The Best Small Fictions 2015 - Available Now

Today is the official publication day for The Best Small Fictions 2015. I’m honored that Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Olen Butler has selected my story “The Boy and the Bear” for inclusion in The Best Small Fictions 2015, an anthology that includes stories from Ron Carlson, Diane Williams, Stuart Dybek, Bobbie Ann Mason, Michael Martone, Hiromi Kawakami, Kelly Cherry, and many other amazing writers. I am beyond thrilled at this news! The anthology is available to purchase now if you'd like a copy. Thanks as well to series editor Tara L. Masih!

By way of recognition, "The Boy and the Bear" first appeared in The Masters Review, and I can't thank Kim Winternheimer enough for originally publishing this story. I also want to thank Black Lawrence Press Executive Editor Diane Goettel and Chapbook Editor Kit Frick because "The Boy and the Bear" is collected in my chapbook Families Among Us, winner of the 2013 Black River Chapbook Competition and published by BLP in September 2014. More news to come! Thanks for reading!

Anthologized in The Best Small Fictions 2015

I’m honored that Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Olen Butler has selected my story “The Boy and the Bear” for inclusion in The Best Small Fictions 2015, an anthology that includes stories from Ron Carlson, Diane Williams, Stuart Dybek, Bobbie Ann Mason, Michael Martone, and many other amazing writers. The anthology will hit bookstores this October. I am beyond thrilled at this news!

By way of recognition, "The Boy and the Bear" first appeared in The Masters Review, and I can't thank Kim Winternheimer enough for originally publishing this story. I also want to thank Black Lawrence Press Executive Editor Diane Goettel and Chapbook Editor Kit Frick because "The Boy and the Bear" is collected in my chapbook Families Among Us, winner of the 2013 Black River Chapbook Competition and published by BLP in September 2014. Thank you all! More news to come!

New Story in Fiction Southeast

My story "Helicopter Wounds" was published by Fiction Southeast today. This story is dedicated to my best friend, Army 2nd Lieutenant Peter H. Burks, who was killed by an IED just outside the Green Zone in Baghdad on November 14th, 2007.

I'm so grateful to founding editor Chris Tusa for believing in my work enough to publish it next to short fiction by Ron Carlson, Brad Watson, Aimee Bender, Donald Ray Pollock, Kevin Wilson, and Joyce Carol Oates, among many others. You can read "Helicopter Wounds" here. Thank you so much for reading! 

ALOUD Reading Series: Writing Our Future

Along with Eugenie Montague, my friend and classmate at UC-Irvine, I had the honor of reading at the ALOUD reading series at The Library Foundation of Los Angeles on April 17th. We read with students from CalArts, Otis College, UC Riverside, and USC. It was an amazing night in the beautiful Mark Taper Auditorium at the Central Library in downtown L.A, and it was an evening I won't soon forget.


There is a podcast from the reading, which you can listen to here. If you don't have time to listen to the whole program (which I recommend), but are curious about what I read, you can fast forward to the 16:00 minute mark. I read from the first six pages of the novel I'm working on.

I'd like to thank Louise Steinman for having us at the ALOUD series. And special thanks to Michelle Latiolais, Ron Carlson, my friends in the UC-Irvine MFA Program, and The Library Foundation of Los Angeles!

Okay, thanks for listening!

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!

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.