The Novel, Teaching, Reviews, Nonfiction, New Hats at Foxhead Books and a Photography/Fiction Project

Since getting knee-deep into my novel, I've spent less and less time writing short fiction.  The spare time I've had when I'm not working on the novel has been devoted to finishing a lengthy essay that came about from a solicitation and a recommendation from Chris Offutt for an anthology due out sometime next year from Ohio University Press that will include essays from Dorothy Allison, Offutt, Ron Rash, and several others.

Set the writing aside, and the rest of my time has been spent, happily spent I'll add, getting my self situated to take on a few new jobs with Foxhead Books, the house that published my collection last year.  I can't say how thrilled I am about these new jobs with the Fox, but the word isn't actually official until after the first of the year, so I'll keep that under my hat until then.  But keep an eye out, because soon as I'm able, I'll certainly share the good news.

All that being said, I'll add that I've had the pleasure of picking up a couple gigs reviewing some fine books for Heavy Feather Review.  My review of Blake Butler's Sky Saw has already been published there and I'm currently working on a review of Robert Kloss' Alligators of Abraham (though I'm behind deadline on this last review and Jason Teal may be ready to give up on my ever getting him the finished review).  Hang in there, Jason.  It's coming, hoss.

The five or six short stories I have finished in the past several months have been for an upcoming book called A Thousand Words.  I think I've mentioned this project here before, but the general idea is that I'm teaming with photographer Heather McCoy for this fiction/photography experimental collection of short stories and photographs.  Each photograph (tentatively numbered at fifty at this point) will be accompanied by a short story of exactly one-thousand words.

In addition, as of Jan. 14, I'll be teaching a full load of English and Writing classes.  This after just getting student grades in for this past Fall semester.  We all know the grading process and how this side-task alone is at times enough to push all other work aside, at least until after finals.

So I'm working, just not publishing a great deal of short fiction as these two projects, in addition with my yet-to-be-announced new roles at Foxhead Books, are taking up the bulk of my work days.

And for that I'm happy.  Despite my drop in the submitting process and output of short stories, there's a lot going on right now.  A lot of good things, and I'm thankful