New story: "A Subscribers-Only Sneak Peek into the Preliminary Report on the Conditions of the Camps"

I’ve got a new story at this cool new science-fiction newsletter-subscription publication called The Sunday Morning Transport. It’s free to read over here, but please consider subscribing: you get new a new story every Sunday from a killer roster of writers.

My story’s called “A Subscribers-Only Sneak Peek into the Preliminary Report on the Conditions of the Camps,” and here are the first two paragraphs. You can read the rest over here.

Not bad. Really. Seriously. Not bad, or at least definitely not as bad as you’ve been led to believe. Pretty okay conditions overall.

There’s been this narrative out there that FloriCorp and maybe all of Colombia has been obfuscating, that they—we—have been denying outside observers access into the perimeter, that we keep a shifting account of the number of deaths and disappearances, that anytime we’re asked to provide a straightforward answer to a simple question, we just go around in circles, that we’re negligent re: the high incidence of injuries, that all we care about is the bottom line, that now that we are wealthy, we’re just doing what the wealthy do. But if that were the case, why would I be writing this (preliminary) report? I mean, why would I even try to tell you of everything that’s going on with the color variation issues re: the Consumers?

There’s a bunch of obvious sources of inspiration: the Colombian flower industry and the immigrant detention camps are the two biggest. I may expand on the post a little with some of my favorite odd bits of information I found while writing this piece.

Small Odysseys

A new thing! I’ve loved Selected Shorts for so long—-actors reading short stories!—-and I was so thrilled when they picked Customer Service at the Karaoke Don Quixote for their show, and then years later when they commissioned Best Worst American, which ended up being the title story for my book.

For their 35th anniversary they asked 35 writers to come up with stories. I’m so excited to participate. Hannah Tinti edited, Neil Gaiman wrote the foreword, and Algonquin books will be publishing it on 3 March 2022. It’s one of my favorite things I’ve written. Check it out! Pre-order, please!

New Story!

Hi! I’m really proud to have Trumbull, a new story, in the the Spring/Summer 2020 issue of Shenandoah. The story is available right here. The first paragraph is below the photo.

From Trumbull:

They wanted to turn the school by our luxury condo into another luxury condo. I told my wife, Dawn, that it was a bad idea, and she agreed: it was gross, it was wrong. Plus, those condos are totally going to be haunted. I said, How many kids do you think died? The school had been around for almost one hundred years, so my guess was a few. Dawn coughed, looked away. Our daughter, Alba, had just been born. It wasn’t the right time to be talking about dead kids. We weren’t getting enough sleep. When I slept, I dreamt of the school, I dreamt of Trumbull’s massive brick facade, its narrow slits of windows. The school loomed over the intersection of Ashland and Foster, and stood catty-corner to a funeral parlor now occupied by a theater, and Trumbull closing was all our neighbors could talk about.

San Antonio AWP 2020 Events

If you’re in San Antonio for AWP this year, I’d love to see you! I posted what I’m doing it below, but I also added the events to the Events page.

  • F243. From Unpublished Writer to Book Deal: How to Finish Writing and Get a Book Deal, with Julia Fierro and Marie Myung-Ok Lee

    • Room 301, Henry B. González Convention Center, Ballroom Level
      Friday, March 6, 2020
      1:45 pm to 3:00 pm        

    • The road to a book deal seems so long. How do you find the mental space to be creative? How do you get that manuscript finished and once you do, then what? What should you do before approaching an agent? How do you know whom to approach and get one interested in you? Once you have an agent, what does the submission process look like? When does a book go to auction? How does a book advance work? This diverse group of successful writers with different publishing experiences offers their top tips.

  • R. 141. Worry about It Later: Strategies to Finish What You Start, with Christine Sneed, Sarah Kokernot, Kendra Fortmeyer, and Amy Gentry

    • Room 303, Henry B. González Convention Center, Ballroom Level
      Thursday, March 5, 2020
      9:00 am to 10:15 am

    • Starting is often the easy part—it’s what comes after that’s so difficult for many writers. In this panel, we’ll discuss strategies for completing the first draft, along with our experiences of sending out and eventually publishing work that in some cases went through many drafts. We’ll also discuss how to deal with self-doubt and how to write through potential problems. Lastly, we’ll share advice about when to set a project aside.

Nabokovilia in Lauren Groff's Fates and Furies

There are not one but two parenthetical “Picnic, Lightning” nods at Lolita in Lauren Groff’s Fates and Furies, the first of which is

At last she nodded and bussed her tray and left; and as this was her last night at the residency, he wouldn’t see her again. [Her death would be soon and sudden. Ski tumble; embolism.] (135)

The second occurs near the end:

When, a few years later, an attorney contacted her on her phone at the theater where Lotto was helping to cast his new play, she listened intently. Her uncle, the attorney said, had died [carjacking; crowbar]. (329)

fnf_cover.jpg

Other Lolita nods:

Thoughts of Mathilde had become amagnetic, rebounding off her, spinning outward, ending up hopelessly tangled in thoughts of an Asian nymphet cooing at him in a schoolgirl’s kilt, as fantasies tended to. (127)

She was six feet tall in bobby socks. In heels, her eyes were at his lip line. She looked up at him coolly. (38)