Giving thanks for the brag

I am thankful that the people in my life are achieving success with the projects they are passionate about. And that goes for me, too. I am grateful and thrilled that the passions I have toiled at and for,when it seemed fruitless and silly, are now beginning to come to fruition. It just so happens that it’s Black Friday and I am providing you with a plethora of great gift suggestions. With no further ado, the brag…

Mary McMyne’s “Wolf Skin” will appear in the Los Angeles Review and “Old Woman Gothel” in Pedestal. You can read “Old Woman Gothel” online and also, hear Mary read it!

Daniel Morales has a story called “How to Fly First Class for Free” in the Expats Blog Writing Contest.

Jamey Hatley read from her novel at the fall installment of NOCCA’s Creative Writing Series, along with Brad Richard. The rather large room was crowded with an attentive audience, many of them students at NOCCA who are studying writing. Their response to Jamey and Brad was pretty awesome to witness.

Montana Miller’s Playing Dead: Mock Trauma and Folk Drama in High School Drunk Driving Tragedies has just been published. I first met Montana a few years ago when I interviewed her as background research for my novel and we became friends. In addition to being a professor in the Popular Culture Department at Bowling Green, she’s a professional flying trapeze artist, high diver and now, sky diver. I love this bit from her bio on Amazon: “she researches perceptions of risk and attitudes toward death, particularly among groups that are often stereotyped and misunderstood.” She was just in town at the American Folklore Society’s Annual Meeting, to give a paper called “Death and the Drop Zone: The Esoteric and Exoteric Folklore of Skydiving.”

Tad Bartlett has another great column up at Oxford American, called Food and Recovery: Reclaiming After the Storm.

Also over at OA, Kasimu Harris has lots of amazing new fashion columns up, featuring his stunning photos of fashionable New Orleanians, as well as his essays.

Christopher Shipman’s new chapbook I Carved  Your Name is available from Imaginary Friend Press.

Skip Horack’s story “The Cryptozoologist” is in the newest issue of Narrative Magazine.

Recently, Summer Wood gave a phenomenal reading from her book Raising Wrecker at the gorgeous Garden District Books. The novel has just been released in paperback, so check it out. As well as these pictures from the event, which I’ve borrowed from Ross Peter Nelson.

Emily Choate’s gorgeous story “Thunder Sometimes, Never Bells” will be published in The Florida Review.

While going to The Florida Review site to get the above link, I saw that Randolph Thomas won their Editor’s Award Competition in Fiction for his story, “Dispensations.” His story will appear in the Winter 2012 issue.

Two Fictions by James Claffey will be hosted at FWRICTION: REVIEW until November 28th, so go check them out. James is one of the most prolific publishers I know. “We Sunk My Mother’s Mother” is over at Necessary Fiction. His story “Spreading from the False Fly” is available in the Real issue of Pure Slush. Anyway, if you really want to keep up with everything James is doing, you have to go here: James Claffey.com.

Helen Krieger recently traveled to Amsterdam, where Flood Streets was screened at the Film By the Sea Festival. The movie just screened in Portland and Seattle and will be available on DVD November 27th. You can put it in your Netflix queue now.

Maurice Ruffin’s short story “Pie Man” has been published in the current issue of The South Carolina Review. Maurice will be reading his work, along with Niyi Osundare, Carolyn Hembree, Geoff Munsterman, Nasimiyu, and Michael Allen Zell at the Staple Goods Collective/Gallery on Sunday, December 2nd at 2 p.m.

But, before that, Maurice will also be reading at the Words & Music Writers Alliance reading at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, November 28th, one of the first events of the conference. The event takes place in the Black Box Room on the 2nd Floor of the US Mint and will also feature Terri Shrum Stoor, Sara Paul, Matt Robinson, J.Ed. Marston, Tad Bartlett and yours truly. I will be reading a short version of my winning essay, “Tango Face,” which is about learning to tango, of course, but also describes the experience of sitting for a portrait by the artist Gersin, who I interviewed earlier this year.  I’ll include the portrait below, since it’s not online (it is in the print version of the magazine).

This post has been in the works a long time! It’s impossible to keep up with ALL of the achievements and events of my talented friends, but I do my best. I hope you’ll consider checking out the work of all of these folks and attending the upcoming readings!

‘Tis the Bragging Season

This bragging posts follows up on a few items mentioned in my last bragging post – Bragging on the River.

First, I really should brag on the Peauxdunque Writers Alliance. We put on a stellar first event in our new series of literary concerts, Yeah, You Write. It was an unforgettable evening, made even more so by the participation of our exceptional performers (Amanda Boyden, Bill Loehfelm, Gian Smith, Kelly Harris-DeBerry, Mat Johnson, Terri Stoor), as well as MC Nick Fox, DJ Sep and Lee Ware from Faulkner House Books. We’ve begun work on the next event in the series.

I’d like to brag on the folks at the State Library of Louisiana, who orchestrated yet another fabulous Book Festival. My only complaint is that I hope we’ll finally get a 2-day festival because there were too many incredible authors and events competing for my attention at the same time! They always pick the one day of the year guaranteed to be beautiful in Louisiana. I don’t know how it works out that way every year, but it’s always a good time to visit Baton Rouge.

Two weeks after the Louisiana Book Festival, Words & Music went down and one of the biggest highlights for me was the Awards Banquet on Friday. For someone like me, who lives to brag on my friends, the banquet was a feast of bragging. So many of our number were recognized, as well as new friends, and it was really thrilling and inspirational. But Rosemary and Joe of Faulkner House Books deserve a grand brag for all of their work on the conference, which is always an amazing experience and a lot of fun.

Flood Streets (a feature film by Peauxdunquian Helen Krieger and her husband Joseph Meissner) had an encore screening at the New Orleans Film Festival in October and they’re now offering gift packages to raise money for the next round of their festival tour. They’ve almost reached their goal – less than $500 to go!

I think Maurice Ruffin has made it a personal goal to be bragged about in all of my “bragging on” posts because he has yet another bit of publication news. His short short story “Mr. Face” will be published in Stephen F. Austin University’s Regarding Arts and Letters Magazine in April 2012.

Christopher Shipman‘s book of poetry Human-Carrying Flight Technology was published last month by BlazeVOX.

Hal Clark (also known as Harold Ellis Clark) of WYLD’s Sunday Journal has been named a semi-finalist in Organization of Black Screenwriters‘ 2011 Original Script Contest for his feature script, Chummy’s Spirit.

Ronlyn Domingue has signed a 2-book deal with Atria Books, the publisher of her first novel, The Mercy of Thin Air, for The Mapmaker’s War (Spring 2013) and Lead Us Whole, Beautiful Child (Spring 2014). Ronlyn’s been working hard on these two interconnected novels for the past five years and they’re highly anticipated!

DaVida Chanel‘s play Hip Hop Is Alive was performed last month at the New Orleans Fringe Fest.

Long-distance Peauxdunquian (while she’s studying writing at Johns Hopkins, that is) Joselyn Takacs is a finalist in Narrative’s 30Below Fiction Contest for her short story “Flares of Little Warning.”

Congrats to everybody and may the rest of the year be filled with good news to brag about!