News and Notes

Our Online Wooden Aniversary...

For the past five years, failbetter.com has had the pleasure of publishing work by some truly amazing artists and writers. So, before we provide our quarterly rundown of their continued successes, allow us to thank each and every one, by name, for making failbetter.com what it is today.

Our gratitude goes out to:

Sixten C. Abbot, Steve Almond, Greg Ames, Jonathan Ames, Jamé Anderson, Donald Antrim, Paul Auster, Chris Bachelder, Julianna Baggott, Catharine Balco, Barry Ballard , Annie Banks, Mitch Baranowski, David Barringer, Peggy Bates, Richard Bausch, Charles Baxter, Geoffrey Becker, Jen Benka, Sadiq Bey, Karl E. Birmelin, Leslie Blanco, Ross Bleckner, Harold Bowes, T. Coraghessan Boyle, David Brizer, Suzanne Burns, Matthew Byrne, Liam Callanan, Michael Ceraolo, Michael Chabon, Roselle Chen, Matthew Cheney, Peter Christopher, Brock Clarke, Adam Clay, Robert Cohen, Shanna Compton, Martha Cooley, John Cotter, Mark Cunningham, Susan Daitch, Amanda Davis, Dick Davis, Jordan Davis, Jason Deboer, Matthew Derby, Matthew Dillon, E.L. Doctorow, Mary Donnelly, Josh Dorman, Brandon Downing, Jacob Eigen, Amy Eisner, Cooper Esteban, Marc Estrin, Emily Ethridge, Shelley Ettinger, Catherine Fisher, Richard Fulco, Mindy Friddle , Myla Goldberg, Janet Gorzegno, Daphne Gottlieb, Ellen Hagan, Shafer Hall, David Hamill, Annalynn Hammond, Pamela Harris, Michael Hartford, Amy Havel, Terrance Hayes, David Hollander, Amy Holman, Tom Horacek, Nick Hornby, Pam Houston, Derek Jenkins, Heidi Julavits, Kristin Kearns, Tracey Knapp, Lynn Kozlowski, Dika Lam, Christian Langworthy, Jon LaPree, Victor LaValle, Don Lee, Jonathan Lethem, Sam Lipsyte, Chris Lombardi, John Lloyd, Nathan Long, Robert Lopez, Melissa McCreedy, Raymond McDaniel, Heather McElhatton, Karyna McGlynn, Doug Malone, Ben Marcus, Peter Markus, Louisa Matthiasdottir, Mary Morris, Antonya Nelson, Bryson Newhart, Rachel Newton, Kenny Nowell, Josip Novakovich, David Ohle, Katsura Okada, Stephen Oliver, Jacob Ouillette, Tom Paine, Diane Payne, Mia Pearlman, Anne Pepper, Marie Ponsot, Dawn Raffel, Jessica Rasile, Kathryn Rantala, Elwood Reid, Nelly Reifler, Daniel Richardson, Susan Richardson, Arthur Rimbaud, Russell Rowland, John Rubins, Richard Russo, Thaddeus Rutkowski, John Rybicki, Pam Ryder, Richard St. Germain, M. Sammons, M. Sarki, Lauren Sassella, George Saunders, Liana Scalettar, Gustavo Schmidt, Lisa Shea, Jim Shepard, Karen Shepard, Frances Sherwood, Jack Shuler, Matthew Simmons, Durlabh Singh, Ed Skoog, Claudia Smith, Maggie Smith, Bill Spratch , Jeremiah Stansbury, David Starkey, Fraser Sutherland, Doug Tanoury, Mónica de la Torre, Jane Unrue, Lee Upton, Michelle Valladares, Shawn Aron Vandor, Mikhail Vrubel, Courtney Weber, Arisa White, Mary Whittemore, Jonathan Winter, Carlos Yu, Jim Zervanos, and Gina Zucker.

And now, for our regularly scheduled alumni updates...

Alumni News

Steve Almond's ("Law of Sugar," Fall/Winter 2002) second story collection, The Evil B.B. Chow, is out from Algonquin. Excerpts (and music recommendations) are available at www.bbchow.com.

