Category: News

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Short Essay Up on the Cheuse Center Website

A panoramic picture taken at the U.S.-Mexico border. The vantage point is on top of a hill from a dirt road, across a green, swampy landscape, and the viewer can see where construction of Trump's border "wall" ceased.

A couple of summers ago, I was very fortunate to be able to travel for research on my novel in progress. With funding from the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center, I got in my car and drove from my home in Virginia to the U.S.-Mexico border. I’m not talking too much about the novel yet, but you can bet it’s set somewhere between Virginia and the U.S.-Mexico border.

Anyway, the trip was both harrowing and amazing. It was that uncertain summer of Covid in which we had vaccines but we weren’t really sure if everyone was getting them or if they even worked, and on top of that, I was dealing with some ailments that necessitated medical attention and I was in my head about the fact that I was going to some fairly remote parts of the country.

I tend to do that. Get in my head about stuff.

But I did it! I went there and back again (and the only ring involved symbolizes my love for my wife).

Two years and hundreds of thousands of words in the novel later, the trip has been incredibly inspirational and informative to the point that I’ve been, perhaps unwittingly, working on a personal narrative essay about it, too.

The Cheuse Center has been publishing short works inspired by their fellows’ trips, and Leeya Mehta, interim director of the center, contacted me about contributing. I ended up sending her many more words than she likely expected or wanted, but we were able to focus in on one portion of my essay in progress about my novel in progress.

You can read “The Line We Drew at the End of a Nation” now. I hope you enjoy it. Maybe someday the full version will be out there somewhere.

For you fellow authors, if you can go to the places you’re writing about, I highly recommend it. I am saying this more and more these days, but to become a better writer, you have to read, write, AND live. There is no substitute for getting away from your computer and experiencing the world you want to write about (yes, even if you’re writing about alien worlds, you should look to ours as reference points, but also, your alien world should, in some way, reflect our world, and I’m in my head about this, aren’t I?).

Digression aside, I have much more confidence in this novel because of the travel afforded to me by this fellowship, and that’s because the novel is much better for it. If you’re an MFA student in the GMU creative writing program, apply for this fellowship.

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Ko-fi…Co-fee…cough-ee

I haven’t shared much publicly since I finished my MFA program, but for the time being, I’m full steam ahead on writing fiction. However, if you recall, authors are people, and people have bills to pay. Since you’re a person (presumably), I’m sure you agree that’s stupid, but here we are.

The goal is to get to the point where I can make a decent living on my fiction. If you’d like to help me get there and have already bought my books, please consider giving Ko-fi a shot.

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Achievement Unlocked: Mastery of the Craft

After three years, I am a master of the fine art of creative writing. According to George Mason University, anyway. Anyone can proclaim to be a writer, sure, but self-proclaimed masters are usually full of it. I proclaim nothing myself.

Anyway, as I take stock, reflect, and prepare for the transition into a new phase of my life, I thought I’d take a minute to update the blog a little. Three years ago, I essentially vanished to go find more time to write and otherwise grow as a writer. Today, I look back on those three years and realize I found a mixture of things I expected and things I didn’t. I went into the program with the goal of coming out with a finished novel. That didn’t happen. I have a decent start on one, but progress has been slow on that front. I also had the goal of coming out of the program with enough short stories for a collection. That didn’t happen either. I have several I’m extremely proud of, two of which were published last summer. However, the last three years of my writing life have been about quality over quantity.

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Two New Shorts Out This Summer

Bringing to an end this long drought of new stories in print and plentiful rejections, I have two new shorts out this summer. One is the previously mentioned “I Am Emergent,” a story about two computer scientists, their life’s work in artificial intelligence, and the lengths to which we’re willing to go to save someone we love. This one is out now in the anthology WHAT REMAINS from Inked In Gray Publishing, which you can find here.

The most recent one is a story I’m particularly fond of. “The Only Memorial You Can Ever Have” appears in vol. VIII of Deracine Magazine. It is one that I set out to challenge myself with in every conceivable way. From perspective to tense to narrative voice to narrative distance to character perception and beyond, virtually everything in this story is something I’ve never even attempted before. And after everything, I think it works, and it moves me powerfully. I hope you check it out and agree.

Of note, I think, is that I don’t think “The Only Memorial You Can Ever Have” would have come out of me if not for the MFA program I’m currently in. We often talk about the value of MFA programs, and I think, in those conversations, they’re viewed as whether they’re necessary or whether they produce writers of greater caliber. After two years in one, I think that’s the wrong way to look at MFA programs.

The value of my MFA program, to me, is in this story. It provided me the environment to experiment and take risks. It offered the support structure that held me up when I took those wobbling steps. If I hadn’t pursued an MFA, I’m confident this story wouldn’t exist, because I wouldn’t have pushed myself in ways I needed to push myself for this one to come out.

