The Mumpsimus

The marvelous Weird Fiction Review  website has now posted a conversation that Eric Schaller and I had about our books, our magazine The Revelator , the weirdness of New Hampshire, and other topics. Along with this, WFR  has posted Eric's story "Voices Carry"  (originally in Shadows & Tall Trees ) and my story "The Lake" (originally in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet ). So if you're curious about us or our writings (or just utterly bored), Weird Fiction Review  is a great place to start.

I'm thrilled that my A Cappella Zoo  story "Killing Fairies" has just been reprinted in Best Gay Stories 2016  edited by Steve Berman for Lethe Press . The table of contents for Best Gay Stories  this year is quite strong, and it's an honor to be among this company. It's especially nice to have my story in a book with a story by Richard Bowes, since "Killing Fairies" is my attempt to write Bowesian tale: something that skirts the line between fiction and memoir. In this case, I wanted to preserve a few memories of my first year of college before those memories slip away (they grow dimmer and dimmer), and I thought a fun way to do that would be to give myself the challenge of trying to write like Rick. It's harder than it looks. The problem for me was that my memories didn't add up to a story. There were a couple of really great characters (two of the strongest personalities I ever met in my life), but no story, just encounters that ultimat...

The good folks at Electric Literature invited me to converse with Adrian Van Young, perhaps not knowing that Adrian and I had recently discovered we are in many ways lost brothers, and so we could go on and on and on... And we did. We talked about  Texas Chainsaw Massacre , The Sublime, writing advice, writers we like, Michael Haneke, neoliberalism,  The Witch , and all sorts of other things. It was a lot of fun and we could have gone on at twice the length, but eventually we had to return to our lives. Many thanks to Electric Lit  for being so welcoming.

I have been busy and have neglected this blog. I forgot to make a post here about some of the most exciting news of my year: I have a story in the current issue of my favorite literary magazine, Conjunctions . It's titled "Mass" and it is about, among other things, a mass shooting. Early this morning, at least 50 people were killed and 53 wounded in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The New York Times  is currently calling this the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. I'm not going to write about the gun politics of this. For that, please read the work of Patrick Blanchfield , particularly "So There's Just Been a Mass Shooting" , "God and Guns" , and "The Gun Control We Deserve" . (He's excellent on Twitter , as well, if you want his most recent thoughts.) I have sputtered on about the topic in the past , not always coherently. Patrick is better at it, and better informed, than I. Thinking through the complex, contradic...

Kenneth James is editing the journals of Samuel Delany for publication. Volume 1 is coming out from Wesleyan University Press in December. For the future volumes, Ken needs help with funding. If you already know how valuable this project is, don't read on. Just go donate. But if you need some convincing, please read on...