Fiction Contest...correction

Ok so I was super-wrong. Or "premature". Hey, I'm told it happens to everyone sometimes.

The Creative Loafing 2009 Fiction Issue is online RIGHT NOW. And you NEED TO READ "Medicine". And you need to do so immediately, if not sooner.

And you need to avoid the silliest photo of me ever.

I am going somewhere to learn how to teach myself to begin learning to not talk with my hands like that. I was discussing Bret Easton Ellis, probably. Since apparently that's all I ever do.
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The fiction contest

I'm not sure if Creative Loafing Atlanta has any intent on making the 2009 Fiction Contest winners available online (and if that happens, I'll update this), but I did want to say that the winning essay, Laurah Raines' "Medicine", was seriously heads-and-feet-and-tails above anything else I was given to read for the contest this year. If you are a publisher, and, um, you still have anyone working in your offices (too soon? too soon.), Raines, undoubtedly, has a collection of short stories in her that I'll go ahead and call "emotionally taut and moving, with more than hint of bite". You can blurb me on that now.

(I am going to avoid encountering, at all costs, the photo of my next to my bio in the Fiction Issue, which is out today and can't disappear fast enough, because, um, I think I'm supposed to look "wacky". I was sick, and I don't do wacky.)

As I've already said, there's a party for this whole thing going down tomorrow (Thursday, Jan 8th). I may or may not sign baby pictures.
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POP.

So, I really should have posted something on this before (because if there's one thing I don't do nearly enough it's, erm, toot my own horn? That just sounds vulgar and like something I should in fact be doing far more often), but I've been pulled into (quite honorable) duty as a judge for this year's Creative Loafing Atlanta Fiction Contest, which is having the celebratory party at the Eyedrum in Atlanta this Thursday, Jan 8th, at 7 P.M. It is free and I will be there doing something that probably won't amount to much other than looking awkward in public, but I can tell you that I know who won and the winning stories are pretty much works of that magical short-story genius that results from being able to not be overly verbose and conjure words that have emotional punch and resonance.

No, really, these stories are good. I will tell you my favorite later (because I have a favorite and it was gooder than good. It was better.)

I've been waiting to see what sorts of horrendous lies that I've added to my bio actually get reprinted before I said anything on here, but, in the sake of timeliness, I'll link to the Facebook event page and just re-post whatever ends up in print and online about yours truly.

Since it is writ-and-thus-mote-be that I'll be "signing books", which, um, I haven't written yet, (I'm the only one of the three judges, the other two being Carmen Deedy and Phillip DePoy, both published authors, so that's one thing they both have over me, and Phillip has multiple last-name capitalizations and therefore TWO things over me), it has been suggested that I make print-outs of a childhood photograph of myself for autographing. This would, apparently, make me both feel more a part of the whole "the famous people are going to sign things for those in attendance" facet of the evening and also allow for the fact that I don't think Carmen Deedy will let me sign copies of Martina The Beautiful Cockroach. Specifically, it has been suggested I autograph prints of this photo:


There is a very, very sad, tragic and almost-kinda-halfway-funny-if-you-like-tortured-upbringing-tales story behind that photo, so I will probably just inscribe copies of Less Than Zero with "If I'd written this I would be even more into how awesome I am than I already am" or something else equally self-referential and partially true. Or maybe I will just pass out copies of favorite blog entries of mine. Or maybe I'll just sign my hand, lick it and rub it onto the hands of others as though it was a club-entry stamp and everyone was underage (see also: that Blues Traveler video).

Or maybe I will sign baby pictures of myself.
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