Yesterday, I got a sneak peek at a song Sean Morse is writing in response to Daughters of the Air for Word Play: Original Music inspired by Seattle7Writers. The theme of the concert (happening on March 2 at Hugo House) is "Transformations," which is certainly fitting for the metamorphoses in my novel. But it's also super cool to experience a transformation of one art form to another. And what a honor to have one's own work transformed!

I've long used visual art as inspiration for my writing. I've also reflected upon writing in response to music and dance. Whenever I'm stuck in my writing taking in another form helps. (Long walks also help, almost always.) Hearing Sean's concepts and interpretations gave a whole other dimension to the difficult mother-daughter relationship in my book, and the larger societal problem of looking away from atrocity. I'm looking forward to sharing a link to all the songs once they're recorded—Sean's has been looping in my head all day today!

And, I'm excited to hear songs from the rest of the Bushwick Book Club, which is such a neat organization that has put on numerous concerts launching from classics, new releases, the Jack Straw Writers Program, and the like. Several years ago, The Furnace partnered with BBC and Bradford Loomis wrote a beautiful song in response to my short story "More Like Home Than Home" which is now on his album Banner Days.

So, on March 2, Sean Morse, Alex Guy and Joy Mills will perform music inspired by Daughters of the Air. Wes Weddell, Simon Kornelis, and Reggie Garrett will perform music inspired by Michael Schmelter's book of poetry Blood Song. And, Amanda Winterhalter, Nottingham/Wicks, and Nessa Grasing will perform music inspired by Laurie Frankel's novel This is How it Always Is.

Hearing all of these transformations live will be a real treat. If you're in Seattle, I hope you can make it! Proceeds from ticket sales will benefit STYLE: Songwriting Through Youth Literature Education.

Dang it. Despite world affairs being horrendous, I'm going to relish some good things that happened in 2016. First, I achieved my goal of obtaining 100 rejections (106!). If you're not getting rejecting 90% of the time, you're not aiming high enough--so goes the wisdom from Creative Capital. The fruits of this labor paid off with eight publications. Here they are, plus other goodness. (Find the zoetrope!) 

• Artist Trust and Gar LaSalle threw a party to celebrate my winning the inaugural Gar LaSalle Storyteller Award. With delicious homemade pizza! Pictures here. Thank you, forever, Gar and Artist Trust. The door this award opened is tremendous. And congrats to the 2016 winner, Peter Mountford! I can't wait to read his next novel, In The Rush of Everything.
• Jewish in Seattle published my personal essay "Threads of Memory" and my first feature article "Art After Auschwitz."
• Steve Barker interviewed me for his podcast Ordinary Madness. Check out his debut essay collection Now For The Disappointing Part.
• Pacifica Literary Review published "How Do I Fit This Ghost In My Mouth," my first poem.
• The Rumpus published my personal essay "Used To Be Schwartz," featuring a very sad ham sandwich.
• M & I traveled to the Netherlands so I could research Novel #3.
• The anthology Airplane Reading included my essay "Mapping Imagination," about travelling to Argentina to research Novel #1, Dirty.
• The Jack Straw Cultural Center released a podcast  from my 2015 fellowship, in which I discussed with Kevin Craft Novel #2, Paralegal, and read an excerpt. It's got cabbage and spite in it.
• The Los Angeles Review of Books published my essay "Dark Fruit: A Cultural and Personal History of the Plum." Hooray for plums! This essay was a loooooong time in the making.
• Syntax & Salt published two micro-fairy tales.
• For their 30th Anniversary celebration, Artist Trust included my story "Cauliflower Tells You" in the window of V2, a temporary collaborative arts space that used to be a Value Village. The party was super fun; I especially enjoyed Cathy McClure's installation in the elevator, "Such a Nasty Woman." It's similar to her piece "Carnival of Life" except with female figurines.
• Moss published my story "Don't Worry," inspired by something disturbing I overheard at Anne Frank Huis.
• Though I am sad Corinne and I brought The Furnace to a close, our farewell evening was just beautiful. Lisa Nicholas-Ritscher closed out the night by leading a sing along to "Dance Me To The End of Love" with the help of the klezmer group The Schtick Figures. Ah, Leonard Cohen! RIP.

My plans for the holidays including gorging myself on kreplach, cholent, pizza, and rainbow cookies and devouring Donna Tartt's The Secret History and Paula Fox's Desperate Characters. Happy winter solstice!

As the year winds down into its darkest days, I hope you'll join me for one of these events. If you come to two, I will give you a lollipop.

