Sabbatical Interrupted

The interruption in this blog's sabbatical is brought to you by the fine folks over at Stymie Literary Journal. I'm fricken jazzed to be a part of Stymie's Autumn & Winter 2010 issue. 

I submitted "Eternal and Unnecessary" (page 83) way back in the spring, probably when Cliff Lee was still a Mariner. I've been patiently waiting ever since to see it in (online) print and it's been worth the wait. 

A big thank you to Erik Smetana and the folks at Stymie for accepting the story. Nothing cooler than writing a story on the world's awesomest thing (baseball) and having it accepted in a journal specifically dedicated to sports. 

Molotov Cocktail

New short at Molotov Cocktail.

Big thanks to Josh Goller at MC. 

Habits

They can be so annoying, can't they?

Check out my new short "Habits" at Staccato Fiction.

A big shout to Matt Boyd & Co. They're manning a kick-ass journal over at Staccato.

The Bullpen

As the group continued to implode, a season was sent swirling down the commode.

It appears we're headed for a series of gut punches in Milwaukee.

Let's Play 162

Found out a few weeks ago my baseball-themed story "Eternal and Unnecessary" will appear in the Autumn/Winter issue of Stymie Magazine. Exciting stuff. Since it's opening day I also have reason to run the following once written by Roger Angell. It is f'ing fantastic.

Baseball: learn it, live it, love it.

It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitive as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look -- I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring -- caring deeply and passionately, really caring -- which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naivete -- the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball -- seems a small price to pay for such a gift. Roger Angell, "Agincourt and After", 1975

A Limerick For Luck

The Madness of March has begun yet again,
the Irish are dancing, halleluiah, amen.
It was an up and down year filled with mistakes and oh no’s,
we groaned in frustration and thought “god this team blows.”
However late in the season came a glimmer, a spark,
on a magical run Tory and Ben did embark.
They stomped through the gauntlet knocking off GTown and Pitt,
suddenly, out of nowhere, this team was the shit!
They slowed down the tempo and started to pass,
and lo and behold we kicked everyone’s ass.
We got into the dance, boasting a six seed to boot,
that miserable winter was suddenly moot.
Now the tourney is here, the fun about to begin,
let’s kick this baby off by stomping Old Dominion.

GO IRISH!

It's A Celebration Bitches

The beer is green and the Irish are dancing in the tournament. Too bad St. Pat's didn't fall a day later. The Irish can't lose on St. Pat's. It's a mathematical impossibility.

Anyway, in other happy news my story "Loose Lips" is up as part of Crispin Best's very, very awesome Stories for Every Year Project.

Read it here.

Happy consumption.

1541 Was a Very Good Year

Unless you were a Gypsy in Scottland. Then it was sort of prickly.

Confused?

Don't worry. Everything will sort its self out when my short "Loose Lips" appears in the awesome "for every year" project by Crispin Best.

Check out project specs here.

Thanks for the opportunity and the awesome response time Crisp!

I'll let ya'll know when it hits.

Happy Superbowl weekend...who dat trying to tarnish Peyton's legacy?

Nano, Nano

New short by yours truly up at the awesome journal Nanoism.

Don't blink or you might miss it.

Thanks Ben!

Getting My Gloom On!

The sky here in Wisco isn't the only gloomy thing today.  My new story at Gloom Cupboard is pretty gloomish as well!

A big, big shout out to Allie Dresser at GC for her help and input.

GC named my short short "Flick" as this issue #114's  "must read twice" editor's pick.

So go read it two, three or four times.

Happy divisional playoffs.

Acceptance Friday

Might not draw as many followers as college football's Seperation Saturday, but I find it noteworthy nonetheless.

Monkeybicycle accepted a One-Sentence story I submitted to them a little while back and it is up today.

Also, Nanoism has accepted a compact piece I created with tiny sentences. It should appear in late January.

Pretty excited about both as I love both of these online journals.

Thanks so much Steven and Ben!

You Know What Happens When You Ass-u-me...

My story "Incorrect Assumptions are Made During Smear the Queer at St. Oliver's Catholic Grade School" is now live at Northville Review.

And currently the record-holder for longest title. Get Some.

Thanks so much Erin!

Hair Today...

I have a fun little coif-related piece up at dogzplot.

Thanks Barry.

Repping Sconny Nation

How do you like this?

It's nice when Wisconsinites get in the news for things other than, well, this.

Playoff Baseball

Playoff baseball is awesome. Baseball is sort of like beer. Beer is good anytime, but it's great on a boat or a Saturday or sipped out of a glass boot at a German Ale House with a polka band playing She's Too Fat for Me.

The playoffs are the German Ale House of baseball.

Welcome Back

Did anyone catch that start? Wow. Why was he throwing the ball so hard on 2-yard screens? It reminded me of the scene from ELF where Will Ferrell is dominating the snowball fight.

Settle down Brent.

New Story at FaW

Hook, Line & Sinker is now live at Fiction at Work. Thank you to Toby and everyone at FaW.

On an unrelated note, tomorrow is August. That's wild.

Diarrhea Dance

Attended a wedding over the weekend and the best man gave a speech mentioning a memory he had of the groom's father making the two of them get out of the car at stoplights to perform the Pepto Bismol: Nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea dance.

This is what affects me at weddings. Not the vows. The best man talking about a diarrhea dance.

It's An Allusion You Dummy

Just got word that my story Incorrect Assumptions are Made During Smear the Queer at St. Oliver’s Catholic Grade School will appear at The Northville Review sometime in early fall.

In trying to create something clever and Northvilleish for the title of this post I started thinking about migratory goose habits. I then started thinking about why one side of a migratory V is longer than the other.

I then consulted the most reliable source of information in the world, Wikepedia, which is how I arrived at the title of this post.

Turns out one side isn't really longer. It's just an allusion. I like allusions. Perhaps their is an allusion in this short story that will appear at Northville Review this fall. Perhaps I just spent 5 minutes bringing that connection full circle.

Perhaps I'm much too busy for that. Or maybe that's an allusion too.

This Is For My Dogz.

Somedays don't you just miss DMX?

Anyways.

My new flash Old Man Power is now up at Dogzplot.

Thanks Barry!