Publication is Mine!!!

As could be expected from them asking me to read last week, the great folks at Loose Change Magazine have featured my Dali painting of a story "Oasis" in their latest issue. You can read the entire issue and my story here. You can check out Loose Change here.

Insert Graceless Plug Here

Another AWP has came and went, and once again I was not a part of it. I made sure to take a week long hiatus from Twitter so that I wouldn't be forced to come face to face with that good ole' high school feeling of being the only one not invited to a totally sweet party, man. That isn't the case here because I was as invited as anyone else was, but there is something to it, to the feeling of being on the outside looking in. The world is cliquey--it's a fact of life--and indie lit is no different. Not a judgement call; an observation. People like who they like, artistically and personally, and those preferences necessarily create Cool Kidz and Not-So-Cool Kidz. The problem with not being one of the Indie Lit Cool Kidz is that Indie Lit is already the Not-So-Cool Kidz of the publishing world, so one can't help but wonder: am I just simply unlikeable?

I don't so much have an answer to that, though my son likes me alright. I think.

Speaking of feeling like you're in high school again, I am now volunteering twice a month with this truly impressive program for graduating seniors where they have to complete a 6 or 7 month writing seminar and for their troubles they get a four-year scholarship to a select number of really nice universities. The group I'm helping coach are all going to Boston University, so kudos and all that to them. It was fun, talking about writing to a group of young writers. I'm sure they thought I was really old and lame, but I had a good time and it was nice to see writing was alive and well among the youngsters.

And speaking of high school writers...*insert graceless plug for my pet project here*

It's supposed to be 70 degrees this weekend which means that spring has probably sprung for reals in Atlanta. Time to start taking Zyrtec. Time to get a sun burn. Time to find my sunglasses and put them on my face. Time to kick the ball around. Time to drink beer on patios and laugh...a little at least. Time to wake up wake up wakey wake and look around and take stock and all that happy crap. Time to feel good for a little bit.

Time to get them sunglasses and put them on my face.

Also, if you're in the Atlanta area this Friday, I'll be reading a story of mine and fidgeting uncomfortably at this awesome Loose Change Magazine event. Details here.

Josh Fuson Takes on The Supremes

The Supremes, the latest all-original record from Colorado-based singer-songwriter Josh Fuson, is a masterwork of political critique couched in highly enjoyable, super catchy tunes. Consisting of ten songs based ostensibly on the lives and times of the nine Supreme Court justices, The Supremes rarely wavers from the barely-electrified indie folk that makes Fuson’s music so recognizable and so gratifying. Like the matching black robes the justices wear to court, these ten songs are all dressed in similar clothes (light drumming, bass, acoustic and electric guitar, some organ/keyboards), but what they’re wearing isn’t really the point. Like the justices themselves, what’s inside these songs is as different as Scalia from Sotomayor.

Ranging from nostalgic tales of home and childhood (“Don’t Let The Sun Catch You In Bed”) to bitter, blistering political broadsides (“No No I’m Sorry You Can’t”), The Supremes is the most resonant during those moments when Fuson sheds light on the interior lives of these enigmatic and powerful figures. Songs like the haunting and delicate “To Cecelia” could be about anyone, but set within the context of the album, it becomes a candle set amidst the roiling and hostile emotions of a life on the Supreme Court. Listening to this song it is easy to imagine Justice O’Connor sitting in her bed at night, the lights off, her eyes closed, her mind running and wandering.

The Old Town

I sat down not too long ago and finally wrote a short story that'd been festering in me for quite some time, years really. As I am likely to do these days, I wrote it all out in one go. It's based on the National song, "Lemonworld," and the story shares the title with the song. I feel like it might be the best short story I've ever written. Maybe it isn't. I'll let "the market" decide.

I've written three short stories in the span of four months, which makes the latter half of 2012 one of the most prodigious periods of my short story writing career. None of these stories have been accepted yet, though I suppose I'm not pushing very hard either. I now have six shorts that remain unpublished, and with the exception of one, I really like them all. I'm beginning to wonder if I should look instead for someone to publish a collection. A short story collection with my name on it sounds like a joke, honestly, but maybe that's where this is headed. Or maybe all these stories suck and they haven't been published because I'm a crappy short story writer and no one wants to publish them.

That's a definite possibility, too.

I went to California last minute to visit my grandma who is doing very badly. It was very emotional, but I don't really want to get into it here. I'm telling you about the trip mainly because I finally got to see Lincoln and Argo. They were both very good movies, though I found Lincoln to be strangely depressing. I found it hard to be too happy for all these men who spent their lives fighting for the abolition of slavery, knowing full well that blacks would neither be able to vote nor have anything resembling equal rights for a full century and quarter after the passing of the 14th amendment. I saw the tears in these men's eyes as they saw the culmination of years, and I could not join them because I knew that what they thought was a culmination was just the passing of one hurdle and the beginning of another, longer race.

It makes you think about your own life, and what is possible, and what you can possibly do to make a lasting impression. It's a difficult thing to do. Time is like waves licking at the shore. No matter how hard you try to leave your footprints in the sand, the water just washes it away. Even supposed great men don't make much lasting impressions. The conquering work of Alexander was practically undone by the time his grandchildren were adults. All that bickering of our founding fathers, which they thought they settled in 1787 with the signing of the Constitution, would come unglued just one generation later, the Federalist papers burned in cannon fire.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but...

