Stories Stories everywhere

Today is a good day for us double o sevens.

Jack's story went live here today.

Carmen's story is here. I linked this one to the table of contents so you could check out her bio pic and Tom's story as well. Tom Williams, that is, not Grimes.

While I was trolling around the internet, I found this blogpost about Rebecca.

and soon I'll be in Quarterly West. (Just found out today!)

What else is up?

For the record, I liked George Elliot's Middlemarch

It's fall fiction week at Slate. Today's dispatch is all about contemporary writers spilling the beans about what great classics they haven't read. I know we did a post like this before, but it was interesting to see what other writers (like ourselves) keep meaning to make the time for.

my non-fiction book interest

There is No Me Without You

Been reading this book about the orphan problem in Ethiopia. By some estimates, there are up to 6 million orphans in Ethiopia. The book is a fascinating history of a country ripped apart by war, famine, and the AIDS pandemic. I'm finding the section on the origin theories of AIDS interesting. You can't help but be outraged with how the moral majority reacted to the crisis in the 80s & 90s. This book came out in 2006 and made a lot of best of lists. Greene has written for the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Salon. et al. Good journalistic book.

Why am I into this? Well, Laura and I have started the paper work for international adoption and Ethiopia is the country we've chosen. It's going to be a long process, but we've started. I predict it will be at the speediest a year, more likely a year and a half, before we have a child in our home. But we are pumped!

fantastic advertisements

this year i asked for subscriptions to lit mags for my birthday. my folks got me the believer, swivel, and tin house, and i can say that it's pretty terrific to get these in the mail the week they come out, rather than pore over them at book people and then and berate myself for leaving them behind, for not being serious enough of a writer to take a chance on people i've never heard of. it's better to have the matter out of my hands altogether.

that said, the new tin house came to my house a couple of days ago, and damned if there isn't a full page ad for the texas state mfa program on the second page. lots of famous names! and the rose scholarship number! and frontporch's url. i felt kind of proud and defensive.

also, i'm not all the way through the journal, but i have to say that the aimee bender story, as far as aimee bender is concerned, is not so fantastic. i don't know.

Ring of Fire

So the Witch fire currently burning in San Diego stopped just 9 miles from my house in San Diego. I live in a town called Solana Beach. Behind Solana Beach is a town called Rancho Santa Fe. Beyond Rancho to the east is where the Witch fire started. It traveled very quickly west, toward the ocean, toward my house, at an alarming rate. My mother had to evacuate the house and go manage the crisis unit down at the hospital. I'm sure you've heard about this in the news, but it is the most destructive fire, maybe in the entire history of this nation. To date is there have been a total of 23 wildfires of various danger, and the total acres burned is over 700 square miles! Luckily, on Wednesday, the wind began blowing northeast instead of west, and my house was spared. My mom was allowed to leave the hospital and go back to the house. When I go home in December, I'm sure the devastation will take my breath away. My mom had to leave town the air quality is so poor. She went to Vegas yesterday. I say, good fucking move.

Crazy.


P.S. the article above is a good, comprehensive source--in case you were interested.

Love to you all!

variations on a theme

If you can possibly stand it, here is jean thompson's reaction to King's assertions about the state of the short story. i think she's fair, actually.

i'm grading. or procrastinating, i guess.

This beautiful land

I'm in Tucson this week. I can't get cell phone reception where my parents live, and they're on dial-up, so I'm spending the morning at this coffee shop. My reliance on a high-speed Internet connection seems to have snuck up on me.

This town is intensely beautiful. It's perfect October weather here during the day, and the desert gets cold at night. There are mountain lions and javelinas and hawks. I think it's because I've not spent much of my adult life here that Tucson remains kind of a fantasy land to me.

There's this McDonald's across the street from the coffee shop. I keep staring at it. It's the most beautiful McDonald's I have ever seen. I wonder if their hash browns are delicious. I bet they are.

My story "Diary of the Blockage" will appear in the upcoming Caketrain.

I miss you guys.

A World Without Writers

"Networks are hording scripts like squirrels saving nuts for winter, putting as many in storage as they can, hoping they don’t run out before a possible strike is settled."

Just in case anyone else fantasizes about being a tv writer.

The Big Royalty Check

My story, "I'll Pay You Back When I Get Home," was just accepted by Menda City Review. It will go online the day of the next full moon, Oct. 26. They will pay me $4.20, or I can choose to donate that money to help save children. Um, here are some Van Morrison lyrics:

I'm waiting for my royalty check to come, and it still hasn't come yet.
It's about a year overdue. I guess it's coming from the big royalty check in the sky.
I waited and the mailman never dropped it in my letter box.

Oh oww uh ow ow ow

I guess it's a big royalty check in the sky.

Ooohh, baby.

But you caaaan't.....beee the tax man, and me, all at once.

Star Trek Poetry

I was watching Star Trek on Saturday, and it was the one where Spock takes a crack at "poetry night" on the ship. Observe this poem he wrote for his cat, Spot:

"Ode to Spot"
   
      Felis catis, is your taxinomic nomenclature
      An endothermic quadriped, carnivorous by nature?
      Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses

      Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses.
      I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations,
      A singular development of cat communications
      That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection

      For a rythmic stroking of your fur, to demonstrate affection.
      A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents
      You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
      And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion,

      It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.      
      O Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display
      Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array.
      And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,

      I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.

I don't know, it was funny at the time. It was probably the Merlot I
was drinking, and my stack of 65 un-graded papers. 

