Fall 2012

I'm in my second year of graduate school at UC-Irvine. Last year was a blur. Made great friends and snagged some readers for life. I'm also teaching creative writing this year, the excitement of which cannot be put into words.

I love the fall. Lots of good things happening, most importantly the arrival of our daughter in December. Can't wait to watch Danielle be a mom; she was visiting faculty at Knox College earlier this fall making a bit of public art with her students, and getting a little creative help from her assistant in the womb. Check out Danielle's project here.

And one day soon I'll start writing things my little girl can read, but for now, this:

"The Lanes" was recently published at Juked. You can read the story here. Many thanks to editor J.W. Wang for taking this story.

My story "The Best Man" appears in Issue 12 of The Los Angeles Review. This issue happens to be dedicated to Ron Calrson, the co-director of the MFA fiction program here at UCI. I'm beyond excited Stefanie Freele loved my story enough to put it in print. You can order the issue by clicking here.

My story "Ricky Jensen Goes to Work" will be published in Issue 12 of Keyhole Magazine, which you can pre-order here. Happy Peter Cole finally took a chance on a story of mine.

And later this fall I'll have my first book review appear in the pages of Mid-American Review. Thanks to departing editor Michael Czyzniejewski. 

Thanks for reading!

Three Exciting Bits of Writing News

I'm very happy to announce that Rust Belt Bindery has produced a limited edition, illustrated chapbook of my short story "Up and Away." It is accompanied by three original paintings by Danielle Huey Kimzey, all inspired by the story. It will be a first edition of 75 and is being hand bound at Rust Belt. What some people are saying about "Up and Away":

"This is really fresh and interesting and quite moving." -Roxane Gay, author of Ayiti

"Wonderful." -PANK

"Up and Away" even got some love from Dark Sky Magazine and the French literary/arts magazine Her Royal Majesty! As of 2/4/2012, after just five days, it is SOLD OUT! Thank you to everyone who supported this project! I can't thank you enough! If you didn't get one, and would like one, e-mail rustbeltbindery@gmail.com; they are considering a second edition if their is enough interest.


I'm also one of six finalists in the Unstuck Magazine fiction launch contest. Nam Le, Fiction Editor at the Harvard Review and author of The Boat, will choose the winner at the end of February. In the meantime, Unstuck will feature my story on their website in the coming weeks. I'm really excited about this. Winning would mean money and publication in the next print issue of Unstuck, which featured Aimee Bender, J. Robert Lennon, Amelia Gray, Lindsay Hunter and Kiki Petrosino, among others, in their last issue. Update 3/6/12: I came in second place, which means I win a bunch of awesome books written by Amelia Gray, Lindsay Hunter, Marisa Matarazzo, Helen Phillips, Rachel Swirsky, Leslie What, Rachel B. Glaser, as well as Matthew Derby's chapbook! Big thanks to Matt Williamson and the rest of the gang at Unstuck!

My story "Ricky Jensen Goes to Work" will be featured in the next issue of Keyhole Magazine, due out next month. Big thanks to Peter Cole for selecting this story for publication. I've been trying to get into Keyhole for the last few years and finally cracked the code with this story. I think you're going to like it. I'll post a link when the next issue of Keyhole is available to order.

Heading to UC-Irvine

Three years flies by. We're packing up and getting ready to move out of Iowa City, where we have lived for the last three years. My wife, artist Danielle Huey Kimzey, just graduated from the MFA painting program at the University of Iowa and it really does feel like just yesterday that we were unpacking boxes and trying to make friends.

And now we're off to Irvine, CA. I was accepted into the MFA fiction program at UC-Irvine and I couldn't be happier. We couldn't be happier. At least three years of sunny southern California are stretched out before us and while we will miss Iowa City like crazy, we'll be happy to sell our snow shovel in a garage sale this month.

UC-Irvine is awesome. I'll be an Anteater. I'll get to study with Ron Carlson and Michelle Latiolais and I feel so lucky that they offered me a spot. The program also counts some of my favorite fiction writers as alumni: Michael Chabon, Joshua Ferris, Aimee Bender, Alice Sebold, David Benioff, Elise Blackwell, Richard Ford, Glen David Gold, and many more.

So if you ever need a place to crash in Orange County, let us know. We'll have a pull-out couch by then, which will actually be quite nice with a couple of Asprin in the morning.