Selected Prose

A few nights ago, I interviewed the brilliant Shy Watson. She is the author of Horror Vacui from House of Vlad press and Cheap Yellow from Civil Coping Mechanisms. Shy is also the co-founder Blush Lit. Her work has appeared in New York Tyrant and Hobart and many other places.

I read Horror Vacui and loved it for a lot of reasons. If I had to choose some, it would be because it’s hilarious, and dirty, and beautiful, and sad, and happy, and extremely cathartic. It’s separated into sections: poems, then some microfiction, then Quarantine diaries, which bring the entire thing together quite perfectly and in a way that I’ll never forget. Gave me the chills.

Follow shy on twitter @formermissNJ. Hope you enjoy our talk. If you do, or do not, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or message me on twitter @selectedprose. Always love hearing from you.

Be good.

Jon spends a fine spring morning with Garielle Lutz, author of Stories in the Worst Way, I Looked Alive, Partial List of People to Bleach, Divorcer, Assisted Living, The Complete Gary Lutz, and her latest book, Worsted, from SF/LD Books.

Garielle's work has also appeared in Conjunctions, Sleepingfish, NOON, The Quarterly, The Believer, and many other prominent literary journals. She received a literature grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1996, and in 1999 she was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.

Topics include: Writing great sentences, Gordon Lish, Tyrant Books, Hobart, Ottessa Moshfegh, Big Bruiser Dope Boy, what they teach you/don't teach you in grad school, working/writing with Elizabeth Ellen, the wonderfulness of Giancarlo DiTrapano, Greg Gerke, Jon thanking Garielle 3,000 times for coming on the podcast, and much, much more. 

***SPECIAL PROMOTION*** 

10% off select titles from Tyrant Books with the code SelectedProse21

Ellen Birkett Morris is the author of Lost Girls, a collection of short stories called "a varied set of tales from a skilled practitioner of the short form" by Kirkus Reviews. Her fiction has appeared in Shenandoah, Antioch Review, Notre Dame Review, South Carolina Review, and Santa Fe Literary Review, among other journals. She is a winner of the Bevel Summers Prize for short fiction. Morris is a recipient of a 2013 Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council.

On April 18, 2021, Ellen will be teaching a course through Hidden Timber Books called "Finding an Effective Story Ending." Sign up here!

Topics include me getting a mini Goldendoodle, Sherwood Anderson, how to end a short story, how to begin a short story, portraying womanhood in fiction, biases against women writers, Flannery O'Connor, Kentucky, Louisville, Breonna Taylor, whether Kentucky is the midwest or the south, what often times lies beneath southern/midwestern charm, and much more. 

Jon sits down with author and publisher Brian Alan Ellis to discuss his beloved press, House of Vlad, his books, and much more. 

Brian is the author of Sad Laughter (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2018) and Something to Do with Self-Hate (House of Vlad/Talking Book, 2017). His writing has appeared at Juked, Hobart, Monkeybicycle, Fanzine, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Funhouse, Heavy Feather Review, and Yes Poetry, among other places. He lives in Florida.

Thanks for tuning into the episode. Follow Brian on Twitter at @brianalanellis and follow House of Vlad at @HouseofVlad. 

This week, I sit down with novelist, musician, and counter-terrorism expert Andy Oppenheimer. His novels include Fields of Orion: An Odyssey, and Fields of Orion II: The Mission. In early April, Andy will publish The Hunter’s Story, part three of the trilogy, which we discuss at length. 

Andy’s musical projects include Oppenheimer Analysis, Touching the Void, and Oppenheimer MkII, among other collaborations.

Find him on twitter @AOppenheimer235 and learn more about him and his life's work at www.andyoppenheimer.com.

Unity reads Angel for the Selected Prose Reading Series. Unity is a writer and artist who lives in upstate New York with many feral cats and alter egos.

Primo Updoo by Justin Brooks is a hilarious and alarming journey through an imminent future of Instagram faces, made-to-order cosmetic surgeries, and meme-based social status. 

Justin Brooks is a writer and artist from Brooklyn, NY. Find this story at Waxing and Waning, and his artwork @justinbrooks_art on Instagram. 

*Episode artwork by Yaroslav Danylchenko

Timi Sanni is an award-winning writer, poet, literary prodigy, and biochemistry student from Lagos, Nigeria. His work has appeared in X-R-A-Y, Palette, Fitrah Review, and elsewhere. 

Enjoy the episode. And if you enjoy our podcast, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts and tell us all your thoughts and dirty secrets. 

Timi Sanni reads a work of flash fiction titled Like Foreign Things That Take The Name Of Love. This piece was originally published by Art Most Terrific. The story is posted below:

Mama tucks me between her skinny legs as she plaits my hair. She pulls the cutting comb through my hair and parts it with both hands. Then she begins to weave. Her hands are so adept at weaving beautiful, intricate patterns that the villagers wonder why she hasn’t yet woven a rainbow of our lives.

Mama doesn’t read the bible but as her thin fingers move through my hair working their magic, she says by the way of a soliloquy, “A kiss doesn’t always translate to love, Judas taught this lesson so well.”

I scrunch my nose in disagreement, because this is what a kiss reminds me of: the bell, closing hours in the village primary school, the tree behind our classroom, a boy that had magic for dimples and glory for lips, stolen moments under the watch of a distant sky, the lub-dub of two hearts like bass drums, the music that plays in the silence as two bodies meet and fill the void between, joy, bliss, unrefined ecstasy.

But here is mama saying a kiss doesn’t always translate to love. I douse the fire raging within me, the urge to scream, to tell her of Joshua, to tell her what she doesn’t know of love and sit still as her hands weave through my hair.

But then, there’s a nagging feeling that mother might be right.

I mean, like papa who suddenly disappeared from the village one night, eight years ago, Joshua too gave his body to Lagos and hasn’t been home in eight months. Like papa who before his disappearance, found courage within a gin bottle one night and unleashed his fury on all his troubles (mistaking them for me and mama), Joshua too betrayed his softness one night and struck me across the face when I laughed and refused to walk him to the river, because mama was waiting for me at home and because I knew what the boys did with the girls at the river at night.

Maybe in some ways, Joshua is like papa but unlike papa there are things he knows of love. Like the time I fell and hurt my leg at school and he carried on his back all the way home. Like the night before he left when we hugged under the moonlight and he gave me a beautiful, blue seashell promising to be back before long.

In the day, I wear this shell as a pendant and at night, my dreams find the shell beneath my pillow as I rumple the bedsheet, calling to Joshua.

Mama yanks a tassel of my hair and I yelp. She tucks me tighter between her legs. “A kiss doesn’t always translate to love,” I think. “But Joshua is not Judas, is he?”