One week early, that’s how! Ha! But seriously…When I was at the May on-campus residency for my MFA, I thought through what I needed to accomplish over the next eight months or so, prior to my graduation in January. Here’s my list of “to-dos” for graduation: Re-write the first 2/3 of the novel-in-progress (done!) Finish the last 1/3 of the novel-in-progress (not yet…not until January, likely) Submit and place three stories in lit mags or online journals (40+ submissions, one s

Instead of just posting ONE story to read online (which will likely be what I do, most Wednesday mornings) I thought I would start with posting a whole site: The short fiction section at a website called East of the Web. What caught my eye, here, is the treatment of each story as a sort of mini-book…each with a cover and synopsis, ready to be perused and read. As we move deeper into a digital age, it seems to me that THIS will be the direction short fiction takes, even within

I first read a Pinckney Benedict story before I realized who Pinckney was, and before I realized I would be studying in a program where he is a member of the instructional staff. About a year before I decided to apply to the Queens University MFA program, I purchased a copy of the anthology, New Stories from the South, 2008, edited by ZZ Packer. Somehow, I think of my self as a Southern writer, even though I’ve spent most of my life in Ohio and Indiana. There is something tha