American Short Fiction blog

Buried treasure. Tar and feathering. Small yellow oblong stones that emit light and visions. Fiery revivals. The violent face-off of a father and his daughter’s suitor. . .  and all of that in our first story. You could say our Summer 2010 issue is action-packed.

As is American Short Fiction’s Indian Summer Party, coming soon to the Mohawk. Come party with us—your faithful local literary magazine.

Danny Malone, local folk rocker and SXSW favorite, will play a set to kick off the evening. Tomás Morin will dazzle you with his nationally renowned poetic verse (check out his recent interview with KUT here). Austin actors Elizabeth Bigger and Chris Gibson will knock the August lethargy right out of you with readings from the new issue. You’ll have drinks. (Hello, happy hour specials!) You’ll pose for photos. You’ll experience the most creative Thursday night this summer. And you’ll support emerging authors and artists. Why wouldn’t you be there?

American Short Fiction’s Indian Summer Party launches off the ground on the inside stage at the Mohawk at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, August 12. That’s 912 Red River.

You’re coming, aren’t you? Please let us know you’re in via our Facebook invite.

And you can pre-order your copy here.

We’re thrilled to announce that, starting today, American Short Fiction will be offering podcasts. Every other week, we’ll be chatting with contributors and digging into their stories.

Here’s our first one. It features an interview with Marie-Helene Bertino and an excerpt of her hilarious and moving “Carry Me Home, Sisters of Saint Joseph,” which is in our Spring 2010 issue.

You can subscribe to our podcasts via iTunes for free. (Visit the iTunes store and search for American Short Fiction. We’ll come up under the heading Podcasts. Or just follow this link.) We’ll be bringing new stories and insights from writers every other week. Upcoming episodes will feature Jeff Parker, Matt Bell, and Laura van den Berg.

Here’s the least of it: If you’re looking for a wild literary ride, get to New York City’s West Village on May 1 for the PEN Cabaret.

Natalie Merchant will perform from her new album, Leave Your Sleep (Nonesuch), which features interpretations of classic poetry from Ogden Nash, Christina Rossetti, Robert Louis Stevenson, and others. Stick around and meet Booker Prize-winning novelist Ben Okri, and Georgian novelist, poet, and performance artist Irakli Kakabadze. Later, get spooked by cyber ghost story writer Ariel Dorfman. Special global guests will be announced. The entire event will be emceed by editor, author, and jazz singer Rakesh Satyal.

Got more time and energy to spare? Stay for the week-long party leading up to the Cabaret, when PEN World Voices, a festival of international literature, takes over NYC.

From April 26 to May 2, PEN plans for a stellar lineup of emerging and established authors to take to stage and panel  across New York City (and several satellite locations from San Francisco to Washington D.C. to Portland) for their Sixth Annual World Voices Festival.

Check out more participants after the jump.

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Doug Dorst, Nell Freudenberger, ZZ Packer, Angela Pneuman, Wells Tower. In a panel discussion that includes American Short Fiction’s own Jill Meyers.

The Austin Public Library Friends Foundation presents the New Fiction Confab, featuring some of America’s most prominent emerging writers. On the agenda for this Saturday, April 17: a 3:45 pm panel discussion as mentioned above, moderated by Texas Monthly editor Jake Silverstein. Arrive at 1 pm for a series of short readings and Q&A with the writers.

This confab is free and open to the public. It happens at Faulk Central Library (800 Guadalupe Street). Need more info? Grab it here.

Also on this day from 10 to 11:15am at libraries throughout Austin: fiction workshops for elementary, junior high, and high school students led by Nell Freudenberger, Angela Pneuman, and Wells Tower. Check it.

About the authors… (more…)

If you’re in Austin tonight, get thee to Momo’s Club (618 W. 6th Street) at 7 pm sharp for the awesome! greatness! of Elizabeth Crane’s second go-round of the Awesome and Great Reading Show!

On the stage: Amanda Eyre Ward, Southpaw Jones, and ASF author Owen Egerton.

Crane breaks all the awesome! greatness! down for us: “Each month will feature three writers and one songwriter. Each writer will create a new work inspired by a song I choose for them. Each songwriter will create a new song inspired by a story I choose for them”

The first event in January included Amelia Gray, Jill Alexander Essbaum, and Tod Goldberg, with musical guest Kacy Crowley. Amelia, Jill, and Tod covered songs by the New Pornographers, Kiss, and Beyonce, while Kacy shared a song based off Grace Paley’s “Wants.” Sounds awesome and great, right?

