Goodreads Giveaway: FROM HERE

The holidays are soon approaching (too soon?), and to celebrate our finalist placement in the USA Best Book Awards, Aqueous Books and I are offering five copies of my collection FROM HERE on Goodreads. I love giving and getting books for the holidays, and I know these five copies will wind up in good homes for the winter and beyond. What better than to curl up and visit other worlds on the page instead of cracking the ice off one's windshield? Let the spring do that for you. xo

Goodreads Book Giveaway

From Here

by Jen Michalski

Giveaway ends December 02, 2015.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

FROM HERE a finalist in the 2015 USA Best Book Awards

Excited that FROM HERE was a finalist in the 2015 USA Best Book Awards for short fiction. Congratulations to the winner, George Singleton, for his collection, CALLOUSTOWN, from Dzanc Books (who did very well this year), and congratulations to the other finalists and the 2000 nominated works.

You can read all about the winners here.

New Review of From Here at Revolution John

C.L. Bledsoe wrote a really fantastic review of From Here in Revolution John. So nice to wake up to this morning:

It seems like every story published these days is magical realism or surreal, but where Michalski truly shines is that she focuses on strict realism while also writing about often overlooked populations. Her stories are honest and real but also surprising and fresh. She doesn’t sentimentalize or cut corners. As with her other books, From Here is just a strong collection of writing. That, in itself, seems more anarchic than just about anything I’ve read in a while.

To read more, go here.

Free Giveaway! Win a copy of From Here

If you want to add my collection of short fiction, From Here (Aqueous Books, 2014), to your beach reads, enter to win a free paperback at Amazon! (No purchase necessary!) Ends June 24, 2015:

https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/b423b0b452c602a2?ref_=pe_1771210_134854370#ln-fo

About From Here:

The twelve stories in FROM HERE explore the dislocations and intersections of people searching, running away, staying put. Their physical and emotional landscapes run the gamut, but in the end, they're all searching for a place to call home.

Praise for From Here: 

"From the Chechnyian girl sucked into the drug world, the alcoholic professor who uses his daughter to dodge a rap, from hippie graffiti to the "wet clicking of a bird-like heart," Jen Michalski writes down the beast, and you remember. Strong sentiment, strong stories." - Terese Svoboda, Author of Tin God

"Jen Michalski's characters seem to breathe through the pages of this emotionally expansive collection. Each story is a world in which the reader to linger--not to seek refuge but to gain insight, and perhaps, to find a kindred soul." - Dawn Raffel, author of the Year of Long Division

"This is short fiction at its moody, character-driven best. The people you meet are so vivid and so sympathetic that their joys and sorrows will quickly become your own. I haven't decided which is my favorite story, but I know my favorite line. "Good luck with your broken things." Fantastic." - Matthew Norman, author of Domestic Violets

New Review of From Here at The Next Best Book Blog!

I have never thought my stories were a parade of subtle suffering, but I do think the unrequited life makes a good story. Glad the folks at The Next Best Book Blog agreed with me!

I was a little nervous at first, reading their review of From Here:

Her stories are like a never ending parade of subtle suffering. In them, she forces her characters to live with their loneliness. She traps them in abusive relationships and broken homes. She smacks them in the face with unrequited love. She punishes the fathers - they are dead or dying, withering away from cancer. Or they are just a bunch of deadbeats, walking away from their pregnant wives and drinking themselves silly. And she punishes the animals too. As with any other author, dogs, rabbits, birds, beware. Your lives are not safe in her hands!

But I am glad they still linger, even after the unexpected stab:

Each story has a strong sense of place and Jen douses her characters will their own unique voice. The collection reads quickly but the stories have a tendency to linger. They remain in the periphery, haunting the sidelines. They are tender and hesitant. Michalski seems reluctant to allow them to let go, and so they ache within you long after their stories are over.

To read more, go here.

New review of From Here at Back of the Book!

Thanks so much to Carly Szabo for her wonderful review of From Here at Back of the Book:

Overall, Michalski's From Here is a powerful collection of fiction that successfully creates and explores the lives of an array of characters. So insightful and deliberately crafted is each story that the reader almost feels as if these tales are nonfictional. While each story leaves one fulfilled and greatly impacted, it is difficult for the reader to abandon the character to whom they’ve grown so attached in place of the next to come.

To read more, go here.

Review of From Here in Baltimore City Paper

A new review of From Here posted today in the Baltimore City Paper:

It’s the sort of witty, on-point observation that populates all of the short stories in “From Here,” which depict a huge range of characters and situations, all of them inspecting the ideas of dislocation, belonging, and the meaning of home from a different angle. While the perspectives vary, they’re all told through the lens of Michalski’s sharp eye for detail and beautiful prose. 

And this:

It culminates with a beautiful, devastating finish, the sort that left me rereading the last paragraph over and over with my breath hitched in my chest. 

Thanks, Anna March and the City Paper, for such an insightful piece. You can read the whole review here.

The Sunday Rumpus Book Review of From Here

So excited to see From Here reviewed by Heather Partington in this past Sunday's Rumpus Book Review! I have been such a fan of the site for the last five years (even while writing for its semi-competitor, The Nervous Breakdown), and it's a dream come true to see my name on the site (with such kind words from Partington, to boot):

Many authors’ stories blend together across a collection; they struggle to convey a unique voice in each piece. Not so with Jen Michalski’s From Here. Though her characters share common experiences—dashed hopes, disappointments, misunderstanding by loved ones—the voice in each story of From Here is fresh and specific.

and

Jen Michalski excels in subtlety that is made possible by her nuanced understanding of voice.

Yay! To read more, go here.

