12.09.2009

Joshua Cohen

keeps a genizah as a part of his website.

A new story goes up each week, and so I'm not sure how much longer "Bibliothanatos, or epigraphs for a last book" will be there. Since it might not be long, you should hurry.*

Here's the first sentence:

Once, in the future, a man wanted to keep a secret safe from everyone. He wrote it down into a book.

*Although...if it's gone, something brilliant will certainly be in its spot.

11.27.2009

House Calls

A while back, NPR issued a prompt for their second Three-Minute Fiction Contest, which asked potential participants to begin their stories with the line: The nurse left work at five o'clock.

I started messing around with something that spoke to the prompt and eventually finished it. A couple of months later, that piece has been published in the November issue of Hobart. You can read "House Calls" here.

Huge thanks to Aaron and Jensen for having me.

For some (fairly) recent favorites of mine from Hobart, check out the following:

"My Hand, Dead Tissue, Severed at the Wrist" by Kevin Wilson

& two stories by a couple of friends of mine:

"Hunters" by Eugene Cross &

"The Secret of Healers and Monsters" by Justin Hamm


Umm...While I was linking to those, I noticed that Hobart is down. I'm guessing (hoping?!?) that Aaron's going to be all over that, and that things will soon be back up. So, I'm going to leave the links the way they are for now.

A Vocation Without the Competence

I'm not a huge fan of the word "charming," but I found this interview with Mavis Gallant just that.

Of particular interest to me: Early in her career, Gallant feared that she might have "inherited a flawed legacy," like her artistic father, afflicted with "a vocation without the competence to sustain it."

This reminded me of a line from a play I attended when I was twenty-one. I don't remember much about the play at all--not even the title--just this, the gist of a single line spoken by one of the main characters: He worried the only talent he had was a talent for appreciation.

That bit struck home then, and it continues to strike, on an almost daily basis.

It made me feel a little good to know that Ms. Gallant once suffered from a similar affliction at the beginning of her career.

7.01.2009

Why I Love Reading

The new issue of SmokeLong Quarterly is live. I've only read two stories from it so far, but both of them are amazing.

If you want to feel a little crushed and weepy, head over to Dan Chaon's "The Hobblers."

If the story all by itself doesn't do you in, then read the interview.

And then, to recover, read Amanda Nazario's "Matt: How It Will Happen."

It'll make you laugh a little and then it'll bring the hammer right back down.

Still, you'll be glad for it. Just like always.

5.26.2009

Alan Cedeno


This is Alan Cedeno, and I kinda love it.