That isn’t to say I think MFA programs make better writers, that they’re always good, or that they’re even necessary. It’s just to say this is a story that came out of my MFA program that I’m proud of and demonstrates how my writing has grown, broadened, and evolved.

Thanks to both Inked in Gray and Deracine. I hope you check them out.

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Story Coming in What Remains, an Anthology

It’s been a while since I’ve had anything in print, but very soon, I’m going to have a story in the upcoming anthology from Inked in Gray Press. Recently (yesterday), they unveiled the cover and opened the Kickstarter and preordering.

You should check this one out. It’s going to be a cool book, yes, but I like what Inked in Gray is doing. They understand the future of publishing is in community, and they work really hard to build that through the celebration of stories. There’s a purity in what they’re doing, I think, and I’m excited to be a part of it. Any of you fellow writers out there would do well to follow them on social media and submit some writing in the future.

Also, my story, “I Am Emergent,” is one that I’m very fond of. It’s about two scientists working on an artificial intelligence named Vic and the lengths we’ll go to prove to ourselves we’re the hero in our individual stories. This one is about the dark side of love, what we would sacrifice in its service.

I hope you contribute to the Kickstarter, preorder, or check it out when it’s available. I’ll let you know when it is.

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Holiday 2019 Update

My first semester in an MFA program has come to an end. I wrote a lot and liked some of it. I read a lot and liked some of that, too. I tutored a bunch of students and think I even helped some of them. I did some work in selections and layout for a literary magazine. I found every writer in this program is brilliant, and I think some of them even like me.

It’s been good, is what I’m saying.

Creatively, I came to George Mason University wanting to push myself into trying new things, and not only do I feel I accomplished that, but I think the teachers and other writers helped open doors I wouldn’t have been able to open on my own. The first semester was difficult but a success, and even though I’m off for winter break now (a prospect that still seems bizarre to me), I’m eager to keep pushing forward.

But first, happy holidays, everyone! I hope your celebrations are merry.

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I Have Some News

The short version is I was accepted into George Mason University’s MFA in Creative Writing program. I’ll be starting this fall with full funding, including tuition remission, a stipend, and a GTA position. For the next three years, I’ll be taking classes, writing, reading, and teaching full time.

So that’s pretty neat.

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‘The Will To Survive’ Is Available Now, Proceeds To Charity

If you’re friends with me on social media (or you’re that damned stalker I almost caught in the tree outside my office that one time when my wife said, “it probably was just a couple of squirrels making that rustling sound,” and I said, “I know what I saw,” and she said never you mind what my wife said), you may have seen me mention this anthology, “The Will To Survive.”

If you’re not friends with me on social media, that’s fine, I guess. *kicks rocks

But this isn’t about us, friends, non-friends, and frenemies. This is about an anthology for hurricane relief.

I know last fall seems like ages ago, but it was, in fact, mere months, and if you recall, hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria pounded the Southeastern United States, Virgin Islands, and Caribbean in rapid succession. Damage estimates are in the billions of dollars, and still, five months later, parts of Puerto Rico’s electric grid remain down.

In case you need a translation on that, those are U.S. citizens who don’t have basic utilities five months after a hurricane.

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The Pillars of Dawn Is Live

Today is launch day, and The Pillars of Dawn is now available to purchase on Amazon.

This thing has been a long time coming. Through many rewrites and revisions, the throes of misfortune that is the publishing industry, and the existential crises, the one constant has been that this story was mine, and it lived only in my head. And now it doesn’t. Now, it’s ours, and I hope you consider venturing into the wilds of Lumen with me.

It’s far from perfect, but I’m proud of it and think it’s something special. I hope you do, too.

Catch up with me on Facebook and Twitter, and let me know what you think.

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More Details About The Pillars of Dawn

Last week, I revealed the cover for my upcoming sophomore novel, The Pillars of Dawn, and I mentioned more details would be forthcoming. The first question I usually get about this one is if it’s a sequel to my novel Carrier. No, it isn’t. Stellan and Daelen are going to stay on ice for now, and I understand if I’m the only one who thinks that joke is funny.

Other than publishing a few short stories, I’ve been quiet for a long time about what I’ve been working on, and the reasons are three-fold: 1). I’m a slow worker, 2). it was difficult to find a home for this novel, and 3). this story is a beast.

I’d rather not talk about 1 or 2, but I’m eager to talk about 3.

There’s really no other way to put it. The Pillars of Dawn is a fat child. All told, it comes in at about 160,000 words, which is enough for two average-length novels (or, technically, three short novels). Not only is it big, but it’s complex, following six main characters as they struggle to keep their home safe and unravel the mysteries of the unknown lands beyond their colony on an alien world.

The Pillars of Dawn is set on a colonial planet named “Lumen,” and it takes place far in the future after humanity has conquered the stars and begun colonizing worlds in systems beyond Sol.

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