Notable Story

Just been informed that my story ‘The Sleeping Shags,’ which was nominated for a StorySouth Million Writer’s Award, has been chosen as a Notable Story for the 2007 StorySouth Award. They pared the list down from literally hundreds of stories to double digits now. It is quite an honor. Being nominated was fantastic. I’ll keep you all updated.

To Report…

On Saturday friends and great writers gathered at The Book Cellar in Chicago’s Lincoln Square for what might be the last RAGAD reading for sometime. All came to celebrate the release of Ben Tanzer’s story, “What We Thought We Knew,” but folks were treated to much more. Having said this many times over the weekend, but still not tiring of it, I have to proclaim that among the many fine readings we’ve had over the last three years, this was one of the finest.

Jason Jordan arrived the day before via Pittsburgh–GO BACK TO OHIO! (inside joke). We ate and drank the night before and then he stormed The Book Cellar stage Saturday night with a story about a man’s encounter with death. A fine story, dry humor that went over with the packed house quite nicely. Thanks for coming out, man–we hope to see you back this way again soon.

Amy Guth, who’s heading up Pilcrow Lit Fest in Chicago in May, and who I had the pleasure of meeting for the first time, read a excerpt from her new novel. Gritty and fun, I can’t wait until the release of it. A nicer, more pleasant person to talk and drink with I cannot recall. Jordan, Guth, her fiance Justin, and myself all hit the town afterwards. I was given a hexagon made from straws that was supposed to have powers in picking up women. I didn’t try it, but Amy did get slugged in the arm in that same attempt by a drunken passerby–ah, nothing like Ricochets in Lincoln Square. Thanks for reading, Amy, you rock it!

Jill Summers is always great. Always. Her new website is kick-ass as well, and she’s got a story called ‘Larry’ on the first What to Wear During An Orange Alert Mixtape which will be coming out in RAGAD this summer. A fucking awesome story. Thanks, Jill, t’was sensational.

And last but never least, Ben Tanzer. Ben fucking Tanzer, a great reader and writer, an even better pod-caster and friend. Ben read a hilarious story about his past with drinking, the highs and sharp lows. Whole bookstore was laughing, each person. It was that good. Ben’s new novel, as it was announced, Most Likely You’ll Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine, will be published by Orange Alert Books. No release date yet, but we’re so stoked for Ben. Congrats, man, you deserve it–we hope to get a shout out in the acknowledgements…:) 

Thanks to everyone who came out Saturday night. Many new faces there, but some ones I knew well and was happy to see: Spencer Dew, Jason Berhends, Tim Hall, and others. Thanks for making this last reading so extraordinary. I have you all, the readers and writers, to be indebted to.

Links:
Jason Jordan’s blog
Amy Guth’s blog
Jill Summers’ website
Ben Tanzer’s blog
What To Wear During An Orange Alert
RAGAD

TOMORROW NIGHT!

It is finally upon us!

Saturday, April 25th
The Book Cellar
4736 N. Lincoln Ave
Chicago, IL
7 PM
FREE

Boozing: stories about alcohol, a party to release RAGAD #6, which features the a story called ‘What We Thought We Knew’ by Chicago writer Ben Tanzer. Featuring readings by Tanzer, Amy Guth (Three Fallen Women), Jill Summers, and Pittsburgh writer Jason Jordan. Editor Nick Ostdick will read and host. Much fun for all.

Also, the incomparable Amy Guth interviewed me on her blog. Click it to read. Thanks Amy, and I hope to see all of you out there tomorrow night.

Saturday Night!

RAGAD #6 Release Reading
Saturday, April 26th
7 PM
The Book Cellar
4736 N Lincoln Ave
Chicago, IL
Featuring readings by Ben Tanzer, Jason Jordan, Amy Guth, and Jill Summers. Editor Nick Ostdick will read and host.

This, folks, is going to be awesome. Tanzer’s story ‘What We Thought We Knew’ is one of the best RAGAD has put forth. All the readers rock, trust me. Jason Jordan, a lovely writer, is making the trip all the way from Pitt, and we have to make it worth his while. Plus, for right now, this will be RAGAD’s last broadside while we shut down and retool and figure out what our next move is. You don’t want to miss this! Plus, you can hang with us afterwards for drinks and conversation…all the writers are quite friendly.

The theme is BOOZING: Stories about alcohol. How can you miss that?

Coming Very Soon…BOOZING!

