Listed! (long short this time)

One of the best things about the Wigleaf Top 50 is that it comes at a time of year when I'm usually on vacation, so I never expect it. I'm so thrilled to have made this year's Long Shortlist with "The Temple Dog," a story that Adam Robinson took for Everyday Genius. BTW, 5 of the top 50 came from EG. Thanks Scott, Ravi, and Adam. No one works harder for the art.

This year's Top 50 is stellar, take your breath way stuff.

giggle, snort

Just found out that one of my students has had a piece accepted at Dogzplot. No details yet, but I hope it was a flash. (update: yeah a flash, a durned good one)

Mel Bosworth says I'm "super nice" for having him talk about chickens at the vsf blog. I'd rather be super fine, but I'll take what I can get. Related to being ordained super-nice, my friend Danny forced me to choose a super power, so I'm going with "indifference to fragility and rarity of antique objects."

Finally, Tara Laskowski, Scott Garson, and I are newsletter famous together as we hog up 1/3 of the Fall 2009 "Between the Lines" Mason MFA alumni thingie with blather about how very short fiction is coming to your house to break your heart. I don't know if it goes online, but if I find it I'll post a link. You know how to find us, but did you also know that Tara is one of the hungry minds behind The Recipe Resolution?

Push the button, Frank

I will, I will push the button!

My VIPs on very short fiction blog is now open to the public. I'm so thrilled by the generosity of the writers who have helped out so far: David Erlewine, Robert Swartwood, Gabriel Orgrease, Erin Fitzgerald, Roxane Gay, Joseph Young, Ryan Bradley, and Scott Garson. New entries coming soon by Ethel Rohan and Lauren Becker.

No design to speak of, just an oppressive blue blogger template, but the essays are fantastic. And the most remarkable part is that the writers generated all this amazing content in just 6 days.

Free Online Fiction Writing Course (Part 3? 4?)

Howdy! Taking a break from writing my syllabus to take a break from writing my syllabus, so I have a couple of minutes to Tell You The Good News About Indie Lit! Seriously, I've only been a consistently active participant in the scene for about a year and a half, and already the questions--online vs. print, micro vs. macro--seem old and non-productive sometimes, like going to a big family picnic where they find out you're an English professor and you get all those loud question-attacks from Uncles who are proud to be ignorant. Crimey/Noiry/Southerny fiction writer and reviewer Art Taylor gets it (for reasons a light cyber-stalking will reveal), and he is enthusiastically in the business of explaining it to diverse and curious populations, reminding me that my presence at the picnic might be useful after all. Art is in the process of putting together a brief piece for the George Mason community about new fiction, for which he has interviewed Mason alums (Me, Scott Garson, and Tara Laskowski).

Of course, these days I don't need to explain much to my advanced fiction writing students about what's going on, and the unit descriptions in my syllabus are really for the salary committee more than anyone else.

Here's an inappropriate answer I gave to one of Art's questions about writing big and small (I'm pretty sure I stole the image, but from where? And DE, did I use this gag at the conf panel?): Think about seeing a clown in an emergency room with a BBQ fork in his thigh. That's one narrative experience, about the observer's immediacy. Now think about that clown as an abused child who grew up to flunk out of the police academy and has just discovered he has "feelings" for his best friend. That's an entirely different narrative experience, using the exact same base material. Oh, and neither one is poetry.

So honored to make Wigleaf's Top 50

That's right, the list is UP, and I'm blown away to have made it with "Render, or to transmit to another" from December's elimae. The whole list, including the long shortlist, is stunning, and Scott Garson and Darlin' Neal should receive significant CASH PRIZES and other honors for the work they do in the advancement of short fiction. I'm dead serious about that.

McGuffined again by Tana French

Just finished reading The Likeness. Um, the first 100 pages took me weeks to slog though. The next 300 were utterly thrilling. then the last 70 or so . . . well, let's just say I now have serious trust issues with French.

In other news, I'm pretty happy with my new set of students and their creative agility, especially as concerns the Flash fic unit we're into at the moment. We read the wigleaf top 50, and at least one student has proclaimed flash as his new fave form, and Garson has written a letter to my class about process. Despite the fact that I feel about as crazed as Dalek Caan, things seem to be off to a lovely start.

Garson, slow the f**k down

If Margueritte Duras was a sports nut in the midwest with a very short attention span she'd write
"Diversion," and publish it in FRiGG.

Also enjoyed "Young Frankenstein," but it made me weepy (just back from New Orleans which always amps up the 'mones). No heart to read "Ditched," just yet.

what scott has linked

is probably not as dramatic as what god hath wrought, but by and large I'm happier with the results. Scott Garson's blog, Patterns of Silver Light and So Forth features links to several of his most recent pieces published in some really great forums. Finding these stories is great for me because 1) Scott's an old pal, 2) I'm competitive, and 5) his embrace and mastery of the very short form is pretty much breathtaking. So here I have pledged to "blurb" the work. The first three:

Reengineering, at Barrelhouse
In which Edwin J. Tier is completely full of it, but he’s right. Better than right. I want to work for this company, is that wrong? Featured -fu: Lavender bath towels.

Acknowledgements,at elimae
a garson classic with imbedded, muted anger

Captions, elimae
most worried for: Annabelle
if you like daddy, mountains and gold, this one's for you

More soon, but an added note: I don't recall SG writing or even tolerating so much brief mystery. The humor is forever, though.