After a handful of stimulating and mostly-collaborative reading events, from New York’s Hudson Valley down through the Southern Tier, I’m finally home and grounded enough to catch up on a few noteworthy updates. Please forgive my tardiness.

In late April/early May, “Cowboy” was published in the Manchester, UK-based journal NOUS, a gorgeous risographed compendium on the theme of play.

Above the water, the approaching clouds look like a wall built of prisons. Sometimes I pray this whole thing is a joke. Sometimes, it’s the opposite of praying.

In a year punctuated with some truly beautiful publications, this one might be my favorite yet. Absolutely worth the $12.

Meanwhile, in a continuation of my unlikely string of successes in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth nations, the Wales-based journal The Lonely Crowd has published “Thank Me Any Day,” the first printed piece in Regan’s multi-episode series of grim family life.

Dickhead always had to wrestle the pig to get it back in its pen and by the end they’d both be caked in shit and bloodied and bruised and Dickhead always acted like he’d taken that hill, but the pig every time eventually got loose again, so who was really the king?

In addition to the printed text, there is also a video narrative of the story (included below) and a brief essay on the making of “Thank Me Any Day,” which should appear on The Lonely Crowd‘s website…someday.

And as one final note: so far, this has been a year of longlists, shortlists, and runnings up. A trio of flash fictions made it to the final round of judging for Meridian‘s Border contest. “Get Bigger” (also a Regan narrative) took third-place in the OWT’s Short Fiction Competition, and was also longlisted for the Masters Review‘s annual fiction contest. “Heart’s Last Pass” was a finalist for the RA & Pin Drop Short Story Award (which might still come with some perks: hopefully more on that soon), as was my unpublished novel Our Shadows’ Voice with Barrelhouse. I’m hoping this means that I’m building toward something instead of slipping backward. I guess only time will tell.

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