mystic haiku, mortality haiku, capitalist haiku, foreboding haiku

I have four haiku up at elimae for the April issue. They are titled Mystic Haiku, Mortality Haiku, Capitalist Haiku, and Foreboding Haiku.

Animals in Midlife Crises by Lincoln Michel and John Dermot Woods

I'm very excited to say that The Rumpus is running John Dermot Woods and my comic strip about animals undergoing existential midlife crises (appropriately titled Animals in Midlife Crises). The first strip can be viewed here. Others to follow every Sunday.

Marcy Dermansky, Norman Lock, and Lincoln Michel at The Brooklyn Winery

I'm reading tomorrow night in Williamsburg at Brooklyn Winery with two fantastic authors. Starts at 7pm.

Full details over at Vol. 1 Brooklyn.

Come out, if you'd like.

Three readings and other upcoming things

THREE READINGS

March 11th: In anticipation of Blake Butler's new novel, This Is No Year, Harper Perennial is staging four consecutive readings where a variety of writers will read the entirely of Blake's novel. I will be reading on the fourth day, this Friday, at PowerHouse Arena. Other readers that night include good friends Adam Wilson, Catherine Lacey, and Blake Butler, amongst others. Giancarlo Ditrapano, James Yeh, Justin Taylor, and many others will be reading on other nights. You know you want to come.

March 16th: I'll be briefly reading my own work at the Monkeybicycle Lightning Round reading at the Cake Shop, 7pm.

We're happy to say that this edition of the Lightning Round will also double as a release party for our eighth print issue, which will be available shortly. Featuring: Paula Bomer, Vince Czyz, Scott Geiger, Jeff Grentharer, Michael Hickins, Suzanne Marie Hopcroft, Blake Kimzey, Lincoln Michel, David Moscovich, Dustin Luke Nelson, Steve Peacock, Edwin Rivera, Kathleen A. Ryan, Andrew James Weatherhead, and Katie Wudel, plus others.

March 23: I'll be reading a longer amount of my own work at Vol. 1 Brooklyn's monthly reading series at Brooklyn Winery alongside Marcy Dermansky and Norman Lock. The reading is co-organized by Big Other. Dermansky and Lock are both fantastic writers, so should be a good time! Here is the Facebook event with more details.

FOUR PUBLICATIONS

An essay in Tin House's summer issue on Herbert Read's The Green Child.

A short story in Indiana Review's spring issue about a dictator and his head bodyguard.

Two poems in PANK print issue #6, one about urination and campfires, the other about an evil grandfather.

A shorty story (from the last Unsaid) anthologized in Tell: An Anthology of Expository Narrative. This anthology is being put together by the very talented and awesome Molly Gaudry. In addition to writing and editing awesome stuff, Molly just launched an indie books publicity business that is getting tons of deserved buzz around the indie lit world. Check it out.

The anthology's contributor list is beyond amazing and I'm very excited to be included:

Contributors include: Matt Bell, Aimee Bender, Kate Bernheimer, Crispin Best, Blake Butler, Alexandra Chasin, Paola Corso, Rebecca Curtis, Justin Dobbs, Anthony Doerr, Stuart Dybek, Brian Evenson, Kathy Fish, Susan Froderberg, Roxane Gay, Thomas Glave, Michael Griffith, J. C. Hallman, Miles Harvey, Lily Hoang, Christie Hodgen, Shelley Jackson, Tim Jones-Yelvington, Lee Klein, Samuel Ligon, Robert Lopez, Gary Lutz, Charles McLeod, Ben Marcus, Peter Markus, Clancy Martin, Michael Martone, Lincoln Michel, Lydia Millet, Rick Moody, Richard Nash (Foreword), Peter Orner, Benjamin Percy, Dawn Raffel, Nelly Reifler, George Saunders, Christine Schutt, Ben Segal, B. R. Smith, Michael Stewart, Terese Svoboda, Christian TeBordo, J. A. Tyler, Deb Olin Unferth, Diane Williams, Kevin Wilson, Lidia Yuknavitch.

SOME OTHER STUFF

Gigantic Indoors (Gigantic issue #3) is heading to press pretty shortly and we are very excited about it. The issue will include fantastic contributions from Dave Berman, Diane Williams, Joshua Cohen, and many others. More info to come!

