Today's Document
shark vs the universe
One Nice Bug Per Day
sheepfilms
Product Placement
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
@theartofmadeline
NASA
tannertan36
bliss lane
Claire Keane
★
if i look back, i am lost
Fai_Ryy
occasionally subtle
hello vonnie
JVL
No title available
$LAYYYTER
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
seen from Bangladesh
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seen from Iraq
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@ethelrohan
Send to SmokeLong Quarterly Magazine
Keep sending me your stories for @SmokeLong Quarterly Magazine this week where I'm guest editor. I'm still waiting to find THE story that grabs me and catches my breath: http://ethelrohan.com/blog/
My Shebooks Book Cover, My Fear, Revealed.
The Short Story Uncovered
I'm excited to teach my six session class at San Francisco Writers' Grotto on Sunday afternoons, starting February 2nd. Still spaces available. Join me. I'm hard at work on a great syllabus.
Latest Issue
Bound Off Short Story Podcast: Issue 93 Released October 15, 2013 7 minutes. File size: 7MB. 128kb-encoded MP3.
The Mother Written and read by Ruby Cowling 2 minutes and 32 seconds. Starts at 1:04.
Ruby Cowling lives in London, UK, and was born in West Yorkshire. Whatever year it is, it’s safe to say she is writing a short story collection and a novel. Find out more at rubyorruth.wordpress.com
Three Seasons Written and read by Katherine D. Stutzman. 2 minutes and 10 seconds. Starts at 4:03.
Katherine D. Stutzman’s fiction has appeared in The Summerset Review, jmww, and Bartleby Snopes, among other publications. She lives, writes, and teaches in Philadelphia.
Meet Lou Villar. He broke bad before Breaking Bad. In 1967, he was a clean-cut Spanish teacher at Coronado High School in Southern California. By the mid-1970s, he was smuggling millions of dollars of high grade pot across U.S. borders. Read Coronado High for free, courtesy of warbyparker. Written by Joshuah Bearman, the journalist behind Argo.
Are you our next PR Intern?
My hair is looking better than this these days…just FYI.
Officially Published Today, September 30, from Queen's Ferry Press
Today: Official Publication of Goodnight Nobody
Today is the official publication date for Goodnight Nobody. I am deeply grateful to my wonderful publisher, Erin McKnight at Queen’s Ferry Press. Erin has proved a dream to work with and I couldn’t have asked for a better publication experience.
I remain deeply grateful also to Siobhan Fallon, Roxane Gay, Peter Orner, and Chad Simpson for their generous blurbs and spirits.
My thanks to Myfanwy Collins, Mary Miller, and Mya Spalter for reading the manuscript and providing excellent feedback.
Steven Seighman delivered a stunning book cover, with fancy French flaps, that I’m thrilled with.
From my heart, my thanks to the readers who have and will read Goodnight Nobody. I feel supported by so many and that’s a true blessing and source of joy.
It’s been a tough few months. I lost my mother, father, and father-in-law over a three month period. My deep thanks go to my parents-in-law for being such great grandparents and raising a great son, my husband. My deepest thanks go to my parents for doing your best, for bringing me here.
“I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life. I’ve learned that making a “living” is not the same thing as making a “life.” I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back. I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one. I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn. I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”― Maya Angelou
Dear Tumblr
I've neglected thee. I will try to do better.
Ethel.
This week on Joyland
"My marriage is ending and it’s my fault. In the other room, Andrew is snoring. I’m on the couch. Here is the buttery weight of polar fleece on bare skin, the entire length of my body unblemished by a goose bump. Try not to anticipate the cold."
A stunner of a story by Carleigh Baker.
A different kind of haunted house from David Schuman.
A classic from Joyland’s archives by Ethel Rohan, whose new book of stories, Goodnight Nobody, is now available.
Peril, the peculiar, and people on the brink fascinate me. They also make necessary and interesting material for story. Victor LaValle instilled in me the writer’s ethic: Be Interesting. Everything’s interesting, even the most mundane, if we render it in strange and unfamiliar ways. What characters can and cannot do or say compels me. I’m always plumbing characters for their secrets and fears. For their actions and inaction. For what they couldn’t bear others to know about them. That’s where the juice is.
Ethel Rohan, on writing, as interviewed by Jennifer Messner (via threadless-gs, thanks for the shout out)
Goodnight Nobody Official Release September 30th & Party Invite
Goodnight Nobody Book Launch
PLEASE JOIN ME
on Thursday, October 10th, at 6:30 pm, in Bookshop West Portal to launch my new story collection, Goodnight Nobody. We'll enjoy wine, nibbles, and Irish whiskey, and make merry about writing and books. Please spread the word. All Welcome.
“Fans of Ethel Rohan’s writing will find, in her latest and outstanding collection, Goodnight Nobody, a writer who has never been more intelligent, more graceful, more moving. Whether it’s a young girl torn between a loving father and an abusive mother, or a photographer who is losing her eyesight while her husband bears witness, or a woman who wants nothing more than a sign from her husband that he sees her, Rohan writes about people searching for a place to belong or a place to breathe or simply, a place to be. In Rohan’s eminently capable hands and words, these stories give us that hope that these searching people she writes will find everything they want or need.”—ROXANE GAY, author of An Untamed State and Bad Feminist
Some Logistics
Goodnight Nobody is currently on sale in Bookshop West Portal and in other fine independent bookstores like Green Apple Books. Stampede!
