Many thanks to Adam McOmber and the folks at Hunger Mountain Review for giving these two new pieces of flash fiction–“Brush Fire” and “The Month of December”–a good home in issue 27!
Category: Uncategorized
New Work in Autofocus
Excited to have new work up today at Autofocus. Thanks to Michael Wheaton for giving this one a good home!
This piece grew out of a flash marathon this summer with writers David K. Gibson, Kim Magowan, and Brittany Terwilliger. Special thanks for Kim’s outstanding anaphora prompt for getting me started!
The aggro teenager energy in our house this summer had me fantasizing about the empty-nest years, but also recognizing that they will leave me feeling all sorts of contradictory things…
Short Fiction in Sequestrum
So lucky to have my story “Swimming for Shore” and an interview about the piece in Sequestrum’s latest reprints issue. Thanks to Ralph Cooper for choosing it!
Shouts out to the amazing Laurie Uttich, Rochelle Hurt, and filmmaker Gabriel Connelly in the interview.
New Interview in Rain Taxi Review of Books
So happy to have this new interview with Ryan Rivas up at Rain Taxi Review of Books.
DOCUMENTING THE SUBURBAN GOTHIC: AN INTERVIEW WITH RYAN RIVAS
Author Ryan Rivas talks about his new book, Nextdoor in Colonialtown (Autofocus), the accidental “truth bombs” of his neighbors’ posts on Nextdoor, and what it means to illustrate the “slippery time” of our historical moment.
Ryan’s an incredibly generous literary citizen, a wildly talented writer, and a genuinely nice person. Excited to help shine a light on the cool work he and Autofocus Books are bringing to the world!
Interview on The Drunken Odyssey Podcast
Excited to talk and crack up with John King on this week’s episode of his outstanding podcast, The Drunken Odyssey, where we chat about CHARMED PARTICLES, the writing life, and a whole bunch of other stuff!
A Celebration of the Orlando Poet Laureate and Finalists
Excited to read Saturday at this celebration of the Orlando Poet Laureate and finalists.
Come hear incoming Poet Laureate Shawn Welcome, outgoing Poet Laureate Susan Lilley, and finalists Terry Thaxton, Martha Brenckle, and me at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts as part of UCF Celebrates the Arts.
This Saturday, April 9, 2022, 6-7:30 p.m. Free, but advance tickets required: https://arts.cah.ucf.edu/event/poetry-spoken-word/
With thanks to the University of Central Florida’s College of Arts and Humanities and the Department of English for organizing!
“Swimming for Shore” Film
About a year ago, I met with a filmmaker who wanted to adapt my story “Swimming for Shore” into a short film. Today, it’s out in the world, and it is BEAUTIFUL! What an honor to have someone make something so lovely and powerful and moving out of your work!
Thanks to Gabriel Connelly and the entire team of actors and production folks for this beautiful adaptation, to Crazyhorse Literary Journal for first giving this story a home, and to Robert Shapard and James Thomas and the good people at W. W. Norton & Company for giving the story a second life in their anthology New Sudden Fiction: Short-Short Stories from America and Beyond. Excited to have it appear again in an upcoming issue of Sequestrum Literary Journal.
If you’d like to read the story, you can check it out here, where it was first published under a slightly different title:
Science Novels, Lab Lit, and Nerd Novels!
Check out all of the amazing novels Charmed Particles got to rub elbows with this weekend at the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts conference!
If you’re interested in #sciencenovels, #lablit, and #nerdnovels, be sure to check out the amazing work of the Fiction Meets Science Program and the new book Under the Literary Microscope: Science and Society in the Contemporary Novel, Edited by Sina Farzin, Susan M. Gaines, and Roslynn D. Haynes
With contributions by Anna Auguscik, Jay Clayton, Carol Colatrella, Sonja Fücker, Raymond Haynes, Luz María Hernández Nieto, Emanuel Herold, Karin Hoepker, Anton Kirchhofer, Antje Kley, Natalie Roxburgh, Uwe Schimank, Sherryl Vint, and Peter Weingart.
Narrative Energy: Novelists on Why, When, and How They Write About Science
Excited to talk about Charmed Particles this weekend at the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts conference, as part of the “Narrative Energy: Novelists on Why, When, and How They Write About Science” panel, along with Laura Otis, Susan M. Gaines, Catherine Bush, and Edward Schwarzchild!
“Scholar and writer Laura Otis will lead a discussion with four accomplished novelists who write realistic, character-driven fiction about science. They’ll compare their inspirations and motivations, and describe doing the research for their science novels and how it differs from the research they’ve done for other novels. They will consider the unique challenges of writing such books: How do they create empathy for particularly nerdy scientist characters? Does the unfamiliarity of the scientific content influence their choices of narrative point of view? How do they construct plots that are comprised of both intellectual and emotional events? What different sorts of challenges do different fields of science present?
One of the attractions of realistic science novels is that they allow readers to experience and appreciate unfamiliar fields of scientific study. And yet, people read and value novels for their fictional stories, characters, and aesthetics. How do novelists negotiate this conundrum? In what ways do they fictionalize the science to fit their stories, and how do they rationalize this within the novels’ realistic framing? How do they create the narrative energy of their stories using abstruse scientific concepts and practices—and teach readers what they need to know to understand the story from within the story, without being didactic or condescending?”
“Swimming for Shore” Filming in Progress
A few months ago, I met with a filmmaker who wanted to adapt my story “Swimming for Shore” into a short film.
Today he sent me stills from the shoot, and I can’t believe how beautiful they are!
I’m so excited to see the whole project when it’s finished!
The actors playing the lead roles in the film.
Thank you to Gabriel Connelly for the beautiful adaptation, to Crazyhorse Literary Journal for first giving this story a home, and to Robert Shapard and James Thomas for giving the story a second life in their anthology New Sudden Fiction.
If you’d like to read the story, you can check it out here, where it was first published under a slightly different title