Robert James Russell

Call it what you will (porch, patio, stoop), we have elevated just sitting to an artform.

I’m excited to announce that I have two flash pieces in (the just-released) Issue #2 of the wonderful Gris-Gris: An Online Journal of Literature and Culture.

Direct links below for the pieces:

“Cuckoos”
“Junko Miyashita”

Tumblr blog Merchandising is Forever has taken it upon themselves to create GIFs documenting the deterioration of vintage Star Wars action figures over time. I’m equal parts blissfully mesmerized and nostalgic for all my old Star Wars toys now living happily in a landfill somewhere.

My favorites are below. No Boba Fett…yet.

I’m thrilled that the newest bookstore in Ann Arbor, the wonderfully charming Literati Bookstore, is now carrying Sea of Trees. (They’re also carrying Issue 9 of Midwestern Gothic, and MG Press’ debut This Jealous Earth.) Seriously: If nothing else, stop by and take a look at the awesomeness of this store. It’ll blow your mind.

(Location and hours information.)

I was recently asked to be the fiction judge for the inaugural contest at Slippery Elm Literary Journal, a new journal published out of the University of Findlay. It’s truly an honor, and I’m thrilled to take part.

The contest features $1000 prizes in poetry and prose (poetry finalists will be judged by the extremely talented Mary Biddinger), with a deadline of September 13, 2013. There is a $15 entry fee, and all entrants will receive a copy of the issue.

For more information about Slippery Elm, or details on submitting for the contest, click here.

I was interviewed by Megan Graham at noah magazine about my experiences as a writer, the inspiration behind and conceptualization of Sea of Trees, and the best piece of advice I’ve ever received:

“I think a lot of people get very afraid that they’re never going to get published. And you just kind of have to have the attitude that a lot of great people don’t get published or it takes them a long time to get published. That is absolutely part of the game. You just have to keep going.”

I absolutely adore synthpop (when done right), and think, in the hands of a truly talented artist, it can be some of the catchiest, most ear-satisfying-est music around.

Case in point: Jonathan Bates (who goes by the name Big Black Delta). His new album is dropping at some point this year, and he recently released the first single, “Side of the Road,” which is already a contender for my favorite song of 2013.

And the music video is pretty stellar too. Enjoy it below.

They had me at an aging, Robert Smith-like rock star hunting Nazis across America.

But beyond the gimmicky premise, This Must Be the Place is a truly magnificent film, gorgeously shot and acted, with a lot of heart. And a killer soundtrack by David Byrne too.

Sure, the premise could be whittled down to “Sean Penn plays Cheyenne, a retired rock star who goes on a mission to hunt down the Nazi who persecuted his father at a concentration camp during World War II,” but there’s a lot more to it than that. The film deals with legacies—and what we make of them—and also, and perhaps more importantly, the often skewered perceptions of our own lives and of those around us, and how we let single moments define us, good or bad.

I also found it to be quite the experiment on regionalist settings and how these places define the people present there. There is a fantastic segment of the film that takes place in Bad Axe, Michigan, for example, that does a wonderful job of cementing this place as a very real, living and breathing place, making it feel wholly unique without turning it into a parody. Director Paolo Sorrentino handles each location with great care, and you can tell that each of these places—New York, Dublin, Utah, among others—are characters of themselves, and that each has its own story to tell—each has its own way of affecting Cheyenne in profound and often life-changing ways.

Bottom-line: Sean Penn is fantastic, and his characterization of Cheyenne is worth checking out on its own, but there is so much more to the film than that. This Must Be the Place is a wildly entertaining fantastic character that is absolutely beautiful to look at, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Issue 9 has easily one of my favorite covers yet. I’m absolutely thrilled for this bad boy to have launched.

Pick up a copy: $12 (Print), $2.99 (eBook)

Also, this is one of my favorite times of the production cycle: When we unveil the new header images (below).

I can honestly say I get more and more excited for each issue release we do—and this one’s no different (it’s got such an amazing roster of folks inside I can hardly believe it). Oh, and the cover’s pretty nice to look at too.

Issue 9 is due out on/around April 1, 2013.