Publication: "Night-Vision Goggles" in SpringGun Journal

Here's a link to my friends Erin and Mark's journal, SpringGun. In addition to putting out a fabulous e-journal, the site also publishes lots of really cool digital lit. I'm really stoked to be a part of issue four, along with a number of other really great writers, some of whom I know ; )

Enjoy!

Publication: "Dissection" in Eclectic Flash

Here's a link to the website where you can view the April issue as an e-book, or you can order a copy for $5, which would be a cool thing to do since all the money they make, they say, goes into turning the publication into a paying market for writers. Plus, if you buy a copy, and it's ever convenient, I'll totally sign it and in two or three years probably it'll be worth millions. Something to think about.

p.s. I'm on page 90 ; )

Publication: "Missing" in decomP magazinE

This is a piece I wrote after second guessing what I told my students about never writing in the passive voice. Rules are meant to be broken, I suppose. Check it here: decomP magazinE

Publication: "Pulse" in Fogged Clarity

Wew. Been a bit of a hiatus, but rest assured it's not for lack of labor. April's a big month for me publication-wise; I've got two coming out for sure and some others possibly later in the month.

My short story "Pulse" is up now at Fogged Clarity, and if you subscribe to the podcast you can even hear me read it (awkwardly)! I'll post links to the others as they become available. Enjoy!

p.s. Check out the rest of the issue too. It's great.

AWP Reflection + Diatribe

I'm back! It was my first AWP and I did not leave empty-handed. I bought about 12 different books from various small presses, attended countless readings, but probably the biggest thing I've taken away from the experience is a greater awareness of The Book. I was really impressed by all the small presses I found--I'm talking about the really small ones, the ones who put out, like, a title or two per year just to do it, just to be the ones who gave the world this thing that it otherwise would not have. I could be wrong, but my sense is that their reasons for doing it don't even have that much to do with literature, so much as with the book itself. The book as event. The book as collaborative artistic effort. But most importantly, the book as subversion.

One thing I am learning--and this part is influenced both by my AWP experience, as well as my recent reading of Ronald Sukenick's "In Form: Digressions on the Act of Fiction"--but the literary market is NOT a bottleneck for quality. Say what you want about the free market as a general economic system, but the fact remains that, in the arts, its role is more complicated. The market does not favor the individual experience. After all, how is one to advertise to the individual? How is one to mass-produce for the individual? The one thing Capitalism and the free market cannot anticipate is the depth of individual experience, and for that reason it is its enemy. Because particularity is not in the market's interest, it seeks to destroy particularity via 'buzz'; via advertising campaigns that celebrate the collective, the 'new thing', the idea of belonging to this or to that 'class' of people who appreciate this or that 'type' of thing. Then, when someone tries to say something different, tries to create something that does not look like what we are used to, something the forces us to question what we are used to and to examine the reasons why, we dismiss it as pretentious, arrogant, or, horror of horrors, as academic.

A lot of times, I will admit, a work may be all of these things. And when it is, people are right to dismiss it. But one thing the market has conditioned us to do is dismiss anything that is strange, or that makes us feel uncomfortable, because when we are uncomfortable it means we are on the verge of change, and when we change, the market must then play catch up.

It's easy to take this kind of idea to political extremes and to start drawing up manifestos and declarations about what art should do. That's what Sukenick does. But I'm not interested in that--at least, not now. I only mention it as a way of congratulating all those small presses I ran into in Washington. Whether or not they are publishing the 'best' literature available today, they are wrenching some of that power away from the market, away from the big presses. They are providing the individual a platform from which to speak, and the public a way of accessing voices that promote more than just what is familiar, what fits into mathematical market strategies. As an artist myself, I find that hugely liberating: that there is more than just the market and the tastes of corporate executives behind what gets published. We should all find that liberating.

AWP Schedule

Here's a tentative list of some of the stuff I might be attending, both onsite and off. For those who are also attending, lemme know if you'd like to tag along or if there's something better going on at any point.

Thursday (I arrive late Wednesday night, so this will be my first opportunity to do stuff):

9:00 am- Presses with a Mission
10:30 am- Things that go bump when you write: Monsters, Myths, and the Supernatural in Literary Fiction
12:00 pm- Narrative Structure: The episodic and the epiphanic
4:30 pm- Creative Writing and the University: A Conversation with Mark McGurl
7:00 pm- Off-site- A Pair of Teeth/Apertif--Articles Press, SpringGun and Flying Guillitine: A Readings + Afterparty @ IOTA Club and Cafe

Friday:

7:00 am: Gotta volunteer for four hours... That's the price of free registration.
11-3:00 pm: Bookfair, lunch, etc.
3:00 pm: Either 'Does the writing workshop still work?' or 'Bodies Politic'
4:30 pm: Building the Literary Robot: The Literary Journal as New Media

Dunno what's going on Friday night, but I'd be down for something off-site if anybody has a suggestion. I also thought it might be cool to attend some of the open receptions different schools are hosting, and I definitely would like to check out an art museum while I'm in town, maybe Saturday morning or something. Everybody who is going, please keep me in mind and let me know what's up. I'll see you in Washington!

Publication News

Pleasant surprise:

Last night I received a newsletter from Danse Macabre listing me as one of their contributors for the holiday issue. Turns out they accepted my short story 'Hunger' without me knowing it! Thanks guys!

Please show your support by checking it out here.