My story “April First,” partly inspired by my work as a census enumerator, has been accepted at Chicago Quarterly Review. Special thanks to Nick Berken, Steve Griffin, Brandon Warner, Morgan Cahn, Lydia Sue, Fink, Jessie Appleman, and Justin Warner, who took & shrank the Chicago photo below.
You can’t prove I’m not Banksy.
After sending them my work for 4 years, I’m thrilled to announce that my story “Cottontails” has been accepted at Colorado Review. This was one of the trickiest stories I’ve ever written. The point of view took forever to figure out. It was tough to write about an African-American college football player because I wanted to be faithful to the character but needed to sidestep easy depictions and stereotypes. I will say that the research was a lot of fun. I suppose that’s yet another reason to write about your obsessions: in this case, the Florida Everglades, psychological warfare, and science fiction.
Special thanks to Steven Schwartz, Ben Findlay, Derek Askey, and the entire CR staff for their support. Also thanks to Santonio Holmes, Fred Taylor, Robert J. Labay and ESPN Films.
Remember Kafka’s The Metamorphosis? Imagine it turned inside out and shrunk to about 2,000 words. That’s the story I wrote. It’s gone live at The Monarch review. Special thanks to Jake Uitti for all his help.
I was fortunate enough to meet Ron Carlson in person when he read at the University of Pittsburgh this spring. He was hilarious and insightful on stage and a really nice guy in person. I know my students took a lot away from his reading. And so, I’m especially honored that my story “Pockets” was included in a new Los Angeles Review issue dedicated to him.
Sal Pane taught me how to drive. True story. I’ve had my license for years, but I lived in Pittsburgh for about a decade before I bought a car. So, I would drive Sal from bar to bar and he would give me driving tips. Most of the tips sounded like this: “Stop sign! Stop sign!” These tips were often delivered at high volume with a somewhat exasperated undertone.
When I finally mastered the stop sign, Sal calmed down. Sometimes, he would sit in the passenger seat and jot down notes in his precious little Moleskine notebook. He was especially fond of coming up with weird boasts. “Listen to this, Robert. ‘I’ve got more money than the Federal Reserve.’ ‘I got more money than Dionne Warwick.’ What do you think?” I never knew what to say.
Apparently, Sal just got his his collection of various braggadocio published. It’s called Last Call in the City of Bridges and you can read more about it here.
Me, Salvatore Pane, and some other guy lived in the same apartment between 2010 and 2012. One day, Sal walked in our front door. Drunk, as usual. As he stumbled down the hallway towards his bedroom, he started yelling, “If looks could kill, I would be an uzi.” It was around 10 AM, and the baby that lived upstairs started screaming. Sal started screaming, too. He sounded eerily like the baby. Maybe he was mocking it. After a few minutes, he passed out in the hallway. I thought about rolling him over so he didn’t choke on the inevitable vomit, but he was really overweight at the time. Just lifting one of his arms was exhausting.
Apparently, Sal wrote a book about how great it was to live with me. It’s called Last Call in the City of Bridges. You can preorder it here.
I usually wait until I read a book to promote it, but in this case, I’ve been reading both authors’ work for years. Two books I’m really excited about are Matt Bell’s “In the House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods” and Amber Sparks’ “May We Shed These Human Bodies.” I’m pretty sure Matt Bell is one of the hardest working writers out there, and that’s saying a lot. Even though Matt had a million other things going on as he finished his novella, he sat down with The Fourth River to do an interview, and that was mighty nice of him. My favorite story of his is “His Last Great Gift,” which I’ve taught a few times over the years.
I’ve been fortunate enough to meet her in person a couple times and I must say that Amber Sparks is wonderful. It’s hard to pick between “The Dictator is Drinking Alone” or the ultraviolent “Until Your Carcass Explodes on the Canvas” as my favorite story. I’ve never preordered a book in my life, but I’ve made an exception because I want this debut collection in my hands as quickly as possible. In related news, there is a really gorgeous photoset by Charles Bergquist commissioned by Annalemma Magazine for “The Dictator is Drinking Alone.”
And finally, I just wanted to say that Braddock Avenue Books, who is publishing my buddy Sal Pane’s debut novel in November, is officially the next big thing. This publishing company is run by very smart and capable people, and it’s a great new chapter in the story of the rising small city of Braddock, PA.
I completely missed out on Firefly when it was on the air. I was in college at the time and wasn’t watching much television. Years later, I remember seeing Serenity in the DVD section of Best Buy ads, but I didn’t know what it was. Something about the DVD cover made me suspicious. It looked like bad sci-fi: cheap special effects, bad storytelling, possibly campy, but in a bad way. The spaceship looked like a giant metal Cornish hen. So I avoided it. Until about three months ago. I was flipping through Netflix, trying to find a good movie, and came across Serenity. I figured I’d give it five minutes and then I was hooked.
After finishing the movie, I remembered that there was a television show, too. Which, of course, was a terrible way to experience this universe, but I didn’t have much of a choice. If I were to pitch it to a newcomer, here is how I’d sell it:
Imagine if Star Wars were a television show. And Han Solo were the main character. Also, imagine if George Lucas really, really liked horses and put them in every episode he could. That’s Firefly, and I mean the Star Wars reference as a compliment.
At any rate, I finished watching the series a couple weeks ago and wanted to post some of the things I liked most about the show. This list doesn’t really contain any spoilers, but you might want to skip it if you haven’t seen the show and want to be surprised.
I didn’t realize this until Wikipedia pointed it out, but the producers get authenticity points for not adding sound effects during the space scenes. Because space is a vacuum. The producers lose authenticity points, however, for the sheer number of lever-action rifles people are still using 500 years in the future.
What did the casting call for River look like? “Hey, how are you at wandering around and mumbling? Also, here’s a Bible. We’d like to see you destroy it, please. With style.”
Halfway through the season, and for no apparent reason, the characters start swearing in Chinese. Or using Chinese to express regret or strong opinions.
The clever dialogue. It’s even better in Serenity.
Remember Christina Hendricks? From Mad Men? She appears in two of the best episodes of this series.
Some of the best episodes played with the viewer’s expectations and were unpredictable in a way that’s simply delightful.
The theme song. Whedon wrote the lyrics, and I kind of wish he’d sang them as well. Like Chuck Norris in Walker, Texas Ranger.
The fact that Mark Sheppard, AKA Romo Lampkin, makes a couple brief appearances as a surly criminal named Badger.
I could go on and rattle off several lines of my favorite dialogue and talk about my favorite character (Kaylee). But I guess I’ll just sign off by saying it’s a great show. I miss it already, and I highly recommend it. If the fact that it’s by the director of The Avengers gets people to see it, that’s fine by me. That was a pretty good movie as well.
cast photo by Flickr user RavenU
I’m very happy to announce that my story “Pockets” has been accepted for publication in issue 12 of The Los Angeles Review.
Robert Yune 