• Friday, December 2, at 8 pm: The Furnace Says Goodnight at Hollow Earth Radio. Thirteen Furnace writers contributed pieces that Corinne and I have woven into a single story. The pieces are at turns raw, luminous, defiant, and hopeful. I'm super excited to see the collaboration come alive on stage.  And there will be klezmer music! Please come help us celebrate our last performance. If you're not in town, you can tune in online at hollowearthradio.org.
• Wednesday, December 7, at 7 pm: Superfriends: Moss + Pacifica at Open Books. Two literary magazines near and dear to me are having launch parties for their latest issues. I'm in Moss #6! Pacifica published my first poem back in March.
• Tuesday, December 13, at 7 pm: Seattle Fiction Federation at Richard Hugo House.  A fiction-full night! I'm reading alongside Steve Sibra, Lucy Hitz, and Donna Miscolta, whose story collection Hola and Goodbye just came out from Carolina Wren Press. There's also an open mic, so come with up to 5 minutes of fiction to share.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of chatting with Steve Barker for the 76th edition of Ordinary Madness, his Arts & Entertainment podcast. We talked about novel writing, rejection, The Furnace, the effects of winning awards, and a bit about my time at McGill University in Montreal. I also read two short-short stories, one of which is quite new. Fun!

I normally think of August as a sleepy month for zoning out and wandering into enormous spider webs, but this year, in Seattle, there are quite a few things happening, all of which are free. Here's where I'll be if you'd like to join:*Thursday, August 7, 6 pm: ekFRANTICS, a reading of literature about imaginary art, with David Lasky and Arlo Smith at the Greg Kucera Gallery. This is being put on by the local press Babel/Salvage and coincides with the Pioneer Square Art Walk, one of my favorite art events in town. I'm reading selections from my novel-in-progress, Paralegal, about a 25-year-old visual artist who takes a job as a paralegal just before the economic crisis of 2008.*Thursday, August 14, 7 pm: My Body is a Book of Rules launch at Richard Hugo House. My dear friend Elissa Washuta launches her debut memoir, which I happily pre-ordered yesterday. I can't wait to get my hands on it and celebrate with her.*Thursday, August 21, 7 pm: The Furnace Presents Chelsea Werner Jatzke at Hollow Earth Radio. Corinne Manning and I are launching the third (!) season of our quarterly reading series featuring one writer, reading one entire story, "with vigor." Chelsea's story is inspired by the Velvet Underground. Come see it live; it's gonna be rad.*Monday, August 25, 7 pm: Seattle Fiction Federation #1 at Richard Hugo House: Corinne is reading at this new series featuring fiction only. I'm excited for this new venue.*Tuesday, August 26, 8 pm: Old Growth Northwest Reading & Opening Mic at the Jewel Box Theater: I'm a featured reader alongside Matthew Simmons and Melody Moberg. We're all reading new work in response to the prompt "My first day on the job was much like my last," plus something else of our choosing. Fun!Then after a week in California for my best & oldest friend's wedding, I've got one more very fun reading called Seattle Wage Slaves: Tales from the Grind, which features stories about work. I'm reading alongside Steve Barker, Sonora Jha, Michael Spence, and Wilson Diehl. That's on Thursday, September 11 at 6:30 at Office Nomads. There will be spiked coffee and free donuts!

For the APRIL festival, The Furnace teamed up with the Bushwick Book Club Seattle, asking three musicians to create original music inspired by the three pieces presented by the series so far. Bradford Loomis wrote "Come Dance With Me," an enchanting lullaby inspired by my story "More Like Home Than Home" and full of so much tender longing and hope.

Kathlene Postma's reading is next week, and I'm so looking forward to it. An excerpt from her story "Fetch" is up on The Furnace blog to give you a taste.

Kicking off The Furnace Reading Series last week was wonderful. The space was cozy and the crowd friendly, and I'm looking forward to coming back in October to help out with Buffy Aakaash's radio play, "The Last Night at Manuela's". In the meantime, check out audio and video from my reading on Seattle poet Greg Bem's website , a very lovely review of the event over at City Arts, and Morgan's Martini Hour, the gracious on-air host of The Furnace.In other collaborative-art-project news, I'm participating in Art & Words, a show curated by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam down in Fort Worth, Texas on October 6. Eleven writers and eleven visual artists are exchanging work and creating forty-four collaborative pieces. I'm excited about the new piece I wrote for it, and I can't wait to see what gets created based on my short-short "A Meal". Bonnie's got a Kickstarter going to help make the event extra special. Prizes include discounted art, a commissioned jazz composition, or haikus, dactyls, limericks, or pieces of flash fiction written just for you!

Tonight we're launching The Furnace, and I'm very excited to be reading my story "More Like Home Than Home". Corinne asked me a question about that story over on The Furnace's blog, giving a little taste for the evening's festivities, and over at Hollow Earth Radio's blog there's a nice round up of all the write ups we've gotten thus far.  And here's the Facebook invite. Hooray! Hope to see you tonight!

I'm thrilled to kick off a new quarterly reading series in Seattle called The Furnace and hosted by Corinne Manning. The series features one new prose writer at a time, and its mission is "to encourage innovative storytelling and a vibrant literary community." I like to think of it as literary biodiversity.The reading is Wednesday, August 1, 6-7 pm at Hollow Earth Radio's performance space in the Central District. You should come!Check out the series's Facebook page and "like" it: http://www.facebook.com/thefurnaceseattle