A very fun radio interview to start things off here in Champaign-Urbana, with David Inge of Will Focus 580 AM. You know the cough button that mutes your mike for as long as you press it down? For reasons I would be hard-pressed to explain, I love that button.
November 5, 2007, 12:37 p.m.Categories: China, Fiction Collections, History, Novellas
And the family trip we took to Xian, which I've mined once or twice before, comes through for me once again: a hard moment going bright, now up as part of Issue Two of the fine new Hot Metal Bridge, along with great fiction by Dan Chaon and Dan Marshall, nonfiction by Michelle Wildgen and Shya Scanlon, and interviews with Tom Perrotta and Stewart O’Nan.
October 30, 2007, 7:20 p.m.Categories: China, Food, Nonfiction, Travel
Columnist, writer, poet, friend and fellow McSweeney's dispatcher John Griswold on the mound. Me at the plate. Here comes the heat.
October 10, 2007, 6:35 p.m.Categories: China, Fiction Collections, Food, History, Interviews, Novellas
A very fun interview just went up here, courtesy of Claire Zulkey. She let me talk about kids' books, Very Bad Poems, and dark chocolate. That's just win-win-win right there.
September 1, 2007, 10:08 p.m.Categories: China, Fiction Collections, Interviews, Novellas
I've been submitting to Indiana Review for about a million years now. Lots of nice feedback along the way, and a couple of close calls in their contests, but no paydirt until now: it's a great pleasure for me to be able to say that "Body Asking Shadow" is out in their latest issue, Volume 20, Number 1. Much good company too: Denise Duhamel and Stuart Dybek and Dustin Long and Lucia Perillo for starters.
"Body Asking Shadow" is one of the few stories I've set in China so far. I'm pretty sure more will come later, after we've left. That's usually how it goes.
And, to save you a little googling, the title is from Gary Snyder's amazing translation of Han Shan's Cold Mountain sequence:
"A hill of pines hums in the wind. And now I've lost the shortcut home, Body asking shadow, how do you keep up?"
August 5, 2007, 4:10 p.m.Categories: China, Poetry, Short Stories
Julie Sisk, the editor of Map Magazine out of Nanjing, takes her best shot at me in the latest issue. Most of the interview deals with the new cultural/historical guide to the city that I just wrote, but the questions branch out from there.
June 28, 2007, 8:21 p.m.Categories: China, History, Interviews, Nonfiction, Travel
It's been a long time coming but Nanjing: A Cultural and Historical Guide is at last alive.
May 2, 2007, 11:48 a.m.Categories: China, History, Nonfiction, Travel
The trip that my family and I took to Xian back in our first year in China gave me all kinds of good juju. The latest bit of it to find a home is called "Under the Abalone," which can be read in its entirety here in Issue 2 of Salt Flats Annual. It's a great issue, focusing on place, with fiction by Girija Tropp, and nonfiction by Jim Ruland, Jai Clare, Pia Ehrhardt, Carol Novack, and longtime hero of mine Melanie Rae Thon.
January 16, 2007, 12:10 p.m.Categories: China, History, Litmags, Nonfiction, Travel
