"An intimate glimpse into the lives of writers, runners, sons, brothers, husbands, and fathers." The New York Stories is TNBBC Top Reads of 2015, quite fine company and so Ludlow.

It really is Top Read, much appreciated, fine company, thrilled, and Ludlow, be still our hearts. Excerpt? Of course. Endlessly.

"We have the privilege of seeing some at their most honest and vulnerable and others as they make mistakes, come of age, regress in maturity, and carry forward hope that they will make better choices next time." 

We are Alternating Press interview.

We really totally are. And we are most appreciative too. Totally. Excerpt? Cool.

I like that you brought up anxieties. Many of your books’ characters seem to be working through anxieties of their own, as well. Do you find that fiction helps, as a way to process your own anxieties?

I’m glad to be of assistance. And I am really interested in anxiety, though particularly as a means for exploring how or why we act, or don’t. How does anxiety—among other things: fear, confusion, joy, ego, depression, envy—serve as an obstacle to being in healthy relationships or engaging in healthy behaviors? How do these things impact our ability to communicate with those we love, or might love, and undermine our ability to be as great, or fulfilled—that’s a lot of or, sorry—as we might have been. And the characters who struggle with those things are the kinds of characters I’m interested in writing about. Some of them, like the characters in my debut novel, Lucky Man, are much like I am, and others, like the lead characters in my novels, My Father’s House or You Can Make Him Like You, or the lead protagonists in a number of the stories in The New York Stories, especially the trio of linked stories—“Shooting Stick,” “No Nothing,” and “Vision”—run into situations I run into, but make decisions that I would not make. All of which is interesting to me. Now, does writing about anxiety help me to process my anxieties? Only slightly. Like running, it’s an outlet and a form of managing my anxieties. But it’s more like fertile ground for my writing than a way to process it. It’s calming, even therapeutic, but it’s not therapy. I don’t necessarily understand any of it any better, but I do get to wallow in it in ways that are productive and interesting.

"Brilliantly birthed." TNBBC Short Story Month I AM love there is.

Also, quite fine company. Excerpt? Word.

"Tanzer brilliantly birthed each persona, forced their words up off the page, and made each one come alive much like a puppeteer brings life to his marionettes. A quick, enticing collection, clocking in at just under 100 pages, that demonstrates a brand new side of Ben."

"Not a single moment that wanes or bores." The Lavinia Ludlow and TNBBC show The New York Stories some much appreciated review love.

For real. All of it. Excerpt? Word.

"The thing about Tanzer is that his writing is never irresponsibly fast-paced and disorienting. Instead, he uses the space as if it’s the last he will ever have—no piece is ever more than a couple thousand words, and there’s not a single moment that wanes or bores. Each story packs a straightforward and honest anecdote with situations most can identify with—growing pains, lessons learned through trauma, family issues, falling in and out of love."

TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog "STABBED IN THE BACK gutted me" The New York Stories Tweet hype there is.

getting started with AFTER THE FLOOD and whoa STABBED IN THE BACK gutted me @BenTanzer
— TNBBC (@TNBBC) April 27, 2015

TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog "so much potential inifidelity" The New York Stories Twitter hype there is.

Back to reading @BenTanzer's THE NEW YORK STORIES and the second collection is painful. So much (potential) infidelity in those pages.
— TNBBC (@TNBBC) April 23, 2015

TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog "cracking open" The New York Stories Twitter hype there so is indeed.

It's been awhile since I've given myself over to @BenTanzer, so I'm cracking open THE NEW YORK STORIES https://t.co/GNGMETRh7s
— TNBBC (@TNBBC) April 20, 2015

Lost in Space is much appreciated Tweet hype courtesy of the TNBBC.

A signed copy of LOST IN SPACE arrived yesterday! Thanks, @BenTanzer
— TNBBC (@TNBBC) November 10, 2014

Wherein we get to Writers Recommend at TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog and so we do by getting all The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll.

So totally Writers Recommend indeed. And so totally appreciative we are. Excerpt? Word.

"I re-read books as a boy, I was ravenous for words and the escape and balm they provided, and some books filled the chasm for me again, and again, Carrie, The Catcher in the Rye, The Outsiders, Flowers in the Attic, Then Again, Maybe I Won’t, The Chocolate War, and so many others, but none of them was The Basketball Diaries.

            It was electric, and real time, all live wire, and nerve endings, a mash-up of masturbation, drugs, sports, underage sex, predators, crime, writing, hustle, art, New York City in the mid-sixties, and people love to talk about cities, especially New York City as characters in stories, but usually they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about, here though New York City was oozing and fresh, and another breathing slice of a book, that was so graphic, vivid, and fraught with gunk and stickiness, it was like watching a documentary."

Wherein we talk our Top Three Books of the year with TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog and quite pleasantly encounter some Orphans love as well.

Great writers. Lovely lists. And sublime books.  It's all quite pleasant really. Big thanks to the TNBBC for asking, our choices are below, and there is a much more robust list to come. For real. And totally so.

We the Animals by Justin Torres

Near feral in its intense bursts of family instability.

Raymond Carver Will Not Raise Our Children by Dave Newman

Newman knows true.

The Temple of Air by Patricia Ann McNair

What it means to live, and mostly cope, with things missing in our lives, hands, parents, children, breasts, love, that are at times violently taken from us, and other times more subtly so.

"Tanzer brilliantly birthed each persona." I Am gets TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog'd. And likes it. A lot.