I have been working on a rad series of comic strips with the very talented John Dermot Woods that we will hopefully reveal pretty soon.

As always, I write a regular column on fiction at The Faster Times and pretend to post witty thoughts on Twitter.

Interview up at PANK

I have an interview up at PANK blog in which I use the phrases "children’s party clown with a mean streak," "organic oils and artisanal lotions," "air-dropped into the secluded hunting grounds," "undead howls," and "fool others into thinking I’m thinking."

You can read the interview here.

You can read the two stories that prompted it here.

Forthcoming...

Essay in Tin House

Fiction in Indiana Review

Poetry in PANK print

Interview in PANK online

Starting 2011 off with a mix of things. Will post more as they are posted or printed.

language as inside ideal

I know plenty of people have made note of the spam poetry that exists on the web and in emails---the bizarre sentences cobbled by computers to get around spam sensors---but since this one contains my name I thought I might as well post it:

Mondays and thursdays are considered already recent infantrymen for fasting. Ringed piers of different fancy of definitions acutely followed. Thinking contributors were a other interest often constructed over science and from one transcendence to another. Victoria's form is six pipes larger than endurance centrifuge. Lincoln Michel since i published some of his language as inside ideal at night train rocks inside.

I'll spare you the spam link, but I couldn't figure out what the spam was even for. Russian Viagra maybe?

Nice things people have said about me

Last month I had two short stories in Unsaid #5 and this month I have two even shorter stories up at PANK.

My two PANK stories were featured on BlackBook magazine's "Fiction For Your Lunch Break" series. Here is what writer and friend Adam Wilson had to say:

His two featured stories might only be a paragraph long each, but they manage to encompass big ideas and entire worlds. “The Soldier” hinges on a startling point of view shift, from that of a soldier abroad to that of a local dog the soldier has accidentally kicked. In “The Hunt,” men go off hunting only to return to a burnt shell of a village, the families there regressed to feral, pre-human instinct. Michel is a master at manipulating time, seamlessly shifting from panorama to personal close-up. Re-read these stories until your brain has been marinated in their dark wisdom.

On Facebook, Unsaid super editor David McLendon has been collecting photographs of Unsaid contributors and had a very flattering comment on mine that I hope he won't mind me repeating here (or perhaps using as a blurb in the future!):

Lincoln Michel knows where he is from. No matter the flask or bottle or napkin dispenser from which Michel imbibes, his pages are always poured from the greater vessel that is Michel himself. Or, more accurately, Michel's pages are poured from that part of himself that he wishes but refuses to shake: Home. In Michel's case, home is a more than a place - it is a journey. His pages always orbit the source they intend to flee, but with a kind of furthering recurrence that pushes home much closer to home than was ever possible before Michel framed home with language. In other words, you can never go home again. In other words, welcome home.

~ David McLendon

You can read one of my Unsaid stories, "Drive," over here. However, you should buy the whole issue because it is packed with amazing writers and McLendon is one of the most talented editors in the lit mag world today.

Two for PANK

I'm excited to say I have two short-short stories in the current online issue of PANK. I will also have a few poems in their forthcoming print issue.

The first story is about a a soldier that accidentally kicks a starving dog and the second is about abandoned women eating bark with their teeth. Here are two random sentences:

When he was hungry he sat on the ground and gnawed on his own leg.

Our beards grew long.

Check them out if you'd like!

Boring personal readings habits 2k10

The past two years, I made resolutions to read at least fifty books and did so. This year, I did not make a resolution and failed to crack thirty. So this list is probably even less interesting than usual.

I taught several classes this year, which allowed me to reread a lot of fantastic essays and short fiction from old masters (Kafka, Hoffamann, Borges, O'Connor, Marquez, Cortazar, and countless others), but impeded my complete book reading. I also started a few giant tomes, specifically Bertrand Russell's The History of Western Philosophy and Roberto Bolano's 2666, both of which I will hopefully finish in some future year.