The Illustrated From Here

I had so much fun illustrating the beginning of my story "Neighbors" (from my forthcoming collection, From Here) over at Book Puke:

"Never Forever: Where Does the Story End?" at HTMLGiant

I wrote about when to know how to end it over at HTMLGiant:

In college I was introduced to Raymond Carver, not in a class, but by a roommate who loved the short story "Fat." When I first read it, I was confused; a waitress recounts to her fellow co-workers her revulsion and confusion over a recent, extremely obese diner, a man who eats more than she has ever witnessed anyone eat and refers to himself as “we.” The story mysteriously ends with the waitress, speaking to the reader: "It is August. My life is going to change. I can feel it."

To read more, go here.

The Annotated From Here

On The Next Best Book Club blog today, really thrilled to "annotate" with footnotes my favorite story, "Lillian in White," in my forthcoming collection, From Here (Aqueous Books, September 30th), in terms of what I was thinking when I wrote it.

Footnote [7]: [7]. When I was a freshman, a guy wrote a song for me. It was one of my most memorable gifts ever—a song! —second to the Zippo he bought me for Christmas with my name inscribed on it. (And we weren’t even dating!) Anyway, the problem with the song is that he was a bass player and when he played it for me, he could only play the bass line, so it was hard to envision the rest. He was a huge King Crimson fan, and I always am relieved to have heard only the bass line, because maybe it sounded like a King Crimson song.

To read all footnotes, and the beginning of "Lillian in White," go here.

"How Jen Michalski Became a Writer" at Ph.D. in Creative Writing

Thanks to Kelcey Parker and Melanie Page for letting me talk at "Ph.d" in Creative Writing" about how I "became" a writer.

Can you tell me about a writer or artist whose biography inspires you?

Without coming off as incredibly pretentious, I've always been struck by Beethoven, who began to go deaf around 26, when he was working on "Pathetique." He wrote to his brothers about wanting to commit suicide but decided to continue living and creating art. At one point, he didn't even know that his work reviewed a standing ovation until he turned around and saw everyone in the music hall clapping. If Beethoven didn't throw in the towel, then how can the rest of us? And I think we should work in that vacuum as well, deaf and blind to applause, to reaction, good or bad.

To read the entire interview, go here.

Writers on Craft at Fictionaut

Thanks so much to the lovely and gifted Heather Fowler for talking with me about craft on The Fictionaut Blog. I love talking about writing almost as much as writing!

As a writer, I've kind of evolved over the years from short stories (with a small detour into flash for a year or two) into novels. I always like to think of it as when I was a little younger, I was more interested in distilling the essence of things into the short form, making a statement, because I didn't have much experience in the world and I was still learning myself. Now that I’m older, I still haven’t learned much, but I find I like to linger in places instead–the process interests me more than an overarching statement. I no longer feel writing has to be about something. For me, I've always written as a way to understand things, but I don’t even necessarily care what the outcome is anymore. Even if I set out to write about a complicated relationship with a relative but wind up writing about a blue hippopotamus instead, I no longer feel as if I've failed as a writer. I might try to reverse-engineer how I got from point A to point B, but even that doesn't matter anymore. Writing is just something that is, like breathing. It doesn't have to wind up in the Barnes & Noble or in the trash it. It’s just output, thoughts. It’s my process.

To read the entire interview, go here.

From Here Giveaway

Aqueous Books is giving away five copies of my forthcoming collection, From Here, on Goodreads! Add the book to your reading list and be entered for a chance to win:

Sometimes, after my hand had scarred and healed, I’d take a piece of one of Vanessa’s old plate shards and run it along the fleshy ridge, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. Always, when I least expected it, it cut me."—"The Queen of Swords," in From Here

Featured Writer, New Fiction, Atticus Review

So thrilled to be the featured author of the month in The Atticus Review. Jamie Iredell interviewed me about my forthcoming collection, From Here (Aqueous Books, September 30th), craft, and what affect my heritage and identity has on my writing:

Being gay has made me feel dislocated for a lot of my life–from participating in the same rituals–marriage, children–a lot of my friends have or having a relationship as a grown, sexual adult with your family (my grandfather still asked me on his deathbed when I was going to get married). For a long time I thought moving away, maybe to San Francisco, or another country, might make me want finally feel at “home,” and it took me a long time to realize that you need to be home wherever you are. I see a lot of my own struggles (trying to escape places, being caught between places, grudgingly accepting places) in the characters in this collection.

The folks at Atticus Review were also kind enough to publish some postcard stories I'd written about postcards (in celebration of the awesome "postcard" cover of From Here) and also postcard stories by Erin Fitzgerald, Judith Krummeck, Timmy Reed, Laura Ellen Scott, and Joseph Young. Finally, you can submit your own postcard and postcard story for a chance to win a copy of From Here and publication in The Atticus Review. All this good stuff can be found here.

New Fiction: "From Here" at StorySouth

The man, Alfredo, is from Colorado, visiting his sister. “Nothing much to do but sleep, sit in the springs.” He gazes out at Turtleback Mountain from where he is submerged next to Linney in one of the mineral baths. “But you already know that, being from here.”

It’s been a long time since Linney has been “from here,” but she knows what Alfredo means. It is why she is “from here” no more. As she drove into New Mexico last night from El Paso International Airport, the landscape was black, a cloth of velvet pushpinned by stars, keeping its secrets. Such suspense for nothing, she always liked to think; when she woke up this morning at her father’s hostel/mineral springs on the Rio Grande and jogged out along Interstate 25, not a car passed her for twenty-five minutes. In the quiet November morning tumbleweeds pinwheeled across the road; cacti dotted the earth around her, holding their arms in surrender.

To read more, go here: