News and Notes

© Pushcart Press

failbetter's 2006 Pushcart Nominees

We published a number of damn fine works in 2005, if we do say so ourselves. But the Pushcart Prize folks only allow us six nominations:

Short Story category

"San Francisco in the 1990s" by Chris Lombardi (Issue 16)
"Someone's Drunk Wife" by Susan Buttenwieser (Issue 18)
"To Do List - Week of March 14th" by Carolyn Hiler (Issue 18)

Poetry category                          

"I Dream A Highway" by Maggie Smith (Issue 16)
"Julie Ovary Song" by John Rybicki (Issue 17)
"Let Her Go" by Amy Holman (Issue 17)

Congratulations to all our nominess, and best of luck in the competition!

Alumni News

© Grove

Jonathan Ames (Interview, Issue 13) has a new essay collection, I Love You More Than You Know, due out in February from Grove.

David Barringer ("The Vampires," Issue 8) recently helped Rudy VanderLans edit the final issue of the long-running graphic design magazine Emigre. David has also been writing—he's had articles in recent issues of I.D., Eye, and AIGA's Voice—and designing books, for Triple Press and Word Riot Press.

E.L. Doctorow’s (Interview, Issue 14) novelization of Sherman’s bloody Civil War campaign, The March, was a 2005 National Book Awards finalist.

Josh Dorman ("Bathysphere" et al., Issue 9) recently organized a night of readings and music at Brooklyn's Pierogi Gallery, featuring poetry by William Corbett, short fiction by Peter Markus ("Our Father Who Walks On Water Comes Home With Two Buckets Of Fish," Issue 2), and live music by Langhorne Slim.

Richard Fulco's ("An Exploration," Issue 12) play Little Short was recently workshopped at Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Alaska; his play Short was read last month at Brooklyn's Barbès performance space.

Janet Gorzegno ("Untitled" et al., Issue 13) recently had six pieces in a group show, "Forces at Work: Art and Spirit," at the Hera Gallery in Wakefield, Rhode Island.

Pamela Harris ("051603," et. al., Issue 11) has several works in a group show opening January 12 at Boston's OH+T Gallery.

Dave Hollander ("The Day After," Issue 2) has an essay in the current issue of Poets & Writers, and another forthcoming in the March issue of Gastronomica. He also has a short story in the winter issue of Unsaid.

Nick Hornby's (Interview, Issue 9) latest novel, A Long Way Down, is a finalist for the 2005 Whitbread Book Award.

Dika Lam ("Entertainment for Women," Issue 13) has a story in This is Not Chick Lit, an anthology due out soon from Random House.

Shelly Lependorf and Stan Shire ("Horizon Fields III" et al., Issue 18) have works in a new show, "Abstracting the Visible," at Philadelphia's Gallery Siano. The show runs through January 16.

© Pindeldyboz

Jonathan Lethem (Interview, Issue 11) was recently awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.

Douglas Light ("Break Up," Issue 18) has a short story, "Zebra," in Pindeldyboz 6.

Chris Lombardi ("San Francisco in the 1990s," Issue 16) is halfway through journalism-school boot camp at Columbia, and has mostly been publishing in Queens Chronicle, reporting on exciting stuff like mold in housing projects and kids celebrating Ramadan. Her story "What Did You Do In the War, Daddy?" is due out soon in Lurch.

Robert Lopez ("Essentials," Fall 2004) has fiction in current or recent issues of The Barcelona Review, Small Spiral Notebook, Nerve, and 5_Trope; he has stories forthcoming in Unsaid and Indiana Review.

Sam Lipsyte's ("Flashback, or Why Nobody Won the Fight Between Our Fathers in Walt Wilmer's Toolshed," Spring/Summer 2001) novel Home Land was one of the New York Times's "100 Notable Books of the Year."

Karyna McGlynn ("Cypress Point," Spring 2004) has poetry in the current issue of Blackbird, and forthcoming numbers of Hotel Amerika, Typo Magazine, and Del Sol Review. For more on what she's up to, consult her website.

Jen Michalski ("The Movie Version of My Life," Issue 18) has short fiction forthcoming in Unlikely Stories and The Harrow. On January 29, she will read some of her stories at the Kensington Row Bookshop, in Kensington, Maryland.

Hal Niedzviecki's ("Camp Gesher," Issue 18) non-fiction treatise, Hello, I'm Special: How Individuality Became the New Conformity, is due out this spring from City Lights Books. For more on Hal's doings, check out his website.

Katsura Okada ("Canon: History: Cycles...#1" et. al., Issue 12) has pieces in a forthcoming group show, "Being in Space," at Chelsea's A.I.R. Gallery. The exhibit runs from January 10 to February 4. For more on Katsura, see her website.

© Anchor/Doubleday

Elwood Reid (Interview, Issue 15) is currently at work on Full Ride, a Spike TV series based on If I Don't Six, his behind-the-scenes novel about major-college football.

Cooper Renner's ("Origami" and "Untitled," published under the pen name Cooper Esteban, Issue 4) translation of three novellas by the Mexican writer Mario Bellatin is due out this May from Ravenna Press.

Liana Scalettar ("Flowereaters," Issue 12) has a story forthcoming in Drunken Boat, and willl spend next summer in residence at the Vermont Studio Center, and the Cat'Art Center for Contemporary Art in southern France.

Fraser Sutherland's ("Lights of Castries," Issue 16) 1986 Black Moss poetry collection Whitefaces was recently translated into Serbian and published under the title Bledoliki by Studenski Kulturni Centar.

Lee Upton ("Apology to Keats" and "The Broom," Fall 2000) has a short story, "You Know You've Made It When They Hate You," in the forthcoming Hourglass Books anthology Peculiar Pilgrims. She also has poems forthcoming in New England Review and Smartish Pace. Defensive Measures, her study of the poetry of Niedecker, Bishop, Gluck, and Carson, was published this past summer by Bucknell.

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