The Monkeybicycle Podcast

I recorded my story "Donald Mason's City Inspection and the Stakeout Standoff," which will be published in the forthcoming issue of Monkeybicycle8 this month, for the Monkeybicycle Podcast. I love this story. It is filled with grudges, boobery, standoffs, and delusion. I think you'll really like it (I do read in character). It is the first time I've recorded one of my stories, so give 'er a listen and let me know what you think.

You can listen to the podcast here.

For $12 you can order Monkeybicycle8 here.

And thanks to Steven Seighman for promoting my work and giving me the opportunity to record this story for the podcast. It was a lot of fun!

Treat Yourself: Order Monkeybicycle8

My story "Donald Mason's City Inspection and the Stakeout Standoff" is featured in Monkeybicycle8, which is now available to ORDER! In addition to my story there is groundbreaking fiction from Ben Loory (read his story "The TV" in the New Yorker), Aaron Burch, Steve Himmer, Curtis Smith, Summer Block, and many more.

I'd like to thank Steven Seighman and Shya Scanlon (author of FORECAST) for believing in this story and putting it in print. Isn't a story title like "Donald Mason's City Inspection and the Stakeout Standoff" enough to stir your curiosity? If you purchase your copy of Monkeybicycle8 before March 15th you'll get a free back issue of your choosing. So what are you waiting for?

And if you are in New York City on March 16th, come out to the Cake Shop for the official release party and Monkeybicycle Lightning Round! Reading Series. I'll be reading that night and I hope to see you there!

Monkeybicycle Lightning Round!

Update: Thanks to my wife, artist Danielle Huey Kimzey, for this photo of me reading at The Cake Shop!

Original Post:

The next installment of the Monkeybicycle Lightning Round! Reading Series is slated for March 16th in New York City at the Cake Shop. It is also the release party for Monkeybicycle8, which will feature my story "Donald Mason's City Inspection and the Stakeout Standoff." I'll be reading with a host of other talented authors and I can't wait. A bit about the event:

"This new quarterly reading series fuses quick, high energy readings with a broad range of voices--both established and emerging--into a seamless hour of literary brilliance. Each event will feature 20 readers, each of whom will read no longer than three minutes before introducing the next reader. No interruption from the host means a continuous listening experience. No guidelines other than length means maximum variety of form and content. Monkeybicycle's Lightning Round! Reading Series: a cure for the common reading."

More details about the reading can be found here. For all my friends in New York, I hope to see you there!

"The Kramers" Nominated for 2012 Pushcart Prize

Received word from Guy Kenyon at Encounters Magazine, letting me know that my story "The Kramers" is one of their nominees for the 2012 Pushcart Prize. This is a story that took a long time to find a home and I am so grateful Encounters took a chance on publishing it, so thanks again, Guy! Good luck to everyone nominated this year!

A Great Review of The Lifted Brow 7 & Breeders

There are places you want your work reviewed and one of those places is Literary Minded. Got an email today from The Lifted Brow editor Ronnie Scott with a link to, gasp!, an awesome review of TLB7 by Literary Minded. Sam Cooney writes the review and has a lot of wonderful things to say, such as:

"The Lifted Brow is literature that isn’t, it’s literature that won’t, it’s literature that refuses. But it’s also (paradoxes are so easy) literature that does, literature that must, literature that pushes."

Cooney mentions five stories in his review, and "Breeders" is one of them. He writes:

"Blake Kimzey’s ‘Breeders’ has this great narrator. He’s an idiot, but he’s a charming idiot. Not a harmless one though, as his ‘uncivilised’ fixations involve others. But he’s a follower, and when we meet him he is kowtowing to his friend Jimmy in a plan to breed a Great Dane with a Pit Bull to make a Great Pit. Mauling ahoy!"

I'm thrilled to be in TLB7 and feel a bit of pride at being mentioned in the Literary Minded review, which also raves about stories by Robert Shearman, Chris Somerville, Dolan Morgan, and Mike Meginnis. You can read the whole review here and I would encourage you to buy your copy of TLB7 because the previous six issues have sold out and the last copy of this issue will ship soon!

And thanks again to Ronnie Scott for publishing my work!

Order The Lifted Brow 7

It is time to order your copy of The Lifted Brow 7. My story "Breeders" will be featured in this issue along with a host of other great stories and artwork from around the globe. In the last couple of issues, The Lifted Brow has published Brian Evenson, David Foster Wallace, Neil Gaiman, Kevin Brockmeier, Tao Lin, Ricky Moody, Tom Bissell, Blake Butler, Robert Olen Butler, Sam Lipsyte, and many more.

