Embarrassingly late in reporting, but...the fine folks at Ninth Letter have published my story "Illustration of a Stove" in their winter issue. You can read that thisaway.

   Many thanks to Jodee Stanley and the 9L editorial team. Quite a privilege to be involved with such a stellar magazine.

Roman Cieslewicz - Katastrofa

Bronislaw Zelek - Sult

Franciszek Starowieyski - Therese

Wojciech Fangor - Ballad of a Soldier

Jan Lenica - Laventura

Wojciech Zamecznik - Shadow Cien

   Despite a rather unfortunate connection my mind immediately makes between their visual style and, err, Tool, I find the Quay Brothers to be producers of some supremely strange and stunning work. Their fine attention to detail and otherworldly world-building abilities are worthy of praise in their own right, not to mention the transfixing experience of viewing those worlds from the other side of the glass. Also, they dreamed up this bonkers French commercial for Badoit fizzy water, which earns them a bigtime a-ok sign from me.

*Thanks to Adrian Curry, whose original blog post I politely used as source material.

   This Friday (12/7), I'll be reading alongside CA Conrad at the KGB Bar in the East Village. Show starts at 7pm. More info thisaway. Yessir, feeling rather Frankenthaler-y.

   Once again I'm dumbfounded by the restless ingenuity of our creative minds. "Strawberry Fields" was recorded on a four track, fer chrissakes! and this is itself a kind of miraculous invention. Also, the conspicuous amount decapitation photos is absolutely hilarious.

   Just received the good word from Ninth Letter that my story, "Illustration of a Stove", has been accepted for publication. The piece should appear sometime in January, as part of their Winter 2013 issue.

   Ninth Letter, to get right down to it, is very goddamned good. Consequently, this news has me feeling very goddamned excited. Keep an eye out.

   I'll be reading next Thursday, August 13th, at Bar Thalia in Manhattan as part of the Lamprophonic Emerging Writers Series. The event begins at 8:30 and features a fine selection of New York City writers. Should be a grand affair. All the info you need is thisaway.

Thursday, Sept. 13th 2 8:30 PM
Bar Thalia, Manhattan (map)
Lamprophonic Emerging Writers Series

Madeline Felix
Luke A. Gerber
Matthew Thompson
Allyson Paty
Caty Gordon
Jay Deshpande

   Pleased to announce that I'll be reading with CAConrad on December 7th at the KGB Bar in Manhattan. Yes, this is over three months away, but who of sound mind and character could hold in such news??

   I first came across CA back in Seattle, through Wave Books and their edition of The Book of Frank. The electric charge running through CA's work, how he twists and stretches the spatial properties of his poems, pulls them inside-out like a torn open pillow case and fills the air with feathers, is something else entirely. I look forward to hearing a piece like this come alive in a room.

   You can click here for more info (admittedly, there isn't much info there at the moment).

   Mark yer calendars!

  Something terribly, terribly weird.

   Here's to Cormac McCarthy. A man who today turns 79 and whose books burn the way Paradise Lost burns: "As one great furnace flamed, yet from those flames no light, but rather darkness visible."

And they are dancing, the board floor slamming under the jackboots and the fiddlers grinning hideously over their canted pieces. Towering over them all is the judge and he is naked dancing, his small feet lively and quick and now in doubletime and bowing to the ladies, huge and pale and hairless, like an enormous infant. He never sleeps, he says. He says he'll never die. He bows to the fiddlers and sashays backwards and throws back his head and laughs deep in his throat and he is a great favorite, the judge. He wafts his hat and the lunar dome of his skull passes palely under the lamps and he swings about and takes possession of one of the fiddles and he pirouettes and makes a pass, two passes, dancing and fiddling at once. His feet are light and nimble. He never sleeps. He says the he will never die. He dances in light and in shadow and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says the he will never die.

- From Blood Meridian