More amazing news!!

And, I've learned that a good friend and great writer, Jim Tomlinson, has just been awarded an NEA Fellowship for 2008!!! The news today keeps getting better and better!!!

Here's the list of prose fellowships, FYI.

Congratulations, Jim!!!

Congratulations to Laura van den Berg

Laura has just been announced as the winner of the 2007 Dzanc Prize! You can read more about this at Katrina Denza's blog. Laura is a great writer and a fine human being--what excellent news!

Dolphin sharing

Here's an interesting article on dolphin food-sharing behavior.

Tampa Bay Newspapers

Parrot fish the key to reef survival?

There's an interesting article in the journal Nature that talks about how important parrot fish are to the health of a reef (they dine on the algae that can kill reefs) and why they should be placed on the protected species list. A summary can be read here: BBC News.

Tuna

Most of us have heard by now about mercury in tuna, but there is another reason to eat tuna in moderation: declining fish stocks (primarily from overfishing) that could lead to extinction. You can read about it in this BBC article.

More thrilling news!

I have a cover design! The non-fiction book that I've written with my co-author, Andrew Bienkowski, is due out in March, and the editors and design team have come up with a fantastic design! I couldn't be happier.

Thrilling News!

My dear friend Paul Yoon just had his short story collection "Once the Shore" accepted for publication by none other than the elegant and classy Sarabande Books!!! Paul is such a wonderful, hard working writer, and such a genuinely nice guy. It seems like a marriage made in heaven--I couldn't be more thrilled!

Jim Ruland discusses the making of Big Lonesome

It's the second anniversary of Big Lonesome's publication, and Jim Ruland is blogging about the origins of his stories and other interesting tidbits. You can check it out here.

Happy birthday, Paula!!

Today is my bestest best friend's birthday. My BFF, as my teenaged daughters might say. But she really is. Paula is one of those friends you can go three months without talking to, and when you do reconnect, you just pick up where you left off as if not a day had passed.

Paula and I met in sixth grade. We went to different schools, but our two elementary bands came together for concerts twice a year and Paula and I were the tall, skinny blonde flutes (with a crush on the drummer) who wore big plastic glasses and had long straight hair. Somehow we sensed an affinity even then.

When we got to be eighth graders, we started playing in the Junior Band in the high school and sat beside each other every day. Together we thought up Fantasia-like images to go with the music we played and occasionally I would draw them to make them real. She gave me a nickname--I'd always wanted a nickname--Mur. I was her first friend ever to have a step-parent. I was probably also her first friend ever to live in such modest, modest means.

When I turned 15, my stepfather took a job as groundskeeper at the local country club and we moved into an empty hundred-year-old farmhouse on the ninth fairway (after moving out all the bales of hay and bags of fertilizer) that was only about 100 yards from the green. Golfers frequently "played through" my flower beds and occasionally my parents' bedroom. Paula's mom worked at the clubhouse (was it Wednesdays?) and she came with her most days. Summers found us crashed poolside. Summer evenings we would prowl the empty course and clubhouse and see what telling abandoned objects we could discover, what vending machines we could get to dispense, and then tell our secrets sitting on the diving board, swinging our legs and staring into the deep end. Two large trees on the practice range became our respective "houses" and we would call each other on our twig phones and talk about our fabulous husbands and children (twins, of course, a girl and a boy). Did we have jobs in our imaginary futures? I can't remember.

As we got older, we went on double dates, performed in school plays, agonized over boys, shared hotel beds on school trips...and shared secrets. Always. We had slumber parties--oh, how I loved her happy, raucous family--and "shopped" our way through every Sears catalogue that came in the mail, drooling over what we wanted, decrying the "geeky" stuff (gag a maggot!). We both watched helplessly as someone we loved gave in to the lure of alcoholism.

Today, we share parenting joys and trials, a love of good, wholesome food, strong and meaningful (but hard-won) relationships with our respective spouses, and absolute devotion to family and friends. Paula is my bosom buddy, my bestest, best, and if I could say one thing to Paula today (actually, I've already called her and talked for an hour and a half, but you know) I would say this: "Honey, you...are my shining star--don't you go away." ;)

I love you, PaJane!

THE SPECIES CROWN by Curtis Smith

In June of this year, Press 53 released Curtis Smith's most recent short story collection titled The Species Crown. Smith is also the author of the novel An Unadorned Life and two previous short story collections, Placing Ourselves Among the Living and In the Jukebox Light. This was my first chance to read a book of his, but it will not be the last one I read. I so enjoyed this collection.

Some of the stories in The Species Crown are lighthearted, always a nice touch in short story collections, which can tend to be a bit on the dark side. One of my favorite stories was "My Totally Awesome Funeral" first published in Hobart. Although written in the first person, there's a wonderful twist of an implied directive, the storyteller directing the reader to celebrate his passing--when the time comes. Here's a sample: "Drink another just because you can. After my wife and son have gone to bed, let the hardcore partiers hijack me for one last ride--shotgun!--and no matter the season, roll down the window and let the wind lash my hair." It manages to be a raucous celebration of death that makes the reader smile. How often can you say that about a short story?

