First Post of 2010

Okay, real quick year-in-review of 2009. I sold 265 various copies of my books. I had four full-length stories, six flash stories, and four poems published. I wrote eleven new pieces, but only one was a full-length story (I got really bogged down this summer in the re-write of my feature-length film and it was hard for me to get back into the short story form). I read twenty-two books. The best books I read were Ken Meisel's collection of poems, and Beautiful Rust and the novel, Lord of the Flies (which I read to my son). New contemporary books I read and liked were Bonnie Jo Campbell's American Salvage and Matt Bell's The Collectors. Long books I read were The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction and Thomas Wolfe's You Can't Go Home Again. I read a mix of classics and contemporaries and, this year at least, the classics won. Another book I read to my son was To Kill a Mockingbird -- just friggin' excellent. Books that disappointed were Blake Butler's Ever and Richard Ford's The Sportswriter. I'm told that I have to read Butler's Scorch Atlas and, if somebody buys it for me, I will.

Oh, I also read the second issue of Electric Literature. Although I enjoyed their first issue, this second issue left me with mixed feelings. I really wanted to like the story by Colson Whitehead, but it was pretty boring. Two of the stories, by Stephen O'Connor and Pasha Malla, were really pretty bad . . . in the way that only romantic relationship stories can be bad. The second to last story by Marisa Silver "Three Girls" was good . . . especially with the way it revealed a dysfunctional family. And, Lydia Davis' odd little story "The Cows" started out by irritating me, but then grew on me, and soon surprised me by how much it intrigued me. If I had to give stars, I'd give this issue three stars out of five. My advice to the editors would be to stop trying to collect name writers and instead collect five outstanding stories. Christ, they must get hundreds and hundreds (I mean, they are paying $1,000.00 for each story), and I find it hard to believe that these stories represent the five best.

Over the year, I also discovered Fiction Circus (www.fictioncircus.com) and I just love reading it. The articles are funny as hell, and there's an honesty there that I don't find very often. They simply tell the truth, and they aren't caught up in the hipster, indie lovefest of "Your story's the best" ... "No, yours is." Being an open node is one thing ... kissing ass to make connections is another.

I'm starting out 2010 with an older book: The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan by James T. Farrell, who I'm embarrassed to admit I hadn't heard of. So far, I'm enjoying the book, and I was amazed at how prolific Farrell was over his lifetime. Although it's 60 years old, the book still speaks volumes about the lives of young men. One of the most dangerous things in our society remains the directionless, young male.

Hey, Happy New Year to all. I hope it's a good one.