Short Story Published in Tin House

It's been a long time in the making, but my short story "Cabrón" was published today in Tin House in their Flash Fridays set.  I don't wanna give the ending away in case you haven't read it yet, but this is the story of a mythical criminal in Chicago known as "El Cabrón," a term that's extremely polyvalent in Latino culture, meaning, among other things, "bastard," "son of a bitch," "lowlife," "whiz," "cuckold," but also "pal," "dude," "buddy" and "man."  It's in that complex and contradictory context of antagonism, deprecation but also appreciation + respect, that the video game-loving, action figure-collecting narrator tells his story about el cabrón.  I wrote this piece back in 2007 when I was living in Humboldt Park, right after I'd finished my MFA.  So if you get a second, check out my short story here + tell me what you think.

Finishing My Collection of Flash Fiction about Glass

I finally fished my novella/collection of flash fiction a few days ago and i'm really happy about this. it's 52 pages and centers around people looking through windows, which includes:

12 small blurbs about the molecular composition of glass, the history of glass blowing
and 12 short shorts ranging from 2 to 5 pages each, that include the stories of:

1. a girl looking from the backseat of her car.
2. an alcoholic who pawns her grandmother's jewelry to buy a gold beretta
3. a japanese woman who stays in tokyo hotels to see her city for the first time
4. a father on the amtrak who is visiting his daughter with the creepy militia husband for the 1st time in 15 years
5. a man who walks through portland late at night to see his life inside the window display of stores
6. a woman who watches her schizophrenic neighbor through the peep hole of her door
7. a boy who turns his father in for stealing his collector's edition hans solo action figures
8. a girl who watches the city from juvie detention for ripping the gun out of a cholo's hands
9. a guy who gives his brother advice on how to sleep with smart chicks by wearing fake glasses
10. a woman who falls in love with a man working in a window office
11. a man who deliberately boards crowded el's in chicago to be touched by passengers
12. a man who tries to live his whole life with open windows

I'm going to include this novella in my second collection of short stories. i've already submitted many of these stories to journals like the santa monica review, sentence, boulevard, flyway, and others too. now it's up to lit journals to get their shit straight and publish them!

Now if i can just think of a name. . .

4 Things to Inspire Hope

1. I recently submitted defiance of objects, my first collection of short stories that i've been working on for years now (and this summer, revising) to 2 more first book contests at:

FC2's innovative fiction prize
The bakeless prize at middlebury college

2. Brick Magazine sent me a nice rejection letter that said "piano lessons" was engaging and stylistically beautiful. right then.

3. I'm still working on my short novella/flash fiction collection about people looking through windows. i'm almost halfway done. i'm planning on including this in my second collection of short stories once it's finished. Maybe.

4. If i don't get an agent or a publisher in the next 6 months, i'm gonna start submitting to some of the excellent small/indie presses: greywolf, soft skull, red hen, granta, stuff like that.