Hotel Rex

I once knew a tortoise named Rex...

No, that's not the start of a raunchy limerick. But it should be.

I'm reading February 26, with the fab Portuguese Artist Colony, at Hotel Rex, Union Square, San Francisco. The place has a library bar. WHOMP.

Peter freakin Orner will be reading with me--and there's a band, avec fiddler!--hot damn!

Fogo Island

I'll be spending this coming summer off the coast of Newfoundland, at the Fogo Island Arts Corp.

Fogo Island is far away and takes forever to get to. It's got a fishing economy, a wild history, and a world-famous accordion group. And it's being remade. The Arts Corp. studios are designed by a local architect, and remind me of something out of Stephen King's Dark Tower series.

Things on my Fogo to-do list so far:
Start novel #2.
Eat a partidgeberry jam tart at Nicole's Growler's.
Write essay about children of homeless parents.
Go to (and throw) a kitchen party.
Read Infinite Jest, all the way through this time.
Spend time in towns with names like Seldom, Tilting, and Joe Batt's Arm.
Go all crazy chasing aurorae.

A Night Among the Books

Opa! A piece on my sleepover inside Atlantis Books is up on the Tin House blog.

Jeez, what's new? I went to Tin House's writing conference, and the Squaw Valley one too. My liver is doing alright, considering. Last month, thanks to Vayama.com and the generous, peaceful, delicious Limnisa Retreat, I spent two weeks in Greece. (I almost spent more than that, due to the protests and transportation strikes. After sweet-talking a Japanese tour bus and later bribing a local man to take me to the airport at 5am, I escaped a modern Athenian drama.)

Limnisa: a typical day.

After a wonderful week among locals in non-touristy, sometimes-egg-smelling Methana (writers: enter their story contest), I explored a few islands, the centerpiece of which was a visit to Santorini and Atlantis Books. In fact, I'm not embarrassed to admit that the entire final week of my trip was scheduled around visiting a book shop. I mean, the shop's in a cave house on a cliff on Santorini. And the employees sleep among the books. Lucky me--I got to crash there for a night, too.


In other writing news:

My story collection, Ms. Yamada's Toaster, is a finalist for the St. Lawrence Book Award from Black Lawrence Press. I like Black Lawrence's style, announcing a list of finalists before choosing a winner. Some presses announce everything at once, which takes the fun out of being named a finalist since you don't find out about your specialness until it's been officially deemed less special than someone else's. Like when someone tells you they saw this awesome thing that totally reminded them of you and they were gonna buy it for you...but then they didn't. Or something.


I've got a poem, "North Rim Love Song," in the current issue of FIELD.

What would you do if your wife confessed she used to have a tail? "The Blue Demon of Ikumi" won second prize in Salamander's fiction contest and will be out in their winter issue.



And...I've been awarded a fellowship to Playa, an artists' retreat in Summer Lake, Oregon. Looks very isolated and very beautiful--two of my favorite things.



And finally, my contribution to the "Under the Influence" feature over at Fiction Writers Review: the literary image to which I compare all images, thanks to my first writing teacher, Stuart Dybek.

Wanna Make Out?

Dear San Francisco, would you let me get to literary second base with you? How about tomorrow night around 8pm?


I will wear a pretty dress.

I will have drink tickets for at least two of you.

Is that a maybe? Maybe means yes!

For Sale: Everything You've Ever Lost

"Reunion," a story from Ms. Yamada's Toaster, is up at The Kenyon Review Online. Features vacuum cleaner parts, smelly beetles, a shell game, and the opportunity to buy back Missing Things.

Apropos of nothing: "Prairie" was the word that lost me the school spelling bee in fourth grade. Stupid extra i!

I'm spending the next two weeks at the Ragdale Foundation thanks to the Frances Shaw Fellowship. It's a wonderful place. A little weird to do a residency in "the Chicagoland area," since though I am getting away from it all, I am also going back to it all, to the place I grew up and went to college. We'll see how it goes, balancing work with the desire to see family and friends.


There is something magical about the prairie. On first glance, it seems such a uniform space. But if you stare for a moment, it's overwhelming how much is going on. A bullfrog's croaking, butterflies of different colors whirl through the air, a red-winged blackbird couple flits past. Illinois clouds come in different shapes than California ones. And on the prairie you can feel the wind speeding in ahead of an afternoon thunderstorm, see the clouds piling up.


It's here I hope to find the title of my novel. The book is ready to go, finally, but those last few words that sit on the first page remain elusive. Maybe they're out there hovering between the blackbirds and the cumulonimbus.