So do yourself a favor and order TLB7! It'll be the most colorful book on your bookshelf, I promise.

Breeders: The Lifted Brow 7

My story "Breeders" will appear in the August 2010 issue of the Australian journal The Lifted Brow (TLB7), and I couldn't be happier. Part of the fun in placing a story is working with the editor to make sure your piece is as tight as possible. When "Little Man" was published last fall in Short FICTION, editor Anthony Caleshu offered gentle suggestions that gave the story a final polish that I was so proud to see in print. It was a dream to work with Anthony and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Ditto Brow editor Ronnie Scott. I've had the joy of working with him on "Breeders" and he sent me the most thoughtful comments that helped shape my story into the final piece you'll get to read in August. It was such an easy process and I can't wait to see how he drops "Breeders" into The Lifted Brow's forthcoming issue. TLB7 isn't even published yet and I'm already hopeful I'll get to work with Ronnie again.

Anytime I place a story I am as eager to see my fiction in print as I am to read the work of every other contributor in the issue. You can pre-order TLB7 by clicking here, and it will be well worth your money. In the last couple of issues, The Lifted Brow has published David Foster Wallace, Neil Gaiman, Kevin Brockmeier, Tao Lin, Ricky Moody, Tom Bissell, Blake Butler, Robert Olen Butler, Sam Lipsyte, and many more.

So do yourself a favor and pre-order TLB7! It'll be the most colorful book on your bookshelf, I promise.

Two Nice Reviews

I have only written one genre-based short story. Not that I consider myself a literary or popular writer or anything else. I just know I'm not a Thriller/SciFi/Romance/Fantasy writer. The short fiction I usually write draws a lot of influence from George Saunders and other writers like him.

In January 2008 I was a fiction resident at the Vermont Studio Center. I was there for a month with my wife, artist Danielle Huey Kimzey, and we would go on these long walks into the countryside to catch up and talk about what we were working on in our studios. Sometimes we'd walk around at night and when the moon was out (or not out) it felt like we were walking around in our own ghost story. An aging Masonic lodge anchored the town center, leaning badly to one side and in general disrepair. Add to that all the other old buildings that figured prominently in local lore and a graveyard pre-dating the Revolution and it was a town with much more history than the small town in Texas where I grew up. So you get the idea: Johnson, Vermont has this old northeastern feel to it and I decided to write something different, set right there in town. The result was "The Kramers" and it ended up in Encounters Magazine three months ago.

And believe it or not, the Science Fiction Review and Tangent (which has been reviewing Science Fiction since 1993) had nice things to say about my story.

An excerpt from the Science Fiction Review:

"In 'The Kramers', Blake Kimzey shows us you can find true horror without any supernatural element at all. Tom Kramer works for the local Fish and Wildlife department, as did his father who committed suicide when he was a kid. His mother has psychological problems and this all leads to an end that will make you squirm."

An end that will make you squirm! Doesn't that make you want to read the piece? You can order Encounters Magazine on Amazon if you'd like.

An excerpt from Tangent:

"This is a neat, vivid little tale of modern horror, twisting the screw of a modern tragedy until the main character can take no more. The images are vivid and evoke a cold and snowy winter in Vermont, where the seasonal lack of sun and the relentless cold have been known to drive men mad."

Not sure when I'll have another genre story in print. And if you have a hard time waiting on the Post Office I can always just e-mail you the story.

The Lifted Brow

The Lifted Brow, a "biannual attack journal" published in Australia, has just accepted my story "Breeders" for publication. I am excited about this for so many reasons. Their current issue (TLB6) features a David Foster Wallace story excerpted from The Pale King, his forthcoming (posthumous) novel that will be published by Little, Brown in 2011. Rick Moody is also in TLB6 along with a host of talented international writers. I'm not sure if "Breeders" will be published in TLB7 or TLB8, but I will keep you posted. Of course, you can order a copy of The Lifted Brow 6 (which also includes two CDs) by clicking here. I'll post again regarding "Breeders" when it is slated for publication, which should be some time this year.

Twenty Ten

Goals. When you put them on paper and stick to the plan good things happen. I exceeded my writing goals in 2009 and I hope to do so again this year. I have three finished short stories that I'll be submitting to journals over the course of the year. But the big fish in 2010 is writing and finishing a novel.

