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The Camp moves into the Literary House

October 20, 2008

The second annual issue of The Literary House Review has just been released. Why should you care? My story, "The Camp," appears within. That's why. Never mind that the publication contains 232 pages of genre and non-genre, commercial and literary fiction, along with poems enough to erect a mansion - albeit one inconveniently susceptible to moisture (guess what paper, you make a better art medium than a wall!). Never mind that The Review is available to buy here or here and is archived at New York Public Library, Rockefeller Library at Brown University, RI, and at the University of Wisconsin Madison Library (those are monocle-level smart houses, people). Buy it for "The Camp." Now for the author notes: As so many stories begin, "The Camp" was a self-inflicted dare. The concept of "The Camp" is seeded in a desire to explore the horrid through a lens subjectively aimed toward beauty.…

Brian Evenson’s names

December 18, 2007

I thought I'd do something different this time around. I recently read Jeremy Robert Johnson's story collection "Angeldust Apocalypse" (which is absolutely amazing); with it JRJ does something unique. At the end of the collection he as a section called Author's Notes, which are a series of anecdotal behind-the-scenes snippets on each story. Here's hoping it catches on. So, with my newest publication I figure I would do the same. Present Magazine has just posted my story "Dry Dot." Here's the thoughts: At every rain I wonder—though the drop patterns are likely random—if there is a single spot somewhere within the downpour where no drop falls; where the concrete remains dry. Give water’s tendency to pool together, could there be an untouched dot? Further, how would we explain it? Science? Maybe, but wouldn’t that argument just be destroyed by politics? Global warming, anyone? It seems even the earth is subject…

…out of WordRiot

September 16, 2007

Via the work of Stephen Graham Jones, author of tomes and short stories alike, I came upon Word Riot, an online literary magazine showcasing some of the best short fiction around. Diving further I came upon former fiction co-editor of Word Riot, David Barringer's story collection "We Were Ugly So We Made Beautiful Things." This brief work (68 pages) absolutely below me away. I knew, after reading that collection, that I had to be a part of whatever Barringer had his hands in. Luckily, Word Riot considered my words suitable. Appearing now is my short fiction piece, "Our Guy." Skim it, then immediately buy "We Were Ugly..." (if not for the stories, do it for purposes of understanding what the title of this post means). Word Riot is a Monthly online literary magazine with a notable book catalog under the Word Riot Press imprint.

what happens to us isn’t good

October 1, 2006

Flash fiction: feeding a demographic composed of people without much time to read but with plenty of time to think. I used to think of flash fiction as a pompous intellectual commercial; there is something buried in there, but more often than not it doesn't want you to know what it is. The burden lay with the critic. But then I happened upon a little thing called the internet, where flash fiction has been allow to flourish outside—and even influence—academe. Amy Hempel, an author who writes in a very flash-fiction, minimalist style uses the following lines in her story "The Man in Bogotá," which textualizes my eventual change nicely: "It took months. The man had a heart condition, and the kidnappers had to keep the man alive [...] He wondered how we know that what happens to us isn't good." The internet has without a doubt promoted the art of…