An unabashed Happy Birthday My Father's House cross-promotional moment thing.

Happy Birthday Bruce. And now some unabashed cross-promotion. My Father's House. And the reviews thus far. Outsider Writers Collective. decomP. Literary Chicago. Pank. Word. 

New piece. "We Were All Here." In the Fix it Broken.

Very excited to have a new piece "We Were All Here" in the Fix it Broken. The line-up is most kind including the xTx and Heather Fowler among others. And the Fashionable Fiction T-shirt designer is none other than the Ryan W. Bradley. The story is also one of a series of loosely connected Chicago stories we've been working on including "The Guy" in Smalldoggies, "Arousal" in decomP and "Taking Flight" in Metazen. Big happiness and some excerpt. Enjoy.

"We were all here, in Chicago at the dawn of a new decade, with a new president from our city. A president we had all watched march triumphantly into Grant Park after his victory was assured and briefly turn our second city into the center of the universe.

Obama was gone now though. Off to Washington to change the world. He hadn’t really ended any wars yet, however, and the economy was better, but what of the lack of real jobs, not to mention gay rights?

We didn’t talk about these things, he was gone, and we were all here, standing around the island in Frank and Bonnie’s kitchen."

And now we pause for a brief Michael Tanzer interlude.

It is June 3rd. And today is the birthday of TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer's father Michael Tanzer, artist, advocate, raconteur, tough guy and pool player. He has been dead eleven years this coming fall and at the risk of being morbid, nothing about that seems sadder than the idea that he will slowly fade from our collective memory, something we know he would have hated. So, in an effort to avoid, or at least prolong said fade, please do take a moment to revisit our 2008 storySouth award nominated creative nonfiction joint and Michael Tanzer homage "PaintWriteDeathLifeArt (Sketches from a Life in Art)," and please do note, and yes this seems coarse as hell, that his last work of art graces the cover of our soon to be released novella My Father's House, something we couldn't be more excited about.

"Such an engaging, entertaining read." You Can Make Him Like You gets decomP'd. And likes it. A lot.

We promised a double-dose of decomP and here it is, with a most kind review of the You Can Make Him Like You, and much thanks to reviewer and TBWCL, Inc. favorite Spencer Dew. Drinks on us brother when next we meet.

"The set-up for all of this is familiar enough. Keith has a distant father, his wife gets pregnant, he deletes her texts informing him of every time the baby kicks, sneaks a joint with a buddy, wrestles with how trapped he feels. Even Jeff’s psychological summation has a whiff of MacGuffin to it: “You’re human Keith, deal with it. Confront it, don’t run, don’t tell a good story, just confront who you are and what hurts you, and scares you and makes you sad. Those are normal reactions to everyday life. You’re human. But You Can Make Him Like You is such an engaging, entertaining read precisely because of this suggestion. Tanzer doesn’t just want to tell a “good story,” he wants to put something real on the page and have it hit his readers right in the heart, the balls, the tear ducts."

"Arousal." And a double-dose of decomP love.

This is the first dose of a double-dose of the always stellar decomP, this dose being our latest quasi-Chicago story "Arousal" which runs in decomP's May issue, and follows on the heels of "The Guy" which ran in the Smalldoggies earlier this week. Big thanks decomP and more soon.

“You know how much The West Wing arouses me sexually?” the wife says.

I do, the combination of Rob Lowe, Mary Louise Parker and progressive politics are clearly too stimulating to ignore.

“I do,” I respond, “and whenever you say this I want to tell you that I feel like I’m in a short story. Not a good one necessarily, but definitely a story about us or people like us, white, aging, wannabe, Chicago hipsters who vow to watch The Wire and bemoan the loss of dive bars in the city.”

“You definitely like to talk,” the wife says.

“I thought that was one of the things you liked about me.”

“At one time I did,” she says smiling."

We are Fab 5. Sweetness.

Quite geeked we are to be included, along with the Suzanne Burns, in the new edition of the DOGZPLOT Fab 5 series, where authors are invited to share the five pieces of their work they wish could get a little more attention. We chose to focus on pieces that ran in Thieves Jargon, decomP, RAGAD, THE2NDHAND and Dogzplot itself, and we are most appreciative for the chance to do so. Big thanks Dogzplot, drinks, and dogs, on us, when next we meet.

decomP action.

There is much decomP action upon us. The April edition. Check. a Kickstarter campaign? Ditto. And an interview with Editor and TBWCYL, Inc. favorite Jason Jordan at Sonora Review. Totally. Good stuff. And some excerpt. Enjoy.

NS: Is becoming “online only” something to be worried about?

JJ: I don’t think so. Rather than pit online and print against each other, why not combine them? After all, you can do things with print that you can’t do online and vice versa. I often think of what Lee K. Abbott said in Dzanc’s Best of the Web 2009: “good writing is good writing, no matter where we find it.”

Feel the hype. Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres by Spencer Dew.

One-time This Podcast Will Change Your Life podcastee, contributor to This Zine Will Change Your Life and all-around TBWCYL, Inc. favorite Spencer Dew has a new joint out, Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres from the quite stellar local publisher Another New Calligraphy, and we are quite stoked,so stoked in fact, that we want you to be stoked as well, so please do be stoked, please do take a look and if you a moment please feel free to read Spencer's essay on the writing of the book at the decomP, got it, good.

"A portrait of the author as man no longer so young." 99 Problems gets decomP'd. And likes it. A lot.

Old friend, TBWCYL, Inc. favorite and This Zine Will Change Your Life contributor Spencer Dew has written a really thoughtful review of 99 Problems at the always stellar decomP - a literary magazine and we are quite appreciative. Quite.

"There is something diary-like to much of this, yet there is something more here, too; a writer at work, crafting raw experience into product, with discipline and hunger."

August decomP. Rejoice.

Well, rejoice, and the hit it. There you go.