Two Pieces on the DNC for The Believer
I wrote two pieces on the DNC marches for The Believer:
New story in freaking Ploughshares!
A little more on this story later, but for now just now that I’m over the freaking moon to have a new story out in the Summer 2024 issue of Ploughshares, guest edited by the amazing Rebecca Makkai.
The story is called “My Refugee.” It’s a weird one, and it’s deeply personal, and I’ve got loads more I’d love to say about it but I’ll just let the story say what it wants to say, however it wants to say it.
There are amazing writers in the issue & also me, and you should expect a bunch of obnoxious posts from over here about being in this journal—it truly is a dream journal & also one that has informed my whole writing life—-possibly until you bring up the sketchy obnoxious writer character in Stephen King’s Under the Dome who brought up being in Ploughshares every other page.
Anyway I’m in Ploughshares. You can buy a physical or a digital copy of the issue over here. A little taste of the story + the gorgeous cover follow below.
A new story in The Sunday Morning Transport!
My story "Lesser Demons of the North Shore" is up over at The Sunday Morning Transport! I love this publication: you get one story every Sunday if you subscribe—-so four stories total—-or one free story a month if you go with the unpaid option. You have to pay for “Lesser Demons”!
Or you can use this link for a free 60-day subscription! You should 100% subscribe to The Sunday Morning Transport though—-it’s got a heck of an astounding archive already, a new story every Sunday (though only one* so far involving hamsters and demons and Chicago’s north shore).
*this one. My story.
First paragraph:
Here’s the story that should have served as a warning: Four years before we moved to the suburbs, my wife, Clemencia, worked at an after-school nonprofit in Bucktown, and one of the volunteers she supervised, Staci, drove from Winnetka to help out. Our commute was much easier than Staci’s, just a hop on the El from our Pilsen apartment. Clemencia said she didn’t really know Winnetka, didn’t really know about the North Shore. Staci said she hadn’t really known about it either. She’d married into the suburbs. Staci had been an actor. She worked at the Goodman and Steppenwolf and kept at it after she’d met her lawyer boyfriend and moved. Don’t move, Staci told her. You’ll think, Oh, it’s Chicago with a yard, but it is not Chicago with a yard. The North Shore isn’t Chicago. She said, in our neighborhood there’s this woman, she’s in her sixties, she has the blowout, the fur coat—the whole North Shore thing.
The rest is over here.
New story in The Chicago Quarterly Review!!!
I’ve been a fan of The Chicago Quarterly Review for ages, and it is a super special thrill to have a story in their magazine. Also? It’s a super Chicago story, about Chicago’s never-ending March gloom, and it’s the first ever thing I’ve ever both written and illustrated. You can buy the issue here. You can take a look at the first page & also find proof of Chicago’s March weirdness below. Big thanks to editors S. Afzal Haider & Elizabeth McKenzie.
Everything I'm Doing at AWP & All the Things I'm Not Doing But Looking Forward to Attending
Hi! Here is everything I’m doing at AWP in a single index card, but below that are additional details + also some shameless pleas to come see me + (below that) two additional readings that I’ll definitely be going to, that I’d love to see you at too:
On Thursday Feb. 8 from 10am-11am I’ll be at the University of Arizona Press booth (821) signing copies of Extended Stay. That’s booth 821! If this is at all an incentive, just know that (1) I’ll be so happy and surprised that you made it over there for a novel that has been out already for a little over a year but also (2) I’ll be 100% happy to sign the book and doodle anything you like on the book proper (if you like) and also do a custom Post-it drawing right on the spot for you. You can also literally just stop by and say hi and not buy a book!
On Friday Feb. 9 from 5pm-6:30pm, I’ll be part of this offsite reading featuring University of Illinois and Northwestern alumni and faculty! It’ll happen at the Strange Days Brewing Co. (318 Oak St). I’m reading a very short excerpt from a new thing, and I get to read alongside Mary Biddinger, Simone Muench, Jackie K. White, Christine Sneed, Beth McDermott, Jeremy T. Wilson, Faisal Mohyuddin, and Rebecca Morgan Frank.
Finally, on Saturday Feb. 10 from 10:35am-11:50am, I’ll be doing a panel on everything we had to unlearn when working on second books, alongside Julie Iromuanya, Jimin Han, and Ted Wheeler! Here’s the link to the official page! And here’s the description: We want to believe that writing is cumulative—that we benefit from habit and repetition—and it’s true, the more we write, the more we know about writing. But what works on one project might not translate to the next. Much of the work we need to do is unlearning, a willingness to go back to not knowing, so we can explore the possibilities of not being fully sure of ourselves. In this panel, four novelists discuss their unlearning and what they left behind as they embarked on new projects.
