Such an extraordinary reading at the Octopus Literary Salon in Oakland last night. I loved everyone's work! Nancy Au, Melissa Cistaro, Micah Perks, Peg Alford Pursell, Monica Wesolowska, Olga Zilberbourg: they were every single one of them wonderful. A big thank you to Peg for bringing us all together (photo on the right below).

Peg read from her new collection of luminous flash-length prose Show Her a Flower, a Bird, A Shadow, which I just read recently and admire profoundly. And I was able to buy Micah Perks' novel What Becomes Us, which I can't wait to read.

Reading next Thursday, May 18, 7pm, The Octopus Salon, 2101 Webster St., Oakland, with some kickass writers: Nancy Au, Melissa Cistaro, Kara Levy, Mica Perks, Peg Alford Pursell (who also curated the event), Monica Wesolowska, and Olga Zilberbourg. Can't wait! Theme: Mothers. More on the readers here.

THREADCOUNT has just published my peculiar hybrid microflash “Fyodor Translates Edgar Translates the Universe” in their spring issue. I love THREADCOUNT, “a biannual online literary journal dedicated to hybrid forms, work that challenges genre boundaries and resists classifiable form, that experiments with texture and convention, that (like fabric) packs a lot in a limited space.” I love THREADCOUNT’s spare, elegant design, and above all their array of flash and incomparable roster of authors (among them, Lily Hoang, Matt Bell, Kathy Fish, Megan Giddings, Ben Loory, Kelly Magee, Christopher James, Brian Oliu). A big thank you to editors Annie Bilancini, Steve Dudas, C.J. Opperthauser, and Matt Weinkam (who called my flash “badass,” which made my day)!

Lovely cover art by Alex Kuno. A mythical beast? A vegetation deity? Hybrid flora and fauna?