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Literary Journals: The Midwest

Many national literary journals are located geographically in the Midwest. Madison Review, Iowa Review, New Letters, Michigan Quarterly Review, etc., are all prominent publications that solicit beyond their local confines for a diverse, international literature. Recently, though, several journals seem to have gone the other way: narrowing their focus and giving voice to the American…
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Two Novels and One Competition

Recently, I took a break from reading the Best American Short Story series and devoured instead two novels: Paul Auster’s Invisible (2009) and Dan Chaon’s Await Your Reply (2009). Although I chose both books at random from the library shelves, the two did harbor, at least in part, similar thematic concerns: identity and its formation. For…
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Best American Short Stories: Part Four

A quick post on the latest volume I digested and consumed. The Best American Short Stories 1999: Standout stories: Ha Jin’s “In the Kindergarten,” Tim Gautreaux’s “The Piano Tuner,” and Junot Diaz’s “The Sun, the Moon, the Stars.” Overall, there were some strong pieces within this edition. Although, all things considered, I felt the chosen…
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MORE NEW FICTION

Back in 2007, I wrote my first story set in Kansas. That story came to be known as “Fence” and was published in the 2009 Summer issue of Camas. The story has now been reprinted in the latest edition of Sleet, an online magazine that showcases the work of new and established authors. You can check out…
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NEW FICTION

Recently, I’ve managed to publish a few flash fictions. There’s “Dear Id” at Atticus Review, “The Temple at Avenue D” at Big Lucks’ online arm Quick Lucks, “Notes From a Fruit Dentist,” at Penguin Review, “The Sale” at RipRap, and finally “The Walk” at Rougarou. In addition, I have a full length story, “Moonbow,” in the…
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Best American Short Stories: Part Three

The first two posts charting my odyssey through thirty volumes of the Best American series can be found here and here. While reading another one of the books, I came across a recent survey by VIDA, an organization that deals with women in the arts. VIDA completed a statistical analysis of the gender discrepancies in…
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Esquire Follow Up

Recently I wrote about an Esquire reading list that contained 75 books, 74 of which were authored by men. In my brief discussion, I mentioned the idea of gendered writing. Since then I’ve been directed to “The Gender Genie,” a computer-based algorithm that its creators reckon can determine author gender with 80% accuracy. Various words,…
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Best American Short Stories: Part Two

In my first post on the Best American Short Story series, I outlined my plan to read the last thirty editions. I’m reading the books for craft, the nuts-and-bolts of (short) storytelling, and to read some damn-good fiction. As I mentioned in my previous post, many of the magazines that submitted to the series are…
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Esquire Reading List

Over at htmlgiant Roxanne Gay has blogged about a recent Esquire list, which lists 75 books a man should read (note: I’ve read 19 of the 75). She notes that only one of the books, Flannery O’Conner’s A Good Man is Hard to Find (one of my favorites!), is by a woman. The magazine has…
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Best American Short Stories

For the first part of this summer — before I start work at a temporary Johns Hopkins’ job — I’m reading through multiple Best American Short Story anthologies. Each volume contains twenty stories in their entirety and mentions one hundred other distinguished stories of the past year. Around three thousand published stories are whittled down…
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