Room 2502A, Kansas City Convention Center, Level 2
Saturday, February 10, 2024
10:35 am to 11:50 am
THE TWO OFF-SITE EVENTS I’M SUPER EXCITED ABOUT!
I feel tremendously lucky to be an editor for Jackleg Press, and they’ll have a reading with Another Chicago Magazine on Thursday Feb. 8 from 12pm-2pm. The info is here! And here it is as a screencap:
And I’ve been lucky to teach for the SPS Northwestern creative writing program, and some of my favorite students and faculty are going to be reading! And I’m so excited to see them. I’ve pasted the info below:
NU Graduate and Faculty Reading at AWP: Kansas City Edition
presented by the MFA in Prose and Poetry and MA in Writing Programs at SPS
Date: Thursday, February 8
Doors: 5:30pm
Program: 6pm
Location: HiTides Coffee (519 E. 18th – Kansas City, MO)
Northwestern University's MA in Writing & MFA in Prose and Poetry Programs will host a special Graduate and Faculty Reading in connection with this year’s Association for Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conference in Kansas City, MO. The reading will feature current faculty Paula Carter and Faisal Mohyuddin, and alumni Audrey Fierberg, Holly Stovall, and Ankur Thakkar. Faculty Director Christine Sneed will host and emcee. Snacks and mingling begin at 5:30pm. Program begins at 6pm. Admission is free and open to the public, and no registration is required.
SO MANY EVENTS!
Hi! I have so many events coming up! I’ll talk about them a lil later but for now a lot of them are posted over on the events page!
Are You Writing a Novel?
I'm teaching Speculative-Novel-in-a-Year for StoryStudio in 2024. I’ve been thinking long & hard about the specific challenges in writing speculative novels. If you're writing anything that's science-fiction, horror, or fantasy---or just adjacent to it in some way---I'd love to have you in this class. Feel free to post widely and share with anyone who might be interested! Registration closes November 27.
Esther In Nowa Fantastyka!
My story “Esther (1855),” originally published in NIGHTMARE, is now in a Polish translation for this month’s Nowa Fantastyka. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love the cover. Just imagine me making the exact same face as the little girl or at least one of the more cheerful werebeasts.
CLOTHESHORSE: Percival Everett's Dr. No
Clotheshorse is a super occasional* series highlighting menswear in fiction. Here’s a passage from Percival Everett’s smart, goofy, goofy-smart Dr. No:
He was well-dressed. In my memory of him in the coffe shop he was not quite disheveled, but he was not a natty dresser. Now here he was, tailored iron-gray suit, thin maroon tie, a maroon handkerchief peeking out from his breast pocket. His oxblood wing tips gleamed. He looked like a supervillain or, worse, an upper-crust English spy, an openly promiscuous and functionally alcoholic heterosexual with an on-and-off-again messiah complex. It was the shoes, the way they were tied. (p. 37)
* Last time I posted on it was like, 2015. It’s been a while. You can check out the other entries here.
Here’s Everett’s author photo on the back of the Dr. No paperback, it’s easily my favorite author photo in recent years:
More Extended Stay Bits
Extended Stay keeps chugging along! Here are some cool bits below this really cool spread of red-and-black covers.
Audio rights for the novel were acquired a few months ago, and the audiobook will be released in November. I’m a new but ardent convert to audiobooks, and cannot recommend Libby enough if you have a library card and want to experience an awesome novel while washing dishes or folding laundry. (I’m currently blown away by Zadie Smith’s commitment to doing all the voices and singing in The Fraud.)
I’m doing a few more events! Check out the Events page for more detailed info but I’m excited for this Friday 13th Horror Authors Night with some of my favorite Chicago folk who write dark stuff.
I’m super grateful to bookstagrammers like Ashley (aka spookishmommy) and Nina (aka the_wandering_reader/) for their continued support of the novel. I’ve embedded my two faves below but you should just follow them for all their awesome recommendations. Like, if you have not read Monstrilio? Do! So good! So sad! And I’ve got Ashley to thank for that one. OK: two awesome reels from Ashley and Nina, then more stuff:
It’s Latinx heritage month and it’s basically October! Extended Stay has popped up in some cool places, like this Goodreads list (54 New Books to Discover This Hispanic Heritage Month) and this Chicago Public Library list, plus some others.
