News, publications and blog for the author of AM/PM (Featherproof Books) and Museum of the Weird (FC2).
Check out some stills from some short videos Mary Hamilton and I shot for No Perch, a reading series putting writers in strange places (“outdoors”):
That’s Angeline Gragasin making her personal perch on the back of a moped and Aaron Plasek in the superstar helmet.
I turned in the final draft of the novel. Now it goes through copy edits and design and through a huge device and will emerge as a book called THREATS in March of the year 2012.
FSG HQ
The house seems quieter. I have the freedom to work on other projects now, write some insane short stories that have been curled up in my spine, but all I want to do is stand silently at the window and watch the manuscript with its friends at the bus stop, trying to ignore me standing at the window, watching it, pressing my nose to the glass, watching.
I found a store yesterday full of bath fizzes and cosmetic products and mud masks and handmade soaps and claims that I will smell exactly like some manner of strawberry milk after bathing in a certain product, or like a bowl of candy corn after putting something in my hair, and none of it makes too much sense but my eyes get a little glazed over and I start putting things in my basket. I tried to interact with the ladies in the store but I had trouble modulating the volume of my voice or forming complete sentences, so excited was I to smell like an avocado at my leisure.
Apropos of nothing: I had a chance to read Heather Palmer’s chapbook Mere Tragedies and I was very charmed by it. There is love and sweetness and funny stuff in there. It felt like eating a piece of ginger. Heather lives in Chicago. The PDF is $1.50 through Girls With Insurance and I recommend it. Heather is a new voice.
new media in the house (in every house)
I’d already decided I wouldn’t be doing the SXSW music festival this year, an activity which requires standing on line for hours to be rewarded with free Lone Star and more standing while four kids from wherever go WAH WAH WAH into their microphones and someone is seriously playing the theremin. My taste in music is two years behind and my back hurts and I can’t be bothered. But then I got invited to do a panel for SXSW Interactive and ended up doing all the fun parts of SXSW — people-watching, hangouts, day party, night party — with more sitting in chairs overall.
Highlights: cool guys Tim and Ryan, kimchi tacos, BBQ and sweet dogs at Clay Smith’s, Diplo saying BLACKBERRY IN THE HOUSE at the Blackberry party, touring the DFW archive with the curator of the collection, sitting in the front row for Dave Foley and Michael Ian Black, driving a drunk guy away from 6th to Riverside in the back of my truck after he threw a wad of cash at me, introducing a New Yorker and a Seattleite to Rio Rita’s couches and cocktails, and generally feeling happy and grateful to live in Austin during kind of a strange time in my day-to-day. (AND I think I saw a yellow-rumped warbler, which really elevated this week from COOL to COOL +BIRD.) Now SXSW Music is starting and I’m all SXSWed out and ready to get back to work, which is perfect because there’s always work.
have you seen this bird? he is pretty
Speaking of new media, congrats to the awesome Ann Friedman, who was just hired as the editor of GOOD Magazine but will hopefully come back and see us in Austin more often than not.
Last night, Susan and I went to have some beers at the honky-tonk down the street. The lead guitar was a dead ringer for Ron Carlson. I danced a two-step and a country waltz with a geophysicist.
I’m heading to my Midwest spirit-roots this weekend:
Ann Arbor, MI: On Saturday, January 8 · 7:00pm – 9:00pm, I’ll be reading with Jess Walter, Lindsay Hunter, Aaron Burch and Mary Hamilton at Elizabeth Ellen’s Great Lakes, Great Times series.
Chicago, IL: On Tuesday, January 11 · 7:30pm – 10:30pm, I’ll be reading with Simon Smith, Steve Tartaglione, Allison Gruber, Lauryn Allison Lewis, Anthony Luebbert, Stephen Tully Dierks, Natalie Edwards and Samantha Irby at Lindsay Hunter’s & Mary Hamilton’s Quickies.
See you there or see you square.
This coffee shop is playing Wherein The Beatles Rip Off Motown So Hard and Still You Love It. The early stuff, man.
Dika Lam has a kind review of AM/PM up at The Nervous Breakdown. I read it while sitting in the chair I sat in to write some of the stories in the book while staring at the car dealership across the street. The car dealership has a fake gabled terrace with a fake widow’s walk and I still wonder what kind of person owns that thing.
I feel like Ringo every day
The LitDrift contest is over: congratulations to Grahame Turner on the occasion of your victory. The other highlight happened when someone named Carrie referred to me as the President of Hot Dogs. The POHD finally gets some cred. Carrie, you are the President of My Heart. Drop me a line and I will send you a copy of the book with love.
