On Christal Cooper's blog, where she's done many interviews about short stories and poems and has just added essays to the genres she highights. My short interview about "Haunting Houses," where she's helpfully added links to the sources. The essay was originally published in print in NEW OHIO REVIEW. Later NOR posted the essay (link in interview) and BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS awarded it a Notable. 

Last day of the SmokeLong Archive Challenge, where writers choose a flash magazine that has been around for at least ten years and post their favorite flash from the archives. Four of mine have appeared on the lists:
"Little Darling," Wigleaf
"The Missing Girl," Vestal Review
"Head of the Household," Cotton Xenomorph
"Ready or Not," Gone Lawn

Travis Flatt called my pandemic flash essay "Ready or Not" a "frightening, relatable, grounding, prescient story." Rereading it now, it feels like it could be grounded in a new dystopia, the masked officers at the door frightening agents from ICE instead of friendly policeman, in a new era when marines are patrolling the streets, backed up by National Guard.—so far just in LA, but the pictures yesterday of giant armored vehicles and agents on horseback in MacArthur Park were shocking. The pandemic feels like a more innocent time.

I know I get more readers through social media, but it also feels very here-today-gone-tomorrow. It's great to know that some of my work gets read later, and that so many magazines have survived. I've been in lots of fine magazines that were here-today-gone-tomorrow themselves. Some I really loved (Jellyfish Review, elimae, The Collagist, too many to list). A lot of them didn't leave their archives online when they folded.

I've been sending out flash for submission recently, while I wait for more news on The Lunatics' Ball and a shorter hybrid manuscript I just assembled, The Arithmetic of Memory.  Thanks to Len Kuntz, who suggested at AWP that I should be putting my work together in collections, and Patricia Bidar, who suggested that you can publish older work. It's interesting to me to see how my themes persist and transform themselves. And I've really enjoyed reading past publications I'd half, sometimes completely, forgotten. Like meeting former selves.

Matt Kendrick, whose flash and essays and craft columns I admire, did the SmokeLong Challenge and chose COTTON XENOMORPH as his flash magazine. He posted my creepy ekphrastic flash "Head of the Household" as one of his "all-time favorite" ekphrastic flash. I've written quite a lot of ekphrastic essays and flash, but I think it might be my favorite too. (Also the Joseph Cornell essay, partly because it went through so many iterations.)

Getting lots of love from discerning readers for my new lyric essay "A Wild Goose Chase." It helps in this absolutely shitty time in the history of the USA.

I see I've been using this column mostly to count successes. Maybe because I know I'll need the psychological reinforcement later. Maybe because counting not-successes makes me nervous. What if a prospective publisher sees that something they're considering was rejected elsewhere? Will it influence them? Lots of rejections of my current flash at the moment. I managed to rally myself and send out a lot yesterday.

I think because I was pretty sure there were enough Republican holdouts so that it wouldn't pass, I feel blindsided that the shockingly cruel and inhumane and authoritarian bill passed in the House of Representatives. Heartsick.

So it's a good day for something light. My weird lyric essay "A Wild Goose Chase" is out in HUNGER MOUNTAIN. A magazine I've always admired, a wandering piece about reading Geoff Dyer (who is very funny) in our overgrown backyard. Also about geese honking, hounds baying, orangutans in Borneo,

Matthew Davison taught "The Lunatics' Ball" at a retreat in Mallorca last month, and now Robert Vaughan posted on Facebook and X and Bluesky about the first day of the Bending Genres retreat in France. They started with two POV flash: one of them was "Little Darling"! I'm always pleased when people teach my work.

It also came up in the SmokeLong Challenge to post ten favorites from the archives of long-standing flash magazines. Someone did Wigleaf and included "Little Darling," saying they frequently teach it. Someone else did Vestal Review and included "The Missing Girl." Both people I don't know.

A very good week for recognition. I should remember that when I feel like I don't have any readers. (I assume no one reads this, which is actually somewhat freeing.)

Steve and I spent a long weekend in San Diego (and Temecula, for a family party) and I took a last look at my laptop before we checked out of the hotel this morning and discovered that the WIGLEAF TOP 50 (VERY) SHORT FICTIONS shortlist and longlist were out. And that my micro "We Could Have" in FLASH BOULEVARD made the longlist! The micro is part of a CNF sequence ("I Dream You are Alive"). I've been longlisted with CNF before (though the list is supposed to be fiction). A completely unexpected honor. 

I'm so excited to be in a W.W. Norton textbook on hybrid writing. I don't have my hands on a copy of THE LAB yet! There were articles and interviews POETS AND WRITERS and THE WRITERS CHRONICLE about the book. Matthew Davison and his cowriter Alice LaPlante taught a workshop in Mallorca using the book, and I'm thrilled to hear this from him: 

"We have [an article] coming up in LitHub that talks about your contribution. We also did a session at The Lab Mallorca where we read The Lunatics Ball, your notes on why hybrid works, and did the series of experiments based on both. It may have been the students' favorite of my lessons."

There's a launch event at The Booksmith in San Francisco on July 22.

FlashFlood Journal celebrates National Flash Fiction Day in the UK by publishing new flash every five to ten minutes for twenty-four hours. My microfiction “Leftovers” is part of the deluge. It’s still early, but I already see lots of flash by friends and there are many more to come. Great to see newcomers too (including Shara Kronmal, my associate editor at CRAFT).
 
“Leftovers” was originally published in ATTICUS REVIEW and I was particularly excited to get that acceptance because Michelle Ross was their editor at the time and I’m a diehard fan of her fiction.
 
photo credit: Chris Gallagher at Unsplash

Len Kuntz at AWP encouraged me to put together flash collections even if they weren't themed like THE MISSING GIRL, and this past week I've been reviewing old material for a chapbook contest. I'm finding links that are defunct (so many of these magazines are gone!). And one that's been fixed. The archives at GHOST PROPOSAL disappeared long ago, and at some point they must have gotten them back up, along with my lyric essay "Visitations." "Visitations" was awarded a Notable in BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS 2020, though it wasn't available to read at the time.

First the less good, a shakeup in management at CRAFT, the magazine where I've been the creative nonfiction editor since they started publishing creative nonfiction in 2020, the flash cnf editor since 2024. Never good when someone's suddenly fired. Especially someone who's been doing a good job. Waiting to see what's next.

That was yesterday. Now today. Woke up to an acceptance from HUNGER MOUNTAIN REVIEW! My crazy lyric essay, inspired by reading Geoff Dyer in my overgrown backyard, will come out in July. I've always loved HUNGER MOUNTAIN. Steve has published there, but I never have.

Wasn't sure where to send this oddball essay, so I started with just a handful of great magazines and it paid off.

​Of course there's a word I really want to cut from the version I sent to them. I'm sure they're used to obsessive writers and will cooperate.