Chad Simpson's Blog, page 2

Early April

This past Friday, Jane and I traveled to Iowa City to particpate in the Mission Creek Festival Lit Crawl. It was a great event. I read with some amazing writers: Eleni Sikelianos, Sarah Fox, Chris Martin, Hugh Ferrer, Mary Austin Speaker, Blair Braverman, and John Colburn. I was actually so nervous, I thought I might die. Seriously. While I was reading, I was imagining keeling over, an ambulance coming to extract me from the place. All in all, though: it went okay.

Before Jane and I left for Iowa City, we found out that TELL EVERYONE I SAID HI had been named to the longlist the the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, which was awesome.

Everything that's happened since my book came out, it just makes me feel so lucky.

A couple other things coming up this week:

This Thursday, I'll be reading with my label-mate, Marie-Helene Bertino at Prairie Lights in Iowa City. I think I mentioned before on this website: I'll write more about Prairie Lights later; I anticipate it being pretty emotional.

This Sunday: My buddy Eugene Cross, author of Fires of Our Choosing, invited me to talk to his students at Columbia College. He taught my book there in a class on writing and publishing, and I'm excited to go and hang out with a bunch of undergrads who've been assigned to read Tell Everyone I Said Hi. On Sunday, though, before my visit to his class, I'm going to visit The BookMarket in Glenview, where I'll read, and answer some questions about how my book came into existence, etc. I'm looking forward to it. And I'm hoping that some of you all, if you're near Iowa City or Chicago, will come out and introduce yourselves in the upcoming week. Please. I mean it.

Mid-March

Back in October I published a new story, "Translated from the French," in the inaugural issue of Better: Culture & Lit. They even have a video of me reading the story: Janey filmed me--I was a little embarrassed during it all--standing at the pulpit in my office, reading. I may or may not have been wearing pants. At any rate: Better has been publishing some great work, and now they're doing a Kickstarter so they can spread their Better goodness even further. Here's their Kickstarter video:

In review news:

Jess Stoner published a super-generous and thoughtful and beautifully written review of Tell Everyone I Said Hi over at Necessary Fiction. You can read what she had to say here.

Over at Babble, Brian Gresko made an annotated list of short story collections parents will love, and he was kind enough to include my book in a line-up that, well, I'm not so sure I should be a part of. The other writers include Raymond Carver, J.D. Salinger, A.M. Homes, Jhumpa Lahiri, Karen Russell, Donald Ray Pollock, and Michael Chabon. You can read what Brian had to say here.

In some pretty cool anthology news:

My story "American Bulldog" has been reprinted in New Stories from the Midwest 2012. Jason Lee Brown & Shanie Latham are the Series Editors, and John McNally served as the Guest Editor for this volume. I loved McNally's Troublemakers, another winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award, and I'm floored he chose to include my story in this anthology, which also has work by Charles Baxter, Dan Chaon, and Lee Martin, among others. It's truly a beautiful book, and full of amazing stories.

The title story of my collection, "Tell Everyone I Said Hi," has also been reprinted, in 24 Bar Blues: Two Dozen Tales of Bars, Booze, and the Blues, edited by the excellent Andrew Scott. He, too, has put together an amazing line-up that I'm honored to be a part of. You can see the full table of contents here.

Lastly: Several years ago, I published an essay in Barrelhouse called "Home of the Poor and Unkown." It's about Galesburg and traumatic brain injury and socio-economic class. And Duffy's, a great little bar. And the Chicago Cubs. That essay has now been reprinted in Bring the Noise: The Best Pop Culture Essays from Barrelhouse Magazine. Again, it's a great line-up; I'm thrilled they made my essay a part of it.

In some events news:

I'm going to be reading in Iowa City twice the first few weeks of April: On Friday, April 5th, time & location TBD, I'll be part of the Mission Creek Festival. There are going to be some great bands in town, and Tig Notaro, and a host of cool and talented lit folks.

