Yesterday I made rigatoni with a creamy mushroom sauce for dinner. It used mascarpone cheese, which was a neat way to do a cream sauce. It marks the first time I have eaten mascarpone outside of dessert. Recommended!
I wrote 4,125 words today, all freelance. When I was done, I lay down on my bed and watched my cats clean one another. I feel like a robot!
Manuscript deadline on the new book got pushed up to Saturday. I was worried at first, but I’m enjoying the chance to throw my weight into it. This collection includes some of my favorite stories and I’m looking forward to sending it out into the world!
I ordered some books: Europeana, In the Blind, The Wavering Knife, The Complete Butcher’s Tales!
In crime blotter news, there is no longer a killer on the loose. It turns out that the kid the killer killed was a mid-level drug dealer of some sort and the killer owed the drug dealer a lot of money. On the bright side, nobody thinks it’s a shame any more!
It’s great to keep busy! “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was within me an invincible summer!”
I got an excellent package full of art in the mail from Andrea Burk over at Spork Press (click that link ASAP and be rewarded with a great story duo from Matthew Simmons). She has sent me lovely paper adorned with lovelier art, on which I have been asked to write some stories. If I touch them today they’ll end up all half-burned and coffee stained. I’d really like to sew some of these soft pink rose petals into them, but that kind of thing doesn’t last. Trying to decide what will.
Here’s the scoop on the west coast mini tour:
Portland: Monday, Aug 3: Powell’s Books with Suzanne Burns at 7:30 PM
Seattle: Tuesday, Aug 4: Neptune Coffee with Lotte Kestner and Evelyn Hampton at 7:00 PM
Eugene: Saturday, Aug 8: Eugene with Meagan Evans at the Wandering Goat, 7:00 PM
The west coast, as the angels say, is the best coast.
Here’s a gem from Featherproof:
TripleQuick stories are specifically tailored to the modern mobile attention span, they say. 3 screens, 333 words, 3 minutes to read. The challenge of devastating in 333 words. Sublimity.
It’s good to be home. I came home and cleaned my kitchen and got a new phone to replace the one I busted on a wall in Boston. At home I found ten roses and a lot of work. I read a book and excavated my pores.
Items and events:
Lots of Hobart doings in the mighty Northwest. I’m looking forward to catching Aaron read with Mary Miller and Kevin Canty in Portland. I’ll report on my own readings out there shortly. Some good stuff also happening in Chicago and L.A. for Hobart.
There’s a killer on the loose in Austin. Barton Springs is supposed to close for repairs. A Houston woman stole a rental car from an Avis and disappeared.
I’ve been talking large about Molly Springfield’s Translation for a minute but I finally found it online so you can actually look at it. On first glance it looks like photocopies of Proust, but look closer and you will find that they are each drawn with graphite and it took two years to do. The very process conjures up feelings of the sublime.
See the short story “Valentine” by Stacy Muszynski if you’re curious about how to write deftly in voice. Writing from a child’s POV is like writing about dreams; not everything should be apparent. While you were reading this paragraph that story just snuck into your house.
First things: three new little stories up at dispatch. Thanks to PHM for his work. Secondly, I’m reading tonight at The Book Cellar with Patrick Somerville, Achy Obejas, and Derek McCormack. Looking forward to running at them with flaming branches in word form.
It’s hard to express my feelings about being done with the tour. I’m not quite done done yet, since I don’t get to be home until Monday. Meanwhile I am staying with wonderful creative friends in Chicago and talking in half-sentences about gophers and Sprinters and one-eyed cats. I wrote up a brief account of the tour while I was in the van, just the bare details (we ate breakfast at the Waffle House, we read at the Booksmith) and the thing is still ten pages. That’s how I feel.
Anyway it was wonderful to meet so many kind and generous and funny people on the road, from those who put us up in their homes and let us use their towels, to those who took us out after readings and bought us drinks and food, to those who slipped bills into our raffle bag and helped us pay for all the gas we used on the entire trip, insane, plus a surplus of $12. I learned many new names; incredible guest readers in all cities, hosts that gave us peanut butter pretzels or took us to Bourbon Street or found flowers to make our walk a little pinker, kind friends who smiled while we tried to string together a complete sentences after twelve hours on the road. I found myself in cities and states I had never been before, accompanied by the kindest hearts. I’m being blurry and vague. Once I start putting names to things I’ll start feeling it all. Let’s wait on that.
Lots of work to be done. A freelance project kicks into high gear the minute tires touch the tarmac in Austin. I’m working out the final order on Museum of the Weird and making the final edits. My Five Things co-host has been invaluable in deciphering my half-emails from the road and pulling together an exciting roster of readers. I’m looking forward to one last weekend in Chicago, one more drink with friends, and then home.
The Dollar Store Tour Bus is rolling towards Austin. Excitement grows as I read the Twitter updates.
My mother taught me to clean the house before I go on a long trip. I’m splitting the time between that and packing and finishing the stories for the show. Estimating I’m at 3.5 minutes worth of words currently, two and a half shorts left to go before the arc is more or less finished.
I’ve been happily assigning items to writers for Five Things for about a year now already but I’ve never had the assignment. It makes me even more impressed with the Five Things readers who were all brave enough to take the challenge. Completing the piece and feeling good about it is hard enough, but reading something brand new in front of a crowd is a whole electrifying twist. Lately when I read, I’ve only read stories from AM/PM, all carefully vetted and tweaked. Nothing like getting up there with something I will have likely finished the hour before. Anyway I’m excited.
I’m going to be pen pals with Spork Press while on the road. Looking forward to everything.
Thank you, Internet
last book to make you laugh out loud
Amelia Gray’s AM/PM. What I thought was going to be a collection of clever little things revealed itself to be much much bigger and better and just downright hilarious.
Thanks, man. Check out the rest of his interview here. I feel exactly the same way he does about The Master and Margarita.
