SmokeLong Quarterly published my flash story Stories We Will Always Know on 1/6/2020. Huge thanks to Brooke Fossey for selecting it. SmokeLong is the premier publication for flash – my white whale. Hell of a way to start the year.
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The Molotov Cocktail published my flash piece “Progeny of the Dung Beetle” on the last day of the decade. Hoping 2020 will be more constructive.
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Gingerbread House published my flash piece called Hunter, Gatherer. I wrote this after reading Yuval Noah Harari’s book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind which chronicles the history of Homo Sapiens from their spread out of Africa 1.9 million years ago, wiping out five other hominid species, taking a possibly wrong turn towards agrarianism and eventual dominance over the planet. A great book about our sad/funny history. Seemed ripe for comic flash retrospective.
The stunning graphic published at Gingerbread House is by Brooke Shaden, whose photographic magic I’ve appreciated for years and follow on Instagram. I’m not going to infringe on her rights by reproducing the art here, but encourage you to visit the story for a peek. You can see Brooke’s art on Instagram at @brookeshaden or on the web at http://www.brookeshaden.com/prints/
Menacing Hedge published my flash story “The Return Desk.” Meant to publish this on Mother’s Day, but missed the date. This has an audio feed of me reading the story as well.
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Published in the Spring 2019 edition of the Penn Review right here. This fulfills Donald Barthelme’s mission for literature (“The aim of literature … is the creation of a strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart.”). At least the first part dealing with fur.
Huge thanks to Penn Review. This is my first appearance in the Ivy League. They are awesome to work with and FAST. They accepted this in 6 days.
The Arcanist published my story “Cheap Copies” about a man who goes to FedEx/Kinkos to get some copies of himself to move some furniture. The Arcanist is a very fine speculative fiction publisher (who pays!) and I am very grateful to them for taking this and for the excellent header graphic.
Looking forward to when FedEx/Kinkos offers this service.
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I have a flash story about a hurricane named Bartleby who refuses to move on in the Spring 2019 edition of After the Pause. It’s called Beyond the Eye.
I think it’s political. As in we’re stuck in circular disaster. But there’s hope at the end.
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Fiction Southeast published my flash story “Poison Snail Fight” today (2/1/2019). It’s based on a vivid childhood memory of growing up in southwest LA in the 1960s where we roamed like a pack of wild dogs through the streets and alleys and backyards. We periodically collected soft shell snails and divided into teams on opposite street corners. I saw a snail go down one kid’s gullet. He was too surprised to spew it back up. He didn’t die, at least not of that.
Everything else is fiction, especially the family. My actual family consists of disgustingly well adjusted people, a fact that hampers my fiction. Writers are far better off with miserable families and childhoods. No such luck for me. I do not resent them for this.
Fiction Southeast should be publishing a ‘writing of’ essay and an audio version of the story in the future. Updates to follow.
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