5 Random Things for 2017

Posted on 04 February 2017

This blog might be as blank as the face pictured above, but I’ve been busy behind the scenes. Here are a few updates:

Write, walk, repeat. The picture above features one of the sculptures at the Fields Sculpture Park at the Omi International Arts Center in Ghent, New York. I was invited to the Writers Omi residency for two weeks last fall, where I spent my days writing and walking through the sculpture fields and my evenings breaking bread with writers from across the world. I miss the lonely walks, the wind, and all that time to write.

Taboo extravaganza. My secret is out: One of my in-progress manuscripts is a short story collection surrounding all things taboo. In 2016, my taboo stories appeared in the Kenyon Review (online and print), Ninth Letter, Chicago Tribune, Michigan Quarterly Review, Washington Square Review, Notre Dame Review, and Beloit Fiction Journal. This Kenyon Review interview and these blog posts detail some of my taboo research.

On a blog roll. While I might not keep up with this blog, you can find me blogging for the Kenyon Review. In the last year, I’ve written about the Ferrante novels, disintegrating books, the story behind my middle name, virginity auctions, MFA expectations, living the dream, my avalanches of literary rejections, and more.

Getting weird with it. This summer, I’ll be teaching a weeklong writing workshop about innovative story structure during the first week of the Chautauqua Institution’s 2017 season. My other teaching-related news includes a feature forthcoming in Poets & Writers later in 2017 that explores the role reassurance has on aspiring adult writers.

The real world. It’s impossible to ring in 2017 without acknowledging the election results and their implications. I shared my initial response to the election results here, offered an account of the Women’s March on Washington here, and interviewed a friend surrounding deteriorating attitudes toward Muslim Americans here. And here is a bonus politically-inspired fairy tale.

Until 2018, if not before.