Kyle Beachy's Blog, page 3

Buddy's Body

The second of my Wigleaf stories has gone live, this one called "Buddy's Body," a case of the title itself playing the starting point for all that appeared after. Hope you enjoy…

Jabber

The new issue, which is the third issue, of Ghost Ocean Magazine features an interview I did face-to-face with Marynia Kolak, a very kind and insightful reader from Roosevelt University's graduate writing program. You'll know it's live, rather than over email, by the many elipses and near-ramblings.

Also recently, Greg Carlisle, author of the tremendously helpful Elegant Complexity, has written the following generous words about The Slide, which I can only imagine were designed as a kind of Christmas eve present to me, delivered via the David Foster Wallace listserv:

The slide is a great novel. It's wonderfully and uniquely descriptive on every page…The characters' voices are perfect…Beachy is like one of DFW's rebels from the TV article who is unafraid to get at the uncomfortable, vulnerable truth underneath the surface. I love this book, and I look forward to the next one.

Flattered as hell and grateful as always. Happy new year, folks.

Without Realizing

How great these days the ubiquity of gut-thumping short short fiction on our magic screens. If you don't check Wigleaf regularly, I hope you'll start. Scott Garson and his compatriots keep things plenty weird, and today I'm happy to have my real short story "Without Realizing" join the party. Originally written in support of the Chicago Rarities Orchard Project, it's a long sentence about a woman changing her mind.

Hope you enjoy…

The Black Boot

Months back, I got a very kind email from Ryan Wilson, who edits The Black Book, a journal out of Los Angeles, asking for "one of your deep, dark, weird pieces that you keep, perhaps, in a shoebox, where no one will find them." So I sent him two, and now they're available in The Black Book Issue 8. The first is a called "Not Good," and the second is, "The Safety." Proof:

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And after looking through my copy I can say it's a fine journal indeed, and recommend you pick up one up here. Thanks again, Ryan. Happy to be included.

Klausen: A Little Book.

As a younger man, writing music reviews nearly ruined my experience as a listener. Part of this was immaturity and a (kind of now) embarrassing need to prove and steadily remind any readers just how enlightened I was, spotting and enumerating an album's flaws in language I considered very, very witty, often for its meanness. The whole thing was fairly ugly, looking back.

So far this hasn't happened with books and book reviews. So far reading remains an act of appreciation rather than destruction. My review of Andreas Maier's novel, Klausen, is up at Look / Listen.

Klausen: a Rad Little Book.

As a younger man, writing music reviews nearly ruined my experience as a listener. Part of this was immaturity and a (kind of now) embarrassing need to prove and steadily remind any readers just how enlightened I was, spotting and enumerating an album's flaws in language I considered very, very witty, often for its meanness. The whole thing was fairly ugly, looking back.

So far this hasn't happened with books and book reviews. So far reading remains an act of appreciation rather than...

Quickies This Week

I'm reading at this Tuesday's Quickies! in Chicago, if you're here. Four minutes each, a bunch of good fun people sitting and standing inside what still counts as my favorite bar in the city. Come on.

Sleep is playing the neighborhood auditorium tonight, so they're out in force, roaming the streets. Meanwhile across the street there's a cop car parked facing the wrong way, it's a one way street and this cop car's doing nothing right. Total disregard. I got sausage on the table and a real sharp knife. Crackers, too.

Quickies This Week

I'm reading at this Tuesday's Quickies! in Chicago, if you're here. Four minutes each, a bunch of good fun people sitting and standing inside what still counts as my favorite bar in the city. Come on.

Sleep is playing the neighborhood auditorium tonight, so they're out in force. So many dudes with hair and beards. Meanwhile across the street there's a cop car parked facing the wrong way, it's a one way street and this cop car's doing nothing right. Total disregard. I got sausage on the table a...

Look, Listen, Repeat.

I'm happy to say that I've joined the crew at St. Louis Magazine's Look/Listen blog. I'll be writing book things, reviews and thoughts and who knows what else. My first bit is a review of Gary Shteyngart's third novel, Super Sad True Love Story.

Satire as a literary mode of expression has always stuck me as problematic. Speaking of humor generally, I once attempted to suss out the issue with Jensen Whelan by calling it (satire) a drunk who requires something sturdy nearby, lest it falls into a...

Wisconsin is a Place

A few Sunday's back I listened to Jodeci's "All My Life" with Nicholas Peterson and we both sang along. It was sublime. And then the weekend following, four of us packed into a car and drove into Wisconsin, a land of at least milk and bratwurst but I can't speak for honey. Please note that my yellow hat reads, "Rap Hurts," and that I inherited it from a rapper from Minnesota who has no idea that I inherited it.

Wissy boys from David Thomas on Vimeo.