"How To Best" Nods

Owen Egerton got a "Best of Austin" nod, reports Austinist, which included a great quote from Owen:

"Best Author in Austin? Living in the same town as Tim O'Brien, Dagoberto Gilb, Larry Wright (who won a Pulitzer this year), Spike Gillespie, Ric Williams and so many other brilliant writers and getting awarded Best Author in Austin makes me think either I'm a damn good writer... or people aren't doing enough reading," said Owen. "I'd put money on the latter, but I plan on believing the former. I urge all of you to do the same."

go denis

and give a listen to the changing meaning of the multitude of best seller lists

New story out

Check out my story, Kids Say the Darndest Things, online at Titular.

Boom Boom Jacka Jacka Jacka Boom

Jack got news this weekend that "I Am This Meat" will be anthologizing her story "Anatomy, Mechanics!" The anth0logy should be up by the 31st of October.

Props.

WHAT DOESN'T SUCK-- or stuff I like and you might too

Tree of Smoke -- i'm only 300 in, but damn I love this book. funny, scary, and god obesessed.

The Assassantion of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford --great meditational western flick. maybe a bit thick in the Malick and Altman love, but hey I love those guys. Forget Darjeeling Limited, Assassantion has more style to spare, yet it's not sickeningly sweet. I still think No Country will the badassenestawsomest this fall. that and the flick about dylan.

Lee Stringer 's Grand Central Winter--homeless guy turned writer turned pal of Vonnegut. has anyone here read him? i have yet to read the entire book, but i had my comp class read a couple of chapters. damn this guy's good. must finish Tree and then I'm on to GCW.

Mescalito by Ryan Bingham. twenty-five year old texas singer guy with a killer band in tow. this is for those who like joe ely, butch hancock, terry allen. apparently, bingham was a bull rider for a while. the real deal. wolfe and I saw him play a couple of time for free. now he's on lost highway records, so it'll cost more for that kind of fun.

College Football. Hell Yes!

My wife .

The Feast of Love

I saw Feast of Love over the weekend with my mother. I think Baxter would be truly proud of this movie. In my opinion, it was damn good. After the movie ended, everyone just kind of sat there, soaking up the message. Myself included, even though I already knew what was going to happen from the novel. True, it was mostly middle-aged woman in the theater, but I'll take it. In Amelia's words: hot stuff.

Excellently casted. Adaptation was spot on save for a few details. The brilliant last line from the novel made it into the movie: "And so, we begin again." Soundtrack was mellow and enticing. Go see it.

By the way you guys, it's gloriously open.

my complicated relationship with the king

i think king is interesting. i think his entertainment weekly column, his book "on writing," his claims to soon retire (completely false, remember michael jordan?), the schlocky horror novels, the few truly interesting stories, the stacks of cash to which he dedicates a good part of his introductions, his claim to be on the very cutting edge of all media technology...all these point to a very public and sometimes humiliating moral quandary. he seems driven by fame and money in a way that does not align him with the struggling writer (even the struggling writer who is driven by dreams of money and fame still often pretends to be concerned with art over material goods) - so his championing of them seems patronizing and foolish.

he's conflicted, i think. he wants so badly to be relevant. and sometimes he is. in this article, he tries. but he's like that guy in class who won't shut the fuck up - that guy who sometimes says the most important things - more important than the teacher or the smartest kids in the room, even - but he's got it so wrong in so many other ways that the important things get buried.

he can't be quiet, delicate, soothing. even in his books, he's like: IT'S SO QUIET! YOU HEAR THAT? ME EITHER!

i recently went to half price books and bought a couple of his books - i was jonesing for king. there's no other way to put it. when i got home from ireland, for some reason i was overwhelmed for weeks with this weird nostalgia. so i truly loved "children of the corn" and the story about being a door, and "the bachman books" when i was coming up. and i read all the other ones too, like everyone else, but i stood behind those few stories when king's name would pop up in random conversation.

so, at half price, i bought "it" and "everything's eventual," which is a collection of short stories. the introduction is so self-congratulatory and self-referential that i almost stopped reading. and then the first couple of stories were so incredibly bad that i did stop reading. there is no heart, there is no openness that he's talking about. nothing glorious, nothing even pretty on the surface, and i didn't have the heart to try anymore. i still don't.

he gets under my skin, his writing, his persona, his comments, his fight for the little writer. but i don't let him go. i keep my eyes trained for him, and sometimes pick up his books in stores to see how he will piss me off next, to see if he will delight the part of me that knows both centaurs and axe murderers are walking around me all the time. bianca reported to her sister in boston that i was making my way through "everything's eventual," and i was mortified. so embarrassed. i do not know what this means. any of it.

this was a comment, but it was too long. so now it's a post.

in other news, i want to recommend caitlyn cary to everyone. she plays the fiddle, and sings a song called "sorry for my shame," and you should hear it.

do yourself a favor

and read this article by Stephen King. (You'll have to register for NYTimes). He edited the BASS this year and, surprisingly, has a lot of interesting things to say about the plight of the American short story. All I wanna do now is read Poe.

And because it's funny, here's part of an email I received last week:

"Hello,

I am a photographer/writer for The Megaphone. I am contacting you to tell you that you have been nominated by your students as a one of the most attractive professors on campus. I was hoping I could take a snapshot and create a profile on you which would be featured in our next issue.

Please e-mail me back if you would be interested or uninterested in participating. Please let me know when you can meet. This will only take about 2 min. of your time.

It is all in good fun and you should feel no pressure.