RAGAD #6 Release Reading
Saturday, April 26th
7 PM
The Book Cellar
4736 N Lincoln Ave
Chicago, IL
Featuring readings by Ben Tanzer, Jason Jordan, Amy Guth, and Jill Summers. Editor Nick Ostdick will read and host.

This, folks, is going to be awesome. Tanzer’s story ‘What We Thought We Knew’ is one of the best RAGAD has put forth. All the readers rock, trust me. Jason Jordan, a lovely writer, is making the trip all the way from Pitt, and we have to make it worth his while. Plus, for right now, this will be RAGAD’s last broadside while we shut down and retool and figure out what our next move is. You don’t want to miss this! Plus, you can hang with us afterwards for drinks and conversation…all the writers are quite friendly.

The theme is BOOZING: Stories about alcohol. How can you miss that?

Podcast

The illustrious Jason Pettus of The Chicago Center for Literature and Photographyrecently was gracious enough with his time to interview me for his site’s podcast. Many writers whom I love and admire have participated in his podcasts in the past, folks like Ben Tanzer and Lizzy Crane. As such, I was flattered by Jason’s offer, and sat down with him at The Holiday Club in Uptown for a forty-five minute talk about various things literary and not. The fruits of that discussion are now liveon CCLAP’s website. If you have the time, please stop by and give it a listen. Thanks again to Jason Pettus for the invite–it made my week.

50 Word Story Segment, Part 3

Our third installment of this series is quite exciting. First off, because I can’t believe the writers I pitch these to actually do them (thank you! so much to all of them). Secondly, because this time we feature Ben Tazner, author of the novel Lucky Man, as well as ‘What We Thought We Knew,’ a story featured in RAGAD #6 which will be released this Saturday night in Chicago at The Book Cellar. 7:00 PM, featuring Jason Jordan, Jill Summers, Amy Guth, and myself. Ben will of course be there too. The theme is BOOZING: STORIES ABOUT ALCOHOL. Hope to see you out there!

Story
—
Ben Tazner
—
The guy at the bar doesn’t want me leaning in to order drinks. I do so anyway. When he begins to threaten me I visualize violently punching him in the face or maybe beating him with a beer bottle. Instead, I walk away, full of rage, no drinks in hand.

1. Where did this story come from? Describes it’s genesis?

It’s funny because in describing this I will be inadvertently plugging my book Lucky Man, which is something I normally do in a much more purposeful and narcissistic fashion.

Anyway, I was at a conference the other day and I heard this guy talking about post-traumatic stress disorder. He described how it has two parts, a traumatic incident and the aftermath or reverberations that can linger for some time and are triggered by some kind of new incident or experience.

As he talked about this I flashed back to this assault I suffered many years ago which the violent scene near the end of Lucky Man is modeled on. For a long time after that incident just about any time someone or something seemed threatening I would imagine that a violent fight was about to ensue, fights that inevitably ended in my absolutely pummeling someone.

The intensity of these reactions have faded over time, and I rarely think about the assault itself any more, but after hearing this guy briefly speak, I have been thinking about that time in my life off and on for days now. When you asked me to write about something, I had an idea I quickly dismissed, and as I did my thoughts drifted to the conference, my reaction to being there and then to this fight I almost got into at a bar on Division about ten years ago.

There was this big, drunken idiot giving me a hard time as I tried to order some drinks and after a few minutes I started thinking that I might just have to kick the shit out of him. I didn’t, but the bad feelings associated with feeling so powerless, yet enraged, lingered for days and it all came back quite suddenly and vividly as I thought about what to write for you.

That wasn’t too much of a bummer, was it?

2. Who are you? What makes you so amazingly cool that we just had to interview you?

You know I get this question a lot, mostly in mock interviews I hold with myself, but what I usually say is, why me, well, I’m very attractive, fairly ripped and from what I understand absolutely killer in bed. Something by the way, you should totally check out. That said I am assuming you chose me because I am amazingly humble and you find that appealing.

3. What are you working on right now? Can you tell us? Stores? Poems? Novels? One of those tiny ships in a bottle?

I am trying to join as many social networking sites as I can and I think its going fairly well. I’m not sure if I’m selling any more books, but I have an amazing new set of faux friends and have even acquired some stalkers. I am collaborating with my friends Jason Behrends and Adam Lawrence on my new zine This Zine Will Change Will Your Life and I am also doing what I believe to be the final revisions on my new novel Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine, something I’m quite geeked about it, so we’ll see what shakes out.

