All Kinds of Things are Happening

December 12, 2011

I’ve been horrible about updating this blog lately, so of course all the random everything that I want to tell you about has been piling, piling, piling up. This will be a very linky post, but it will be worth it because all of these things are things you need to know about. Promise!

I got a Pushcart nomination! I know, I know. I’m not supposed to be excited about this. I’m supposed to be all, me and everybody else, right? But fuck that. I am always happy to have validation that someone enjoys what I do. Anyway, this one is for my story  “Five Kinds of Human History” in the latest issue of Big Lucks (thank you Mark and Laura and all!) and by the way, you can also get that issue with all its goodness for the Kindle for ONE DOLLAR. How could you pass that up? You can’t, right? Here you go.

So, there is a VERY long awaited and spectacular issue of Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens available, and I have a favorite story of mine published inside: “Death and the People.” Thank you, Bradley Sands, for publishing this weird thing. (For those of you that saw the very first ever Three Tents reading in DC, this is the story I read there.) In addition to my piece, there are stories by Laird Hunt, D. Harlan Wilson, Cameron Pierce, Amanda Billings, Kirk Jones, Andrew W. Adams, Amber Sparks, and a novella by Kirsten Alene, as well as book reviews of Steve Lowe’s Muscle Memory and Shane Jones’s A Cake Appeared. You can buy it here (and sorry but Amazon’s the only place you can get it right now!)

If you’re looking for Christmas/Hanukkah/Whatever gifts, I compiled a great list of gifts over at Vouched. If you just want to get someone the perfect new book, I compiled a list of my favorite books of 2011 over at Big Other.

I guest-edited SmokeLong Quarterly last week and you all sent me some really great stuff. Dang. So now I’m busy trying to decide which story I love the most (and this is not an easy task.)

Ravi Mangla is an awesome writer/person. So I am very happy to see that, in another really terrific decision by Uncanny Valley’s Mike Meginnis and Tracy Bowling, the press is publishing Ravi’s collection of microfictions, Visiting Writers, as an ebook. There are 23 stories in the collection, some of which have appeared in Gigantic #2, Everyday Genius, >kill author, and The Outlet.

Brand new Bright Stupid Confetti, with 50 amazing pieces. It’s–indescribably good. Just curated like honey. Check it out here.

I like what Everyday Genius is doing this month. Where they have a contributor, instead of writing down the same blabbity bla bio that no one cares about, actually point out something else that’s cool online. Good on EG. As always.