New Web Issue of Hobart Up!

Posted: May 3, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

You said it!

I had the honor of guest-editing this month’s issue of Hobart. You can find AMAZING work by the likes of Elizabeth, Crane, Pamela Harcourt, Jon Morgan Davies, Emilia Phillips, Meagan Cass and Jesse Eagle. Also! Elizabeth Ellen interviewed Chelsea Martin.

I have a little essay on one of my favorite stories, “The Man in Bogota” by Amy Hempel, up at the Emerging Writers Network for National Short Story Month.

Mallory Gevaert asked me some questions at The Lantern Daily.

Finally, check out the Events Page up-top for where I’ll be reading in the next couple months!

Announcement Catch-up

Posted: April 27, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

Washin' up!

Joseph at the Collagist Blog asked if I’d answer a few questions about writing in the form of excerpt from My Only Wife, so I did.

Elizabeth Ellen is too kind for words in her Amazon review:

If Hitchcock were alive, My Only Wife would be his next movie

“My Only Wife opens with an epigraph from Emily Dickinson: “That those who know her, know her less, the nearer her they get.” This is the reader’s obsession and compulsion and joy, shared by the husband, who has been left, who recounts for us the stories of his wife. This novel is so well-written, so well-crafted, I was constantly torn between slowing down to linger in the wonderful prose and speeding up to chase the intoxicating story, which is to say, the intoxicating wife. A woman who rips pages from her favorite books, tosses the pages out of windows for passersby below to find and read. A woman who erases the first love letter her husband ever wrote her because it was written in pencil (and for a more heartbreaking reason I won’t divulge here). A woman who collects oral histories of strangers, records them secluded in a closet, out of earshot of her husband. A woman you’d expect to find in a foreign film, where women are celebrated for their strength and wit and independent spirit and unknowability. And while we are making comparisons to the movies, there is a Hitchockian ending I didn’t see coming (as one shouldn’t, Hitchcockian endings!). All in all, a brilliant novel I will add to my shelf of favorite books, alongside Memories of My Melancholy Whores and The Lover and I Look Divine and The Postman Always Rings Twice and Suicide and A Single Man. Books to read again and again. Books to obsess over and devour.”
Stephen Gosset pimped my release party at Flavorpill.
All such nice things.  Makes a girl feel grateful
Detailed post on upcoming readings coming soon!

Some Press and a Grant Rejection

Posted: April 15, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

I just found this picture of myself as a child. I have always been tired.

Great things!

Jonathan Messinger interviewed me about My Only Wife for the newest issue of Time Out Chicago.

One last excerpt of the book is in The Collagist today along with awesome work from xTx, Justin Sirois and Joseph Riippi, among others.

Justin Nicholes said some kind things at Our Stories.

Lastly, I was rejected for the travel grant from Word Riot again.  Drat. That would have really helped with some tour/reading travel expenses. Jackie Corley was, as always, super nice in her rejection though which softens that news.

About to start reading Elizabeth Ellen’s Fast Machine finally and very excited for it!

 

New Essay up at Burnaway and novel excerpt at No News Today

Posted: April 11, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

This might seem familiar if you read My Only Wife.

First, I forgot to post that the last section of my novel to come out before publication went up at No News Today on Monday.  Thanks to Robert Lopez for the terrific job he does curating work over there.

Also, I have some thoughts on art that acted as propellers for My Only Wife up at Burnaway. Blake Butler pulls together an awesome series of authors talking about art that is my new favorite thing, so explore the archives, too.

My Only Wife Released from Dzanc Books!

Posted: April 11, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »
My debut novel, My Only Wife, is released today from Dzanc Books!

Some of you have asked where/how to buy it, and I think you should do what pleases you, but below is the hierarchy of how I would buy this book if I were excited about it, but hadn’t written it:

1) If I lived in or around Chicago I’d buy it at the release party on May 6th at 8 pm at The Whistler, 2421 North Milwaukee Avenue. Women & Children First will be selling copies at the party.

2) If I lived in or around one of the following cities and was free on the relevant night, I’d buy it from the author at the reading (more details to come):
May 12: Baltimore
May 14: New York
May 16: Boston
May 17: Providence
May 18: Philadelphia
May 19: New York
June 10: Seattle
June 12 & 13: Portland
June 17: Los Angeles

3) If I lived in a place with a local bookstore, I’d go there to see if they had it.  If they didn’t have it, I’d ask them to order it for me, and consider ordering it for the store.

4) If I wanted it super quick I’d order the paper copy now from Dzanc Books for $15.95, and you’ll get a free eBook. Or you can order just the eBook for $7.99.

5) There are other bookstores and websites where it will also be available, but with so many other options, why bother?

New story in Another Chicago Magazine and novel excerpt in The Good Men Project

Posted: April 8, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

ACM 50.2

Issue 50.2 of Another Chicago Magazine  is available now and it’s filled with the best of the best from Chicago, and they were kind enough to include a story of mine.  It’s a mind-blowing issue. Get it here.

Also, 2 days before you can get your hands on the whole book, an excerpt of My Only Wife is up at The Good Men Project.  What an awesome magazine.  I’m excited to be a part of it.

Review of My Only Wife up at Nouspique

Posted: April 6, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

Sneaky.

David Allan Barker kindly reviewed My Only Wife at his blog Nouspique.

A particularly generous highlight:

“My Only Wife is a sneaky book. It guiles the reader with clean prose and apparent simplicity into believing that it’s a novel about the narrator’s only wife. It may be about many things – about absence, emptiness, and loss – but it really isn’t about the narrator’s only wife. It’s more like an empty glass from the cupboard, an abstraction, a form, and it invites us to fill it with particulars from our own experience.”

My Only Wife Reviewed/Talked about at HTMLGiant

Posted: April 5, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

Talked about: Lucian Freud, David Lynch, Sam Taylor-Woods

Christopher Higgs had some incredibly thoughtful things to say about My Only Wife at  HTMLGiant.

 

Posted: February 28, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

Are you aware of Two Serious Ladies?  It is a new magazine named after the wonder Jane Bowles novel from Ms. Lauren Spohrer who is neat and doing neat things.  A tiny excerpt of this novel I’ve been working on for a few months is up here today: http://www.twoseriousladies.org/author/jac/

While you’re there, you should read the likes of Roxane Gay, Heidi Julavits and an amazing story called “Vagina” by Kayla Blatchley, among others. Get serious. Read the rest of this entry »

Rejection 280

Posted: February 25, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »

Vague News

Robert Lopez was kind enough to ask for a submission for his blog No News Today.  I’m going to be doing a reading at AWP with him that’s propaganda-themed, so I sent him the piece I’ve worked out for that, but he wasn’t keen on it for the blog, which is fair.  The propaganda is different than what I usually write by a mile, though I had fun researching the hideous Felony Murder Rule.

I have been working away at novel here in Vermont for the past 3 weeks!  I have about 160 pages so far!  I feel great!

Also finished editing a story collection today, and am wondering what  I want to do with it.

We’re finally getting snow here today and it is wild and woolly and I love it. I’ve been waiting all month.

 

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