oooo's and electricity.

(free download @ 5 Acts)

---

10.(tie) The Black Keys, "Tighten Up" (from BROTHERS); Best Coast, "Boyfriend" (from CRAZY FOR YOU)

I hope The Black Keys never stop pretending that rock n' roll hasn't come and gone. Best Coast's CRAZY FOR YOU was one of my favorite albums of the year; this song was the most embarrassing for a grown heterosexual man to be caught singing.

(free download @ Passion of the Weiss; other free download @ Culture Bully)

---

9. Doug Paisley, "End of the Day" (from CONSTANT COMPANION)

There were good wooden songs by Black Mountain and Blitzen Trapper in Twenty Ten. But this was the best. Dude's Canadian, may sort of remind you of Neil.

(video @ youtube)

---

8. Gil Scott-Heron, "Me and the Devil" (from I'M NEW HERE)

Here's how happy I am to see Gil again:

Gil! Gil! Gil! Gil! Gil!

(free download via Stranger Dance)

---

7. Perfume Genius, "Mr. Peterson" (from LEARNING)

A spare, churchly requiem. "He let me smoke weed in his truck." That line instantly puts it in my top ten. "He made me a tape of Joy Division." Or maybe that one.

(free download via Captain Obvious)

---

6. The Arcade Fire, "Ready to Start" (from THE SUBURBS)

From a top-three album of the year. Lots of great songs on it; had a hard time choosing.

(free download via ListenBeforeYouBuy)

---

5. Blair, "Hello Halo" (from DIE YOUNG)

Most underappreciated release of the year. Yeah, she's kind of nineties, but this song—thing of genius. "Don't know what I'm sayin, don't know what I'm sayin, don't know what I'm sayin, don't know what I'm sayin…Got a radio in my head…." Becomes a pop song about writing pop songs.

(free download via Das Kleinicum)

---

4. Sleigh Bells, "Rill Rill" (from TREATS)

In-fect-ious.

Braces?

What about them? She's all about them.

(free download @ The Stark Online)

---

3. Deerhunter, "Desire Lines" (from HALCYON DIGEST)

Who's better than Deerhunter?

Rhetorical question.

(free download @ Covert Curiosity)

---

2. Kanye West, "Runaway" (from MY BEAUTIFUL DARK TWISTED FANTASY)

Will probably always remember seeing the premiere of this at the close of this year's VMA's.

Drama from persona. What it's all about.

(video @ youtube)

---

1. No Age, "Fever Dreaming" (from EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN)

Louder. Louder. Louder.

(free download @ Pitchfork)

My 2010 Best Of's @ The Big Other

Sometimes I wish it were called The Big Otter. My fingers would prefer typing that, it seems. The Big Otter.

I did a list of twelve. I wrote it kind of like a story, not really knowing what was going to be on it. But don't let me undermine it. This is a very important list.

(It's up w/ some others--by Norman Lock, K. Sparling, J. Iredell, and K. Sampsell)

Trailer for UNFINISHED

U5

The arrival of this has pre-empted all other reading.

It's, like, really good. Really.

It's not quite as long as the last one. I'm on page 100 or so, and I'm more aware this time: the pleasure is going to run out.

My story in it, "Dermatographism," is right now one of my own favorites of mine. One reason--and I was saying this to fellow contributor/rising star Luke Goebel the other day: I like the end of it more than the beginning. (Usually I like my beginnings the best.)

Another Swell Pre-Order

This one, from Jaded Ibis, is going to be an amazing thing.

To finish an somebody's unfinished story--this would imply a hand-off, would imply, as a result, a story of halves, with a visible seam.

But you won't find one, a seam. Lily Hoang took my start--a story I'd called "Eight Ball"--and exploded it from the inside, put new stuff in the air. So then finishing it--this seemed, to both of us, more possible.

Can't wait to read the whole book, which includes Lily's 'finishings' of stories by Kate Bernheimer, Blake Butler, Beth Couture, Debra Di Blasi, Justin Dobbs, Trevor Dodge, Zach Dodson, Brian Evenson, Carol Guess, Elizabeth Hildreth, John Madera, Ryan Manning, Michael Martone, Kelcey Parker, Ted Pelton, Kathleen Rooney, Davis Schneiderman, Michael Stewart, and J.A. Tyler.

One Swell Pre-Order

{C.}, an MLP Stamp Stories Anthology, can be got as part of this year's MLP subscription --which, at $40, is a great deal (full length works by Norman Lock, Michael Stewart and Mathias Svalina, plus a bunch of handmade chapbooks, by Kristina Marie Darling, Andrew Borgstrom and others).

Or it can be ordered alone.

Here's the idea: people write stories of fifty words or less, and these stories are then formatted into stamp-sized texts and printed on small cards (they're titleless but carry the author's name). Next--my favorite part--the cards go out to independent presses which are participating in the project by slipping them into the pages of direct orders like bookmarks. I've read a couple of them in this way (most recently one by Gregory Sherl which was in a copy of Sam Pink's great Ambulance book from Cow Heavy). And I've heard from a couple of people who've read mine (it's going out w/ issues of The Cupboard). Am itching to read the full deal, which includes--man i don't even know what to say about this list..... I'll just make sounds.... mah mah mah....

"Dog" in NANO Fiction

Been eating this issue up--great stuff by Nin Andrews, Matt Bell, Chas Carey, Doug Paul Case, Sarah Eaton, Erika Eckart, Luke Geddes, Greg Gerke, Nathan Good, Anya Groner, Andrew Kozma, Daniel Lawless, Charles Lennox, Sara Lippmann, Kirsty Logan, Sean Lovelace, Sarah McCartt-Jackson, Shawn Andrew Mitchell, Cheyenne Nimes, Laurie Nye, Carrie Oeding, Michael Palmer, Hannah Pass, Marie Potoczny, Matt Prater, Jim Ruland, Nick Sansone, Kathryn Scanlan, Gregory Sherl, Katie Jean Shinkle, Justin Sirois, Eugenia Tsutsumi, and Desmond Kon.

See lots of Wigleaf contributors there. Could count them but that would require numbers.

Thnx to Glenn Shaheen and the NANO F crew. Is the girl's foot being atomized by spinning blades in the cover art? Sort of disturbing.

"Silt" up on HTML Giant's LMC thing

One of the two from the NY Tyrant -- pdf w/ take by Robb Todd (who wrote that Halloween story that was in 3:AM last yr--pretty swell if you missed it).

One of the quoted words is wrong, which makes me hope that he wrote it from memory because if he did, that would be, you know, great.

Thnx to Robb and also Tim Horvath, who thinks in the comments some typically smart things.....

Afterthought: about the title, which Robb was wondering about. I had it sitting on the table, like. When I finished. It seemed--I'm not sure why--to work. And nobody called me on it -- of the people who read it right off.......

Short @ JMWW

In the fall issue--flash section, John Madera's first full quarter editing that.

Odd title: "On the Bifurcation of Garments for Men."

Thnx to John and Ed. in Chief Jen Michalski. There's a great intro by John and other vsf by Alexandra Chasin, James Hannahan, Tim Horvath, Kevin Kilian, Miguel Morales, David Peak, Davis Schneiderman, Ken Sparling and Terese Svoboda.