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I’m honored to have my story “Fire Starter” in Issue One of the wonderful LossLit Magazine:

And it was always the same story, her strategy never changing: get the girl she was fighting in a headlock, pull out her busted-up blue Bic gas station lighter, and set her hair ablaze. Granted, it never lasted long, someone always put it out, but no onlooker, no matter how much they hated her, would every try to intervene when they saw Katie pull the lighter out—as if daring her to do it again, to prove she still had it in her. She always did.

A hearty thanks to LossLit editors/founders Aki Schilz and Kit Caless for allowing me to a part of this. What they’re doing, trying to define (and redefine) what “loss” is in literature, is a marvel. Also love that they’re asking contributors to, as they put it, “nominate an existing, published book that they think deserves to be recognized in a new canon of literature driven by loss.” My nomination: Dybek’s Coast of Chicago. Definitely check these guys out. They rock.

I chatted with Leesa Cross-Smith over at WhiskeyPaper Press about the origins of three of my stories in Don’t Ask Me to Spell It Out:

“Frans”
“Doing the Thing”
“Claude”

 

I’ll be reading at the most excellent Pete’s Reading Series in Brooklyn later this month (May 21).

Very honored to be a part ofthis. I’m reading alongside the hugely talented (and very cool) Emily Schultz, whose new novel The Blondes is all the rage right now. Going to be a great time. Reading starts at 7:30.

2003’s The Missing—starring Cate Blanchett and directed by Ron Howard—is a mighty, mighty film. Flew very under the radar. And a huge inspiration for a new novel I’m working on. Billed as a Revisionist Western, it’s stark and well-paced and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since I first saw it. Gets under your skin (like a good film should).

Ben Tanzer, author extraordinaire—and who was kind enough to blurb my recent collection Don’t Ask Me to Spell It Out—invited me to join him on a special AWP-edition of his most excellent podcast, This Podcast Will Change Your Life.

You can listen to the podcast in its entirety here.

My story “Dead Dogs” is up at the fantastic journal Revolution John, a story about drugs and borders and mothers and sons:

So Blake studies the sky, dawn quickly fading to night, stands and surveys the river. Alone, he unwraps the blanket, admires the dog—a mutt, looks like he has some Rottweiler in him—then the stitched-up gash running along its breast, black string glistening from the leaking fluids, its eyes already turning the color of milk. Blake sniffs, loud, then spits out into the river, picks up the dog and tosses it overboard. Once in the water he waits, watches it float back to the surface, and with his fishing net he pushes it west, southeast toward Detroit, and watches as the water carries it gently forward, bobbing amongst the waves toward the other side.

Thanks to Eric Boyd and Sheldon Lee Compton at Revolution John for taking this—so honored to be included.

September 2015 will see the release of my Western novel Mesilla. I am beyond excited about it. I’ve loved Westerns nearly my whole life, and working with Dane Bahr and Dock Street Press has been an absolute dream. I’m also excited to officially unveil the back-of-the-book synopsis:

1863, New Mexico Territory. Shot full of holes and on the run from the relentless pursuit of his one-time friend now intent on retribution, Confederate deserter Everett Root finds himself navigating the brutal desert headed to the town of Mesilla, where he believes salvation lies. But when Everett stumbles on a cache of silver, and a young girl who’s lost everything, he is forced to take stock of his past and his future. Full of sprawling landscapes and wild gunmen, Mesilla is a story of one man’s resolve to rectify the wrongs he has committed and make peace with his place in the world.

And it’s already received some advance praise from Matthew Gavin Frank, author of the incredible Preparing the Ghost:

“In a mounting gush of sumptuous prose, Robert James Russell’s Mesilla scrubs bare the elements of the classic Western—the wounded, questing hero, the damsel in distress, the shoot-outs, the relationship with the horse, the murderous, phantasmal villain in hot pursuit—and reinvents them as existential meditation.”

You can find the full quote from Mr. Frank here. I’m beyond delighted he enjoyed it so.

September 2015 can’t come fast enough.

Over at the literature news website Real Pants, I talked with WhiskeyPaper co-founder Leesa Cross-Smith about the origins of my new chapbook Don’t Ask Me to Spell It Out:

The collection came together on accident, really. I was at this point where I was writing these little stories, things inspired by real life—myself, friends, whoever—and I realized after a while that there was this common thread: an unnamed narrator, this tinge of loss, or hopelessness, but also hopefulness, I think, in a lot of these stories.

Leesa and Loran at WP have been amazing every step of the way, and I am so, so happy with how DAMTSIO has turned out. Can’t thank them enough.

I was honored to be invited to chat with Cynthia Canty for her Michigan Public Radio program Stateside:

As someone who left the Midwest, only to eventually return, Russell says he writes about the region to discover why he is so attracted to the area. For him, it comes down to the region’s sense of community. “People are finding it is a place they want to be. The community in the Midwest is wonderful in general.”

Thanks to everyone at the program for having me. I had an absolute blast.

I chatted with WhiskeyPaper Press about the first story in my collection Don’t Ask Me to Spell It Out, “Frans”:

I’m fascinated with how we remember things—with how we want to remember things. We want to create life where there is none; we want to forget pain when we should be holding onto it. Frans in this story—his house, his life—is this whole other stable life that the unnamed narrator is recalling.