You'll Want to Put This One in Your Favorites

http://www.360mainstreet.com/


Check it out . . . cool stuff.

Also, just who the hell hasn't been nominated for a Pushcart? Huge difference, I think, between being nominated and actually winning one.

Necessary Fiction

A friend of mine, Matt Bell, had an interesting piece of fiction accepted by the online magazine, Necessary Fiction. Check out Matt's story here:

http://necessaryfiction.com/2009/06/matt-bell-how-i-started-going-to.html

I'm glad he did because I'd been looking for a home for my latest flash piece called "Inside Job". I thought, "what the heck" sent it to NF, and sure enough it was accepted. The editor there, Steve Himmer, gave me some insightful comments to improve the piece, and it should be up on their site within the next couple weeks.

Interestingly enough, Necessary Fiction is affiliated with So New Publishing. And, So New published Jackie Corley's book The Suburban Swindle, which I read this spring and liked. I found out about The Suburban Swindle because Jackie had accepted a flash piece of mine called "A Raven, Then a Cross" for Word Riot.

I liked her book so much that I mentioned it on a blog post below...and even referred people to my friend Josh Maday's review of Jackie's book on New Pages.

New Pages is under the stewardship of Casey and Denise Hill. I'm a colleague of Denise's at Delta College.

The connections here are almost endless. I think Kevin Bacon is involved somewhere in all of this.

Weird

Well, I don't know exactly how it happened, but a story of mine that was published in Existere ended up on a high school competency exam in Quebec. As I understand it, hundreds of students had to read my story and then write about its themes. Apparently, someone in the Ministry of Education chose the story, and now it sounds like I'm going to be paid some royalties.

This is true.

Friggin' bizarre.

I love Canada!

When it rains, it pours.

Must be something to do with my birthday . . . or the way I say "aboot" when I mean "about". In any case, Canada's Matrix magazine accepted my short story "Self Defense" for publication in their upcoming issue themed around terror.

Check them out here: http://www.matrixmagazine.org/

Two stories in Existere, a flash piece in echolocation . . . hell, maybe it's time to expatriate myself to Canada. Editors up there certainly seem to like my fiction.

Various Things . . . New and Old

Okay . . . it's been awhile. I've been doing some reading, some writing, and I have a little event coming up.

First, I read Jackie Corley's Suburban Swindle. Great book. Seriously. Lately, I've been reading badass short fiction collections by badass women -- first Bonnie Jo Campbell's American Salvage and now Corley's book.

For a good review, read Josh Maday's review of Suburban Swindle at NewPages:
http://www.newpages.com/bookreviews/2009_04/april2009_book_reviews.htm#Suburban

I also finished reading The Lord of the Flies to my son. Great book. It's too bad it gets this rap as a "high school" book . . . because it isn't at all. Powerful sociological study with a great plot and great characters.

Also, I just learned today that Third Wednesday is going to publish two of my poems. Thanks to Larry Thomas and the editorial team at TW.

And, finally, this coming Thursday, June 11th, Ken Meisel and I will be reading at the United Church of Christ in Midland (4100 Chestnut Hill Dr.) at 7 p.m. Free and open to the public. Think about attending . . . or at least helping spread the word.