News and Notes

updated Dec 18, 2007

Worth a (special) mention

Not only do we publish fiction that's great to read—we publish fiction that wins awards! We speak, of course, of Lou Mathews's wonderful story "The Garlic Eater," which we ran last winter, and which just picked up a coveted "Special Mention" from the Pushcart Prize folks. Congratulations, Lou!

Alumni News

Greg Ames (“Biographers,” Issue 2; “The Snowing Loneliness of Buffalo,” Issue 17) has three poems in the 2007 edition of Best American Nonrequired Reading, and a story forthcoming in Swink.

David Barringer ("The Vampires," Issue 8) designed the latest number of Opium Magazine, and nabbed a “Notable” citation in the recent Best American Essays 2007.

Richard Bausch’s (Interview, Issue 11) new novel Peace is due in April from Knopf, and available now for preorder.

Geoffrey Becker (“Valet Parking,” Issue 14) has a short story in the forthcoming issue of Crazyhorse.

Matthew Byrne’s (“Of This Our Burgeoning District” and “In Defense of the Book”, Issue 13) poem “Let Me Count the Ways,” originally published in Poet Lore, was included in this year’s edition of Best American Poetry.

Michael Ceraolo’s (“Twelfth Possible Definition of Irony” and “ Second Possible Definition of Fundamentalism”, Issue 7) chapbook Free Speech is available now from Scars Publications.

Brock Clarke’s (“The Wedding Present”) novel An Arsonist's Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England, out earlier this fall from Algonquin, was recently named an Editors’ Choice title by the New York Times Book Review.

Billy Collins’s (Interview and “Untitled Haiku”, Issue 19) poem “The News Today,” originally published in Bookforum, was included in this year’s Best American Poetry.

Stephen Dixon (Interview, Issue 21) recently retired from teaching at Johns Hopkins, and is currently at work on what will be his 28th book, a novel tentatively called His Wife Leaves Him. His 27th, the novel Meyer, is just out from Melville House.

Josh Dorman’s ( “Bathysphere” et al., Issue 9) Alzheimer’s paintings, based on the imaginative and emotional landscapes of five people with advanced dementia, were recently featured in the PBS documentary “There Is a Bridge.” Dorman also has work in “The Collage Impulse,” which runs through December 15 at the Lehman College Art Gallery in the Bronx, and a solo show slated to open May 1 at Chelsea’s Mary Ryan Gallery.

Shelley Ettinger’s (“Flies Like Fascism” and “Glutton for Punishment”) story “A Finch’s Tale” will appear in Avery 2.

Donald Illich (“Disaster,” Issue 22) has recently published poems in No Tell Motel, LIT, Del Sol Review, and Nimrod, and has others forthcoming in The Sow's Ear Poetry Review and The South Carolina Review. His manuscript Balloon Animals snared an Honorable Mention in this year’s Wordworks’ Washington Prize competition.

Scott Indrisek (“Eating the Dog”, Issue 21) has been neglecting short fiction and hates himself for it, but has had non-fiction published recently by the Village Voice, Radar, and The Believer, and has been named Senior Editor of Anthem.

Joseph Kerschbaum (“we touch like cripples” and “black bones”, Issue 23) has a new spoken word album, Our Voices Sound Like Silence, and has recently published peoms in Eclectica, Poetry Midwest, and Blood Lotus.

Michael Kimball (“Dear Old Woman,“, Issue 23) has fiction out now in New York Tyrant, JMWW, and Rock Heals.

Tracey Knapp (“Lie to Me” and “ Big Top,” Issue 9) recently had five poems in No Tell Motel, and has another forthcoming in the Minnesota Review.

Claudia La Rocco’ (“The Bride” and “Geography,” Issue 24) translation of one of the arias from Carmen was included in a video work of the same name by the artist Leat Klingman. The piece will be part of Klingman’s forthcoming solo show at Brooklyn’s Galeria Janet Kurnatowski; the show opens in February.

