It’s cold as hell in the Gulf South today, and things are heating up, at least on the creative side.
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Every year, I like to wish my friends and family a happy THanksgiving. I’ll send them a photo of Tom Hanks and tell them the Hanks vehicle I’m most hankful for. (It’s often Bosom Buddies.) Sometimes I’ll switch it up a little and make it a CHanksgiving, and send a photo of Colin. So far, my favorite vehicle is Season 1 of Fargo. Maybe that will change someday. Honestly, I’m glad Chet is still going by Chet Haze, as far as I know. The guy amuses me, but I’m not hankful for his appearance on Atlanta. (That first Ziwe interview of his is a pure scream, though.) And now the holiday has come and gone—along with my forty-fifth birthday.
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I’ve started posting old fiction of mine on my Patreon. I’ve already been posting works in progress—novel chapters, verse, and the like, and I had been kicking around the idea of putting up this old trunk novel I had from the first time I tried to sell a book. I will probably still do that, but I’ve got an out-of-print short story collection that I love, and even some of my stories that are hosted online have disappeared without my realizing it. That happens in a career as long as mine….
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What a weekend. Kechi and I have been working out a lot lately. I don’t know when we boosted our frequency to four sessions weekly, but we’ve been bouncing around between YMCA locations here in Baton Rouge.
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Last week was jam packed with activity, and I feel like I didn’t have much time to catch my breath. I had two readings in New Orleans. One was at Bar Redux, the same venue where Kechi and I got married six weeks ago. (Sunday) and the other was at the Milton H. Latter Memorial Library, also in New Orleans.
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Kechi and I have started going to the gym again, but one thing that takes getting used to these days is that even when I’m not hitting the gym, I’m staying active. This week, I’ve walked over five miles with Karate three times, with 2.5- and 3.5-mile days interspersed. It’s a relatively modest achievement, but it’s a big deal for someone my size—and then for me, personally...
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My family suffered a brutal and unexpected loss yesterday.
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At the beginning of 2024, Kechi, Karate, and I moved to Baton Rouge. Kechi is teaching in LSU’s performance studies department, and I’m teaching a guest fiction seminar for graduate students at the English department. Leaving New Orleans has not been easy, for various reasons, but it was the best thing for us right now….
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I don’t get a chance to talk about this a lot, but fantasy maps are extremely important to me. I can still conjure the memory of the map in the front of that old edition of The Hobbit that my father read to me and my lil bro when we were small. That style, that imagery, the deep shadows of the more dangerous haunted reaches of the world transported me entirely Elsewhere. About nine months ago, I summoned my courage and wrote to my editor Nivia Evans that I wanted to include a map in the front of The Ballad of Perilous Graves. She immediately responded that this was a great idea and asked me to send her something to give to the map maker.
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Ever since Sheree invited me to do this work during a breakfast phone call on our final day at Under the Volcano, the development has felt surreal and unexpected. Now that my first column is in, at a whopping 1,500 words, I still feel that way. I still don’t consider myself particularly qualified to give writing or career advice but looking around at the changed circumstances of my life, I can’t help thinking how many of the good things happening for me are the result of a baseline refusal to stop writing and submitting.
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