I've never had a goal to write and finish a novel. Thus far in my writing life I've focused on short stories. Not this year. I'm dedicating January and February to research. Reading novels and stories similar to what I want to write and researching late 1800's London and the wild American west. Oh, and outlining the story so I have a road map. In March I plan to start writing the novel and hopefully by August I'll have a working rough draft. I'll spend the rest of the year revising and hopefully by January 2011 I'll have a manuscript to send to agents

Short FICTION 3 Reviewed at Book Fox

Book Fox publishes book reviews and has given Short FICTION 3 a fantastic review. Novelist Lisa Glass authors the review and gives special mention to my story "Little Man" among the 16 stories published in this collection. An excerpt:

"Short Fiction 3 privileges ‘voice’ first and foremost, but I also felt there was a very strong focus on place. For those of you who appreciate interesting artwork, each story is accompanied by at least one commissioned illustration. My favourite stories of the bunch were: “Little Man”, which vividly depicted the tensions between young brothers and sisters; “Emile in the Circus”, a prize-winning story about the decline of a circus and its bear, set against a background of destitution and famine; “The House of Cranes”, a haunting oriental tale of a family’s enchanted plate. I cannot recommend Short Fiction 3 highly enough. It is an astonishingly good collection."

You can check out the full Book Fox review here (scroll down a bit to find the review). And to purchase your copy of Short FICTION 3 click here.

Two Stories Hot Off The Presses!

My story "Little Man" was published this month in Short FICTION, a literary journal published by the University of Plymouth Press in England. You can order your copy of Short FICTION by following this link. "Little Man" appears in Volume 3. There are some amazing stories in this journal so I promise it'll be worth your hard earned money.

You can also get your hands on my story "The Kramers" by purchasing Encounters Magazine, which published its first issue this month. Just click here to purchase on Amazon.

Thanks for all your support! I'm excited to see both of these stories in print and hope you are too. And if you order either journal let me know what you think.

Reading December 4th

I'll be reading at the Iowa Writers' Workshop Anthology on Friday, December 4th. I go on at 8pm and I'll have 3-5 minutes to share my work (the location rotates for each Anthology, so that is TBD). This will be the second time I've gotten to do a reading (the first was at the Vermont Studio Center) and I'm quite excited. If you are in Iowa City and are free that night I hope to see you there!

My Writing Soundtrack

I'm interested in how other people write, what kind of conditions are needed to bring a story to life from an initial image or opening line or character they've thought of. I like to write in public spaces but often find myself writing at home, listening to Josh Rouse. Seems like most of my writing time has been scored by Josh Rouse since I first discovered him when I was a freshman in college (99/00). Lately, though, I've been listening to Lewis & Clarke when I write, a band my friend Artist/Musician Caleb Engstrom introduced me to at a very intimate show here in Iowa City. I am most drawn to the atmosphere they create with their music and the folksy lyrics, which lend themselves to the sense of place I try to create in my fiction. Though I've found few videos of Lewis & Clarke on the net, here is a clip of them performing "Before It Breaks You," a personal favorite; this video should give you an idea of what I am talking about. Enjoy.

"Little Man" in Short FICTION

In November my story “Little Man” will be published in the British literary journal Short FICTION. I am really excited about this because I think “Little Man” is one of my best stories and also because my work will be featured with American authors Brad Watson (whose excellent story “Visitation” was in The New Yorker earlier this year) and Benjamin Percy, winner of the Whiting Award and the Plimpton Prize. I am happy to be the newbie in such a great international literary journal. You can pre-order your copy of Short FICTION Issue 3 here.

Encounters Magazine

“The Kramers” will be published in the first issue of Encounters Magazine next month. I wrote this story as a fiction resident at the Vermont Studio Center in January 2008 and have been looking for a home for it ever since. There is a genre, paranormal feel to the story that made it hard to place in most literary journals. Needless to say, I am excited Encounters believes in this story and is putting it in their inaugural issue. I’ll post a link when the issue is available to order in November.

George Saunders

I look forward to a George Saunders story the way a breast-feeding child nips at the air, hungry for mama’s milk. I just finished “Victory Lap” in the latest New Yorker. My new favorite. Reading Saunders gives me the same feeling each time: guess I can't write this story, since he just did. But a story like "Victory Lap" makes me want to sit at the keyboard and write, and that is just as good.