I had an idea for a podcast. So I made a test episode ready for your listening pleasure. Behold, episode zero of the Gamer Strangers Podcast. Some background info: In a hunt for Kansas City area gamers, I stumbled upon a group of people, two of which (NSA_iswatchingus and PairedRabbit) host the gaming podcast The Titled Gamer Podcast. This lead to me participating in episode 50 of their podcast which in turn opened up the opportunity for Nick (NSA_iswatchingus) to indulge me in a podcast idea that, selfishly, is meant to introduce me to more KC area gamers. Welcome to episode zero of the Gamer Strangers Podcast, a podcast that brings together two otherwise strangers based only on their mutual love of videogames. We scour the online and IRL videogame communities to find people that don’t know each other personally but do know that the other person loves video games.…
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About one year ago I stopped writing fiction. Despite being very proud of my output (five books of fiction, dozens of short stories and essays) and despite developing a small but eager audience of readers who looked forward to my work, I stopped. No ceremony. No real reason (that I know of, anyway). One moment I considered myself a writer of fiction. The next moment I did not.
Why is this a problem? I have a collaborative novel (written with the amazing Nik Korpon, Richard Thomas, and Axel Taiari) to be published by Dzanc in 2015. Dzanc is a dream publisher, and the three aforementioned authors are dream collaborators. Luckily, I don’t need to be an active writer in order to promote the hell out of this forthcoming book (which I do plan on doing, so get ready world). However, I can’t help but think that with my dissolved passion for writing fiction, my promotional efforts may seem disingenuous. Imagine Aunt Jemima giving lectures to halls filled with syrup makers decades after she turned syrup warehouse into an airplane hanger.
The always awesome Lori over at The Next Big Book Blog is constantly coming up with cool ways to combine writing/reading with general interest topics like food and booze. Just last week she had me over for a series called Would You Rather in which she asked me a series of questions, all following the would you rather _____ or ____ format. 12. Would you rather be forced to listen to Ayn Rand bloviate for an hour or be hit on by an angry Dylan Thomas? Getting hit on by Dylan Thomas would be quicker, so I’ll go that route. Today, she gave me some space to provide a recipe for my favorite authorly meal, Aunt Caleb's Author Surprise. The best part is, all the ingredients can be easily acquired at your local stepfather's liquor cabinet! Click over to read how to make Aunt Caleb's Author Surprise. Then stick around…
Families were important then, and they were important not because the children were useful in the fields to break corn and hoe cotton and drop potato vines in the wet weather or the help with hog butchering and all the rest of it. No, they were important because a large family was the only thing a man could be sure of having. Nothing else was certain. If a man had no education or even if he did, the hope of putting money in the bank and keeping it there or owning a big piece of land free and clear, such hope was so remote that few men ever let themselves think about it. The timber in the county was of no consequence, and there was very little rich bottom land. Most of the soil was poor and leached out, and commercial fertilizer was dear as blood. But a man didn't…
A few nights ago, when reading the James M. Cain short story “Pastorale,” I was struck by a scene that seemed very Chuck Palahniuk-ian[1]. A dead man is pulled out of a frozen lake; the man fell through the thin ice atop the lake when trying to retrieve the severed head of a man he helped kill earlier in the story. But unlike a Chuck Palahniuk story, “Pastorale” kept going. The shock was not the climax. I’m not sure why I immediately forced a comparison to Chuck Palahniuk. The writers, and their work, are completely different. I suppose the use of shock, which I consider a very Palahniuk thing, was used in “Pastorale” in a way that I wasn’t ready for. It’s important to state up front that I love Chuck Palahniuk’s writing. I’ll read every novel he writes, even if they continue to be as bad as his last…
I read an early version of this collection, What Precision, Such Restraint, a few years ago, during which time I must have been drunk, since though I recall enjoying the collection I don’t remember it being so front-loaded with genius. I read two stories today, the first and second, chronologically. Both are amazing, but it’s the second I want to mention here, “That Lombardi Thing” which encapsulates what I consider to be the absolutely best kind of story: voice-driven, thought-provoking, and never too full of itself. This is why I love Saramago. This is why I love Brian Evenson (though his characters do tend to be a bit full of themselves, the stories aren’t). This is what I try to write. “That Lombardi Thing” explores the made-up (I think made-up) concept of Freudhacking, which is the practice of switching a person’s conscious with their subconscious. Thought-provoking: check. The narrator is…
"Sugarbaby" from William Gay's collected stories, I Hate to See that Evening Son Go Down captures slow, unaffected degradation of a marriage in ways I've never read before. The main couple, Beasley, and let's say, Martha (as part of the rules, I'm not allowed to go back to the story at all, and I can't remember the wife's name) are seen within their small community as a pillar of marital perfection. They've en-joyed/-dured marriage longer than any other couple. One day, Beasley buys his wife a dog, a small, yap-yap-yap kind of dog, who doesn't seem to appreciate the fine home Beasley has brought him into. Eventually, Beasley shoots the dog with a gun far larger than would be necessary to kill such a tiny animal. This fact, though not directly addressed, is mentioned only enough to be allowed to simmer in the reader's head. This is what makes a…