About a month ago, I was thrilled to have my story “Barefoot in the Guadalupe” appear in Red Dirt Review. (Editor John G. Hartness was extremely kind in his comments on the story, which made the publication all the cooler.) Now, the collected issue of Red Dirt Review — Volume 2 — is available in print orContinue reading “Not-really-new publication”
Category Archives: fiction
Big news for teen authors!
Today, One Story magazine, one of the finest, most respected voices in literary publishing, announced that they are launching an offshoot just for teen authors, One Teen Story. I’ve been a huge fan of One Story since I first met publisher Hannah Tinti at an AWP conference some six years ago. And I’ve been aContinue reading “Big news for teen authors!”
11-11: Southern fiction (Christopher Cook)
I began my love affair with Southern fiction, as most of us do, with Faulkner, but I didn’t get serious about studying the genre until I started reading Tom Franklin. His then-distinctive blend of gritty blue-collar stories set in a modern but familiar American South, a style of writing Franklin likes to call “Industrial Gothic,”Continue reading “11-11: Southern fiction (Christopher Cook)”
11-11: Contemporary poetry (Jerry Bradley)
Back in April, I had the good fortune to attend this year’s annual joint conference of the Popular Culture Association and the American Culture Association. This conference is a perennial favorite of mine, thanks in part to my association with Jerry Bradley, who chairs the creative writing area of the conference, but I hadn’t beenContinue reading “11-11: Contemporary poetry (Jerry Bradley)”
A Writer’s Notebook: NaNoWriMo 2011, the recap
So, it’s finished. A final total of 51,557 words, most of them bad, most of them destined for the trash bin. But that’s what NaNoWriMo is all about: pounding out words no matter how bad they are, without attachment to what you write because you’re more likely than not to cut it all anyway. What’s interestingContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: NaNoWriMo 2011, the recap”
A Writer’s Notebook: NaNoWriMo 2011, week 4
I’m behind schedule, thanks to grading, editing, and Thanksgiving. And with more grading coming my way, I’m going to be hard-pressed to break 50k by the end of November 30. But I’m determined, and with a lot more ideas running around my head, I’m not terribly worried about making the deadline. The weird bit, though,Continue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: NaNoWriMo 2011, week 4”
A Writer’s Notebook: NaNoWriMo 2011, week 3
I’ve said before that I want this whole apocalyptic novel-in-stories to focus on the characters and their personal struggles more than on the trappings of the whole apocalyptic genre thing. Which is to say, I don’t want to eat up much page space with descriptions of the apocalyptic environment or background on how the worldContinue reading “A Writer’s Notebook: NaNoWriMo 2011, week 3”
Merry freakin’ Christmas (don’t worry, we do Thanksgiving and New Year’s, too)
It’s been a good week for publications. On Monday, my story “Barefoot in the Guadalupe” appeared in Red Dirt Review, and the same day I got word that I’ll have a story in Scintilla sometime in the future. Then today, Jersey Devil Press‘s special Holiday Half-Issue my colleagues and I have been working on turned upContinue reading “Merry freakin’ Christmas (don’t worry, we do Thanksgiving and New Year’s, too)”
Who’ll get me a book I ain’t read….
Oh, where to begin? It seems like the publishing market — or, at least, the small press and indie lit markets — like to work in tandem, with everyone publishing stuff all at once. It’s like our literary periods are in synch or something. I say this because a lot of my friends and acquaintancesContinue reading “Who’ll get me a book I ain’t read….”
New publication
Just a quick note about a new story of mine, though “new” is a bit misleading — I actually wrote the first draft of this one something like a decade ago and have been revising and retooling it ever since. A while back I finally got it where I wanted it, and it’s been makingContinue reading “New publication”
Samuel Snoek-Brown 