A keen Indigenous Peoples Day to you all.
I am deep in the final stages of preparing for an international trip that will be the foundation of the next few months of my writing, but on my way out of town, I want to share my latest publication: “No Machine” in Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading.
It’s a little flash fiction and I’m thrilled to have it out in the world. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to make sure I have enough socks for the next couple weeks.
I just got done signing the contract for a flash fiction piece that will be appearing in Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading this fall. Early indications suggest that it’ll appear in vol. 33 in October. One could bet their butt that I will announce it and link directly to the story once it’s out in the world.
The story draws heavily from my time working with captive apes and is another in a long line of attempts where I try to use fiction to capture elements of the personhood of nonhuman beings (apes here) that I couldn’t doing science. I demoed this story in February, opening for George Saunders for a reading here in Tulsa (mentioned in this post).
If anyone is interested in seeing what kinds of work EL’s Recommended Reading publishes, check out the fantastic, little post-apocalyptic flash piece, told in a single sentence, by my fellow TAFwriter, Simon Han, “How to Eat Well at the End of the World.”
As my creative writing students know, I’m a big fan of George Saunders. If you’ll allow me to be effusive, bordering on obsequious, I love the ways he plays with language and the empathy he manages to extend to every one of his characters. More than that, I like him as a person. In my personal experience, he’s open and gracious and doesn’t hesitate to hold up his book-signing line to offer a few words of encouragement to an aspiring writer.
And so, knowing this, imagine my excitement at being able to share a reading him. Friday, February 16, at the Philbrook Museum, I have the unbelievable good fortune to be one of the opening readers for “An Evening with George Saunders.” I won’t use emojis here, but I’m sure they’re easy to visualize floating around my head.
Unfortunately for all of you, as of right now, the event is sold out. Though, if you want details, and to keep up to date on if they expand to a new, bigger venue, follow along here: An Evening with George Saunders.
Dan Musgrave 