Indiana Review and Cincinnati Review Online

Two great pieces of news--

1. My essay "Cunt" is in the current issue of the Indiana Review, and they've made a piece available for preview on their website. You can link to it here. It starts as a personal essay about a grad student who (I felt) overstepped his bounds, and spins out from there into a discussion of etymology, politics, and American culture. I really hope you enjoy it.

2. I have a short essay/recipe up on the Cincinnati Review's blog. It tells how I make lemon-ginger scones, but it also contains my reflections on my family and on being an immigrant's child. You can find the piece here. I also took the photo that accompanies the recipe, and so the rolling pin mentioned is the actual rolling pin in the photo. It's one of my favorite things.

I'm grateful to both these outstanding journals for the support they've shown me and these pieces.

 

Cincinnati Review

I am delighted to say that my story "Wooden Spoons" is in the current issue of the Cincinnati Review.  

"Wooden Spoons" tells the story of Ariel Leonard, whose estranged daughter appears on a cooking competition show. His attempts to watch his daughter's progress are stymied by the guilt-ridden memory of his wife's struggles with early-onset dementia and by the appearance of an unwanted stranger in his home, who appears to have an unknowable history all her own.

Good News

I'm thrilled to share a few odds and ends of good news that have rolled in over the past few weeks--

The Cincinnati Review has accepted my story "Wooden Spoons," which will appear in their Winter 2018 issue.

The Indiana Review has accepted my essay "Cunt," which will appear in issue 39.2.

"The Key Bearer's Parents" (which first appeared as an online feature at American Short Fiction) was recommended recently on The Wildness.

New Work

I've got a few new things out in the world this month:

Over at Unsplendid, you can find "Tuco & Blondie," my sestina about The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and "Bonnie, Once Raven," a dramatic monologue in which a woman cleans the bathroom while thinking about her rocker past.

At 7x7, you'll find a collaboration I did with Finnish artist Aapo Nikkanen. We took turns creating pieces, each inspiring the next, resulting in "Horse." I think it's a cool piece, if I do say so myself, and I really hope you like it.

 

AWP, Washington DC, Feb 8-12, 2017

Feb 8, 8-10 pm. 4th Annual Rock and Roll Reading, The Vinyl Lounge, Rapid-fire Rock and Roll readings followed by music from La Guerre Featuring: Danielle Evans, Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib, Porochista Khakpour, Manuel Gonzales, Kevin Maloney, Beth Bich Minh Nguyen Justin Tussing, Ashley Strosnider, Michael Kardos, Karen Leona Anderson, Sian Griffiths, Matt Sailor. No cover.

Feb 9, 9-11 am. New Rivers Press table, book signing. AWP Book Fair.

Feb 10, 9-10:15 am. Panel Presentation: "I Survived--and Thrived: Conference Veterans Discuss the Benefits and Drawbacks of Writing Conferences" Marquis Salon 12 & 13, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Two. (Eric Sasson, Sian Griffiths, Todd Kaneko, Amina Gautier, Rosebud Ben-Oni) Ernest Hemingway said, “Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing.” We’re not so sure he’s right. This panel assembles veterans of the Bread Loaf, Sewanee, Tin House, Kundiman, and other conferences to discuss what one can and cannot expect. Do the benefits outweigh the costs? Are these simply writing “summer camps," or can the writer anticipate tangible results to her craft, critique, and community?

Feb 10, 12-1:15pm. Panel Presentation: "Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Organizing and Structuring the Short Story Collection" Archives, Marriott Marquis, Meeting Level Four. (Sian Griffiths, Benjamin Hale, Marie-Helene Bertino, Michael Martone, Julia Elliott) Putting together a story collection can feel like assembling a jigsaw puzzle in which the pieces don’t quite fit and there is no one solution. Must the stories be interconnected or thematically connected? Can stories be linked by virtue of voice, tone, or style? How much does the marketplace influence the writer's approach? The panel presents writers of interconnected, thematically connected, and unconnected stories to provide insight for story writers seeking to build their collections.