Books I finished in chronological order (*s are rereads):

1. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao – Junot Diaz
2. Chronicles – Bob Dylan
3. Little Things – Jeffery Brown
4. Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned – Wells Tower
5. NOON 2001
6. Reality Hunger – David Shields
7. NOIR – Robert Coover
8. NOON 2010
9. Twenty Grand – Rebecca Curtis
10. Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor
11. Magic For Beginners – Kelly Link
12. Books: A Memoir – Larry McMurtry
13. Nightwork – Christine Schutt
14. The Spot – David Means
15. Apex Hides the Hurt – Colson Whitehead
16. All the Living – C. E. Morgan
17. Jesus’ Son – Denis Johnson*
18. Billy Hazelnuts 2 – Tony Millionaire
19. Seven Nights – Jorge Luis Borges
20. The Green Child – Herbert Read
21. Bad Nature, or With Elvis in Mexico – Javier Marias
22. The Literary Conference – Cesar Aira
23. Patriotism – Yukio Mishima
24. Ghosts – Cesar Aira
25. Tales of Desire – Tennessee Williams
26. Mystery and Manners – Flannery O’Connor
27. Do Not Disturb – Muriel Spark
28. Here Comes Another Lesson – Stephen O’Connor

This feels like too few books to bother with further breakdown, as I did in previous years.

Well, onwards and upwards (and more reading in the future).

Settling down to an evening with the new Unsaid #5

This thing is massive. Check out this list of contributors and then order it here.

BRIAN KUBARYCZ/ANNE CARSON/JOE WENDEROTH/BLAKE BUTLER/JONATHAN CALLAHAN/ROBERT LOPEZ/MICHAEL KIMBALL/A. MINETTA GOULD/DAVID HOLLANDER/JENNY GROPP-HESS/GREG AMES/JOSEPH CELZIC…/ANNE VALENTE/ERIKA LORENTZSEN/DANIELLE BLAU/DAWN RAFFEL/TRENT ENGLAND/M.T. FALLON/BRIAN EVENSON/KIM CALDER/ROZALIA JOVANOVIC/LUKE GOEBEL/CATHERINE FOULKROD/A WOLFE/PETER MARKUS/KATY WYER/JASON SCHWARTZ/TOM MCCARTAN/SHANE FIREK/AMBER SPARKS/ROBERT KLOSS/ELIZABETH MIKESCH/PAMELA RYDER/LINCOLN MICHEL/MICHAEL COPPERMAN/LITO ELIO PORTO/ALEXIS ALMEIDA/MONICA HARHAS/EVELYN HAMPTON/SEAN PATRICK HILL/PAUL MALISZEWSKI/B.R. SMITH/JEFFREY LAMONDE/ALEXANDRA CHASIN/TOM LAVERTY/ANDY DEVINE/M SARKI/RICHARD ST. GERMAIN/ALLISON TITUS/KEITH NATHAN BROWN/LIAM O’BRIEN/MATT BELL/COOPER ESTEBAN/SCOTT GARSON/ERIKA MOYA/SASHA FLETCHER/JOSEPH SCAPELLATO/STEPHEN GROPP-HESS

several of the last few weeks

I have not updated this blog since reading in Kansas City, MO and Lawrence, KS. Here is a quick round-up of some things.

In writing news:

I have two stories in the sure to be fantastic Unsaid #5, which I believe started being shipped yesterday. You can view the massive and massively awesome list of contributors here. I'm honored to be alongside so many authors I admire (Anne Carson, Brian Evenson, etc.) and authors I am good friends with--and also admire!--such as Rozalia Jovanovic, Catherine Foulkrod and Sasha Fletcher. Look out for it in bookstores, or order it online.

I also have a story forthcoming in another great literary magazine, Indiana Review. It is a story about a short dictator and his bodyguards. It is pure fiction, although when I gave a reading of it once several different people came up and told me that they were positive they knew which real life dictator it was based on. More on that when it gets published.

I also found out that an essay I wrote for The Rumpus was assigned in a college course when I received a few emails from students asking me for background information for their essays. It was pretty flattering to hear!

John Dermot Woods and I have been working on a badass comic strip. More about that later.

