Reading Audio

I read some poems Sunday night in Atlanta and Pop Up Radio recorded it as well provided the music. The audio is here. I begin at about the 1 hour, 30 minute mark and read for only about six or seven minutes or so. The other readers are Jimmy Lo, Amy Pursifull, Laura Carter, and Scott Daughtridge.

Empathy in the Age of Trolls

I did an interview with an author I like named Travis Nichols last week that went up on the Atlanta-based arts and culture site Fanzine today. The book's funny -- it's told from the perspective an internet troll who is writing in the comments thread of a culinary site called DebbieCookingFun.com. Nichols is also a poet, and the book has that compressed, precise feel. The interview's here if you want to give it a read.

Podcast Interview Thingie

If you're tired of hearing my voice by now, that is totally understandable, but if not there's an interview podcast thingie I did a couple weeks ago up on the WonderRoot site. It runs about fifteen minutes long (I read after for another couple) during which we discuss my writing process, the lit scenes of Atlanta vs. Seattle, self-publishing, etc. It's here.

Near Boats

Apologies for the shameless self-promotion (I only seem to update this blog with announcements about my published work these days), but I have an audio poem up at Literary Local, an Atlanta-based literary site. I'm reading a poem called "Near Boats." If you feel like listening, it's here. (There's a goofy picture of me too.)

Grief, A Beautiful Place to Visit

An essay I wrote last year about grief is up at The Good Men Project. I'm glad to finally see it in "print." It's here.

What Kind of Person Are You?

I have a new essay up on The Nervous Breakdown about race, creative writing programs, and the importance of imagining across racial boundaries.

In related news, this video is really funny:

Ten Books

Over the last year or so I have read a lot of books. There have been a relative few, however, that I loved unequivocally, that have stayed with me, informing the way I view the world and operate within it. They are:

Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner
Open City by Teju Cole
The Ask by Sam Lipsyte
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter
Notes from No Man's Land by Eula Biss
Magic Hours by Tom Bissell
Bluets by Maggie Nelson
The Art of Cruelty by Maggie Nelson
The Gift by Lewis Hyde