I’m teaching a year-long class in 2024 for StoryStudio: Speculative Novel in a Year. Applications open October 17. Apply!
I am on Instagram, still! Mostly doodling on lunch bags. I am also on Threads. I am no longer on the other social media places. If you’re on either, follow! Or not!
Stewie & Brian Show Up in Anthony Trollope
Sort of! What I mean is that Anthony Trollope does the Family Guy How’s-that-novel-coming? bit in 1867’s The Last Chronicle of Barset (the relevant Stewie & Brian clip follows the excerpt below, but here’s the link just in case that’s easier.):
"You are just like some of those men who for years past have been going to write a book on some new subject. The intention has been sincere at first, and it never altogether dies away. But the would-be author, though he still talks of his work, knows that it will never be executed, and is very patient under the disappointment. All enthusiasm about the thing is gone, but he is still known as the man who is going to do it some day. You are the man who means to marry Miss Dale in five, ten, or twenty years' time."
Some Updates!
Hi! A bunch of stuff happened. Like,
I’m doing a reading on July 6 at the Jose Saramago Foundation, in Lisbon. (I’m part of this year’s Disquiet program.) If you’re in Lisbon, say hi!
Extended Stay showed up in this new CrimeReads list of Latinx Horror and Crime to check out in 2023.
I guest-edited this beautiful West Branch feature and got to introduce three amazing stories by three of my favorite emerging writers: Matthew Lloyd Richardson, Michelle go-un Lee, and Mike Prask.
Gavin Grant asked me 3 questions for the Small Beer Press blog.
Lina Chern included Extended Stay in a CrimeReads article about the joy of the bad decision! (In narratives!)
The New York Public Library included Extended Stay in a list of novels scarier than Scream VI!
I drew the katydid that posed for the cover of Steely Dan’s Katy Lied album (the katydid was actually a huge fan of the album)
Nabokovilia: Jean Hanff Korelitz, The Plot
“‘No. But you know, I wouldn’t say we’re talking about Nabokov, here, leaving behind an unfinished novel.’” (Jan Hanff Korelitz, The Plot, p 114)
Nabokovilia: Less is Lost
Andrew Sean Greer’s delightful Lost had plenty of Nabokovilia, and no surprise to find that the sequel also does. I’ll be updating as I find them, but here’s one for sure:
“…their wrinkles and paunches, when of course they were younger then than he is now, and the time will come, inshallah, when Less will be older still than they are here (you can always count on time for a fancy prose style).”
I've Been Out Talking
I know that’s not how the lyric goes, but so what? I’ve been out talking EXTENDED STAY with
and with Eden Robins for Lit Reactor
and I’ll be at the University of Central Florida next week March 20 for a reading (it’s at 4pm in Trevor Colbourn Hall 103)
Some EXTENDED STAY News & Events
Here are three really cool recent Extended Stay bits:
I was in conversation with Scott Dickensheets at The Desert Companion about the novel & its relationship to Las Vegas (linked here, but embedded below)
Extended Stay is part of The Chicago Review of Books’s Most Anticipated Chicago Books of 2023
It’s also included in Emily Hughes’s extensive, definitive list of 2023’s New Horror Books (and the cover sneaks into the page header, so I’ve included it below).
I’ll be doing some events! They’re all soon to be posted over here, but here’s a quick rundown:
On January 10, I’ll be in conversation at the Book Cellar with Eden Robins about her debut novel When Franny Stands Up.
On January 24, it’s Extended Stay’s book launch! At Women & Children First! I’ll be in conversation with Lindsay Hunter.
From March 4-5, I’ll be in Arizona for the Tucson Festival of Books! I’ll be doing a few things, but the schedule isn’t up yet.
From March 8-11, I’ll be in Seattle for AWP! On Friday, March 10, I’ll be in this panel, The 21st-Century Horror Novel, with Stephanie Feldman, Erika T. Wurth, and Addie Tsai.
A star for EXTENDED STAY!
Publishers Weekly gave Extended Stay a lovely, glowing, starred review! They call the novel “a fresh and stunning winner.” Here’s the link to the full write up!
Win a free copy of EXTENDED STAY!
You can win a copy of the book + a monster drawn on the back of a postcard! You can enter over at Goodreads! Details below!
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Extended Stay
by Juan Martinez
Giveaway ends November 15, 2022.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.
Extended Stay cover!
The book will be out in spring 2023 from the Camino del Sol series by University of Arizona Press! I love the cover so much & I’m so happy I can share it now.