Find out for yourself tonight at 7 pm sharp.

Amelia Gray and Stacy Muszynski are the cohosts of Austin’s Five Things. The Austin Chronicle describes the series as “a scrappy, freewheeling multimedia show.” Amelia and Stacy put it this way: “Five Things inspires five brave (or is that brazen?) and talented artist-people to concoct a new and intriguing five-minute piece (from prose to poem to performance, or a tantalizing mixture to each’s taste) using humor and a central theme.”

Today, Five Things will host the winners of its first writing contest in a show that includes music by Cartographers, Morris Orchids, and the Baker Family Band. The show begins at 7:30 pm at the U.S. Art Authority (510 West 29th Street). With music before the show by Bethany Bauman. Admission is $1.

ASF asked five questions of Five Things.

1. How (and when) did you get started? What inspired Five Things?

AG: Zach Dodson and Jonathan Messenger, my publishers at Featherproof Books, each have great shows in Chicago–The Show ‘n Tell Show and The Dollar Store, respectively. The Dollar Store show in particular grabbed my attention. The idea of getting writers to create something new and interesting to fit a theme made sense to me as a writer. The most interesting readings happen when the work is fresh. Also I had only been in Austin a year and I wanted to know more local writers.

SM: I got involved as soon as [Amelia's] initial query for writers came through the email for that first show. I emailed back so fast.That first show happened in September 2008. Beyond the nerves and excitement it was true love for me. I was honored to be the inaugural performer. As soon as I got off “stage” (it was a slab of concrete parking lot in front of do512 offices, I told Amelia I was in it for the long haul if she was up for it. It’s been magic ever since.

2. Tell us about the concept of Five Things. How do you choose each show’s theme?

SM: Each show’s theme is a magical thing. There are potions and elixirs and thoughtful back-and-forth emails or middle-of-the night text messages when an idea strikes. Or, just discussion over dinner. There’s that, too. Good ol’ fashioned carb-fueled talk.

AG: We go back and forth, ask friends, send each other huge lists. The goal is to think up the most interesting or provocative or rich or funny concept that can be split into five different ideas. The contest was Stacy’s idea.

3. Five Things was listed in the Austin Chronicle‘s Best of Austin 2009 issue. They described you as “Literary Salon 2.0.” In addition to Five Things being a critics’ pick, it’s also enormously popular. Why do you think your series has struck such a chord? What do you think draws people in and keeps them coming back?

AG: I’m still figuring this stuff out, but the key to running a good show is in responding to the audience mood. Reading hosts in other cities are sometimes surprised that I book so many bands, but music is too good to ignore in Austin. Another part comes from my personal taste, which leans towards flash fiction, funny stuff, weird stuff. People tend to go along with that here in Austin, and I’m lucky for that.

SM: Austin is surprising, talented, eclectic, literary, musical, fun-loving and serious when it’s time to be, and just enough “weird” to help us feel comfortable in our own skin. So’s Five Things. We’re a little microcosm of Austin. Plus, a fabulous night out on a Friday night for as little as a buck! Dang!

Seriously, though: That’s how Five Things takes its responsibility to showcase emerging Austin artists. Amelia and I know how it is to emerge. We write. It can very lonely out there. So we make Five Things a great, safe place where it’s not lonely. It’s all kinds of things, but it’s not lonely. We’re passionate about that.

4. Y’all just ran your first writing contest on the theme of “A New Year.” The winners will be reading tonight. What’s in store for the audience?

SM: For our New Year celebration we’ll witness life! On an illegal dumping ground, in a garden with gnomes, under Congress Avenue Bridge, when your father wants you to believe he’s dead, and via the teachings of “I of the Tiger” about Chinese New Year!

AG: I think Stacy summed it up pretty well! I can’t wait to meet the people that wrote these stories.

5. What’s next for Five Things?

SM: You’ll definitely find out on March 5!

After that, we hope to keep the magic alive and even bring in some folk who know all about “emerging artists”–as they were there once.

AG: I’d love to get a little grant so I don’t need to worry about incidental costs and paying my sound guy and website and whatnot. Maybe we could get an intern on that? Maybe we could get an intern. Regardless, we’re going to drive this truck into the sun. Our next show is January 29 and the one after that is March 5.