On Thursday, April 11th, I'm going to be reading at Prairie Lights at 7:00 with Marie-Helene Bertino. I could spend about 10000 words delineating my connection to this awesome little bookstore, but I think I should save that for a separate post.

And, last but not least:

The Believer is holding their annual reader survey. They want to know your three favorite works of poetry and fiction published in 2012. If you read Tell Everyone I Said Hi and liked it enough, maybe let them know? Just contact letters@believermag.com with your ideas.

Late January Links

Tomorrow afternoon I'm traveling to Southern Illinois University Edwardsville with my colleague Robin Metz. At 3:00 in the University Bookstore, we'll be talking to some students about the writing life and the role literary journals have played in our writing careers. At 7:00 in the same venue, we'll be giving a reading. Full details here.

Robin was the first professor I met at Knox, when he interviewed me almost eight years ago about adjuncting there. He's been an amazing and brilliant colleague ever since, and I'm excited to get to share the stage with him. It feels a little unbelievable, actually.

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A blurb-sized, three-sentence review of TELL EVERYONE I SAID HI showed up this past week at the Tate Street High Society & Co. I'm pretty fond of it.

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There are three days and a few hours left to enter the Goodreads giveaway of TELL EVERYONE I SAID HI. We're giving away five copies, and it's really easy to enter, I swear.

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Matt Dube has posted some photos on Facebook of the reading poet Anne-Marie Thompson and I gave at William Woods University back in December. I'd almost forgotten how beautiful that gallery we read in was.

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I'm putting this next bit up here for me as much as anybody, as I'm planning to share the links with my Beginning Fiction Writing students on Tuesday: My old pal Matt Debenham, author of The Book of Right and Wrong, winner of the Ohio State University Prize in Short Fiction, recently posted a couple of excellent writing-related essays on his blog: Six Things Prose Writers Can Learn from Television & What Writers Can Learn from Comedians. If you're interested in writing, they're worth your time.

The photo credit, as almost always, goes to Jane.

Interview Roundup & More

I've neglected to mention here the various interviews I've done the past few months, and now I'm going to link to several of them in one post, which means if you actually click over and read them, you'll probably find me repeating myself, though I tried hard not to when I was typing out all of the answers.

The first interview I did was with Kevin Morris at DBC Reads. Kevin--who is a former student and runs DBC Reads with another former student, Marnie Shure--also wrote a great review of TEISH, which appeared a few weeks before the interview.

Up next was a chat with Amber Lee for the Necessary Fiction blog. Steve Himmer and Necessary Fiction published "Adaptations," one of the eighteen stories in TEISH, as well as "Moussaoui Remembers Fire," which ended up being chosen by Dan Chaon as one of the Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions of 2012.

Then I virtually sat down with Jenn DeLeon to talk about TEISH for the Ploughshares blog. I wish I could have sat down in person with Jenn. Maybe we could have had a cup of coffee, or some dessert. She's such a great person and writer.

Lastly, I exchanged a bunch of emails with Eugene Cross for Fiction Writers Review. Eugene Cross needs no introduction on this blog. He's my bestie, and he also wrote this, one of the top two or three debut collections published this year.

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If you've been following my Facebook page, or my tumblr, then you know I traveled to NYC for the first time a couple weeks back--and that I read at the Sunday Salon with Marie Myung-Ok Lee, Luis Jaramillo, and Catherine Lacey. There are now some video clips up on the website of the reading.

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I don't think I've mentioned here two recent story publications:

"Yard Work" was published back in October as part of the Fall 2012 issue of Fiction Southeast. Pamela Painter is in the issue, and so is Jim Daniels, and a host of other talented folks.

"You Would've Counted Yourself Lucky" was published in November in Issue 40 of The Collagist. Huge thanks to Matt Bell for having me. This was the last story I wrote that ended up a part of TEISH, and it's one I'm still fond of. Soon, I'll be doing an interview about the story with David Bachmann for the Collagist blog.

