My essay "Boiled Boot" appears in the spring issue of The Fiddlehead. The essay explores intergenerational trauma, Charlie Chaplin's film The Gold Rush, the documentary "Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe," and more. Here are the first two pages:

You can order a copy of the issue here. Many thanks to Creative Nonfiction Editor Rowan McCandless and everyone at The Fiddlehead!

On Friday, I stopped by the Chin Music Press shop in Pike Place Market to sign copies of Sugar, my new chapbook, and Daughters of the Air. You can pop in to pick up copies while they last! (Also, get yourself a treat. I enjoyed a sesame red bean ball: crispy, glutinous, gooey, delightful.) Not in Seattle? You can order Sugar from Chin Music Press online right over here.Set scene by poet & nonfiction author Michael Schmeltzer. Thank you, Michael!

I'm back from a family trip to Orcas Island. Waiting for the ferry in Anacortes, we spotted skittering kingfishers and a great blue heron in flight--its path strangely loping. Then, in Orcas, there were the requisite cows, sheep, and horses; a buck crunching on dead leaves; and sweet doe eating dandelions. We went to the old strawberry barreling plant in the hamlet of Olga, where there are no longer any strawberry fields. And M & I baked our bones in a sauna that may have been close to 200° F. How refreshing!Now I'm in back-to-school mode. A few tidbits of note:

• On Sunday, September 18, I'm teaching a free one-day class on contemporary fairy tales at the Capitol Hill branch of the Seattle Public Library.
• On Saturday, October 22, I will be one of 40+ featured artists at Artist Trust's 30th Birthday Party. Tickets are $25 and proceeds support this amazing organization and all the hard work it does in Washington State. I have felt their impact profoundly as a recipient of their inaugural Gar LaSalle Storyteller Award. But they have been a helpful resource for me long before that; I attended a number of their grant writing workshops and compiled some of my notes in a post here.
• Finally, I'm pleased to be offering one-on-one writing coaching via Hugo House's new manuscript consultation program. You can learn all about here.

In other news, I have a few pieces forthcoming--a collage essay about a fruit (in the meantime here's a post I wrote about nectarines), a short story inspired by my recent trip to the Netherlands, and two short-short fairy tales. I'll be sure to post links to these pieces as they become available.

There are just five spots left in Memory and Imagination, my one-day generative class at Hugo House. Join me for a Saturday afternoon of writing from memory and the senses! Wisdom from Rikki Ducornet, Jorge Borges, and Vladimir Nabakov will offer insight in the process. And here's Umberto Eco on the subject, in The Name of the Rose:"This, in fact, is the power of imagination, which, combining the memory of gold with that of the mountain, can compose the idea of a golden mountain."Class meets Saturday, August 13, 1-4 pm. You can register here.

Thanks to the tremendous generosity of the Artist Trust / Gar LaSalle Storyteller Award, I spent the earlier part of this month in the Netherlands, researching my third novel. M came as my trusty research assistant, furnishing highlighters, snacks, and sweaters with alacrity. There's a lot of information crammed in my skull right now, which I am organizing as best I can, hoping it seeps into the crevices of my subconscious fruitfully.What struck me on our trip: the birds! (I know, I know, put a bird on it.) Egrets, loons, swans, geese, ducks, grouse, crows; white-breasted, brilliant blue, long-tailed, plump and shimmery; raucous, trilling, warbling, chortling. Fact: the first painting acquired by the Rijksmuseum features a bold, angry swan.In the moat by the citadel in 'S-Hertogenbosch, an egret bullied ducks until a trio of geese chased the egret to the boardwalk where it loomed. This continued on a loop for a while. A seagull swooped down to chase the egret further and when the egret returned, the geese trailed it, sinister and slow. Sinister, at least, until we realized there were goslings near.In a canal in Rotterdam, three loons had a lovers' spat. Slapped wings, held heads beneath the water--murderous! Not far from there, we strolled past the "swan bridge," soaring and modern.On our last night in Amsterdam, we stayed at a fanciful b&b on the Western Canal Belt. Our hostess could not greet us when we arrived. She hid our keys in a flowerpot. Up two steep, narrow flights of stairs, we flung open the door. The lights were on, the doors and windows open, a gust of wind coming from the terrace, which led to another room with another open door, and the flutter and chirp of green and yellow parakeets, in a big cage looking down upon the Keizersgracht canal. Old books stacked everywhere, art on the walls and leaning upon the books, a laptop left on a long wooden table, half open, as if our hostess had left in a hurry. It had the feel of that computer game Myst, where mysterious rooms, empty of people, always suggest a presence, a place quickly abandoned. We did meet her late that night and in the morning at breakfast the birds flew freely about the room and she would call to them and air kiss them and talked to us about Argentina and Barcelona and photography and her love of Amy (Winehouse).Apropos of birds, on the flight back, I finished Noy Holland's debut novel Bird, a raw gorgeous thing. Here, I leave you with an excerpt:

She was hungry again and gorged herself on chicken fried steak and skittles, on vermilion faces of canyons, cliffs you could dig with a spoon.

