I’m pleased that I have a story, “Penelope and David,” to be published in the fall issue of Story Quarterly. And I have some flashes online! Right now! So I don’t have to wait till fall:
While Mark “the Luv Guv” Sanford, Senator Jim “Waterloo” DeMint, and Congressman Joe “You Lie” Wilson cornered the South Carolina media market in 2009, I do have some news. A short story appeared in the summer issue of Harpur Palate, another was accepted by Eureka, and a third was a finalist for the Faulkner Wisdom Prize. I’m presently working on a new novel manuscript that I hope, perhaps, to workshop at Sewanee this summer. In the meantime, may the Palmetto State’s writers steal the headlines from its endlessly embarrassing politicians in 2010!
“Nathan’s Vision,” a story I revised while at Sewanee, finally made its way into print in the Missouri Review for the fall issue of 2008. I also found out recently that I’ve been selected for one of the Tennessee Arts Commission’s two Individual Artist Fellowships in Literary Arts for 2010. I wouldn’t have thought to apply except that Matt Debenham [Peter Taylor Scholar/Fiction/2007] pointed his cocktail at me and told me I should, because he’d done so in his home state of Connecticut and won. I think Sewanee seems to breed that kind of good mojo among participants while there—and long after. The best thing to come out of that summer was the number of amazing people/writers who became friends. At present, I’m finishing a first novel, which I had workshopped at Sewanee. If I’m still working on this one in 2010, I’m considering returning the fellowship money as penance.
Since my last update I’ve published poems in Southern Humanities Review, 32 Poems, roger, and Mid-American Review. Some kind reviews of my first collection, The Boatloads, have appeared in RATTLE, Hudson Review, Blackbird, and elsewhere. Garrison Keillor read my poem “Among the Things He Does Not Deserve” in an installment of A Writer’s Almanac in May. I received tenure and promotion to associate professor in August at Coastal Carolina University, where I continue to teach and to edit the online journal Waccamaw, which has featured such Sewanee alums as Kevin Wilson [Staff/2001–present], Chad Davidson [Walter E. Dakin Fellow/Poetry/2003], Anna Evans [Howard Nemerov Scholar/Poetry/2009], and Jake Adam York [Tennessee Williams Scholar/Poetry/2004]. Also, I became engaged to Holley Tankersley; we’ll be getting married in May 2010. How lucky am I? I credit Sewanee. Since I opened that acceptance letter in 2003, good fortune has followed me around with persistence. I am grateful, dear mountain, dear conference, dear people.
After a semester as Distinguished Visiting Writer at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, I’ve begun a tenure-track position at San Jose State University, where I teach graduate and undergraduate classes and direct the Center for Literary Arts. I’m also the books editor of The Rumpus, which launched at the beginning of 2009, and I have just edited an anthology called Fivers: Flash Fiction for the Phone, downloadable at an iPhone near you. Best for last: my second novel, Deus Ex Machina, will be published by Counterpoint in fall 2010. So I’ve been kind of busy.
I had a fantastic time as a fellow this summer, after the publication of my collection of short stories, Things That Pass for Love (OV/Dzanc Books). I’m looking forward, in March, to the publication of my first novel, Stations West (LSU’s Yellow Shoe Fiction Series), edited/curated by Michael Griffith [Walter E. Dakin Fellow/Fiction/2001; Staff/2005, 2006].
My family and I have moved to Arkansas, where I took a job as an assistant professor at Arkansas Tech University.