Bending Genres, Ghost Parachute, and Cowboy Jamboree will do a combined offsite reading on Thursday, March 18 at AWP and Robert Vaughan just invited me to participate in one of Bending Genre's five slots.

Yay! I would never have thought to contact him if I hadn't heard about the potential reading from friends at the flash lunch in San Leandro. I doubt Robert would have thought of me if I hadn't written to him, since my most recent publication in Bending Genres was in December 2025, not all that recent. ("Murderers' Medley" in "Some Come Back" did, however, make the shortlist in the "Wigleaf Top 50" last spring, a pretty big deal, for Bending Genres and for me.)

I'm so happy and relieved to have an opportunity to do something to publicize THE LUNATICS' BALL at AWP.  Now hoping that the book is actually out, and that Mad Creek arranges a book signing at their booth for me. 

Still very disappointed that Sarah Fawn Montgomery's proposed AWP panel didn't make the cut. Hoping she might reapply next year since I loved her proposal.

I just got an invitation out of the blue to participate in the formation of a flash/short fiction panel for the Berkeley Book Festival in June 2027. 

Sarah Fawn Montgomery's beautifully designed AWP panel didn't make the cut (still a major disappointment to me), but maybe this one will do better. I'll be promoting nonfiction, The Lunatics' Ball, in June 2027, but I actually have two flash fictions in that collection. I'll also be thinking about additions to the American Literature 101 fiction collection and maybe I'll have some new flash.

Haven't come up with good titles for the American lit collection, but I'm thinking about covers: I found a photo of the famous boxcar with Poe painted on the side, and also turned up a cool Poe mural at Northeastern in Boston. From what I can discover, though, using a mural on a book cover requires permission from the muralist and that might be hard to get. The muralist Jef Aérosol is French. That's John Lee Hooker with Poe!

I posted a new Substack on AMERICAN LITERATURE 101: STORIES (do I like the title? I'm not sure).

​I have lots of ideas for potential Substack posts leading up to the publication of THE LUNATICS' BALL, but I don't want to start too early. I should have a cover reveal and preorder link next month. Maybe after that. March is a long way off.

Not so many ideas leading up to the publication of the fiction collection in September 2028. I did rethink the order of the stories after a few rejections (some soft), at the suggestion of the Santa Fe Literary Project. Also after reading for the chapbook contest at Black Lawrence Press and realizing anew that you should lead with your strongest story. I love the order they're in now. I think that's probably worth writing about. Maybe for the Brevity blog instead of the Substack.

I think it's great that Cornerstone Press publishes 60 titles a year, but I can't imagine how they manage that, especially with an undergraduate staff that's learning the ropes. Kristen at Mad Creek is very involved with all of their books, even engaging in developmental edits. Not sure how involved Ross, the EIC at Cornerstone, could be with so many books? Right now I'd like to know whether I can add to the collection. One flash that I forgot. At least one that I'd like to write. 

​I'm thinking about who I could ask for blurbs for AMERICAN LITERATURE 101, and wouldn't you know, someone just asked me for a blurb for a story collection. Gave me a taste of how you feel when the shoe's on the other foot. Burdened, I'm afraid. Writing a blurb isn't necessarily hard. Reading an entire book in order to write a blurb is hard, or at least time-consuming. A book I expect I'll like, at least. And a deadline of January.

​Grateful for the three writers who took the time to blurb THE LUNATICS' BALL. I'll share the blurbs after the cover reveal.

​Registered for AWP and made our hotel reservations at the conference hotel. I still don't have a single event scheduled. I still don't know for sure that the book will be out (scheduled for the week after AWP) or that I'll even do a book signing.

I’ve signed a contract and can finally announce my exciting news. 

​My collection AMERICAN LITERATURE 101: STORIES has been accepted for publication by Cornerstone Press (the trade press at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point) in their Legacy Series in Short Fiction!!!

​Publication date: September 2028. I couldn’t be more thrilled.

​Cornerstone is fairly large for an indie press, publishing about sixty titles a year (all literary). This past year they’ve gotten a lot of awards. When they first accepted the book, I wrote to Steve’s good friend Rob Davidson, a professor of creative writing at Chico State. He’s published several books, most recently at Cornerstone, and praised them highly. There are a few really distinguished authors there right now with reviews in the New York Times. I know a number of their authors from online literary circles, including Cheryl Pappas, who has a novel coming out in 2028, and Brett Biebel, Heather Bourbeau, Abby Manzella, Donald Quist. I’m in Cornerstone's recent anthology THE PAST TEN, edited by Donald Quist, Kali White VanBaale,  and Bailey Gaylin Moore.

Pinching myself. I've never considered myself a fiction writer. I write creative nonfiction. I write flash nonfiction. I write flash fiction. I write some fiction. In that order. I publish maybe one or two stories a year, and I had to reach very far back to assemble a group of stories that all relate to American literary texts. I like the way the collection coheres, and I'm surprised that I still like the stories I published when I first started writing.

I almost didn't go, but I'm glad I changed my mind. Fun having lunch in San Leandro with six other flash writers (all of them also editors or readers for lit mags). From left to right: Patricia Bidar, Dawn Tasaka Steffler, me, Kim Magowan, Eric Scot Tryon, Claudia Monpere, Swetha Amit.

And, magic, I came home to a contract for approval. They'll send a Docusign version and then I'll withdraw my manuscript from some contests and presses before announcing the big news. Very exciting! I guess I'm a fiction writer.
​

Super-nice email from Sarp Sozdinler at THE BULB REGION (where Kathy Fish, Kim Magowan, Claire Polders, and Claudia Monpere have recently published) accepting my flash-length essay "A Contrary Child." I thought it had had a lot of rejections, but when I checked my files, I discovered that it had had two rejections, and also that it was written in 2022, in a Kathy Fish class, and it took me ages to revise it and send it out.

The essay centers on my stubborn insistence on my left-handedness, among other things, and I hunted up a kindergarten photo. (I'm holding a crayon in my right hand, undoubtedly at the insistence of the photographer.) Maybe they'll use it as a headshot. I sent them my usual one as well. 

Still waiting on final news on my fiction collection before I report anything. 

I discovered (yikes!) two small errors of fact in the same sentence in my Lunatics' Ball essay on Lucy Ann Lobdell. A month ago, the Press told me there would be no more changes in the manuscript. I queried the managing editor Tara Cyphers anyway and she responded immediately saying she'd make the changes. Such a relief!