Lastly, the readings in Kansas City and Lawrence were both awesome and a million thanks to Clancy Martin and Chloe Cooper Jones for organizing them. Indeed, the whole midwest experience was fantastic, especially the food. Some items I consumed: duck fat french fries, kobe beef burger, biscuits and turkey sausage gravy, biscuits and beef sausage gravy and eggs, biscuits and fried rabbit, chicken-fried pork steak, sliced flank steak, Kansas City pulled pork, Kansas City short ribs, etc.

post-lecture, pre-reading

In editing news:

In addition to our readings, James Yeh and I gave a talk on editing and creating literary magazines to students in the MFA program and Kansas University. I've just learned that their magazine will be called Beecher's Magazine and my good friend Chloe Cooper Jones is going to be the first editor in chief. Look out for it!

Speaking of Chloe Cooper Jones, she is joining the staff of The Faster Times with an exciting dialogues section. The first piece will be a conversation between herself, Deb Olin Unferth and George Saunders. It should go up on Monday.

Lastly, Gigantic #3 is coming together amazingly and we have several killer contributing writers and artists to announce soon.

In non-writing and non-editing news:

I had a birthday and am one step closer to death.

In better news, I recently attended the baptism of my cute and awesome godson, Leo Marshall Pesch. If we are Facebook friends, I am sure you've seen pictures.

More to come...

Big on the Missouri-Kansas border

Gave a fun reading with James Yeh and Chloe Cooper Jones last night in Kansas City at the New Letters house. Clancy Martin gave a far too kind introduction and New Letters was a great host.

Tonight, James Yeh and I will be giving a lecture on literary magazines (4 pm) followed by a reading of our fiction (7 pm) at Kansas University in Lawrence.

That's right, I'm blowing up on the Missouri-Kansas border!

James Yeh, Chloe Cooper Jones, Clancy Martin, and Lincoln Michel

The Kings County Society for Fitness, Science, and Musical Merriment Third Monthly Gala

James Yeh and I are hosting our monthly dance night at Greenpoint's Manhattan Inn this Friday. I play a lot of 60s soul and Southern hip-hop, James plays a lot of 80s pop and Northern jangle rock. Come on by and boogie.

your football assigned reading

I'm a little late posting this here, but before the kickoff of the NFL season I wrote a piece about great football books for Flavorwire. Pictured above is my absolute favorite.

you'll need this in the desert

Above is the rad cover for the new issue of Canteen magazine. The issue's feature is a series of essays that tangentially deal with the decline (?) of The Great American Novel. I have an essay in there on disappearing swimming pool deep-ends and there are essays by many other rad writers such as Justin Taylor and Tao Lin (read an excerpt of his essay online). Check it out!

The Kings County Society for Fitness, Science and Musical Merriment

ATTN NYC FRIENDS:

DJs James Yeh and myself* will be hosting our monthly 60s soul/60s rock/southern rap/sporadic funk dance night at The Manhattan Inn in Greenpoint Brooklyn this Friday. Come on by if you can!

*Formerly DJs Cormac McBootay and Hemingyeh?

The last dog days of summer are being rounded up.

After a short summer break, Gigantic online is back with new content. We have fiction from Ashley Farmer and John Dermot Woods as well as a great interview with the fantastic Amy Hempel by Nathan C. Martin and part four of our serialized comic Until I Find It (by Luca Dipierro and Leni Zumas).

on and on and on and on

I have a short piece up today over at Everyday Genius. It starts:

Driving out west in a rusted sedan, our thoughts slowed with each passing state. My Indian wife wore her wrist-watch with the broken strap. She was dialing up the radio.

Mildly interesting note: that piece actually began as a cut-up of a Hardy Boys novel I found on the street. I have some other work coming out soon that I'm excited about, especially two stories in the new Unsaid that will be in stores very soon. Also expect new Gigantic online content, events and print issues in the coming days, weeks and months.

there's still a lot of drinks that I ain't drunk and lots of pretty thoughts that I ain't thunk

Friends, Romans, blog readers, lend me your ears. Gigantic and NOON are joining forces Voltron-like for a Bastille Day Soiree this Wednesday the 14th! If you are in the New York City area you should come out to mingle in a rad downtown bar and hear great readings from three amazing authors: Diane Williams, Rebecca Curtis and Joshua Cohen.

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In other Gigantic news, we are seeking submissions for our third print issue: Gigantic Indoors.

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And have you been checking out the amazing comic by Leni Zumas and Luca Dipierro that we have been serializing? The third installment went up last month with more to follow.