And big thanks to the Lori Hettler for that. Well, that and for including I Am in such fine company. Drinks, yes, excerpt, cool?

"Tanzer brilliantly birthed each persona, forced their words up off the page, and made each one come alive much like a puppeteer brings life to his marionettes. A quick, enticing collection, clocking in at just under 100 pages, that demonstrates a brand new side of Ben."

At the risk of repeating ourselves, we very much dug this shit. So very much.

Damn. Finished @BenTanzer's ORPHANS. So unlike him yet so familiarly him. Very much dug this shit. So very much.
— TNBBC (@TNBBC) September 21, 2013

We are digging this Tweet pretty bad. Very bad. A lot. All of it. Thank you.

Been reading @BenTanzer's ORPHANS and man, it's so different than his other stuff but still so much the same. Digging this pretty bad.
— TNBBC (@TNBBC) September 21, 2013

Wherein we engage in paternal patter, or palaver, if that's your thing, and FOUR FATHERS KICKSTARTER hype, with the Dave Housley at TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog.

We really do. And we are very thankful for the opportunity to do so. Excerpt? Cool.

DH: Related to the question above, but something I've been thinking about a little as I edit my piece for FOUR FATHERS: what would you tell your kids if they were sitting down to read FOUR FATHERS? How old do you picture them being when you think about that (if, indeed, it's a thing you've thought about)? 

BT: I have thought about this, and what I would like to tell them is that they will see slices of our lives, sometimes mine, or theirs, and that these slices were spun into something else, things I was trying to figure out, and stories that people can relate to. It also feels like there is a subtext to this question about whether I think they will be offended or upset by what they read. Which I guess is the subtext to my answer as well. I don't think these stories as a whole will be upsetting. They reflect more poorly on the protagonist if anyone, though as I re-read them, they are mostly about confusion and how we communicate, feeling abandoned, coping, and the million small things I constantly think about. And from that perspective, my kids only play a small role in these pieces, significant, but small, despite the content. 

Talking writing, fathering, and FOUR FATHERS with the Tom Williams at TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog.

Like for real. Here. And excerpt. Cool? Yes.

BT: Do you think it’s possible to write pieces such as you have for this collection and not think about your own father and you relationship with him?

TW: Right now, at the risk of sounding schmaltzy, it’s the best it’s ever been, my relationship with my dad. But what’s particular to it is that we never had an easy relationship before. Here’s why, I think: My dad grew up without a father and in being my father he had no one clearly to model himself after. Now he’s a grandfather and it’s different: he did have a grandfather (even though that gentleman, my great-grandfather, was born in the 19^th Century). And I’d have to say he’s warmed to the role of grandpa far better than I have as a dad.

But looking forward, and spinning off far from your question, Ben, I’m projecting into a future where my son has a son and how he’s got so much more to look back to for guidance. Not just me, but my dad. His stories. I hope I’m around then. And if I’m not, I hope Finn shares with his son my stories (the ones in this book and the ones I’ve told him), and my dad’s stories.

A TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog Cobalt Press FOUR FATHERS Kickstarter interview series Andrew Keating introduction thing.

Truth. So please do hit it. It just might change your life. Excerpt? Yes. Totally.

"There are few subjects richer than fatherhood. I won’t lie, the first time I heard someone use the phrase fatherhood fiction or dick-lit (it was Greg Olear, a couple years ago when Fathermucker was happening), I snorted a little bit. This, of course, is the reaction of a non-father, of a son who admittedly believes that being a dad isn’t all that complicated. Then I read this manuscript. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, other than that I knew two of the authors pretty well and loved their stuff. So I read, and kept reading, and I laughed, and I felt my chest tighten with anxiety, and I might have even cried. How wrong I was.

Four Fathers, and each of its authors, delivers fatherhood in a multitude of thought-provoking, heartfelt ways: from Tom Williams’ pair of long short stories which define a man by who he is as a son in relation to his father, and who he is as a father in relation to his son; to BL Pawelek’s poetry, dedicated to his daughter, Abbey Road. Then you have Ben Tanzer's flash fiction pieces, which all seem to reflect up on the idea of "I'm a dad…what the heck do I do now?" and Dave Housley's novella begging the Osbornesque question "What the f*** is a 'Bieber?'" There are moments of absolute sweetness, and moments of perversity. There are points where you’ll want to laugh out loud, but you’ll stop once you realize you’re only laughing at yourself, your own fears, your own misgivings about what it means to be a dad."

"It felt like a cleaning of the slate and of properly saying goodbye." My Father's House gets a much appreciated Father's Day Fiction shout-out from TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog.

Digging it we are and quite thrilled to be included with such fine company as well. So please do take a look and drinks on us Hettler whenever, and wherever, we next meet. Excerpt? Cool.

"And I felt it was a true reflection of the chaotic feelings that rush through you from moment to moment, day to day, when preparing yourself for the ultimate and unavoidable loss of someone you can't imagine living without."

We are The Fight Song Blog Tour stop.

Wherein TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog asks us to riff on some of our favorite books of the year. And we do.

There will be more. So much more. Soon. Promise. For what would the end of the year be without lists? Sad and empty, that's what. But for now please do enjoy some TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog Caldwell Rosenblum Nelson love and please do check out said favorite books because they just may change your life. For real. Even if only briefly.

So behind we are. We are also more "The New York Stories Tour 2012." Where Writers Write. And TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog.

So true that. Late we are. Away from the office and internet access denied. But we are back. We are Where Writers Write. We are TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog. There is Szumowski. And we are most appreciative. With more to come.