Some updates

I have a story in the fall issue of the Raleigh Review, which comes out very soon if not already by the time you're reading this. The story is called Tommy Jack, and it’s about a small town Louisiana sheriff’s deputy who suffers a series of accidents in the wake of his mother’s death. The fiction editor at RR says it’s “reminiscent of George Saunders’ ‘Escape from Spiderhead’ and Toni Morrison’s ‘Song of Solomon.’” Are these apt comparisons? Absolutely not. They were probably being sarcastic. This story has gone through a lot of iterations over many years, and I’m pretty happy with where it’s ended up. The final version owes a lot to the insights of my great teachers Peter Cameron and Claire Vaye Watkins. You can order a copy at RaleighReview.org (short for Raleigh Review Dot Orgasm), or through your local bookseller. I'd be tickled pink if you did.

Also, Jordan Hoffman and I are now seven episodes deep into our new podcast, The Daily Zig. I've admired Jordan's writing for a long time (subscribe to his very funny and informative Hoffstack here) and have been happy to get to know him over the past few years especially. We've been looking for a project to do together, and when he suggested he call me on a semi-weekly basis to describe every daily Ziggy comic strip in his local New Jersey newspaper, I jumped at the chance. Our show is a public service. I don't have the time to read Ziggy every day, but Jordan's descriptions keep me informed about where Ziggy is going, who Ziggy is meeting, and which of Ziggy's pets are abusing him. Out latest is a mailbag episode, where we respond to listener "Z-Mails." It's very stupid. Please subscribe wherever you subscribe to podcasts.