On the writing front, two pieces of good news.  First, my chapbook When You’re Down By the River: Stories is one of three finalists for the RopeWalk Press Editor’s Fiction Chapbook Prize.  Winner will be announced soon.  Second, my story “Offender” has been accepted by Steel Toe Review.  It’ll be in an upcoming issue.

My review of Michael Farris Smith‘s novel Rivers went up on Friends of Atticus today.  It’s a great book, complex, frightening, humane.  It’ll be out from Simon and Schuster next month, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

I also want to take some time to plug the new book by my old MFA professor, Neil Connelly.  The Midlife Crisis of Commander Invincible is as fine a book as you’ll read all year.  It’s funny, touching, and insightful.  It came out yesterday from LSU Press, and at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I can’t recommend it highly enough.