News, publications and blog for the author of AM/PM (Featherproof Books) and Museum of the Weird (FC2).
Please find a new story, LOOP, at Everyday Genius. All month, Justin Sirois is curating the site, posting a new story every day inspired by an animated GIF. He says I got the only gross one.
I found a new coffee shop to sit inside! The man who makes the coffee looks like maybe he’s from Canada? And the door to the bathroom keeps slamming really loud, which keeps me on my toes creatively. Also it’s right next door to tacos. Things are pretty good.
The past few weeks have been a true discovery voyage. Susan and I drove to Victoria and found out what it feels like to have carpet in a bathroom. We stood in the Gulf and saw dolphins, and then we drove home. Last week, I flew to McAllen and asked Brian for a tour of the true McAllen, a request I will never regret. I found a swimming pool and a cheeseburger in that place. Everyone was nice everywhere. Texas is the greatest state in Texas.
Now I’m watching some ladies have a professional lunch. They are wearing blazers. One of them said, “Should I also ask Holly?” and then they all laughed kind of knowingly. Ha ha ha, hmm, mm-hmm.
LITERATURE?!
LITERATURE NEWS
All week I’ve been reading the incredible new collections of two writers: Matthew Simmons and Ethel Rohan. Just you wait.
James Hynes just won The Believer Book Award.
I have readings upcoming in NYC, Portland, Seattle, Austin. Make like Carson and KEEP IT LOCKED.
Good morning, world. Please find a triptych of new stories at 52 Stories today. Thanks owed to Cal Morgan for the opportunity.
It’s forever morning in this blog post. The cat is looking out the window at the street sweeping machine. The squirrel is sitting over his drey, holding his heart. The sun has found all the windows. I am sleepy, working, thinking about oatmeal, forever, in this blog post.
New fiction at Spork today. Check out their Issue 9.1, for which I made the interstices. The hard copies are beautifully bound.
I’ll be in NYC next week, reading with Christian TeBordo, Grace Krilanovich, and Lindsay Hunter.
October 24th
NEW YORK CITY
Indie Press Crush Fest w/ Two Dollar Radio
KGB Bar
85 East 4th Street, NYC
7pm
October 26th
BROOKLYN, NY
Indie Press Crush Fest w/ Two Dollar Radio
WORD
126 Franklin Street, Brooklyn
7:30pm
The New York Times reviewed Museum of the Weird
Please find my recommends for exciting online reads at the NYLON blog, including links to excellent pieces by Meredith Martinez, Lindsay Hunter, Christopher Higgs, Athena Nilssen, and Jamie Iredell.
Also find an interview with Richard Thomas at The Nervous Breakdown in list form, and learn what I really think about Farmville, Rob Lowe, and the Chevy Camaro Iroc-Z.
New story “Ghost” at Shattered Wig Press, a sneak preview of their Issue 29.
Kyle Beachy reviews Museum of the Weird
Everybody’s favorite Mary Hamilton won Rose Metal Press’ chapbook contest with her short short collection WE KNOW WHAT WE ARE. That finalist and semi-finalist list is quite the list. I can’t wait to see Mary’s work in lovely RMP style.
This summer I contributed to the playlist up at Wigleaf and forgot about it until it was posted today. And. My book release date got pushed up to August or September.
who's there
Also the winners of the Five Things contest A New Year are posted over there. I’m looking forward to the show. I don’t know who most of these people are. And. I made a poster.
Kim Parko’s incredible Cure All is out at Caketrain. Of it I wrote, “To call these pieces unique isn’t enough. With her fractured shards of advice, sweet little nightmares, tunneled eyes and sprouted scales, Kim Parko presents a twisting puzzle of fire blights and lonely spines. This book will crawl into your house.” It’s weird that it’s only $8.
I’m back in Texas. Last night we drank Johnny Walker Blue Label and walked home with the wind at our backs. Dick Clark is an animatron with a dual directive to kiss ladies and count backwards.
On the drive back from Tucson I read most of Elmore Leonard’s Escape From Five Shadows aloud. It was an early book, just his third novel, and it shows a bit in word repetition and other little things, but it’s a good book. It made me wonder about writing westerns. You have to write close enough to feel familiar with the genre but you can have too many suntanned faces peering out from under curled hat brims. Familiar but not too familiar.
My Christmas story is up at Everyday Genius, which was guest edited this month by Sasha Fletcher. The third paragraph used to be its own story, which I was calling “Things To Do With Fifty-Three Poinsettias.” It was kind of a downer so I condensed and re-appropriated. EWN said some nice things about the story. Thank you Sasha and Adam and Dan.
I’m excited to read the latest Sleepingfish, edited by Gary Lutz and Derek White and featuring a lineup I’m proud to be a part of, including Ryan Call, Anna DeForest, Sasha Fletcher, Nina Shope, Rachel May, David McLendon, Eugene Lim, The Brothers Goat, Lito Elio Porto, Adam Weinstein, Diane Williams, Dennis Cooper, Elliott Stevens, Tim Jones-Yelvington, Alec Niedenthal, Matt Bell, Eduardo Recife, David Ohle, Evelyn Hampton, Émilie Notéris, Ottessa Moshfegh, Cooper Renner, Christine Schutt, M. T. Fallon, Daniel Grandbois, Julie Doxsee, Terese Svoboda, Blake Butler, Stephen Gropp-Hess and Ali Aktan Askin. The cover looks great:
The new Sonora Review is also out and ready for order. It has a lovely cover and work from me, Colleen O’Brien, Steven Church, Michael Tod Edgerton, Amanda Warren, Joshua Robbins and more. Sonoran Desert represent.
Now I’m learning about the Corpus Days Inn where Selena was murdered. When MLK was shot in the Lorraine Motel they made it into a museum, but the Days Inn is still a Days Inn; they just changed the numbers on the doors.
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