. But there's so much stuff I want to write about in this space that I kind of have to start blogging after a three-month break so here's a post and I'm sorry it's not the more daring one.
So! Here we are!
1. I have made a zine, and it's called Aphorisms on Surrealism, and it's $3. Please Paypal me, masonklc at gmail dot com, if you'd like one. Include your mailing address and I will send it to you; if you don't include your mailing address I'll just keep your money.
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| I've never seen zines bound with safety pins, but it was what I had on hand. |
In case you know a thing or two about surrealism, yes, the project of writing aphorisms related to surrealism is by its very nature contradictory and improper, and that is the point. You, sir, will enjoy my zine. Three dollars, please.
Another zine, even shorter and only a single dollar in cost, will be coming along shortly. It's called How to Be Cool. There's a longer one I'm thinking about making, but I want it to round up a rejection or two from actual markets before I try and print it myself.
2. I missed the opportunity to share this essay with you. It appeared in the Los Angeles Review in August. I am exceedingly proud of it. There'll probably be a whole post about it sometime, because it came to be in a series of events that are pretty instructive.
3. I am teaching a workshop about sentences on November 11. If you're in the Los Angeles area, please email me, either at the address above or at the one in the sidebar, and we'll talk about whether you would enjoy attending. It's $35 for three solid hours of conversation and guidance regarding sentences. That's a very low hourly rate. Take advantage of it while I'm still cheap. Someday I'll be famous and expensive and then you'll regret not taking a class from me when I was still charging less than $15 an hour for my time, won't you? Yes, you sure will.
4. You may have missed a couple of Books I Hate (and Also Some I Like) interviews that dropped since the last time we were together. Here's one with Zoe Zolbrod, here's one with Jessica Piazza, and here's one with Kristi Coulter. Coming up soon are duncan b. barlow (a very, very nice dude and a fine writer who I thought was British for no reason I can determine) and Genevieve Kaplan (whose interview is different from literally all the others). Plus a couple of other writers who have expressed interest but haven't gotten back to me. As soon as I nag them into getting back to me, there will be more interviews.
Also, I reviewed Alice Anderson's new memoir, Some Bright Morning, I'll Fly Away, for Fiction Advocate.
5. I received two acceptances within a week of each other: one for a pure-fiction short story (the only one I've written in the past couple of years), and one for the Kathy Ireland story, which was a real treat to receive after a pile of rejections on that story. I'm really looking forward to sharing those pieces with everyone once they are published. I also received a painful rejection for the secret project and a colorful assortment of other rejections for various essays. And two rewrite requests: one that I haven't gotten back to, and one that hasn't gotten back to me.
I'm listing all this because people have started to ask me if I've been doing any writing lately, in a tone that makes me feel sort of guilty and idle, and I can say well, not really, but there's been a reasonable amount of activity in my writing life nonetheless.
6. The amount of reading in my life has been minimal of late, because I read a long book I strongly disliked in midsummer and it put me off reading, the way eating an entire pan of brownies will put you off brownies for at least a little while. (Probably.) I've got to roar back to it, though, because I have a special bookcase now for my not-yet-read books and it's completely full.
7. Last week it was my birthday. I am 36 years and seven days old. I believe I've officially passed the common age of rom-com heroines, which is honestly kind of a relief.
