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.
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!
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)
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)
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.
Events! Live! (Some also on Zoom!) 2022!
I did a few things between 2020 & 2022 but what with literally everything, I didn’t update the Events page. But I did just now! And there are events, including one this Tuesday, March 8! I’d love to see you at any of these things. All the details are here: http://www.fulmerford.com/events !
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.
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.
My America
I’m so proud to be part of the American Writers Museum’s My America exhibit. This interview and the exhibit took place before the pandemic, and I’m glad to share their post here—very excited to take my son to the museum when we make it through this long, difficult, heartbreaking time.
AWP 2020 San Antonio Events!
Excited for AWP 2020 in San Antonio. I’m doing a bunch of cool events with a bunch of cool people & drew up a single card w/ all the things I'm doing. It is nearly illegible but I doodled FOUR VAMPIRES on the margin.
The legible version is over here. And here’s a whole index card just for the “Worry About It Later” event:
New Events
Hi! I just added three new entries to the Events page — two in the very distant future and one coming up in just in a few weeks.
Events!
Hi! I'm doing a few readings & panels, and so I've set up a page for these over here.
Today's Best Index Cards About Sharing Stuff on Social Media
I'm taking a social-media break and had some thoughts on how weird it is that so much of my headspace, and so much of the stuff I jot and share fairly regularly on social media, lives in a space that is not actually mine, is really mostly out of my control, and yet feels super personal in a way that is maybe not super comfortable.
(The cards above are like a baby version of the much better, much more precise ideas articulated in Sofia Samatar's Why You Left Social Media)
Social Media Off Social Media
I'm taking a social media break, but I love to doodle, and I love to post stuff, so I'm back to posting things here, for a while.
All of my AWP events on an index card for some reason
Here is everything I am doing at AWP 2018 in Tampa w/ some added doodles and commentary. Are you going to be there? I'd love to see you! Please stop and say hello.
2018 Events
Here's where I'll be! If you're around please stop in and say hi:
Thursday, February 1, 7 pm: Whitman College Visiting Writers Series (Walla Walla, WA)
Wednesday, February 28, 7:30 pm: Barrie Jean Borrich's Apocalypse, Darling launch, with Christine Rice Tara Betts, and T Clutch Fleischmann (Women & Children First, Chicago, IL)
Tuesday, March 6: 7:30 pm: Quickies! (Innertown Pub, Chicago, IL)
TAMPA/AWP Stuff:
Wednesday, March 7, 6 pm: NU's MA/MFA in Creative Writing's AWP Reading, with Paula Carter, Goldie Goldbloom, Juan Martinez, Simone Muench, Carrie Muehle, Aram Mrojan, and Ankar Thakkar (The Attic, Tampa, FL)
Thursday, March 8, 9 am: Defeating Writer's Block: Techniques for Breaking Through, with Jean Kwok, Mira Jacobs, Elizabeth L. Silver, and Sari Wilson (AWP panel, Tampa, FL)
Friday, March 9, 10:30 am - 11:00 am: Small Beer Press table signing (table 406, AWP, Tampa, FL)
Friday, March 9 7:00pm-9:00pm: AWP Reading/Rock Show/Dance Party (Ella's Americana Folk Art Cafe, Tampa, FL)
Monday, March 19, 7 pm: Alumni Reading Series (Black Mountain Institute, UNLV, Las Vegas, NV)
Monday, April 16: YZ Chin's Though I Get Home Chicago book launch (Unabridged Books, Chicago, IL)
Try Anything
The freaking New York Times wrote a super nice, super generous review of Best Worst American. I'm thrilled, beyond thrilled, particularly about the reviewer's appreciation of "Northern," my favorite story in the collection and its "botched buttock-surgery" angle. Also thrilled that the wonderful art for the review prominently features the kitten poster art from Best Worst American's "Your Significant Other's Kitten Poster."
OK, no. The reviewer didn't say people had to buy 500 copies of the book. But please do so anyway, preferably via your favorite indie bookstore or via Small Beer Press directly.