Welcome back to Barnburning, a short story podcast! We are joined by Willie Davis who reads his story, "Battle Hymn" from his new short story collection, I Can Outdance Jesus: Short Stories and Tall Tales in an Age of Blasphemy, published by the Cowboy Jamboree Press.

Willie can be found online at www.IAmWillieDavis.com and on Xwitter @iamwilliedavis.

Has your life ever been changed by an author? Twenty years ago this week, my life was forever changed by something I read in a magazine. Looking back, it's silly to imagine but it's true: I became a lawyer because of P.G. Wodehouse. And Anthony Lane. Join us on Barn Burning as we read one of Wodehouse's minor masterpieces, The Great Sermon Handicap, featuring that timeless upstairs-downstairs pair, Bertram Wooster and his man Jeeves.

#thankyoujeeves

Who murdered the samurai? Was it the notorious thief Tajomaru? Was it the samurai's heartbroken wife? Or did he leave a message telling us who the real killer was? In a dark story about an inscrutable world, Akutagawa asks what is truth, what do we believe, and what stories do we tell ourselves?

CW: sexual assault

Translator: Takashi Kojima

Are you a writer and want to have your short story on the podcast? You can reach me at [email protected]

Happy reading!

Hello, Barn Burners! I met acclaimed writer Thomas H. McNeely at Inprint in Houston to record him reading his story, Tickle Torture. The story is from his collection, Pictures of the Shark, which I read and recommend for its powerful and relatable depictions of a tumultuous childhood.

In a starred review, Kirkus has called Thomas H. McNeely's book, Pictures of the Shark: Stories "an emotionally taut and often haunting  collection."  An East End Houston native, McNeely has published short  stories and non-fiction in The Atlantic, Texas Monthly,  Ploughshares, and many other magazines and anthologies. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts,  the Wallace Stegner Program at Stanford University, and the MacDowell  Colony.  His stories have been short-listed for the Pushcart Prize, Best American Short Stories and O. Henry Award  anthologies.  He currently teaches in the Stanford Online Writing Studio and at Emerson College, Boston. His website is www.thomashmcneelywriter.com and he can be found on Twitter @thmcneely. 

Are you a writer and want to have your short story on the podcast? You can reach me at [email protected]!

Welcome back to Barn Burning, a short story podcast! I had the great pleasure of speaking with writer Wendy J. Fox about her story Tornado Watch, from her forthcoming collection of interconnected stories, What If We Were Somewhere Else? The book comes out in November 2021 and you can pre-order a copy here: https://bookshop.org/a/1986/9781951631055. You can also find Wendy at her website: https://www.wendyjfox.com/

Are you a writer and want to have your story on the podcast? You can reach me at [email protected]!

I was honored to have British writer Kieran Wyatt share three short stories on the Barn Burning Podcast, 'Seagull' 'Leviathan' & 'Spaniel', which first appeared in The Art of Everyone. We talked on UK Mother's Day about liminal places, magical realism, and the Camel Derby. 

Kieran Wyatt lives on the Fylde Coast.  He is co-chair of GenSex (@GenSexResearch), an interdisciplinary  research group, asking probing questions about gender and sexuality. His  work has been published by Eunoia Review, The Art of Everyone, Small  Leaf Press, Fevers of the Mind, and others. He graduated from Edge Hill University in 2018 with honours in Creative Writing. You can find him on Twitter at @Kinz_Wyatt. 

Today I had the pleasure of reading J. Edward Kruft's story "The Big Balloon," followed by a wide-ranging conversation with Joe about MFA programs, character motivation, and the #FlashFiction format. 

"The Big Balloon" appeared in the June 2020 issue of Door is a Jar Magazine and you can find it on his website.

J. Edward  Kruft received his MFA in fiction writing from Brooklyn College, and has  been a Best Small Fictions nominee. His stories have appeared in Jellyfish Review, MoonPark Review and Typehouse Literary Magazine, among others. He is a Virgo, and as such, while working at a storied  fast food chain, he made an impassioned but reasoned argument against  polyester uniforms given their proximity to the fry machine. He was  fired. Originally from the very west of Washington  state, he now lives in the very west of Queens, NY and Sullivan County,  NY with his husband, Mike, and their adopted Siberian Husky, Sasha.