Mid-February to mid-March, I'll be zipping around the country reading from and yapping about Daughters of the Air (yay!). While I'm at it, I'll be teaching a couple one-day classes on one of my favorite topics: writing contemporary fairy tales. In both classes we'll short-short stories by masters of the form, Angela Carter and Kate Bernheimer, and write our own retellings and original tales.In Portland: Sunday, February 18, 10 am-2 pm at Literary Arts. Bring lunch! Register here.(N.B.  I'll be reading at Powell's City of Books the next day, February 19 at 7:30 pm, in conversation with another fan of fairy tales, Susan DeFreitas, author of Hot Season. Here is a conversation between us on fairy tales on the Powell's blog.)In Chicago:Monday, March 5, 6:30-9 pm at StoryStudio Chicago. Register here.(And my Chicago reading will be at The Book Cellar on Saturday, March 3 at 6 pm, with Gint Aras, author of The Fugue.)

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All of my upcoming readings are here.All of my upcoming classes are here.Want short & sweet once-a-month updates on readings, classes, publications, and bits on art, writing, food, and cities? Subscribe to my newsletter here. It's like this blog but less often and right in your inbox! You can check out previous newsletters here. Past highlights include pictures of ponies, fruit pyramids, giants, and odd winged creatures.

Over on the Powell's blog, I spoke with Susan DeFreitas, author of Hot Season, about blurring genre boundaries, political fiction, and fairy tales. In the process we touched on a slew of authors: Clarice Lispector, Nikolai Gogol, Kate Bernheimer, Lydia Millet, Denis Johnson, Ralph Ellison, Günter Grass, Angela Carter, Maya Sonenberg, Robert Coover, Rikki Ducornet, Lily Hoang, Anne Carson, and Haruki Murakami. Whew! Makes me want hug a bookcase. You can read the Q & A here.If you're in the Portland area, I hope you'll join us at Powell's City of Books on Monday, February 19 at 7:30 pm. (And if you can't make it, you can still preorder a signed edition here to be shipped to you!)

I am pleased with how fitting it is to have an essay called "How to Finish a Novel in Only 15 Years" in The Nervous Breakdown today. Here's how it begins:

1.  Choose a horrific moment in history you know little about, in a country, Argentina, you know little about, but which seems to have troubling similarities to the here and now. Research for years. Images from the Dirty War sear into your mind.continue reading

In other news, I made a handy-dandy card with all of my upcoming out-of-Seattle readings (as always everything is on my appearances page).Huzzah!