Jonathan Ames's (Interview, Spring 2004) childhood tale, "The Story of the Hairy Call," which he wrote a song about and which the band One Ring Zero set to music, has been turned into an animated music video, with a little cartoon version of Jonathan, featuring yellow eyebrows. No one told him about this animation, so he doesn't know how this happened, but it did and he's not displeased, though the cartoon does turn his sweet childhood story into an animated "Natural Born Killers." You can see it here.

Also, a book he edited, Sexual Metamorphosis: An Anthology of Transsexual Memoirs, is just out from Vintage.

Jame Anderson ("Little Girl " et al., Summer/Fall 2001), Architect and Design Coordinator at the National Gallery of Art, is currently working on the design for the Gallery's upcoming Dada exhibition, which will be the first contemporary comprehensive look at this fascinating movement.

Chris Bachelder's ("The Love Song of Continental Airlines Flight 3389, Nonstop to Houston," Fall 2004) novel U.S.!, about muckraker Upton Sinclair, will be published in March 2006 by Bloomsbury USA and UK. His e-novel Lessons in Virtual Tour Photography is available free from McSweeneys.net.

Catherine Balco's ("Studio Sink" and "Johnson Laundromat," Summer 2004) latest work was featured in a recent two-person exhibition at the Brooklyn Public Library, along with work by another landscapist, Albert Fayngold.

David Barringer ("The Vampires," Fall/Winter 2002) has a first novel out from Word Riot Press. Eight years in the making, Johnny Red features the epic adventures of Johnny and Ruth, a pair of contemporary misfits who escape imprisonment, take to the road, and make the best of their lives. Story editor M.M.M. Hayes calls the novel "a tour de force!"

Barringer's other recent book, American Mutt Barks in the Yard, examines the state of graphic design from the self-critical point of view of its self-taught author; it was co-published this spring by Emigre and Princeton Architectural Press.

Geoffrey Becker ("Valet Parking," Summer 2004) has work forthcoming in Ploughshares and The Roanoke Review.

Jen Benka's ("AMERICA" and "STATES," Spring/Summer 2003) collection of poems, A Box of Longing With Fifty Drawers, will be published by Soft Skull Press in July.

Sadiq Bey ("8/24/39" and "8/30/39", Summer/Fall 2003) has been published in the least likely of publications: I, which is put out by Corpcom, a subsidiary of Visa. The piece is the edited version of the foreword to her book/box Slow the Eye.

Bey's poem "For Aime and Wifredo" is included on Brandon Ross's Intoxicate CD Costume.

Michael Ceraolo ("Twelfth Possible Definition of Irony" and "Second Possible Definition of Fundamentalism," Summer/Fall 2002) has a book-length poem, Euclid Creek: A Journey, forthcoming from Deep Cleveland Press.

Matthew Cheney ("Getting a Date for Amelia," Summer/Fall 2001) has recently become a monthly columnist for the online magazine Strange Horizons, and recently served on the jury for the 2004 Fountain Awards.

Cheney's most recent stories are available online, from Pindeldyboz and Abyss & Apex; another is included in the fourth annual Rat Bastards chapbook.

Susan Daitch ("Jnun in the Age of Metal," Summer 2004) has an essay, "Night of the Murdered Poets," in the current issue of Tin House.

Josh Dorman ("Bathysphere" et al., Winter/Spring 2003) will have a solo show at Brooklyn's Pierogi Gallery in November, 2005.

Richard Fulco ("An Exploration," Fall/Winter 2003) has recently had work published by Nth Position. His play Little Short will be produced as a part of the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Alaska this June.

Myla Goldberg's ("Going For The Orange Julius," Summer/Fall 2001) second novel, Wickett's Remedy, will be in bookstores at the end of September. The film adaptation of her first, Bee Season, starring Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche, will appear in theaters in October.

Janet Gorzegno's ("Untitled #1" et al., Spring 2004) paintings will be featured in the show "Essential Structures: Transformative Themes in Paint," at the Atlantic Gallery, 40 Wooster Street, New York, from May 31 through June 18.

Michael Hartford ("Sunshine Over Helsinki," Fall 2004) has a story in the inaugural issue of Ballyhoo Stories. "Sunshine Over Helsinki" was listed as a "Notable Story" of 2004 in the storySouth Million Writer's project.

Dave Hollander's ("The Day After," Winter/Spring 2001) fiction has appeared recently in Swink, Unsaid, The Brooklyn Rail, and online at Ducky. His nonfiction has been published in The New York Times Magazine, Teachers and Writers, and is forthcoming in Gastronomica. He is currently teaching in the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College, and finishing his second novel, No Man Is.

