The response Offutt evokes goes beyond stories that compel or infect. The effect is deeper, even, than connecting with the other, the human experience, or even the self. Offutt’s stories remind:  “You have stories you have to tell, and you are the only one to tell them.”

As much as we need our stories, our homes, we must be held accountable for sharing our needs, for writing our stories, for owning whatever is Home.

A big thank you to Annotation Nation for publishing my notes on Chris Offutt’s collection of short stories: Out of the Woods.

Go buy a copy and get reading!

What struck me with Tower’s book? The fun of it. Tower delivers readers into his imagined worlds. The voices of his narrators are individual, well-rendered, real. The content and delivery of his stories – whether sentimental, blackly comic, or savage – left me taking notes and contriving ideas, all while having a hell of a good time reading.

Thanks to Annotation Nation for publishing my notes on Wells Tower’s Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned.

Get a copy and get reading!

Bartleby Snopes Issue 9 is ready for your eyes! Featured is my dialogue contest winning story “Open Me.”

Have a read, share the issue, and consider giving the magazine additional support by buying a copy (print or ebook).

Ben Loory’s Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day are fast, deep-reaching experiments in touching on the simple darkness that exists around the root of human imagination. The fun he has on the page translates to a reading experience that’s addicting, engaging, enlightening, and liberating. It’s a mix of rule-breaking, fear-inviting, and fat-cutting.

Thanks to Annotation Nation for publishing my notes.

Get a copy and settle in for some quality unsettling!

I cannot think of a book that has more moved me, changed my mind, or affirmed what I believe than this collection of essays.  Through the essays in Eula Biss’s Notes from No Man’s Land, there is and offering of permission to think honestly and express freely. She impressed me more than any writer of this generation both in the bravery of her presentation and in the quality of her writing.

Special thanks once again to Annotation Nation’s CNF site for publishing my study.

Worth a read. Support the author and her work by purchasing a copy.

Recently, I admitted to myself that I like gritty western stories.  Patrick deWitt’s The Sisters Brothers is a gritty western story, to be sure, but it’s also a study in character development, unique voice, and literary craft – a combination place to which few gritty western stories arrive (a nod to Cormac McCarthy for long ago transcending the genre).

Thanks to Annotation Nation for taking my notes on The Sisters Brothers. 

Worth getting a copy – find it here.

The Sex Lives of Cannibals had me, as few books actually do, laughing out loud. J. Maarten Troost’s writing is smart, funny, sometimes indulgent, and engaging the whole way through.

Thanks to AnnotationNation’s CNFNation for publishing my notes on The Sex Lives of Cannibals.

Worth the read. Get it here.