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And finally: I wrote a mini-essay for The Story Prize Blog about baseball & Garden City, Kansas & being sad and lonely and finding literature, deciding I wanted to become a writer.

December

There's no snow here yet, but it's coming, I'm sure.

It is, however, the holiday season, and I have an offer for you: If you're interested in buying a copy of Tell Everyone I Said Hi for that special short story lover in your life (you do have people in your life who love short stories, right?) I would love to sign it for you, have Jane wrap it up, and then ship it for free anywhere you want to send it. Right now, the collection is on sale for $12 through the University of Iowa Press website, but you can buy it elsewhere online and have it sent to me, and that'd work, too. Just send me a message on Facebook or send me an email for my address, and we'll get that proverbial ball rolling. Plus, it'll be like you're gifting two people at once: I've had a few people get in touch with me on Facebook already, and it felt, well, like Christmas.

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I wrote a little blog post on my tumblr earlier this week. It's the kind of thing I would normally post to this blog, but for some reason it went up over there instead. Tumblr is down right now, I believe, but it should be up by the time you read this, and you can see what I had to say about the writing process, the Midwest, and my essay "An Epilogue for the Unread" here.

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Tomorrow I'm leaving for NYC. It's my first trip to the city, and I have lots of plans. Among them: I'll be reading at the Sunday Salon NYC on December 16th at 7:00 with Luis Jaramillo, Marie Myung-Ok Lee, and Catherine Lacey. Full details here.

Review Roundup

Booklist said some very cool things about TELL EVERYONE I SAID HI. It's not available online, but you can read what they had to say over at Amazon.

An excerpt: "It is no mistake that this collection by the latest recipient of the John Simmons Short Fiction Award is bracketed by stories about cars. Is there any other, more poignant metaphor for the Midwest than the immense promise and eventual collapse of the auto industry (except the Chicago Cubs, who also often appear)? That sentiment echoes throughout Simpson’s stories about the heartland..."

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Luke Sherwood also wrote a pretty great review of TELL EVERYONE I SAID HI over at his blog, Basso Profundo. Read his review here.

An excerpt: "This is a remarkable, distinctive collection..."

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Greg Schreur wrote about my "Stories of Separation" at Englewood Review of Books. I'm grateful, not just for this smart review, but for all of the people who have taken the time not only to read my words but also to take the time to write out their thoughts about it.

An excerpt: "...even for readers who don’t normally read short story collections, Chad Simpson’s Tell Everyone I Said Hi is a worthy read."

WhiskeyPaper/Wigleaf/BETTER: Culture & Lit

This is the third post in a row in which I've had a number of things to mention/announce. I'm thinking that 1) I've had a lot of good luck lately, which is great and 2) in the very near future, I'm going to have nothing at all to post about, because this certainly isn't sustainable.

This week's goodness:

On Sunday, my story "The Most Beautiful Thing About Her" went live at WhiskeyPaper. In case you don't know, this site is run by Loran Smith and Leesa Cross-Smith. Jane and I interact every now and then with Leesa on twitter, and it's gotten to the point that I feel like she's a virtual neighbor of ours. She's also a great writer who was recently a finalist for this year's Flannery O'Connor Award. About this story: It was part of my collection for a couple years, but it eventually got the boot, mostly because I thought it was a little too similar to my book's title story, tone-wise. It's a kind of heartbroke alt-country tune floating up to you from some downstairs room so quiet you can make out only some guitar, a little bit of the lyrics.

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On Monday, I had two stories go live:

"Open Mic Night at Fat Fish Pub" is up at one of my favorites, Wigleaf. I wrote the first draft of this story while bellied up to the bar at the Fat Fish Pub in Galesburg, though there wasn't any open mic taking place. I liked a number of things about that draft and kept tinkering with it for a while until things felt like they were coming together. I liked it quite a bit, but places kept rejecting it; I'm glad Scott gave it a home.

