Thursday 11/14/24 People are sure going to tell you about that thing they say they don't care about. I repeatedly see these claims...

Wednesday 11/13/24 We've talked about Conjunctions editor, pretentious-fop writer, veritable Sir Soporific, and Guggenheim winner--of...

Wednesday 11/13/24 People liberally apply the word "trauma" with a casualness that suggests they've never known real trauma at all. If...

Tuesday 11/12/24 I've written five new short stories since yesterday. These are their first sentences: A song was once played on...

Monday 11/11/24 In the past, we've talked about Wendy "Don't Call Me a Termagant Because I'm Actually a Mega-Termagant" Lesser, editor in...

Monday 11/11/24 Remember my Guggenheim application ? So over the weekend I get an email requesting materials. It's not like how this...

Sunday 11/10/24 A white knight--as per what that means in modern society--is really a sexual opportunist. Ours is a world filled with...

Saturday 11/9/24 We'll go back to The New Yorker for another one of these prose offs. This is from a story called "The Honest Island" ...

Friday 11/8/24 I sent my sister a large envelope for her birthday containing a card, a story, and a letter. As I think the letter...

Friday 11/8/24 Something cool happened Monday after I was done running stairs. It made me feel good and was a useful reminder to myself...

Friday 11/8/24 On Monday I ran 3000 stairs at City Hall and then 5000 on Tuesday and walked five miles. Wednesday was very lackluster--I...

Thursday 11/7/24 We've spoken before about Carolyn Kuebler , editor of the New England Review and writer herself , who once wrote to me...

Thursday 11/7/24 Shake some action--it's what you need. The Animals do a great cover of Sam Cooke's "Shake," on what was essentially...

Wednesday 11/6/24 Today I'm seeing people say that they had a drinking problem, stopped, were sober for X amount of time, and now they...

Wednesday 11/6/24 If a person says that they're cutting family members out of their lives because of how they voted, that person might...

Wednesday 11/6/24 I saw a post yesterday on social media--and it was representative of many other posts I encounter which themselves are...

Tuesday 11/5/24 Given a chance to do or try less, almost every person will do just that, no matter what it costs them, which is the usual...

Sunday 11/3/24 There are writers--many of them--whose name you see and you know what they were thinking in writing that particular story,...

Saturday 11/2/24 The value of a work of fiction is directly related to the amount of life it contains. Life should permeate every aspect...

Friday 11/1/24 We've spoken before about Michael Ray, the editor in chief of the literary journal Zoetrope , and we're going to keep...

Wednesday 10/30/24 Two stories began back in May with a storm. It was early in the morning--what most people would consider the night,...

Wednesday 10/30/24 No matter how clear something is, no matter how many times you've stated matters, explained them, nor how thoroughly...

Wednesday 10/30/24 Find me a more meaningless term than "award-winning." Wrote an op-ed. Likely won't be moved. Not now. Will write at...

Tuesday 10/29/24 Want to mix it up? A lot of prose offs are upcoming. I'm working on a story today and I thought it'd be apt to use it on...