Writ, Read, & Said

First is nonfiction: in a book called Teaching Creative Writing: Practical Approaches, edited by Elaine Walker. It’s an essay on teaching students to use research in fiction. The library edition is out now (from the UK). The paperback will be out soon. You can find out more about the book here on the series website.

The other pub is a short story in the long awaited third issue of Muscle & Blood. The story is called “Suffer Through It,” and I can tell you that many people who have read this story loved it before it was published. It won the coveted 2011 Mari Sandoz/Prairie Schooner Award in Short Fiction (this is a money award; no publication because the Prairie Schooner does not publish students, which is both smart and fair. Furthermore, it would not have been a good fit for the Schooner).

The wonderful thing about both of these publications is they are in print! That’s right—someone has used actual ink and paper to share my work! They’re available electronically, but they are in print!

The sad thing about it is that they are not available for free, as were all of my previous publications. So, if you want to read them, you’d have to buy the text. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I keep thinking that if I should forgo the traditional way, go all indy, and share my work on the Internet because, hey, every writer wants to be read and read widely.

Still, it feels good to be in perfect bound!