Dika Lam's ("Entertainment for Women," Spring 2004) novel should be finished when she is 85. In the meantime, the first twenty pages won the 2005 Bronx Writers' Center Chapter One contest, and she's been nominated for the 2005 Journey Prize, for the best short story by a Canadian writer.

Christian Langworthy ("The Film Critic," Summer/Fall 2002) has had both fiction and reviews published of late by the Michigan Quarterly Review.

Nathan Long ("Form of Things," Winter 2002) recently began teaching creative writing at Richard Stockton College. He's recently had several stories published by The Tusculum Review; he has stories forthcoming in Tribes and Place, and an essay forthcoming in The Sun.

Robert Lopez ("Essentials," Fall 2004) has fiction in the current issues of Hobart, Willow Springs, and New England Review.

Peter Markus ("Our Father Who Walks On Water Comes Home With Two Buckets Of Fish," Winter/Spring 2001) has a new book of fiction, The Singing Fish, now out on Calamari Press. You can read an interview with Peter here.

Karyna McGlynn ("Cypress Point," Spring 2004) has recently had work featured in The Pedestal Magazine; other poems are forthcoming in Connecticut Review, Verse, Rosebud, and Midwest Quarterly. Her poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship. She is the new Cornwell Fellow in poetry at the University of Michigan, where she is pursuing her M.F.A..

Kenny Nowell's ("The Magnolia Under Glass," Spring 2004) play "The Fall," currently in production at Manhattan's Looking Glass theater, recently received a rave review from The New York Times.

Stephen Oliver ("Hania," Winter/Spring 2003) has a new poetry collection, Either Side The Horizon, out from Titus Books.

Tom Paine ("The Pearl of Kuwait," Fall/Winter 2002) has moved to the island of St. John, in the US Virgin Islands, and started a newspaper, The St. John Sun Times.

Dawn Raffel ("Once, Twice, Three Times," Spring/Summer 2001) has stories forthcoming in Fence, 3rd Bed, Hunger Mountain, and the Mississippi Review Prize Anthology.

Cooper Renner ("Origami" and "Untitled," published under the pen name Cooper Esteban, Summer/Fall 2001) is the new editor of elimae, and co-editor, with Deron Bauman and Kathryn Rantala, of Triple Press, a new literary press. Triple's first releases include Trio by Norman Lock, Arbitrary Tales by Daniel Borzutzky, and Terra Infirma by Faruk Ulay. Books are forthcoming from Jane Unrue, Peter Markus, Garth Buckner, Thomas Wooten and Robert Castle.

Elwood Reid's (Interview, Fall 2004) is attempting to sell his soul to Hollywood, at a cut-rate price. He's also working on a new novel, Labor Day, about a guy who takes a job, and then the job takes him.

Russell Rowland ("Ed Got a Job," Winter 2005) reports that a scholarship fund has been established in the memory of Ally Harbuck, his late stepdaughter, who was a creative writing student at Georgia Southern University. For more information, write: Ally Harbuck Scholarship Memorial Fund, c/o the University Foundation of Georgia Southern, P.O. Box 8053, Statesboro, GA 30460.

Thaddeus Rutkowski's ("Dear Daughter" and "Waiting for the Phone to Ring," Fall 2004) story "Memory Bank" appears in the new metafiction issue of Hayden's Ferry Review.

Karen Shepard's ("Like Love," Summer 2004) third novel, What Have We Done, will be published by William Morrow in early 2006. The paperback edition of her second, The Bad Boy's Wife, is due out this July.

Maggie Smith's ("I Dream a Highway" and "Suspension," Winter 2005) first poetry collection, Lamp of the Body, is now available from Red Hen Press.

Michelle Valladares's ("North of Big Sur" et al., Summer 2004) first poetry collection, Nortada, The North Wind, is just out from Global City Press. A poem from her book Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz is in the latest issue of North American Review.

Jim Zervanos ("Behind Curtains," Winter/Spring 2001) has stories forthcoming in Cimarron Review and phillyfiction, an anthology of short fiction by Philadelphia writers.

We encourage all failbetter.com alumni to keep us updated on the latest in their lives, by dropping us a line at alumni@failbetter.com.