I was gonna write more, but this seems like a good place to end.

I'm not sure what the answer is.

Carry On

This is naturally--as all times are really--a period of immense change for me. I am not working other than my assorted projects and freelancing. I am staying at home with my child, and I am growing out my hair and my beard and I am thinking big things about who I am and who I could be. Most people never really get the chance after the age of 18 to stop and reflect and have the breathing room to ask the question, "Who the hell am I, anyway?"

I'm not sure I like the answer I'm getting. Or rather, I'm not sure what the answer is and it scares the shit out of me.

I'm the sort of person who only enjoys only the first half of a vacation because I spend the second half too worried about how many days I have left and how the vacation is almost over with. This is sort of like that, I suppose, but with maybe a lot more on the line.

So, I focus on those things I can do every day to affect change. I'm reading a lot, I go to the playground with my son and I watch him learn all those important things most of us learn unconsciously, as he's doing now. He talks to new kids, gets rejected, learns how to deal with that, meets more new kids and repeats the process. He's very resilient and honest. He asked a kid the other day straight up if the kid would play with him. The kid said no, and Collins looked over at me with the most sincere hope I've ever seen--he truly thought I could fix this. I couldn't, though. That's just the way it is; sometimes people don't wanna play with you.

We listen to Blur and fun. all the damn time because those are the only two bands that he knows every word to every song, and he sings and sings and sings. He knows the words. He sings.

He sings: "If you're lost and alone, or sinking like a stone, carry ahh-ahh-ahh-ahh-on."

Though I know he probably has no idea what he's singing, it feels like he's singing it to me.

"If you're lost and alone, or sinking like a stone, carry on, dad. Carry on."

There's a library at the top of the hill by the playground and every day we go to the library and we read two or three books and we borrow one more to take home and read before bed time. It's a simple ritual but he likes it and I like it, and it reminds me of when I was a little kid and the entirety of the world seemed contained within the city library. I suppose it was. I suppose it still is.

I'm periodically picking up Danielle Evans' amazing short story collection, Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self , and I'm thinking I need to read more. I'm also reading The World According to Garp (Modern Library) and I'm loving it, but my parents told me the kid dies and now I'm terrified to keep reading. The last thing I want to read right now is about kids dying. Literally the last. Which is probably why I'm reading short fiction instead of the news like I usually do.

xTx has a new book coming out called Billie the Bull on the indomitable Mudluscious Press. You should pre-order it here. Roxane Gay has about a zillion projects coming out in the next year or so, so visit her blog and keep abreast of all those fancy developments. I'm starting to submit my novel to other agents to see if I can get some interest in it before I either give up or just publish the damn thing myself. I don't wanna do the latter, but I will if I have to. I think it's too good of a book to just languish in my hard drive. That may be writerly arrogance, but I believe it for reals.

I've started another novel about a mapmaker living in 1600's Amsterdam who gets caught up in all sorts of New World craziness. It's been brewing for quite some time, but I think I finally have enough things figured out, and have enough distance from the last novel, that I can get started on something new. It feels good. I'm writing this one by hand, interestingly enough, because I have several hours a week where I'm sitting on a park bench watching my son run around and interact with other kids. Writing a book seems like a good use of that time, but bringing my clunky, POS of a computer is not an option. So, I bought a small journalist-style notebook and I'm scribbling the darn thing out by hand. Very different feel. May be just what I need to put the last novel behind me. Different story, different method of transcribing, different feel.

It's not cold here, and it always makes me feel weird when it's not cold in the winter. But it's nice for a first time stay at home dad, because the outdoors are always an option. If me or Collins start getting cabin fever, we can just go outside and get our ya-ya's out. That's nice, even if a green, wet, and brown Christmas doesn't quite feel right.

Wish me luck with the agent search. Buy books from indie writers. That is all.

The Time Has Come

I've been hinting at it for months, and it is now time for me to come clean. Early last month everything changed for me. For starters, I quit my job. The reasons for this are myriad. Some I will lay out here; others I will keep for myself. But needless to say, this is just about the best thing that could happen to me. I now get to write for a living. I get to spend more time with the people I love most. I have the freedom to travel when I want (even if I don't exactly have the money). I get to raise my son the way I want to, instead of constantly compromising with the ideals of a daycare.

These are all very good things.

But in the run up to this decision, several things became apparent to me all at once. The most important of these is that a life not devoted to making the lives of others better is a life well wasted. We are living during an important inflection point in American history, and possibly global history, and we are told constantly that the best way to survive this moment is to protect ourselves and those like us. The rich rally around each other. Unions stage protests. Talk about taxes, taxes, taxes! I don't agree with this. There is more than enough money, time, charity, optimism, and health to go around, and I refuse to spend anymore of my life devoted to wasting those things so that I can be happy to the detriment of others.

So, think of the following as a "What I Did Over Summer Vacation" essay, only looking ahead, instead of back. I will be using my temporary-to-permanent vacation from corporate hustling to focus on a variety of inter-related projects, and I'll keep doing these things as long as I can.