Jeffrey Lent (A Peculiar Grace excerpt, Issue 24) recently spent a month as a Distinguished Writer in Residence at Colorado College. He’s currently finalizing revisions of his next novel, tentatively titled A Compass Rose, and considering an offer to write the screenplay for the film version of his second novel, Lost Nation

© Houghton Mifflin

Douglas Light’s (“Break Up,” Issue 18) novel East Fifth Bliss was recently awarded the 2007 Benjamin Franklin Award for Fiction, while his story “Wedding Factory” was named Notable in the 2007 Best American Nonrequired Reading.

Robert Lopez’s (“Essentials,” Issue 15) new novel, Kamby Bolongo Mean River, was recently acquired by Dzanc Books and is slated for a 2009 release.

Peter Markus (“Our Father Who Walks On Water Comes Home With Two Buckets Of Fish,” Issue 2) has stories in current or forthcoming issues of Chicago Review, Denver Quarterly, and Unsaid. His novel Bob, or Man on Boat is due next summer from Dzanc.

Andrew Milward (“Silver Creek,” Issue 23) has stories in current or forthcoming issues of Zoetrope, Columbia Arts & Letters, Confrontation, and Fugue.

Thylias Moss (“Prologue of the Book of Hallowed Verses of the Holy Circus of Decent Girls,” Issue 18) recently launched a blog, and is hard at work on Holy Circus of Decent Girls, a work for which “Prologue...” will serve as prologue.

Amie Oliver (“Angels & Infidels XIX” et. al., Issue 22) has work in “Walk the Walk,”, a show up through December 23 at Richmond VA’s Artspace @ Plant Zero.

Diane Payne’s (“ Remember,” Issue 8) A New Kind of Music, a book for teens, is out now from Brilliant Books Press.

J. Allyn Rosser’s (“Discounting Lynn” and “Something Not Gotten,” Issue 18) new collection, Foiled Again, which won the New Criterion’s seventh annual poetry prize, is available now from Ivan R. Dee.

Thaddeus Rutkowski’s (“Dear Daughter” and “Waiting for the Phone to Ring,” Issue 15) latest work can be found in recent numbers of Mobius, Summerset Review. Arlington Literary Journal, Houston Literary Review, and New York Spirit.

John Rybicki’s ("Julie Ovary Song," Issue 17; “Smoke” et al., Issue 10) collection We Bed Down Into Water is due in February from Northwestern.

M Sarki (“ Daniella in the Palace” et al., Issue 3) has poems in the next issues of Unsaid and NY Tyrant.

Ed Skoog (“Art History” and “Darwin,” Issue 7) poems forthcoming in American Poetry Review and The Paris Review, and his debut collection, Mister Skylight, has been picked up Copper Canyon Press and slated for a 2009 release.

In an era when “bigger is better”— when epic novels rule the charts—it’s great to see a great short-story collection get its due: Jim Shepard’s (“Proto-Scorpions of the Silurian,” Issue 17; an excerpt from Project X, Issue 11) Like You’d Understand, Anyway, to be specific, which was recently shortlisted for the National Book Award.

Mary Austin Speaker (“ The Taxidermist Sings Songs of Love” and “ Ode to the Impossible Machine,” Issue 23) has poems forthcoming in The International Feminist Journal of Politics, Sentence and Five Fingers Review.

Randall Stoltzfus (“Chrysler” et al., Issue 21) recently returned from Korea, where he repped the US at the 2007 Sosaboel International Art Festival. Stateside, he has paintings in “Magic Hour,” a show currently hanging at Paul Rodgers/9W Gallery in Chelsea.

Terese Svoboda (“The Story,” Issue 22) recently nabbled the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize for Black Glasses Like Clark Kent, which tells the story of the her World War II MP uncle, who committed suicide in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal. Svoboda also has poems due soon in Subtropics, Columbia and Ploughshares, and fiction forthcoming in Narrative, Brooklyn Rail and Bomb.

Lee Upton (“Apology to Keats” and “The Broom,” Issue 1) has a new collection, Undid in the Land of Undone, out from New Issues Press, poems due soon in The New Republic and River Styx, and short fiction in upcoming numbers of Short Fiction, Epoch, Idaho Review, Conduit, and Gargoyle.

An excerpt from Gina Zucker’s (“Punishment,” Issue 8) unfinished novel Fantastic Women recently appeared in Tin House.

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

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