Tag: fiction
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Blog relay: Talking Jerry Darn for “About a Character”
This is part of a blog relay to which the Great Lakes Review editor Rob Jackson invited me to participate in. Rob was invited by Don DeGrazia, author of “American Skin” and my thesis advisor when I earned an MFA at Columbia College Chicago. Basically, it’s a chain of writers all answering the same questions…
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The Skull House in Midwestern Gothic
Very excited to be in the summer 2014 issue of Midwestern Gothic, a great journal based out of Ann Arbor. First paragraphs: Lillie Korpela collected skulls. She disappeared deep into the federal forest behind her family’s old dairy farm in northern Michigan’s Bear County during all seasons for sixty years, trudging through knee-high snow in the winter…
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The Final Voyage in The Great Lakes Review
My contributions to the Great Lakes Review aren’t limited to this Bear County story, I also coordinate the online Narrative Map for the journal. First paragraphs: Captain Frank Bjorklund stared at the silver Samsonite emblem swimming on the black suitcase like a beacon in the dark and knew it was time to flee. Age and…
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Jerry Darn Nation in the Chicago Reader
Here’s my contribution to the 2010 Chicago Reader Pure Fiction issue: First paragraphs: This is how my drinking binge begins. Not with booze—not yet—but in my girlfriend’s bed with another girl ten years younger than me. My tortured, pussy-juice-glazed face pops up above her muff and I look up the length of her body, past…
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Monkey Boy in Monkeybicycle
Here is a shorty short: Monkey Boy in Monkeybicycle: First paragraphs: They ride and ride through the woods, Monkey-Boy in the backseat investigating and comparing the downy hair on his arms with the plush brown seat cushions, believing he may really be an authentic monkey boy instead of a regular boy pretending to be monkey.…
John Counts On The Internet 