My story "Translated from the French" was also published on Monday, at BETTER: Culture & Lit. This is a new mag, and it seems to have a great team in place. I worked with Sophie Rosenblum, whose work I adore. This piece is part of a series of Monmouth-inspired stories, and it's fairly new. I wrote the first draft a while back but spent some good weeks with it this summer trying to whip it into shape. BETTER also has an audio recording of me reading the story, but please, don't listen it. Nobody should be subjected to the sound of my voice.

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On Monday, I didn't just celebrate the publication of two stories; I also celebrated the official publication date of my story collection, Tell Everyone I Said Hi. Janey made me a cake! And we picked up some Prosecco. Then we ordered pizza and had Dad over, and it was a little sad, because all of us were wishing Mom were around to hold the book in her hands and drink some wine, but we cried a little and then got on with celebrating. I mentioned on Facebook, but it's worth repeating here: I have so much gratitude for all of the people who've been celebrating the path to publication with me these past few months. I wish I could have shared this cake with all of you.

Five Chapters/Prairie Lights/Wordharvest

This past week, David Daley, editor at Five Chapters, serialized my story "The Other Woman." This story was inspired by a news headline several years ago: State Trooper Sentenced for Forcing Couples to Strip. I wrote the story a while ago but never quite got it right in time to include as a part of the collection, but I was very excited to see it published this past week at such a great site. Did you know they published Molly Ringwald a couple months ago? Not to mention all the other great writers whose work I've admired over there. You can read the story in its entirety here, with no pesky waiting for the next part to get published.

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Jane and I took the above photo on our trip to Iowa City this afternoon. We drove over there for some Indian food, and to buy a couple books, do a little shopping. I can't even put into words how stoked I was to see my book on that shelf with all the other recently released paperbacks. Jane was pretty stoked, too, which was awesome to see. I have a story or two about Prairie Lights and what that bookstore has meant to me over the years, but I'll save them for another time. For now, I'll just say that there is no other bookstore in the world where I would rather encounter for the first time my first book for sale.

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Ninth Letter put together a reading to coincide with the upcoming Pygmalion Music Festival, and Jodee Stanley kindly asked me to join the sweet group of writers listed on the above poster: Roxane Gay, Ted Sanders, Amy Sayre, and Jensen Beach. We'll be reading at Cowboy Monkey in Champaign this Saturday the 29th. I can't wait.

Catching Up

I've been a little behind updating this blog, as I tend to announce things on twitter or over on my Facebook page before I think to type out something meaningful or at least longer and post it here.

First: I published a new story not very long ago over at B O D Y. It's called "Status Updates," and if you're so inclined, you can read it here. I'd be grateful, of course. About this story: I was working on a series of stories told from the same narrator's point of view back in December and January. Then, in January, just as I was getting some good news about my story collection, one of my best and oldest friends received some pretty awful news that was very much related in certain ways to this particular story. I considered trashing the story forever but realized that the piece is about that same impulse that made me want to see it gone forever: how we go about making art in the face of a world that very regularly presents to us situations in which art can seem meaningless. So, I kept it around, and eventually started submitting it to a place or two. I'm glad it found a home at B O D Y, which I think looks great and is filled with lots of amazing writing.

Second: I published another essay that's about, among a few other things, my mom, at Carry On, a new site devoted mostly to travel writing. The essay is called "The Lake Cabin," and you can check it out here. It's not travel writing, but I'm glad Josh Lieberman liked it--and that he took such great care editing it. Really, he made this piece better than it was before I sent it to him. There's not a lot of work over at Carry On right now, but what's there is very good. I'm happy to be an early contributor to a site that I'm pretty sure is just going to get better and better.

Third: I'm grateful to Erika Dreifus for including a little write-up about Tell Everyone I Said Hi in the First Looks series over at Fiction Writers Review. It's strange/excellent seeing my book there, right next to BASS.

