Fictionaut Blog

Marc Fitten shops for a pillow in the New York Times: “Thirty dollars! Are they crazy? At 40 percent off?”

At Eyewear, Morgan Harlow reviews the 2008 edition of Best American Short Stories, edited by Salman Rushdie.

The New Yorker published Terese Svoboda’s poem “Mom as Fly.”

John Minichillo’s novel The Snow Whale was selected as a quarter finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. This phase of the contest will be decided by reader reviews.

Blake Butler’s “The Copy Family” appeared in HarperPerennial’s Fifty-Two Stories. Blake will be reading with Zachary Schomburg, Emily Kendal Frey, and Dara Cerv at the Dirty Water Reading Rodeo in Boston on March 29.

More publications:

• Issue 24 of Smokelong Quarterly features stories by Scott Garson, Tiff Holland, Tim Jones-Yelvington, Tara Laskowski, Charles Lennox, and Ravi Mangla. Tim also has two pieces in Wigleaf.
• Elimae’s March issue features work by J.A. Tyler, Alan Rossi, Ravi Mangla, and David Erlewine.
• Paula Ray and Shane Jones have work in Pequin.
• The new issue of The Legendary includes fiction and poetry by Rusty Barnes, J.A. Tyler, David Erlewine, Jared Ward, and Timothy Gager.
• Sean Lovelace writes about writing for Writer’s Bloc.
• Martin Reed’s “Muriel the Goose” appeared on Every Day Fiction.
• Steve Himmer’s “A Thin Film” in The Northville Review.
• J.A. Tyler and Meg Pokrass in thieves jargon.
• Kim Chinquee has a story in the forthcoming issue of  The New York Tyrant and three shorts in the tenth anniversary edition of Noon.
• At Word Riot, Elaine Chiew’s “The Sentence.”

Maud Newton judges the showdown between Robert Bolaño’s 2666 and Louis De Bernières’ A Partisan’s Daughter in the 2009 Tournament of Books.

At print, Jim Hanas asks: “Have fake news graphics taken over the role of the political cartoon?”

Myfanwy Collins reviews Shouhua Qi’s The Pearl Jacket and Other Stories: Flash Fiction from Contemporary China for the March/April issue of American Book Review.

At Words Without Borders, Bud Parr appreciates Etgar Keret: “The banality of everyday violence that Keret captures speaks directly to the heart of the world we live in, but so much of what’s great about his work is what happens in between the little acts of brutatily that populate these stories.”

Jesse Jarnow makes his 2007 profile of Haruki Murakami, originally published in Paste, available online.

Blake Butler, Elaine Chiew, Kathy Fish, Molly Gaudry, Meg Pokrass, Matt Bell, Myfanwy Collins, and Katrina Denza are among the authors available for online one-on-ones through Dzanc Creative Writing Sessions.

Interviews:

• Kelly Spitzer interviews Andrew Porter, author of The Theory of Light and Matter.
• Chris Killen was interviewed by the beat and at Writer’s Dojo, Kevin Sampsell talks with Matt Briggs.
• At Prick of the Spindle, Cynthia Reeser interviews Barry Graham and Howie Good.
• Kevin Holtsberry reviews The Dart League King and interviews Keith Lee Morris.
• Two by Michael Kimball, talking to William Walsh about Questionstruck for Word Riot and to Shane Jones about Light Boxes for Elimae.

Finally, Kelly Clarkson, Mad Men, and who smells like asparagus pee: Janice Erlbaum’s Bilge! video podcast.