Questions Asked While Listening to Your Love is My Drug: The lyric is “My steeze is gonna be affected / if I keep it up like a lovesick crackhead.” However. Doesn’t it make more sense to say crack-sick crackhead? A lovesick crackhead might be easily distracted by other things, including but not limited to feelings of agitation, depression, extreme fatigue, anxiety, angry outbursts, and thoughts of the substance itself. The illness associated with a craving for the drug seems to have more of a one-to-one connection. “I’m sick for you like I’m sick for crack cocaine.” Now that has a nice direct feel.
My story “Thoughts While Strolling” is in good company at Alice Blue Review with Brian Evenson, Michael Kimball, and more.
Check out the Wigleaf Top 50, the list I devour slowly every year. I’m happy to see some stories I recognize and love on there, like Stephen Graham Jones’s “Modern Love” and Sean Lovelace’s “To Be Happy.” Honored that two of my stories made it to the shortlist. If you’re looking for places to read and love and send your own stories, the journals on the top 50 are a good start.
Last night I read at the Badgerdog fundraiser, opening for Sarah Bird, who read/narrated a fantastic flamenco-backed piece from her book Flamenco Academy. Our local beauty queen came wearing her sash. She seemed sweet and bought books. The art-supporting community came out strong and donated generously to support writing programs in the Austin area. I developed strong positive opinions about flamenco and olive tapenade.
If you’re in Austin and looking for something to do tonight, come see The Encyclopedia Show. It is going to be a good’un.
If you’re stressed out, watch a video about baby sloths.
Life is one extended game of Oregon Trail and we have full power to choose the members of our traveling party. I’m glad to have someone in my wagon who can eradicate the viruses from my computer after I’ve downloaded too much Madonna. Our hearts are light, our machines clean. Onward!
On Saturday I was a lucky duck to have three smart and talented ladies in my Dzanc Day workshop. We sat around the fireplace in Mary Sledd‘s lovely new studio and drank mimosas and talked about dialogue and openings and working through the block. Thanks to Brittany, Lesley, and Sarah for being wonderful and showing me your work. Thanks also to Dzanc for putting it together across the country.
SXSW happened. I was happy happy to make it down south to see Trespassers William play music so beautiful it put me into a trance. The woman sitting next to me on the couch was under the same spell. She kept saying “Yes” real quiet.
Zach and Ally visited from Chicago, Autumn from NYC. Good finds this year included The Middle East, Free Energy, Lisse, and Givers. I was happy to see The Low Anthem shine in a smaller venue. The Gary rocked their brunch show. Ally and I watched a guitar girl while we sat on chairs like old ladies. Mary and I walked through a dark neighborhood until we found a stage set up in someone’s backyard, accordions and violins backing pretty singers for a crowd of 75 or so.
Tyson’s Whiskey Rebellion was excellent. I had the honor of reading with Tyson as well as Bill Cotter, James Hannaham, Stephen Elliott. Feeling kind of overwhelmed just thinking about it. A band of young men called The Shake played and some homeless ladies jumped over a wall. It was a fine week in total! Back to work in the morning.
You should read Kyle Minor’s story The Truth and All Its Ugly, for it is heartache in paragraph form. Beautiful work.
And lastly: a kind review of AM/PM over at Broken Pencil. Thanks very much to Jack Cena for the consideration.
The Ransom Center got David Foster Wallace’s archives. They’ll be up in August or so. Field trip down the street. (via)
Last night was cool. I read from AM/PM a little. It started pouring rain on half the crowd after I started one page but stopped twenty seconds later. I also read an oldie, as requested by the gentleman what escorted me. (Texas Tip: Dance with who brung ya.)
The reading also featured an open mic, with ACC students and faculty reading short pieces. One of the best open mics I’ve seen, actual. Took me back to Maggie Evans’s shows in San Marcos when I was most excited about poetry.
Then, Finn & Porter for Restaurant Week. Pecans caramelized and further crisped in the deep-fry. Seabass steamed over a bed of potato flavored with some manner of umami. A trio of brûlées in tiny cups. Fine company as well. Today I have a date with the gym. After coffee. Fifteen more minutes.
Thanks to John Herndon for inviting me to last night’s reading and to Sarah Wambold for making a note about it on the Austinist.
Next week, I’m opening the Whiskey Rebellion with Southpaw. In later excitement, I’m reading with Teleportal for Fusebox in April. And more good news, we got Michael Kimball and Christian TeBordo for Five Things in May.
This week, I’m watching a dog with a spinal injury who needs to be walked in a sling. On our last trip outside, we made friends with a half-paralyzed corgi. Its useless legs were strung up in a rolling cage. Everybody’s just happy to be here.
I learned that DIAGRAM was selling their ten-year anthology in the form of a deck of cards and I bought it so fast that my credit card snapped back and hit me in the face. John D’Agata, Brian Evenson, Albert Goldbarth, Sean Lovelace, Ben Marcus, Derek White. The cardlash was worth it.
It is raining pleasantly. There’s another creature running around behind the wall. I feel like I’ve been awake for eight years.
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