The Orange Eats Creeps

Grace Krilanovich has a written a beautiful, deranged, hallucination of a novel.

Behold, the landscape within: "The land had spilled out as organs from the giant mammoth-type creature. Slashed by a human, it rotted on the ground many, many years. Its liver sank gradually into the earth, and still lies as a petrified engine spinning in its tomb. The animal's other body parts, its tusks and paw scaleds, formed a craggy topography. Its spine, the mountain range that holds the forest softly in its lap" (113).

Lamination Colony

Blake Butler, who is the best sicko we have right now, says this may be the last issue of Lamination Colony. I've just finished reading the majority of the issue and I have to say it's the best collection of writing I've seen in at least a year. The list of contributors is impressive but even more so is the writing itself, piece after piece has a deranged energy, a beautiful shattered lyricism, like a sea gull lost in flight and broken against a windshield. If I was teaching creative writing now this would be the only text book we would need. I hope this isn't the last issue of Lamination Colony but if it is, it has gone out very impressively.

How They Were Found

I've had less time to read this semester than years gone by--less time commuting, more classes, more time revising and editing my own material--but I always make time for books by writers I admire most. The book I enjoyed most recently was Matt Bell's collection How They Were Found. In fact, I devoured the book during my Thursday commute. I don't often write about what I read, but I was so impressed throughout, that I was compelled to jot some quick thoughts.

Many of these stories I had read before. Some, like "Wolf Parts" and "An Index of How Our Family Was Killed" are studies in adventurous form, in how humor and heart and horror are meant to be mingled. I taught "Index", a story that first appeared in Conjunctions, in a creative writing class last spring. My students articulated the experience of reading that particular piece as taking a direct dose of pain and horror and, really, the suffering of the narrator. The experience was deeper than reading a mere first person account. Here they found no filters, just horror. They were pretty impressed. They were also surprised by how funny, at turns, "Index" is.

I wish I would have had this book to dip into back then. Other stories, like the 19th century science fiction of "His Last Great Gift" read like a wondrous conflation between Brian Evenson and Ray Bradbury. Or Mary Shelley.

Elsewhere "horror" and "suspense" writers like Peter Straub and Stephen King often come to mind. I will admit the impulse to lay these genre tags, these comparisons, is likely due to limitations on my part--the comparisons are thin and, really, inaccurate. I suppose what I mean to say, when I invoke the most famous and best of our "horror" writers that, like Evenson's work, there's rarely a moment in Bell's writing that strays from what would be considered literary (in style or in depth of meaning) yet elements of what we consider "genre" fiction are apparent on every page--mystery, horror, suspense, sci-fi.

These stories are heavy, they are beautifully written, they are deep, they are bold, formally and thematically, yet, no matter how form busting or experimental they can be, they are always page turners in the best sense. Here's a brief section from "Dredge", a story whose pages moved very quickly in my hands, that illustrates, I believe, the best elements of the grotesque, of horror, where the elements of terror are infused with significance, while retaining their power as pure images:

"He's careful as he lays her in the freezer, as he brushes the hair out of her eyes again, until he holds her eyelids closed until he's sure they'll stay that way. The freezer will give him time to figure out what he wants. What he needs. What he and she are capable of together."

Blind Faith

The very generous mud luscious press "Blind Faith" offer ends 10/20/10. Not only are mud luscious titles always the best, but this may be your only opportunity to get a hold of my first chapbook, "The Lost Bodies of Our Alligators". Act fast and, according to the mlp bulletin, you recieve:


"Every book in the 2011 MLP season for $35 & free shipping. Titles include:

GRIM TALES : Norman Lock
THE HIEROGLYPHICS : Michael Stewart
I AM A VERY PRODUCTIVE ENTREPRENEUR : Mathias Svalina
[ C. ] an mlp stamp stories anthology

plus handmade chapbook volumes from Jessica Newman, Stephen Gropp-Hess, Neila Mezynski,
Kristina Marie Darling, John H. Henry, Andrew Borgstrom, Ani Smith, Sarah-Jane de Brito Martin, Robert Kloss, & Ben Spivey"

Beneath the Light of an Exploding City

Caketrain issue 08 is now available for pre-order here. My story "Beneath the Light of an Exploding City" will be featured along with some of what are no doubt your favorite writers (check out the list of contributors if you don't believe me). Of course, Caketrain is always very good so there's no need to take my word on this one.

Much thanks to Amanda Raczkowski and Joseph Reed for including my story and for all the hard work they put into making it look good. It is one of my favorites of my work and a version of this piece concludes my book The Ancient City.

News and notes

Some news will be upcoming regarding a remix project I'll be heading up in December. Some really excellent writers will be helping out and so far the results have been stunning. More on that, soon.

In other good news, Erik Wennermark says some nice things about Valley of Alligators at the >kill author blog. Of course, I'm terribly flattered and pleased to have the story compared to William S Burroughs, one of my favorites.

I liked Erik's story "Humberto Figueroa Urquiza" too. A perfect bit of shock and dark humor.

New >kill author

My story Valley of Alligators is up at the new >kill author. >kill author is always excellent, of course, and I'm humbled and thrilled to once again have work up on that mysterious site.

Mud Luscious 13

Guest edited by Andrew Borgstrom the new Mud Luscious is up and raw. My story "There Was Only This Ever" is there. As always, thanks to J.A. Tyler and Adrew Borgstrom for including my work.

Other good reads lately: Artifice #2 is especially fine. My eyes were immediately pulled to Molly Gaudry's brilliant "Love, Wolf" but the entire issue, of course, contains wealth upon wealth. If you don't already have a subscription you should go and do yourself a big favor.

Other books of recent note: Andy Devine's Words is one part Pale Fire and another part Tender Buttons.

The Man Suit by Zachary Schomburg is a terrifc book of poems--weird, inventive, moving, and very skilled.

And, I finally finished Joshua Cohen's dense word feast Witz. I savored it over three months. Was worth it.

Unsaid 5

Unsaid #5 is now on sale and, as always, stocked and loaded with the very best writers working now--you want Blake Butler? Anne Carson? Brian Evenson? Amber Sparks? Michael Kimball? Andy Devine? Sasha Fletcher? Matt Bell? it keeps going and going. You want to know what living, vibrant contemporary literature is? Buy Unsaid

Much thanks goes to David Mclendon--for taking my story on, for his advice, for his hard work. Clearly he has the best taste and the best publication so it is very humbling to know my story "In the Shadow of the Darkness of Strange Animals" will be featured there...