"A fast-paced, suspenseful dystopian picaresque, part Huck Finn and part bizarro-world Swiss Family Robinson..."
---Kirkus
Long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and finalist for the Crawford Award. Title short story listed for the 2000 O. Henry award.
It’s hard to know how to either quantify or qualify universalism, because so many communities make a claim to at least a cultural universalism that obscures interconnections with other communities. Truth (although the word “truth” is rarely used) becomes the cornerstone for an enclosure for-to put it in vernacular-a fandom. This also includes the fandom […]
Thu, December 5 2013 » Fiction, Life Studies, Poetry » No Comments
Our children, Tobias Sebastian and Alessandra Veronica, were born on December 2. This has obviously put a dent in my blogging. Although they have spent some time in the NICU, particularly Toby, they are doing great now. Eating tons, gaining lots of weight. It’s been a complete paradigm shift for me-not just the lack of […]
Tue, January 17 2012 » Life Studies » No Comments
My wife and I are expecting twins sometime in December, a boy and a girl. I am so ready and thrilled for them to come, but at the same time feel spectacularly unprepared. This unknowing and slight abyssal edge (What are we getting ourselves into?!) is probably healthy. I know my life will change irrevocably, […]
Sun, October 9 2011 » Life Studies » No Comments
We had a cold stretch here-not a surprise, but a bit early. And part of that wild unpredictability that seems to be the ‘new normal.’ (Last week we had a high of 90; this week we had a low of 38). And one of the sunflowers I had planted in the spring came (at last, […]
Sun, September 18 2011 » Life Studies » No Comments
For a long time I had willingly confused the two. It was a defense mechanism to confuse the two. I had considered in much of my childhood the biblical necessity of humility, meekness and poverty of spirit to be other phrases to describe shyness! I’ve often wondered where the shyness has come to begin with. […]
Sun, August 28 2011 » Life Studies, Religion/Logos » No Comments
Soooo much to cover of late-we were in the Czech Republic and Austria for 2 exhausting but glorious weeks and immediately afterwards I came down with the flu (and it looks like Kristin is going through the same opening salvos of the disease that I was a few days ago…grrr…). I also thought I should […]
Sat, April 23 2011 » Fiction, Life Studies » 1 Comment
About 6 weeks or so ago I slammed the porch door into my thumb while I was letting the dogs back in. Though the pain subsided after a few minutes, I’ve had since then a little demarcation of blood underneath my fingernail, pressed flat like a rose in the pages of a heavy book. Time […]
Sun, February 6 2011 » Life Studies, Polis » No Comments
I’ve been a bad blogger but I’ve been busy! Very busy. Things have been germinating, things have been transcribed. It’s also been a month of soul searching and some measure of tranquility, which can’t be attributed (either way) from writing, from a good or ill perspective. But I still am writing, hither and tither. In […]
Tue, September 14 2010 » Life Studies » No Comments
The dandelion is a noble flower, mimicking the tooth of a lion. It is not its fault that there are far too many of them, populating my lawn in their multitudes. A commonality doesn’t have to destroy beauty. It’s also a shame that on de-weeding chemicals, on the labels, blackberries are considered “weeds.”
Thu, May 13 2010 » Life Studies » 2 Comments
While gardening yesterday, I came across a vegetational oddity that was both grotesque and poignant. I was weeding the lower tier of our terraced garden, where our radiant tulips are in full apotheosis. However, near one of them, a suet feeder (i.e., a small rectangular cage) somehow had fallen into the garden thickets. Lost in […]
Sun, April 18 2010 » Fiction, Life Studies, Poetry » 3 Comments
OK, hopefully this will help. I found this snippet on a book panel re: SXSW that I thought was illuminating in regards to some of the attendant issues of authorship and culture that I’ve danced around in previous posts: # An author is no longer an individual working in a room alone, but the leader […]
Mon, March 22 2010 » Fiction, Life Studies » 3 Comments
Well, at the end of a long day, two dogs sacked out next to me and our oldest cat somewhat skittishly on the arm of my couch, I have to look back at it and really try to take stock of it. The book came out today, and I did, in fact, see it “in […]
Wed, November 25 2009 » Life Studies, Total Oblivion » 1 Comment
Let’s talk about the persona. Which is nothing new. The face I present to you isn’t my own face. How close? It’s hard to say. What the writer in the 21st century networked economy offers is “face time.” Access and ease of use with the materials of one’s life. A small door, like the one […]
Sun, April 19 2009 » Fiction, Life Studies » No Comments
What is geekier on the part of my early nineties self? 1. Writing fanfic based on Moria (a Roguelike) 2. Playing Magic the Gathering with others over a TELNET BBS. (honor system in describing the cards textually). Both on a VAX/VMS system. You decide!
Sun, January 25 2009 » ?!?!?, Life Studies » 2 Comments
5 years ago today, Kristin and I married. I don’t know what’s more surreal or harder to believe-that we’ve been married for 5 or together for more than 10. I mean, seriously, where has this time gone?! I am one lucky guy to have the partner, best friend, and wife that I do; breathtakingly blessed-every […]
Sat, September 13 2008 » Life Studies » 3 Comments
You see it in sports events more now, how the cheering is more orchestrated. The fun is more and more at the mercy of the venue. Signs are handed out with pre-printed messages of support (Ravens support Phelps, in Baltimore, during a meaningless preseason NFL game). You also saw at the DNC how well this […]
Tue, September 2 2008 » Life Studies » 1 Comment
Sequence-these really discrete packets of “posts”, like trading posts along a trail-doesn’t really work as a paradigm when you want to say 50 things at once. But real life is not an abacus. It was our 10th Wiscon (!) and it was great as usual. Very mellow for me, except for the karaoke party, of […]
Thu, May 29 2008 » Life Studies » No Comments
In Taos for the Rio Hondo workshop, where Kristin and I have been having quite the blast. Building small cairns inside hollowed out logs, approaching steep waterfalls, watching blizzards fall, fiction, Fat Tire, friends new and old. Back on Sunday, and then-Wiscon…where I’ll probably see 80% of you. Trying to place what can be placed […]
Fri, May 16 2008 » Fiction, Life Studies » 1 Comment
Many times have I started writing this. My iBook is gimped and I still haven’t figured out comments on this fucking blog. It kind of dampens the “exchange” part of this exchange. You have to register on this site to comment, which I want no one to have to do. I can’t find the right […]
Sun, May 4 2008 » ?!?!?, Life Studies » 2 Comments
1. I have the flu. 2. Our dog and Kelly have a really interesting relationship. He’s freaked out by her at first, yes, but then, when he doesn’t have her in sight for more than 10 minutes, forgets everything and starts barking again!. He is the Memento Dog! 3. Despite my flu I had a […]
Tue, March 25 2008 » Fiction, Life Studies » No Comments
