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A Complete List of All Books

In order to celebrate the fact that my debut short story collection, The Great Frustration, will be released in about a month, I have decided to compile a list of all the books that have ever been published. In addition to it being a fun opportunity to promote TGF, I figured it could serve as a scholarly resource (which is pretty much how I think of my blog anyway). Without further ado, here they are in no particular order:

Graham's French to English Dictionary

The Helicopter Joke Book

Jump-Around Howie's Big Book of Obvious Riddles

The Panther in the Cauldron: A Diaper Lewis Mystery

A Parent's Guide to Making Your Children Invincible to Witches

How to Tell Which Children Are Invincible to You: A Witch's Handbook

Mission to Cars: How to Attend an Auto Show

Dr. Paul d'Artagnan's Low Calorie Workout

Also:

Phone books

It's pretty humbling to see all those titles listed one after another. It's enough to make me realize that The Great Frustration will be little more than a grain of sand in an immense desert. Nevertheless, as far as grains of sand go, it's going to be awesome. Oh, also: Huckleberry Finn.

Starred Review in Publishers Weekly

I am incredibly pleased to report that Publishers Weekly has just given The Great Frustration a starred review. In fact, "pleased" might be underselling it. All day long I have been climbing skyscrapers and swatting at biplanes. PW had this to say:

The 11 stories in Fried's debut have the vigor of adventures, taking place in settings as disparate as Spain in the time of the conquistadors, a king's harem, a city under siege, various scientific setups, and--in the case of the title story--the Garden of Eden. Such an imagination is refreshing, but even more rewarding is that the stories don't rely solely on concept or conceit, and trudge forward into the lovely mess of strong characters wedged into dramatic circumstance. The scientists in "Those of Us in Plaid" have a simple, though not easy, objective involving an obstinate monkey and a space capsule. Science is clearly one of Fried's major interests: "Loeka Discovered" follows a team of researchers reconstructing ancient history from bits of bone and other artifacts. The lengthy "Animalcula: A Young Scientist's Guide to New Creatures" offers 15 scholarly descriptions of minuscule fauna, creating a fictional microcosm and illuminating it with the surprisingly poetic inner life of the scientist studying his subjects. While Fried's stories run to the historical or technical, there's a strain of absurdism in his prose that combines pathos, unease, and dark humor to add depth and give these stories a sense of modernity and relevance. (May)

This means one of two things: 1.) Publishers Weekly got the cigars I sent, or 2.) Publishers Weekly liked my book. Either way, I haven't received a star on a piece of writing since grade school and it still feels pretty great. Huge thanks to PW!

I Will Continue Making Trailers Until Someone Stops Me

Animalucla in The Kenyon Review

I'm extremely excited to report that The Kenyon Review is going to be publishing a bunch of pieces from my series, Animalcula: A Young Scientist's Guide to New Creatures. Excerpts from this series have appeared previously in Ninth Letter and JMWW. The new pieces are tentatively scheduled to appear in The Kenyon Review's Spring 2011 issue. In the mean time, make sure to check out this unbelievably awesome (or at least charming in an at-least-he-tried sort of way) trailer I made for the pieces that ran in Ninth Letter:

Harems Are For Closers

Tin House #43 is on its way! The issue will feature work by Steve Almond, Ron Carlson, Martha McPhee, David "Always be closing/Put that coffee down" Mamet, and many other awesome people.

Click here to check out an excerpt from my contribution, Life in the Harem.

The Novella Excerpt Event of the Decade

In a testament to my own boredom, I've started to make trailers for work that has already appeared in literary journals. So, in essence, this is a preview of the past. Did that blow your mind? If not, this might:

Chicago Reading

Just a heads up: I'll be doing a reading on November 5th at 57th Street Books in Chicago. Click here for more details. The event is being put together by Ninth Letter, and should therefore be pretty classy. Hope to see you there!

New Short Story Trailer? New Short Story Trailer!

Remember the other day when you were saying how you wish that Seth Fried's short story trailers would somehow involve stop motion animation? Well, your wish is about to come true. My new trailer is my most stop-motioniest to date.

The animation is by no means good, but - like a Mother's Day gift constructed out of dry macaroni and colored paper - I submit to you the notion that it is the thought that counts. Also, I refuse to apologize for my penmanship.

Misery of the Conquistador is forthcoming in StoryQuarterly:



In case you're curious, here are the materials I used to create this trailer:

1.)One drawing of a conquistador
2.)One digital camera
3.)One upside down stool converted into a vertical camera mount
4.)One felt-tip pen
5.)Five sheets of computer paper
6.)One freeware 2-D animator, which magically didn't install a virus onto my computer
7.)One unflappable desire to create a short story trailer for the ages

One more thing, you can check out all my short story trailers on my youtube channel.

Life in the Harem

I'm excited to announce that a story of mine called Life in the Harem is going to be appearing in Tin House. A lot of details are still pending, but for now I encourage you to kick back and enjoy the short story trailer that I whipped together in honor of this excellent news.

I'm pretty sure everyone is going to love this trailer. By everyone, of course, I am referring to people who spent the mid to late 80's playing video games.

Somebody should invent the short story trailer. Oh wait, I totally just invented the short story trailer.

Book trailers are pretty big right now, but do you know what's going to be even pretty bigger? You guessed it: trailers for individual short stories written by people who don't have books yet.

Check out this one that I just put together for my upcoming McSweeney's story:



On a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being I take this video seriously and 1 being I am actually aware of how ridiculous it is), this trailer comes in at about a 6.

Forthcomingapallooza

Some stories are on their way! Right now you can check out an excerpt from Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre at One-Story.com. There's also a quick Q&A with me. My answers are all lame, because I am a genuinely lame person. But if you're looking to have your socks rocked off, you should check out One-Story's archive, which includes interviews with Stephen Dixon, John Hodgman, Kelly Link, and many other awesome writers.

I also have a story called Those of us in Plaid forthcoming in McSweeney's #33, and a story called The Misery of the Conquistador forthcoming in StoryQuarterly. However, unlike One-Story, there are currently no online excerpts for these stories. And, for contractual reasons, I probably can't put any excerpts up on this blog. So instead I have written an alternate first sentence for each story, both of which are included below:

The Misery of the Conquistador

"Wow, I sure am miserable ... for a conquistador," said he.

Those of us in Plaid

We realized from the very beginning that we were not like all those people who did not wear plaid, but that we were actually very different.

There you have it! No firm release dates for either, but - having tempted you terribly with these alternate first lines - I will make sure to do the decent thing and keep you informed.

Emerging! Writers! Network! Post! About one of my stories!: Grabby Subtitle

Michael Czyzniejewski just wrote a ridiculously nice post about one of my stories for the Emerging Writers Network. You can check out the post here. This means a lot to me, and not just because my entire personality is basically a bottomless pit of attention-seeking behavior - but because I admire Mike's work a lot.

If you haven't checked out his book, it's fantastic. You should also check out this new anthology he's in, which also features Aimee Bender, Stuart Dybek, Michael Martone, Benjamin Percy, and pretty much all the people whose stories you want to rub all over your face.

Anyway, I've worked under Mike both as a student and as an assistant editor at Mid-American Review. In the process, he has taught me an insane amount about writing stories. Not just about craft stuff, but about how stories should fit into your life, and what you should be willing to risk if you want to write them well. In short, he's one of the good guys.

Also, a quick note about the Emerging Writers Network: this site is a lot of fun and is a great way to find out about writing you might not hear about otherwise. If you poke around, I'm sure you'll be pleasantly surprised.