Wigleaf Top 50 izzup!

So my Wigleaf Top 50 news is complicated:

1) I've got two stories on the long shortlist: "The Brewsters" & "Last Seen Leaving," which appeared in Moon Milk Review and Smokelong, respectively, and are also collected in Curio.

2)Next year I will be on the Top 50 team, along with Ravi Mangla and Greg Gerke, and the new guest ed. (I know who it is, but it doesn't look like Scott has made a formal announcement yet). Being part of the team means that I have been handed a massive list of sites to follow and pick through.

3) Though I didn't make the Top 50 this year, stories I selected for Everyday Genius and helped select for Prick of the Spindle did:

Roxane Gay's "Boys in Drag"

Barry Graham's "13 ways of looking at a roadtrip"

Simon Smith's "Things I've Eaten That I'm Not Proud Of"

Valerie Vogrin's "Apologies"

4) (takes big breath) Plus others I selected/helped select made the long list:

Erin Fitzgerald's "At Grayfield Keep"

Jen Michalski's "The Turn of Things"

John Minichillo's "Working Halloween for Christmas Money"

Cami Park's "When You Heard"

Congratulations everyone--it was a pleasure working with you!

What we were doing

One of the least well kept secrets of the summer was that Cami Park and I had put together a group of five women (Cami, me, Erin Fitzgerald, Andrea Kneeland, and Donora Hillard) to collaborate on a dark-themed flash collection that was going to feature a lot of art, graphic novel style. The project was Cami's baby, but she had dubbed me her co-editor, the marvelous benefit being that she and I were in frequent contact. Sadly, we did not get very far in the project before she became ill--as a group we spent the first 6 weeks or so joking and gossiping more than we wrote, time I consider very well spent, regardless. When Cami dropped out of sight, even from our private group board, we didn't question that for some time. Cami was a private person, one of the few people whose "privacy" did not strike me as perversely narcissistic.

But I don't think I have a right to make any sweeping memorial-type statements about Cami; like a lot of folks who loved her, I didn't know much about her, not even what she looked like. We only discussed writing and writers, but we did it a lot. I can say that Cami's fiction did for me what music and poetry is supposed to do--it carved new pathways in my brain.

So what I have to say is fragmented, it's all I know. She gave me fantastic advice on fictionaut. She wrote an amazing mini essay on titles for my very short fiction blog. Sometimes she'd IM me with the latest on one of her dust-ups--she stepped into a few messes at Zoe. She had a fat dog. She was not averse to a bit of priest bothering. Doing all those poetry-book-a-day reviews in September almost drowned her.

Tomorrow her memorial service will be at Circus Circus in Reno. I'm guessing it will take place in a normal, non-clown festooned space, and those of you fortunate enough to go--please send my love. However, I must point out that there will be performances on the midway by JR Johns and his dogs at 12:50 and 2:30. Do what you know is right, and bring back a slanted report.

Everyday Genius:The Final Three! March 29-31

I am sad it's over but relieved, too. After Wednesday Everyday Genius is some other art-tard's baby.

Monday

The first man will do anything for the moon.

—from Cami Park’s “Night Walk” (Plus “As If to Become, as If One Actually Were” & “It Is a Wonder”)

Tuesday

So when Kim asks if I want to go for a ride, I say sure.

—from Robert Swartwood’s “Summer of ‘84”

Wednesday

And like that my days in the garden began to go by.

—from Steve Himmer’s “Whose Hands”