Brent Van Horne in The Madison Review

From the above photograph, it's safe to assume one of two things: 1.) Seth has kidnapped himself and is attempting to prove to the authorities that he was still alive as recently as Spring of 2009 - or - 2.) He finally got his copy of The Madison Review's latest issue, which features a fantastic story by Brent Van Horne.

Van Horne is pretty talented and has publications popping up all over the place (you can find his work in Fugue, New Orleans Review, and Sou'Wester). Van Horne and I have gotten into the habit of riffing on each other's work. We've also been kicking around the idea of writing a collaborative story. It's too early to tell if that's something we'll actually do - but, if such a story does get written, it's probably going to be the literary equivalent of this.

In addition to being a kick ass story writer, Brent is also responsible for making this blog look nice, a responsibility that he has taken on for no discernible reason as there's absolutely no way I could ever pay him. Plus one time I accidentally dumped a whole beer onto his carpet, which was pretty much brand new (the carpet, that is ... though the beer was new too).

Podcastapocalypse

The Missouri Review's most recent podcast is a short interview with me regarding my story, Loeka Discovered.

My having participated in a podcast sort of complicates the fact that I don't know what one is. But my best guess is that all you Seth-heads who have been dying to cast me onto your pods are in luck.

Some points of interest that may enhance your listening enjoyment:

1.)In my brief snippets of audio, try to count how many times I say like, sort of, kind of, and a bunch of other things that are extremely similar to like, sort of, and kind of.

2.)In one part of my interview, I sort of, like, suggest that there isn't any use of scene in my story. Later, Speer Morgan, in the most diplomatic way possible, points out that I don't really know what I'm talking about.

So don't worry, Seth-heads! There is some use of scene in my story. I just meant that there's not any super, detail-rich scene-ish scene. That having been said, I'm still relatively certain that I don't know what I'm talking about.

3.)It may be interesting to know that, while listening to this, I skipped over that normal stage of self-consciousness in which a person says, "My voice doesn't sound like that! Does it?" Instead, I immediately launched into a bout of self-hate at the atomic level, in which I perceived my most basic elements to be intrinsically evil and wrong. Plus, I know for a fact that my voice doesn't sound like that.

4.)Everyone at The Missouri Review rules (special thanks to Caitlin Garing for conducting the interview, and to Speer Mogan for his kind words), and I'm honored they took the time to put this together. Also, my beverage of choice during the interview was a can of 7-UP that I stole from a mini-fridge in the Mid-American Review office. That same office may have also incurred the cost of a long distance call to Columbia, Missouri.

Brent Van Horne in New Orleans Review

There's an awesome new story by Brent Van Horne in the most recent issue (34.2) of New Orleans Review.

The story is called Ascending the Mountain, and is pretty much the reason I wrote Loeka Discovered. You can order the issue with Brent's story here. And you can grab the TMR story it inspired here.

The stories have little to do with each other, but (and this is a personal guarantee) both prominently feature mountains.

Ninth Letter

Ninth Letter's Fall/Winter Issue just came out. It looks like it's going to be a good one. On an almost completely unrelated note, an excerpt from a series of mine, titled Animalcula, is going to be appearing in their upcoming issue. So now is a great time to get in the habit of reading Ninth Letter.