*

If you’re interested in an internship with Five Things, get in touch with Amelia and Stacy at fivethingsaustin[at]gmail.com.

Monofonus Press has figured out teleportation.

Here’s how they did it:

Step 1: They became an Austin-based record label.

Step 2: They added multimedia organization that specializes in the physical and digital distribution of Austin music, literature, and visual art.

Result: IF Series (literary, musical, and visual artist collaborations of “curated” book-and-album packages kicked off by former ASF editorial assistant and singer/songwriter and writer Morgan Coy, and featuring ASF contributing editor Rebecca Bengal, among others).

Step 3: Run eight iterations of IF.

Step 4: Rest for just a sec.

Step 5: Do all the elegant math, physics, and PR (probably over drinks at Hotel San Jose) necessary to get “live” renowned authors and videos transmissions from this country’s coolest literary magazines and small presses, beamed to Austin’s own Hotel San Jose every month, until the end of time.

And so it was born: the Teleportal Reading Series.

The first Teleportal Reading happens on January 19, and features “curated” live appearances—by poet Jill Alexander-Essbaum, “a cross between Dorothy Parker and a lap dance”; ASF editorial advisory board member Dan Chaon, whose Await Your Reply tops the Ten of 2009 lists of the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Salon, among others; and Electric Literature, who will contribute videos from their Single Sentence Animation series.

As Monofonus Press says, It’s a multimedia reading series for those who love reading but hate readings.

Stay tuned for Teleportal Readings to expand to other cities. Example: The Rumpus will be screening Monofonus videos at its anniversary party in New York on January 21.

The U.S.S. Enterprise staffers wish they had it this good.

Austin writer Elizabeth Crane hosts a new reading series tomorrow night at Momo’s. It’s called the Awesome and Great Reading Show and features Tod Goldberg, Jill Alexander Essbaum, and Amelia Gray. Kacy Crowley will be the musical guest. The night’s theme? Writers write stories based on songs and songwriters write songs based on stories.

To find out more details or to RSVP, visit the Facebook invite.

We hold quarterly reading events to celebrate each new issue—and we’re trying something a little different this time. A little more intimate and friendly.

At 7 pm on Friday, September 18, American Short Fiction will celebrate its Fall issue with music from misc. diskette, followed by readings from the issue by writers Nina McConigley and Josh Weil. Actor Gabriel Luna, fresh from his title role in Cambiare Productions’ Orestes, will also read. Buzz Moran and LB Deyo of Dionysium will emcee.

The reading will be held here in Austin at the home of Kelty Christman, and is free and open to the public. We’ll have some light refreshments available, but we expect that they’ll go pretty fast. Please BYOB and BYOCC (bring your camp chair). Some seating is available, but you can reserve a space with your own chairs or blanket.

And if you’re coming, please RSVP to our Facebook invite. Thanks!

Price: Free!
Date: Friday, September 18, 2009
Time: 7:00pm – 9:30pm
Location: 2811 Vernon Ave., Austin, TX 78723
Contact: info [at] americanshortfiction.org

Like you need one more source for podcasted fiction. But just in case you haven’t discovered it already, the New Yorker publishes a great monthly podcast.

They feature some of your favorite writers reading some of their favorite writer’s stories. The very best stuff: interviews with The New Yorker fiction editor Deborah Treisman.

The latest: Joshua Ferris of George Saunders’s “Adams.” Political satire at its wonky best. Here’s a taste of the opening:

I never could stomach Adams and then one day he’s standing in my kitchen, in his underwear. Facing in the direction of my kids’ room! So I wonk him in the back of the head and down he goes. When he stands up, I wonk him again and down he goes.

Recent others include. . .

Joyce Carol Oates reads Eudora Welty’s “Where Is the Voice Coming From?”; Roger Angell reads John Updike’s “Playing with Dynamite”; A. M. Homes reads Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”; Aleksandar Hemon discusses Bernard Malamud’s “A Summer’s Reading”; Mary Gaitskill reads Vladimir Nabokov’s “Symbols and Signs”; T. Coraghessan Boyle reads Tobias Wolff’s “Bullet in the Brain”; Jhumpa Lahiri reads the short story “A Day,” by William Trevor.

Clear out your iPod—the archive goes back to May ’07.