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Axolotl. Hard to pronounce, but I slur my way through it at the Literary Roadhouse podcast

June 3, 2015

Lucky me, Literary Roadhouse co-host Gerald decided to take a vacation. This left room for Maya and Anais to invite me on as a guest to discuss the short story "Axolotl" by Julio Cortázar. What is an axolotl? It's this weird looking thing: Literary Roadhouse is a really good podcast where a group of co-hosts gather together to discuss one short story every week. Their discussions are in-depth and illuminating, a tradition which I hope to have contributed to (I haven't listened to the episode yet, so I'm not sure). Check out my guest episode here. Don't hesitate to peruse their back-catalog of episodes. And subscribe, dammit!

Girl Found Alive at Bottom of Swimming Pool. Seeks Vengeance.

June 9, 2014

I haven't been writing much lately (aside from general outlines in prep for YouTube video making...but I wouldn't count that). So when fellow Write Club alum Gayle Towell approached me about contributing a story to her new Microfiction Monday Magazine project, I hesitated. But then, I figured 100 words (the limit for stories to appear on the site) wouldn't be too difficult to squeeze out. And while that ended up being partially true, I also very much experienced how rusty I had become even in the short few months since I've last written any fiction of substance. Well, my effort--a story about a man and woman being scared of their child--which I am pretty proud of, went live today. Click over to Microfiction Monday Magazine to read my story "When Susan's Daughter Sank." It's visceral, dark, and language heavy, just like I like 'em.

The first glimpse at the novel in-progress, live at The Dying Goose

January 4, 2014

Damn, just when I was sitting down to do some honest writing on this novel that I'm way far behind on (on my admittedly self-appointed deadline), I get the news that my story "We'll Learn Together" is now live in the new issue of The Dying Goose, meaning I've got to announce the publication to the world. #egoproblems. Be sure to read the rest of the stories, too, especially "Commute" by my fellow The Velvet Born Chris Deal. I suppose it's fitting though that if time is being robbed by this publication announcement post that it would be for "We'll Learn Together" as the story will likely make its way into the very novel that I'm not currently writing. So, I guess you faithful readers out there can consider this story the first glimpse at what will become my first novel in 3 years (minimum; it's impossible to say how…

A must read for writers looking for publication

December 15, 2013

Only when writers are willing to raise their expectations of small presses will the truly awful small presses die away.

Organ donation as a front for petty theft: Three Days Ahead, new fiction in Thuglit issue 8

November 16, 2013

My story, "Three Days Ahead," has been published in the recently released issue 8 of Thuglit. I've been reading Thuglit fairly consistently since Nik Korpon's entry (issue 2, I believe), and have come to really like it for it's straight-forward, no nonsense approach to crime fiction. That being said, I don't actually write straight-forward, no nonsense crime fiction. Actually, I've never really considered myself a crime fiction writer at all. Many (maybe most) of my stories do contain crime elements, but as actual crime writers will probably attest, crime alone does not a crime story make. But I had an opportunity. I originally wrote a similarly themed story that ended up being a bit of a mess. So, during a rewrite of that story I ended up with "Three Days Ahead," which by comparison to the early version is much more focused, much more emotional, and a lot less flashy-for-the-sake-of-flashy.…

“Caleb J. Ross is a disturbing fellow.” – Sean Ferguson on “The Removal Kind”

October 8, 2013

Many thanks to Sean P. Ferguson for his write up about my story "The Removal Kind," which appears in the fantastic The Booked. Anthology. Sean says: Ross doesn’t exactly ever do normal. His characters are flawed in ways that everyone really is, but he puts a little extra stank on those flaws. And he addresses those flaws with a blunt honesty that makes the reader just a little more uncomfortable. Like a lover that just won’t quit, when you think you’ve found some equilibrium with his particular brand of weird, he twists the knife just once more. and Yes. That’s a Caleb J Ross story. He’s a weird little man and I love him for it. His stories don’t always fit, but they’re good, in that sore thumb sort of way. Always. He’ll never be Jonathan Franzen, all literary and boring in some classically trained New Yorker bullshit manner, and…

No ideas for your NaNoWriMo novel? Come to NaNoBraSto (National Novel Brain Storm) on October 16th. We do the ideas for you.

October 4, 2013

Okay, we aren’t doing the work for you. But we are giving you a pleasant bump. Not as in cocaine. Unless you’re writing a book about cocaine. Perhaps a family of W.A.S.P (“pleasant”) take to cocaine to help them through their rigid dinner conversations, most of which painfully circumnavigate the 8 weeks pregnant daughter (another “bump”…). It works. For a while. Until the son, Tommy Fitzgerald, brings a friend to dinner. This friend, unbeknownst to the W.A.S.P family, happens to be the son of the city police chief and may be the baby’s father. A Pleasant Bump is a story of a family finding ways to bond in unlikely places, and of the law that tears them apart. There’s one idea for you right there. See, that was easy. Join me, Sarah Jane Connor (MotherEffingBooks), Liz Vallish (ElizzieBooks), and perhaps a few other guests as we extemporaneously formulate a collection…