Another story I especially liked was "The Real, True-Life Story of Godzilla!." It's a third-person tale of Billy Glenn, a washed up semi-pro basketball player who gets conscripted to join a Team America style group that will play throughout Japan. When that ship runs aground, Billy--because of his height--finds work playing Godzilla in grade B films. He finds love, then loses it unexpectedly and ends up spending his days searching through the eyeholes of his Godzilla costume, looking for lost love.

My very favorite story--I'm certain of it--was "Vacation in Ten Parts." The descriptions put me right smack in the middle of a floundering marriage desperately attempting to find its footing in the shifting sands of the Caribbean. The supporting cast of characters all ring true as fellow desperados on a flight to or from somewhere--no one is quite certain. The second-person lyricism throws it all in high relief: "Study your wife through the fine scrim of mosquito netting. Peaceful, her slumber, her legs tangled in crisp, white sheets, the cotton ripe with the ocean's briny scent."

This collection is so rich and varied, so skilled in the many different voices, locales, and points-of-view, that I was sad when I reached the end--always the sign of a great read.

Ron Currie Jr.

If you read one review for my friend Ron Currie's just released book God is Dead, read this one. It's an excellent, insightful review and the reviewer clearly "got" the book. Go Ron!

No Reason Not To

I have a newly published story up at the lovely e-zine Southern Hum!

The Help McSweeney's Sale

Visit and buy.

St. Thomas, UVI

I am in St. Thomas for a coral reef conference that begins tomorrow. I love the Caribbean, but I've never been to any of the US Virgin Islands before. It's like being in the Caribbean with none of the non-US hassles. US currency, US outlets...it's such a lovely place and the people have been very welcoming and kind.

I'm struck by the fact that the Caribbean has become more of a melting pot than the US. I've met Austrians, Dominicans, Antiguans, Egyptians, all making their homes in St. Thomas. This morning I went out to gather supplies for the next few busy conference days, snacks, drinks and fruit to keep us going for the week. (The director of ITME is also here--together we are representing the school--he's presenting later in the week.) I'm actually really thrilled to be here and looking forward to the many informative talks scheduled. I'm going to take notes for my fiction, which is frequently about marine-related subjects, or set in a marine environment.

I've decided that this will be the niche that I pursue in writing--marine ecology fiction. The Rick Bass of the oceans, that's what I'd like to be.

Radical Gratitude and Other Life-changing Lessons from Siberia

My first book (and my co-author's first book, too) has been sold! And it goes to Allen and Unwin in Australia. I am so thrilled. The editor is a dream to work with and the writing is going really well. You can read a bit about the book at my agency's website: Blake Friedmann.

Here is a link for viewing my charming and lovely agent Isobel Dixon.

And my good friend and co-author, Andrew Bienkowski, has his page here.

Topsy the Elephant

Stephan Clark has an excellent new short-short up at LA Weekly. You can read it here. And you should.

Ray's Road Review

A new ezine has launched, Ray's Road Review and I am thrilled to have a story in the inaugural issue alongside Cliff Garstang, Sandra Novak and Carl Moore! (And poetry by Beebe Barksdale-Bruner.)

LOTTERY by Patricia Wood

Perry L. Crandall would like you to know that he is not retarded. Retarded would be 75 on an IQ test, and he is 76. Besides, Perry takes care not only of himself, but also of his Gran, a crusty, no-nonsense woman who loves him for who he is and lets him shine his light through his own accomplishments. (She tells him the L in his name stands for Lucky.)

Perry describes his life in simple and succinct sentences that manage to be full of wonder and surprise. As he speaks, we see all too clearly the many ways in which his nuclear family has failed him, but Perry never sees it that way. His glass is always half full. Shoot, his glass is three-quarters full--it only looks half-full to those of us too blind to see things the Perry Crandall way. And it's this innocence and optimism that makes his family betrayals all the more heartbreaking to the reader. We want to crawl into the book and protect Perry from the vultures, especially when he faces the biggest tragedy of his life.

But Perry insists he doesn't need protecting, and he proceeds to prove it us and to the three remaining people who care the most about him: Gary, the owner of Holsted's Marine Supply who has employed Perry since he was sixteen years old; Keith, Perry's heavy, flatulent, potty-mouthed co-worker; and Cherry a young, tattooed and pierced cashier at the local Marina Handy Mart.

When Perry wins the Washington state lottery we learn just who his real friends (and real family) are. His mostly estranged cousin-brothers come knocking, strangers arrive on his doorstep...and we hope--oh how we hope--that Perry can learn to distinguish the friends from the leeches.

There is so much to love about this big-hearted first novel. The characters are rich and real and alive. Perry's voice is fresh, authentic, consistent, and homespun-philosopher-wise...and then, there's the ending. Oh, the ending! The ending is so unexpectedly perfect and poignant and satisfying. I keep trying not to write, "Keep a box of tissues handy," but, well, keep a box of tissues handy. You'll need them. But--to use another cliche--you'll be smiling through your tears.

Whale DNA proves illegal "bycatch"

New Scientist has published an article about how DNA technology is being used to establish the number of Minke whales being taken illegally in North Korean waters.

PEN World Voices

Mark Sarvas over at The Elegant Variation has a wonderful wrap-up of PEN's World Voices conference, including panel summaries, videos of readings, photos and lectures.