Author. Editor. Michigander.
My good friend Jesse Young, a talented musician and writer, has unveiled his newest comic, “Sunday at the Park,” a send-up of “Casey at the Bat” presented with Marvel and DC characters.
Done purely for a love of baseball as well as these classic characters, and featuring truly top-notch writing and gorgeous art, it’s a quick read well worth your time.
“MG Press is an extension our original goal. We want to go further and really hype up this region, show the talent that’s here and publish a small number of titles each year. Of course this is no easy task. Creating a press of any size isn’t. But we feel sticking to our original credo is a good start. (And designing pretty-looking books doesn’t hurt either.)”
The annual Kerrytown Bookfest in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has already come and gone this year, but just wanted to post we had a blast at our Midwestern Gothic table, and we’re absolutely looking forward to next year.
And if you ever find yourself in this neck of the woods when the festival’s going on, do stop by—we love to give out tons of free stuff!
He sits on the bed and chugs the beer and she sits next to him, casually placing her body in a way that suggests friendship yet clearly indicates there is more to come, if desired. He looks straight ahead and she realizes he purposely isn’t making eye contact with her, but isn’t sure if it’s because he’s nervous or because he knows her game and he’s trying to avoid playing. “So, you like my room?”
“Yeah, it’s nice. I need to get a new lamp,” he says, bored, drinking his beer.
If you aren’t familiar with Joyland, you should be: It’s a fantastic online (and sometimes print) journal.
I tend to post and fawn all over all of Midwestern Gothic covers (what can I say, I think they’re beautiful), but this has got to be, hands down, my favorite.
Drawn by illustrator Zac Gorman (himself a Midwesterner), Issue 7 will be our very first theme issue, on Nostalgia. For details of the issue and where you can find more information on Zac, click here.
Otherwise, enjoy.
Comeuppance, seventy-six years later!
The New Yorker has published a new (read: never-before-published) F. Scott Fitzgerald short called “Thank You for the Light”, which he first sent to the magazine in 1936 (only to have it rejected).
The story is the very definition of short, about Mrs. Hanson, a “pretty, somewhat faded woman of forty, who sold corsets and girdles” across the Midwest (represent!), and her quite simple desire to smoke a cigarette (which she’s not allowed to do).
Definitely worth the ten minutes or so it’ll take you to read it. Which you can do here.
Always very cool to see pieces like this dug up from obscurity. Especially since I’m such a sucker for American Modernism. More please.
So great to be a part of such a stellar lineup at the Big Smoke reading event in Detroit (put on by the fine folks at Heavy Feather Review). It was an awesome turnout, a lot of fun.
Some pics and video of me reading below (in case you couldn’t make it and want to feel like you were there).
Ann Arbor in the summer is a fantastic place. Loads of festivals, great for people watching, and so much good food it’s hard to fathom. Oh, and then there’s the urban exploration that I can’t get enough of. Joy!
The all-around fantastic L.M. Stull was kind enough to post an interview we did on her blog where I talk about a wide assortment of goodies. Check it out.
“My intellectual breath was taken away by the spell that Russell created in his debut novel. He has a beautiful literary mind.”
Thanks for the review, Katrina!