Amber Sparks
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My Story, “Vesuvius,” is Up at Wigleaf Today
November 22, 2010 — 8 Comments
It is here.
Thanks to Scott Garson for allowing me to indulge a love of firebugs and an intense burning hatred (no pun intended-well, yes, pun intended) for certain kinds of politicians.
Also, I have a postcard up that ties in nicely with the political theme. You may learn a little something today. Or you may just tell me to shove it up my you-know-what.
New Stuff to Smash Into
November 5, 2010 — 7 Comments
If only you could see things from my perspective, painting by Nimit Malavia
New Wigleaf story by Ryder Collins
Annalemma Issue Seven: Endurance
Lydia Davis’s new translation of Madame Bovary
My new story in Barrelhouse online (thanks, Dave!)
(I know, I know. I’m in two of these magazines and another one of these is my stories. But the thing is, all three of those stories are some of my best work. So I really think you should read it. I think you’d like it. And the rest is all good. PANK and Annalemma are always terrific, and from the few stories I’ve read in Annalemma so far and the list of contributors for PANK, I’d say they’re going to be terrific so get them now while you can!)
Big Thank Yous to Greg Gerke and Art Voice
November 1, 2010 — 5 Comments
…for nominating my piece in Buffalo’s Art Voice, “May We Shed These Human Bodies,” for the Dzanc Best of the Web 2011. I’m so flattered, and very happy because this piece is one of my very favorites from this year.
Thanks!
Me and Forty-Five Crazies in the Seventh and Last Lamination Colony
October 26, 2010
Read it, read it. It’s got some amazing amazing writing in it, and so grateful to Blake Butler for letting me be a part of the last (tear falls here) issue.
I’ve got a little piece in the issue called “Our Father of Nerve Gas Sends His Best,” which you can check out right here.
In Which Margaret Durow and I Kinda Sorta Interview Each Other to Preview Annalemma’s Upcoming Issue 7
October 25, 2010 — 4 Comments
Interview here. And by the way, you should not miss Margaret Durow nor her images. She’s clearly an upcoming superstar photographer. The photos she takes are amazing.
You should also not miss Annalemma Seven. I just got my contributor’s copy and hot damn, it’s maybe the most visually stunning issue yet. A great group of writers, too–can’t wait to sit down and devour the thing’s contents.
Thank You to Splinter Generation!
October 4, 2010 — 2 Comments
Splinter Generation, a great lit mag that publishes stuff by writers of my generation primarily, has nominated a short fiction piece I wrote for the Dzanc Best of the Web! I feel awfully excited, honored and proud, particularly since this piece is a favorite of mine.
Thanks, Seth and the folks at Splinter Generation! You guys rock and now I’m blushing, hard. Damn.
In Which Everything is Surreal
September 18, 2010 — 9 Comments
Chris and I are at the Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, WV today. (For those not familiar, check this out.)
I’ve eaten a corn dog and a funnel cake, watched part of the Miss Mothman Pageant (don’t ask), checked out more Mothman merch than you would ever believe (including a sweet Katakana Mothman tee that Chris picked up) and now we’re sitting in a dark theatre waiting for the unveiling of a new Mothman documentary. Rule.
It’s all way surreal. It was surreal last night, too, driving to West Virginia, where I’ve never been. (I have to admit, as a Northern city kid from birth on, the South is always kind of surreal to me.) So it was just part of the surrealness last night when I found out decomP nominated one of my stories for the Best of the Net Anthology. It still is. I’ve never even been nominated for any kind of writing anything before, so this is really neat. Thank you, Jason and the awesome decomP! You guys rule. For real. And not in a Mothman t-shirt way, but in a real, awesome, high-quality, consistently great, devoted to promoting online writers and writing kind of way. Thanks!
Now to watch this movie. God, I hope they turn off this butt rock they’re piping through the speakers soon. It’s making me queasy.
Or maybe that’s the deep-fried Oreos.
New Piece Up at For Every Year
September 13, 2010
As a huge history nerd, I’m completely obsessed with Crispin Best’s excellent literature/history project, For Every Year. It’s like chocolate and peanut butter. It’s just perfect. Dennis Cooper calls it “one of the most overlooked literary sites on the internet.”
Anyway, I was lucky enough to have Crispin accept my take on 1575. I’ve always been touched by poor Henri, Henry III of France. He seems, like so many monarchs, to have born at the wrong time. A quick teaser:
When he is born, his Medici mother will know from the first that she loves him the best. Chers yeux, she calls him. Precious eyes. His brothers will hate him for the soft ways he learns from her. She will teach him to read and write, to love art, to be wise and to wage but always despise war. Most of all, she will keep him a Catholic, even as he longs to rebel, to fall into Protestantism. She will keep him a Catholic and it will eventually kill him.
And my full piece, here.
First Artifact Story Up at Necessary Fiction: Robert Kloss
September 2, 2010 — 2 Comments
Robert’s stories always take you to this bizarre, dream-like place where alligators run wild and people may or may not also be animals or kings or figments of imagination. There are no rules, but this doesn’t mean the stories don’t have form, shape, and meaning–but just like a dream, you’re free to take whatever twist your mind thinks up.
His piece today, inspired by the very first Ancient City artifact to be put up on Necessary Fiction, bears all the hallmarks of the above and does something else, too: it evokes our natural state of wonder, and couples it with our insatiable curiosity and taste for science and technology, our drive to find the way to live forever.
Read it here.
Welcome to the Ancient City! Only available at Necessary Fiction.
September 1, 2010
Come join us as we excavate the Ancient City, only at Necessary Fiction. This is a very cool collaborative fictional history project, where writers work with found objects and an imagined city. No actual tools needed. Except your imagination, of course. Well, duh.
