Latest Blog Posts — Page 19

Uncategorized / July 9, 2012

Ahhhh!! I have a book coming out!!!

I’m very very excited to announce that my short story collection, Modern Manners for Your Inner Demons, will be published by Matter Press in October.

I think this is the perfect place for this book. Randall Brown, founder of Matter Press, has been a huge supporter of my writing for many years now. I first met him when I was the writer-in-residence at SmokeLong, and his comments and critiques of my stories were always so spot-on and thoughtful. I am continually amazed at the excellent work he publishes at the Journal of Compressed Creative Arts as well. I am honored that he wants to publish my first collection of stories, and so excited for the outcome.

The collection is a series of 10 etiquette stories, which you can read more about here. I want to thank Art Taylor, Brandon Wicks, Steve Himmer, Laura Ellen Scott, Ellen Parker, Mike Czyzniejewski, Matt Bell, Joe Killiany and Dave Housley for all their early support and/or for publishing some of these stories.

Yee Haw! I’ll update with more details as I get them.

Uncategorized / June 25, 2012

Issue 36 of SmokeLong Quarterly is live!

Issue 36 of SmokeLong Quarterly went up late last night. It’s a great issue this time, with work by Mary Hamilton and Pamela Painter and Sam Martone and Christopher Allen and a ton of other folks.

The cover art is by Tuyen Tran, a fantastic artist from New York.

Don’t forget to read the author interviews (link at the end of every story.) They are often my favorite part of every issue because they give me insight into what makes our writers tick and what the heck they were thinking when they wrote their amazing stories.

Read Issue 36 now!

Publication News / April 9, 2012

My Etiquette Collection is DONE–Now It Just Needs a Publisher…

I finally finished my manuscript of ‘etiquette’ stories. Tentative title: MODERN MANNERS FOR YOUR INNER DEMONS. I have ten of these babies now, and Matt Bell was kind enough to just publish “The Etiquette of Arson“ in The Collagist. You can check out some others here: “The Etiquette of Infertility” in FRiGG, “The Etiquette of Adultery” in Necessary Fiction and “The Etiquette of Homicide” (annotated!) in Barrelhouse.

I’m currently looking for a publisher for the collection. It’s a strange little book–on the larger side for a chapbook, but not quite long enough for a full-length short story collection. If anyone out there has any ideas or interest, please please let me know!

Awards / August 30, 2011

Press 53 Open Awards Anthology

My story “Dendrochronology,” which originally appeared in The Northville Review, won second place in Press 53’s 2011 Open Awards Series and will appear in the Open Awards anthology in October 2011.

My story “The Etiquette of Dementia,” originally published in The Mid-American Review, was a finalist in the short-short story category.

Thanks to Kevin Watson and all the folks at Press 53. Looking forward to the awards ceremony on October 22!

Publication News / August 9, 2011

Contributing to Stripped anthology

The lovely Nicole Monaghan has accepted a story of mine for her enticing anthology, Stripped: A Collection of Anonymous Flash Fiction. The anthology will have the authors’ names and bios, but they won’t be matched up to the stories in the collection. So, yeah, I can’t tell you which story of mine was accepted. For more on the anthology and the thoughts behind it, visit Nicole’s blog.

Uncategorized / February 12, 2011

SCORE POTS & SMOKE Reading a Success!

SmokeLong Quarterly’s off-site reading with Corium and Prick of the Spindle during the Association for Writers and Writing Programs’ annual conference, held this year in D.C., was a smashing success. Nine brilliant readers gave us their best at The Black Squirrel in Adams Morgan in D.C. on February 4, 2011. You can check out the Facebook photo album for shots of the fun. SmokeLong’s readers — Michael Czyzniejewski, Randall Brown and Steve Almond — really rocked the house.

Steve Almond reads for SmokeLong.
Uncategorized / February 9, 2011

Reading at 5ive:ten Readings Feb. 19

Thanks to Jen Michalski, who asked me to read at Baltimore’s 5ive:ten Readings this month. I’ll be reading with Jessica Anya Blau, Nik Korpon and Pat King, all who have way more impressive bios than I do. Here’s more information about the series.

Awards / October 16, 2010

First Place in the Santa Fe Writers Project Lit Awards

My short story collection-in-progress, Black Diamond City, won first place in the Santa Fe Writers Project 2010 Literary Awards, judged by Robert Olen Butler.

Thanks much to Andrew Gifford and the folks at SFWP for all their hard work. Thanks also to Mr. Butler, whose work I highly admire. I am very honored to have been chosen for this award.

Black Diamond City is a collection of very short stories set in or inspired by my hometown of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. You may notice if you click on my novel page that BDC is the title of that as well. I have decided to condense that novel significantly (from 500 pages to 25!) and try something completely different. Fingers crossed it works.