Lastly: My old pal/Excellent writer in his own right Justin Hamm posted something just this morning about my book. Here's a chunk of what he had to say:

"I have to tell you, it was just as great as I thought it would be.

There was the very same subtle, down-to-earth, heartbreakingly authentic voice I first read and loved in a fiction workshop ten years ago this fall and have continued to love ever since. If you want to know how real people live in this part of the country, what they feel and think and do and maybe sometimes wish they hadn't done, he's the writer to turn to. If beautiful language is your thing, if you live for those perfect lines that cut you to the bone, then he's the writer to turn to. As I finished reading, it began to dawn on me that soon a lot more people are going to recognize his talents, that soon a lot more people are going to be buzzing about his perfect sense of gesture and detail, his impossibly perceptive characterization, his fascination with everyday mystery, his big fat Midwestern heart."

I found his post in my Google reader while I was just waking up, and it was a great way to start the day. I'm incredibly grateful to him--not only for reading the book but also for writing such a thoughtful post. You can find the rest of what he had to say here.

The Week In Review

I have to say: It's been a good week.

Jane took the above photo when we were visiting friends last month in Door County, Wisoncsin. She took it on our last night up there, the same day I received news that The Rumpus was going to publish my essay, "An Epilogue to the Unread," which went live earlier this week. This was a difficult essay to write, in more ways than one, and I was incredibly grateful Roxane Gay accepted it in such a great publication. That night, when the sun was setting in Gills Rock and Jane snapped the above photo, I was thinking of Mom and The Rumpus and that essay I'd spent so much time trying to get right.

Speaking of Mom...I was doing a little searching and found, on my very own website, this email, transcribed by Jane a little over five years ago, not long after I returned from waiting tables at Bread Loaf. The books she's talking about at first, in case you aren't sure, is the Twilight series. Then she moves on to Christopher Paolini's Inheritace Cycle:

 

Hi, Jane--

How have you been getting along without Chad? Have you heard from him? I don't have his e-mail address, so I can't e-mail him.

I just finished the 2 books you gave me for my birthday. I just got on Amazon and ordered the 3rd one of the series. There was a video with the author that I listened to. She is going to have a 4th and final book in the series. I can't wait to get the third one. Hard telling when the 4th will come out. I just wanted you to know how much I enjoyed them. They are kind of a teen-age vampire-werewolf menage a trois. Pretty COOL!!!
Then I got online to find out when the 3rd book of the Inheritance Trilogy was coming out. You guys gave me those too; Elder and Eldest, the dragon books? I just loved those. Christopher Paolini is the young author. He still doesn't have a release date yet for the 3rd book. I have been waiting forever for it! Someone needs to tell him to grow up and finish the trilogy!! He isn't one of the authors at Chad's seminar, is he?

Anyway, just wanted to thank you again for my birthday books. I LOVED THEM!

Your, obviously very immature, mother-in-law,
[redacted]

 

It was pretty heartbreaking to come across that email, I have to admit, but it was also pretty sweet; it's very Mom. I mean, she somehow didn't have my email address. And that bit about the "teen-age vampire-werewolf menage a trois?" Hilarious.

The reaction to the essay I wrote about Mom was pretty amazing. I mean, Cheryl Strayed wrote things about it. And longreads picked it up. But besides all of that, I also received several emails from strangers, and Facebook messages, and numerous mentions on twitter, and really, it was so great. I don't think I've ever had that kind of reaction to something I've written. I didn't think things could get much better, and then yesterday, the first advance copy of Tell Everyone I Said Hi showed up on my doorstep.

I think that pic is kinda huge. I'm sorry. I can't figure out hot to resize it. Still: Look at it! It's my book! Right there on my doorstep. All of this has happened so fast, I kind of can't believe it. And the book: It really looks amazing. I'm not kidding. I've been turning the thing over in my hands for about the past 36 hours. I can't get over it.

We're leaving soon for vacation, and the plan is to photograph the book in various locales along the way. A blog post is most definitely forthcoming.