4. Think fast: favorite short story or novel at the moment? Of all time?

All time? The Basketball Diaries, easy. But there are a number of books or collections that have absolutely floored me for one reason or another, so I am going to cheat and list some of them as well - Bastard out of Carolina, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Naked, Fun House, Meditations from a Moveable Chair, Carrie, Jimmy Corrigan Smartest Kid on Earth, The Martian Chronicles, Cruddy, When The Messenger is Hot, The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake, The Foundation Trilogy, and on and on.

5. If you could start a band full of writers, of literary greats and contemporary stars, who would be in your band and what instrument would they be on (four or five members only, otherwise the van gets too crowded and smelly)?

I like music sparse, some times fast and angry, but if not angry, definitely ebullient. That said I am also definitely basing this on people I enjoy seeing, think I enjoy seeing or might enjoy anyway if given the opportunity. So, I’m thinking Elizabeth Crane as lead singer, I have no idea how strong her pipes are, and she doesn’t seem very angry, but I saw her read once at the Metro and she totally owned the stage. Eric Spitznagle on either the theremin or the lesser known spitznagle, which I believe is a distant cousin to the French horn, Pete Anderson on something, bass maybe, he really has that Phil Lesh thing going on, sans hallucinogens of course, Keidra Chaney on lead guitar because you know, she’s Keidra Chaney and Amy Guth on drums, she I think would really rock it.

6. What’s on the horizon for you? What’s next—i.e., publications, events/readings, etc.

In terms of publications, I think Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine could be coming out soon, which would be nice; an essay about my obsession with my sons’ penises in the suddenly notorious and apparently unprintable next issue of Monkeybicycle and a piece in THE2NDHAND about visions I have been having called Jesus Walks. I also have a drunken RAGAD reading later this month, which you may have heard about, I’ll be doing a group reading at Wordsmiths in Atlanta next month, something at Pilcrow a couple of weeks after that and then this new Quickie’s thing in June, though I don’t think its physically possible for me to keep to a five minute limit. It seems insane of them to even ask, because frankly, there’s just too much self-love involved here. Basically dude, a lot is happening right now and I really appreciate all of it. Thanks for asking.

Unearthing the Underground

Taken from Jonathan Messinger’s blog at Time Out Chicago, this little blurb about being stuck on a subway seemed to resonate with me somehow. It reminded me of that REM video where there is a giant traffic jam and people just get out and walk, all of them, together, in one large symbol of weird oness. It’s Everydbody Hurts, right? That’s the video? Anyway, read it here. It’s worth the time. Plus there’s pictures too!

Pilcrow

I’ve just been notified that I’ll be sitting on two panels at Plicrow Litfest, a new festival of small press and indie lit taking place Chicago in May. The whole shindig was created by the fantastic Amy Guth, who will be reading with us at the end April for the release of RAGAD # 6.

The two panels I will be on are Lit Vs. Tech and the State of Small Press. This should be just fantastic. THANKS to Amy for asking me to be a part of this. And check out the Pilcrow roster–some wonderful people chipping here, people far bigger and better than me.

Kindness

Ole’ friend Ben Tanzer has some lovely things to say about Sunbeams over on his blog. He put up a picture of the book cover, crafted a fine little blurb, really gave us the star treatment. The book has been out for, well, this year will be three years since the release. I have to say there are things in it I’m not proud of, moments that I wish I could go back and rewrite, and passages that reek of someone just starting out and unsure of themselves. Many passages, in fact, many pages. The best part though is that there are a few passages, not many, but a few (you could count them with three fingers), that do make me proud. A few that I think still hold up even though I’ve moved beyond the book. This is one hell of a glorified post I know, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about lately: the evolution of a writer. I’ve watched many of my friends evolve as writers and many of them devolve too, and it’s interesting to watch who these people turn into–who they will become. Friends who’ve tried to improve their writing and hone their craft through grad school and other who try to slug it out in their apartments with late nights. A friend of mine recently told me that he is close to finding a publisher for his new book, and I thought how interesting it is that I’ve watched him go through this whole process: of writing the book, sending it out, getting rejected, and rewriting and doing it all over again. It’s nice to know that someone out there goes through the same shit you do day after day and keeps coming back to it and with that tenacity find success.

So thanks, Ben, for this little nostailgic trip to amnesia lane. We much appreciate it.