My Literary Mother: Michelle Latiolais

I wrote a short essay about Michelle Latiolais for a new project on female literary influence called Literary Mothers. I loved writing about Michelle, her work, her mentorship, and her great influence on my writing. Michelle is much more than a mentor, and I can't thank her enough for everything she has done for me. You can read my essay here.

Literary Mothers is an amazing project with other short essays by Matt Bell on Christine Schutt, Ashley Farmer on Joan Didion, Lincoln Michel on Flannery O’Connor, Deb Olin Unferth on Gertrude Stein, Alissa Nutting on Lynda Barry, and so many more.

I'd especially like to thank series editor Nadxi Nieto for including me in this very important project!

New Fiction in Tin House

Tin House published my short story "And Finally the Tragedy." You can read it here. I wrote it after reading Donald Barthelme's "The School," a piece of fiction I've always loved. The title of my story (and its first line) comes directly from a line toward the end of "The School." It was one of those moments as a writer when I had to stop reading and start writing, something that happens for me when I read Denis Johnson, Cormac McCarthy, George Saunders, Thomas Berger, and Barry Hannah. 

I'm ever grateful to editor Masie Cochran for publishing my story as part of Tin House's Flash Friday fiction series. They've published a lot of great stories in this series, including personal favorites from Diane Williams, Steve Almond, Seth Fried, Mary Miller, Blake Butler, Lincoln Michel, Jaimie Quatro, James Yeh, Ryan Hume, Adam Peterson, and a collaborative effort from Ryan Ridge and Mel Bosworth, among many others. I'm happy to be included in this great company. As always, thanks for reading my work!