Robert James Russell

I’m thrilled that my CNF piece “Anthropocene Moves”—about life and loss and bringing extinct animals back from the dead—is in the new issue of decomP Magazine: 

Almost no sound came out when he opened his small mouth. We touched his head, we told him we loved him. He died a week later while we were back at school navigating doomed relationships, grueling class schedules. But we never told him he wasn’t a mistake, and we regret that, still. He lay there, tucked behind us, quietly, feebly, nearing his end. All we could do was give our warmth. All we could do was be warm.

The piece features incredible illustrations by John Vestevich (see a sample below!). Plus, there’s audio of me reading the piece at the top of the story page, in case you care to hear this Midwest boy prattle on about thylacines and giant turtles and more. Eep!

I’m really so humbled—decomP has been a white whale journal of mine for some time. Thanks, Jason, for giving this piece a home. 

I’m beyond honored that my poem “True Indigo”—about jean jackets and grief and reconnoitering the memories of those we lose—is up at Cotton Xenomorph:

But I didn’t realize putting these things together
created this new thing.
And I’m thinking about it right now
because I have sharp elbows, see?
And my favorite denim jacket has a hole
where elbow and denim meet,
where pink skin now shows through

A monstrous thanks to Hannah and Chloe and Teo for publishing this piece and for all that they do—Cotton Xenomorph has launched into the lit scene like a meteor and is promoting and doing such important work. Do check them out. 

 

I’m thrilled to have a triptych of three graphic nonfiction pieces called “Weird West”—about camels, Poker Alice, and Brushy Bill Roberts!—up at Hobart today.

A big thanks to Aaron Burch for indulging my fascination with the Old West.

A few snippets (find the full pieces here):

I was overjoyed to be asked to participate in Little Fiction‘s annual contributor top ten list post. The idea for me was to write about the things that brought me great reflection and inspiration in 2017, so I wrote about thylacines and train robbers and great bristlecone pines and fancy pigeons and (obviously) denim and much more. Here’s a taste:

Check it out, and check out all of the lists (they really are, all, fantastic).

A double-dose of cool: On the heels of my nomination yesterday for my fiction piece “Holograms,” today my creative nonfiction/memoir piece “Corpus”—about violins and what I want to do with my body when I die—was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Split Lip Magazine!

You can read “Corpus” here. I’m grateful to Kaitlyn Andrews-Rice and Ray Shea for accepting the piece and being awesome in general, and again, what a cohort of talented writers to be a part of. Swoon. 🙏😍

I’m honored and thrilled that Little Fiction has nominated my story “Holograms” for a Pushcart Prize!

The story, about a young woman trying to find her place in the world while working a crummy summer job at the Michigan International Speedway in the early 1990s, can be read online here.

Really grateful to Troy and Beth at Little Fiction for their great care in accepting and editing the piece, and for including me in such a wonderfully talented cohort of nominees.

I’m overjoyed that my story “Holograms”—about guns and summer jobs and the Michigan International Speedway—has been published by Little Fiction, which you can read online: 

“Anyway,” Zach said. He popped open the gun’s cylinder, rolled it along his palm back-forth. “I took this class and we talked about the holographic principle of the universe.” He waited, looked at Caroline. “You know what that is?”

Caroline shook her head no.

“Well, basically, it’s this idea that none of this”—he waved the gun ahead of him, parted the grass—“is real. It’s all a hologram.”

“That’s stupid,” Kelly said.

“What’s a hologram?” Caroline asked. She scrunched her face. “Like, I know what a hologram is. But…?”

“The whole universe. None of this is real.” Zach carefully popped out a single round from the cylinder and studied its brassy glare. “You, me, this grass. Nothing.”

Little Fiction is a tremendous publication, and they’ve been a white whale of mine for years. I am so grateful that this piece was picked up, and for Troy and Beth’s excellent editorial guidance. Delighted, delighted!

Split Lip Magazine has been a white whale publication of mine for a long while, and I am deliriously overjoyed that my creative nonfiction piece “Corpus”—about my proximity to a Stradivarius violin and accepting that we can’t control what will become of us—is in the September issue, which you can read online:

I want that to be played on a hot summer’s night in some backyard. Maybe there’s a charcoal grill blazing, an unused children’s playset overgrown with grasses, blown seeds stuck clumped in the wooden seams like white fur, children playing and swimming with bright orange foam noodles in a blue above-ground pool. I want to be played in that backyard, a soundtrack for the suburban crepuscular, a nocturne relishing the length of days.

A huge thanks to Kaitlyn Andrews-Rice and Ray Shea at SLM for publishing it and being wonderful to work with. I also participated in their Now Playing column, where I talk about what I’ve been listening to lately. You can read that here.

I’m thrilled to announce that I’ll be teaching a workshop at the Iowa Writers’ House in Iowa City, December 1-3.

My course, titled Our Available Wilderness: Using Personal Experiences and Memories to Elevate Fiction and Nonfiction, will look at how we can strengthen our writing, both fiction and nonfiction, using our own memories and experiences, as well as all of our senses, to elevate our work to a publishable level.

The line-up of workshops and faculty this fall is…stunning, and I’m honored to be among them. Early bird registration is open now—I am told spots move quickly—and I cannot wait to teach this class.

For more information on my workshop (including pricing and registration), and information on all the IWH workshops, click here.

Overjoyed that my creative nonfiction piece “Doldrums”—about my fascination with The Shakers, being becalmed in my 20s, and a pretty terrible apartment complex I lived in during that time—is in the May 2017 issue of Pithead Chapel, which you can read online:

Earlier, I had been watching the Ken Burns documentary The Shakers: Hands to Work, Hearts to God. It chronicles the Shakers’ rise, their history, their eventual fall. Celibacy was their undoing. Many could not sustain their faith, what was asked of them, but ultimately, yes, the celibacy was what did them in—they couldn’t keep their numbers up, they could no longer find joy in these daily rituals. In one Shaker community called Pleasant Hill, in Kentucky, an eighteen-year-old named Polly committed suicide by hanging on September 13, 1815. The narrator recounts the impassive words of the community elders that had been written down about her death: that Polly killed herself above the kitchen in the sister’s shop. That she was naturally agreeable and good, but that she spoiled it all.

A special thanks to nonfiction editor Katherine Gehan for the encouragement and excitement about this piece—and to all the editors for taking it! Pithead Chapel has long been one of my favorite journals, and I’m delighted to again be featured in an issue.