For more information on Goodnight Nobody, including purchase details, please visit Queen's Ferry Press.
Goodnight Nobody can also be purchased at Small Press Distribution.
Please RSVP:[email protected]
Some Praise
“Kafka...once wrote that a book should be an ice pick to break the frozen sea inside us. Lots of times while reading Rohan’s new book, Goodnight Nobody, I felt that icy jab—when the pain endured by fictional characters is so real that it becomes my own.”—Peter Orner in San Francisco Magazine
“Rohan specializes in longing … Often her stories are about quiet inner struggles with loud strikes of violence surrounding them…. The darkness in these stories is often unexpected and always intriguing. But Rohan makes sure humor is there for balance.”—Christy Crutchfield in The Small Press Book Review
“Reading these stories is like glimpsing into profound emotional moments that mirror the ways we all feel at different times…. Familiarity in an unfamiliar landscape is a privilege to read; being able to invest in these characters, and accept that we’re not lonely after all.”—Michelle Goode in Metazen
“Rohan tells these tales with sentences that are at once fragile and fierce, wielded with both expert precision and a vulnerable heart. In each case, the potential peril is made visceral…”—Jennifer Messner in Books, Personally
Winners Announced of the Abroad Writers Conference Flash Fiction Contest
Heartfelt congratulations to the following winners of the Abroad Writers Conference Flash Fiction Contest. Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize Winner & F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature, selected the three winners:
1st Place: Darothy Durkac — “What He Did with the insides”
2nd Place: Kelly Creighton — “Until They’ve Hatched”
3rd Place: Hugh McQuillan — “Music To Drive By”
1st Prize: Free Admission to my 3 Day “Brilliance of Brevity” Workshop. Single room for seven nights, conference & a celebratory dinner in the castle with Judge, Robert Olen Butler. Total value $1, 085.
2nd Prize: A scrumptious full banquet dinner at Lismore Castle with conference luminaries: Robert Olen Butler, Karen Joy Fowler, Sarah Gristwood, Mariel Hemingway, Edward Humes, Claire Keegan, Jacquelyn Mitchard, Anne Perry, Michelle Roberts, Alex Shoumatoff, Patricia Smith, Jane Smiley, and Lily Tuck. And, yeah, I'll be there too.
3rd Prize: A complimentary pass to conference events at Lismore Castle.
The three winning stories will be published in 2014 in Ireland's premier literary magazine, The Stinging Fly.
Shortlist:
Soojin Kim — “You Sound Well”
Ellen McCarthy — “In The Rain”
Darothy, Kelly, Hugh, Soojin, and Ellen--I very much look forward to meeting at least some, if not all, of you in Lismore Castle in December and to congratulating each of you in person. My deep thanks to everyone who entered the contest.
From Robert Olen Butler:
I was truly impressed with the high quality of submissions in this contest. The decision process was arduous and nuanced. The top twenty or so would have been among the winners of more than a few flash fictions contests I’ve judged. And I saw real potential in virtually all of them. Ireland must have been a powerful lure for nascent talent. That I might have a chance to work with some of these writers is very exciting for me as a teacher.
And please send all the submitters my warmest regards. There’s not a one of them I wouldn’t be sincerely delighted to work with. Honestly, given my years of experience judging contests, that surprises the hell out of me.
I still can't quite believe my good fortune to return to Ireland in December to teach awriting workshop in Lismore Castle on short-short stories and the brilliance of brevity. I will teach a three day course December 11-13 from 10:30 am to 4:30 pm.
The course will be packed with reading, writing, and workshopping, and all infused with enthusiasm and passion. To register email Nancy Gerbault at abroadwriters at yahoo.com. Workshop cost is $500 (approx. €379 Euros). Affordable housing in Lismore and its environs are available and again email Nancy at abroadwriters at yahoo.com for details.
Please join me in Lismore. We will do great things together.
PEN/Guernica Flash Series
This Is What It Means
I learned several weeks ago, while in NYC, standing in line to visit the 9/11 Memorial, that I had won the Bryan MacMahon Short Story Award, a prize hailed as “one of Ireland’s most prestigious awards for the single short story.” I felt winces of guilt–celebrating amidst the shadow of death and the 9/11 Memorial, but I couldn’t help my excitement and the leap of my insides.
Shortly after my return from NYC to San Francisco, I booked my flights to attend the Listowel Festival to accept my prize in person (approx. $2,600) and to read my winning story. However, my mother passed away on April 11th and I had to phone the airlines and ask them to change my itinerary, bringing my travel forward and allowing me fly home for my mother’s funeral. The expense aside, I did not have the energy or heart to return to Ireland again this month for the Festival–even though I very much wanted to be there.
The award remained confidential until last night, when it was at last announced at the opening ceremony of Listowel Writers’ Week. During the ceremony, I received the most surprising and touching of emails–from someone I had met for the first time in Dublin the day after we buried our mother. In his email, he said he was standing inside the Listowel Arms Hotel, amidst the applause for my “great win.” He also said that he had no doubt my departed mother was also sharing in the joy. I really like to believe that. That my mother’s spirit continues, whole and well, and that at long last she can be the kind of mother she always wanted to be. I can see her nod and smile, her eyes alight and her face full with pride, just as I see in this win my mother country nod and smile, telling me to keep on. And it feels like grace, like I can breathe better.
