Interview with Paula Bomer in Rain Taxi

A couple of summers ago, novelist Paula Bomer interviewed me in Rain Taxi about one of the two novellas that would eventually comprise the couplet in my collection Could You Be With Her Now. "May-September" had just one first prize in Press 53's 2010 Open Awards in the category of novella. Little did I know then that "May-September" would be destined for even greater things:

I think both the young and the old tend to underappreciate the other. Neither thinks the other understands their unique challenges, but we all sort of go through the same things. It was sort of a challenge to me, coming from a close-knit family, to write about a mother and daughter who aren’t close, and to write it from the mother’s point of view. But I understand their fear and pride in not extending the olive branch. I’ve seen so many broken families operate on this principle. And I feel so sad for them. It was hard to write Sandra and her daughter without wanting to make them kiss and make up at some point, but they never do.

To read more, go here:

National Local

Thanks to writer Caryn Coyle for the interview in CBS Baltimore. We talk about the Lit Show, jmww, and more. The link is here.

Interview in Rain Taxi Review of Books

The wonderful Paula Bomer interviewed me in this issue of Rain Taxi Review of Books about my novella May-September. Thanks so much, Paula, for the thoughtful and perceptive questions:

I should add the disclaimer that this story came to me as a fully formed dream, and I woke up and struggled with whether to actually write it. Even though you don’t write for anyone but yourself, you don’t want to waste months or a year on a story that you’re just going to put in a drawer. It wasn’t something that I thought anyone was interested in reading, and yet the dream really affected me and intrigued me. When the “voice” of the story came to me, I sat down and wrote it over the course of a few months. But even then I didn’t know what to do with it. It was a sincere story, but I struggled with the idea of people responding to some sort of “shock” value associated with it. But the response hasn’t been like that at all—people who have read it have responded to it in the gentle, sincere way that I wrote it.

To read more, go here.

Interview with Gay Life Magazine

My interview with Terri Solomon in Baltimore's Gay Life Magazine is up!

Jen Michalski is the author of Close Encounters, a collection of short stories published in 2007 by So New Media. The title comes from the “strange little world lurking in a lot of my writing,” said Michalski. Stories feature “in-fetu twins, personality disorders, missing children, surrealist airports, little girls who find time machines in their neighborhoods, and Whitney Houston.”

Michalski has another collection coming out in early 2013 from Dzanc Books. It will include a novella I Can Get to California Before It's Time for Dinner. Her novella May-September won first place in last year’s Press 53 Open Awards.

Michalski spoke to Baltimore Gay Life about her recent writing, the 510 Reading Series, and wrestling with the term “gay writer.”

To read more, go here:

Review of MAY-SEPTEMBER at Art & Literature

The wonderful Tara Laskowski has written a review of my novella, MAY-SEPTEMBER (and the whole Open Awards Anthology from Press 53) at Art & Literature:

I'm so excited! I hope you get a chance to read it. Thank you so much, Tara!