This spring, I'm teaching a six-week class on contemporary fairy tales at Hugo House. We'll read Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood and Sarah Shun-lien Bynum and Alissa Nutting, among other fantastic writers. We'll talk about some of my favorite techniques, like everyday magic and intuitive magic. And we'll try our hands at writing our own fairy tales. Class meets Wednesday nights 7-9 pm from May 25-June 29. Registration is currently open for Hugo House members; general registration opens March 22. Scholarships are available and applications are due on March 25.I'm also teaching a 75-minute webinar on Saturday, April 16 called Powerful Objects via Inked Voices. We'll talk about one of my favorite topics: how objects create a special kind of magic in fiction and how useful they are in developing character, plot, and emotional resonance. It's a lecture-based class that will include writing prompts and a Q&A. The class will meet at 12 pm EST / 9 am PST and is just $25. We'll talk about Cynthia Ozick's story "The Shawl," so please read that in advance. You can register here.Speaking of fairy tales, right now at the Henry Art Gallery, you can see Paul McCarthy's White Snow, a wildly whimsical and subversive take on Snow White. A few years ago, I saw his gonzo installation WS at the Park Avenue Armory in New York, a similarly subversive spin on Snow White but somehow less rich than the wood sculptures on view at the Henry. White Snow seems more artful, crafted, and thoughtful, whereas WS was a big raunchy frat party. The Henry is now free on Sundays (huzzah!), so go check it out. Perhaps it will inspire you!

Some people have been asking what I submitted for the Artist Trust / Gar LaSalle Storytelling Award. They were three short stories:

1. "The Zoo," published in Washington City Paper
2. "Old Boyfriends," published in Propeller Magazine
3. "Sugar," published in Gastronomica

I didn't submit a novel excerpt, following the general grant-writing advice to use a work sample that has a beginning, middle, and end. I also strived to show a range in styles and put the sample together in the order above to modulate tone, starting with the sad/happy, getting quite dark, and then ending on a lighter note. Just putting my process out there in case it's helpful! NB: Artist Trust gathers an amazing list of funding resources here. And here's a post on writing artist statements.

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

I picked up Alexandra Kollontai's Love of Worker Bees at Boneshaker Books during the AWP conference in Minneapolis. Usually, I skip a book's introduction, dive right into the fiction, and read the introduction afterwards. Kollontai's work is a rare look at the Russian Revolution, and since I'm also reading Dr. Zhivago, I wanted to get some background on her. This may have marred my reading experience.

The introduction made me crave reading more history, and perhaps Kollontai's nonfiction. Her fiction served to illustrate the feminist causes she fought for, and so in reading the short story "Sisters" I felt biased against the artistry of the story, about "a deserted wife and a prostitute who find a common bond." (Let me back up and say I think if the explicit aim of the writer is to illustrate a political cause, it would be more effective to write nonfiction. That isn't to say fiction must be apolitical. Pretty much all art is political. I believe a fiction writer should make story primary. The politics arising out of the story tend to emerge in a more complex, satisfying way when you don't set out to illustrate a specific agenda. Let the story drive.)

Set in the 1920s, "Sisters" is a frame story in which someone at a "delegates conference" is being confided in. The storyteller has left her husband, has nowhere to go, and fears she may have to resort to prostitution. After her daughter's illness, she was laid off from her job. Her husband, an executive in a government trust company, has taken to coming home drunk. She would like to work and he would like her to stay home. Things get worse when their daughter dies; he brings prostitutes home. The woman is horrified, humiliated, ready to run the second prostitute out of their house--but she sees a desperation in this sad young woman's eyes, and as they talk, realizes she is an educated young woman without money or shelter, starving, anguished. The storyteller realizes that if she hadn't been married, she'd be in a similar situation. She leaves her husband and...is at risk at being in the same situation. The story illustrates a pressing issue that Kollontai had to fight for relentlessly, that women's rights are an essential part of the revolution. She ended up in diplomatic exile for much of her adult life.

The story is affecting, in the way that if someone you met told you that story you would care and be concerned, and want to do something. So in this way, the story achieves a goal. However, the story is mostly told in summary, in the way that someone might relate their tale in real life, not told in scene, with the kind of sensory detail that draws you closer to the humanity of the characters. It feels one step removed. And so I didn't love the story, and I wouldn't press it upon anyone unless they were digging into the subject matter--the issues of feminism and Communism, the struggles of people living in Russia after the Revolution. I'll add as another caveat that is the third piece in the book. I did not read the first two and do wonder if the book is "front loaded" with stronger stories. So take my lack of enthusiasm with a grain of salt, check it out if it intrigues you, and let me know what you think.

This series on Women in Translation continues next week with a Duras novella and will finish at the end of August with a couple surprise books of contemporary poetry, review copies I was delighted to receive in the mail.

I did a little interview on the Hugo House blog about my upcoming class co-presented with the Henry Art Gallery and about what I've been reading and writing lately. You can register for the class here and see previous students' work from the class here and here. Join me Thursday nights 6-8 pm starting January 30. Happy new year!

In case you couldn't make it or wanted to watch again, here's the video from my final Made at Hugo House reading. I read half of my story "Healers," which I workshopped at the Tin House Writers' Workshop this summer and which may be the final story in my collection MORE LIKE HOME THAN HOME. Many thanks to Samudre Media for recording![youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVbvZoFVd1c&feature=youtu.be]

The 2012-13 Made at Hugo House Fellowship is coming to an end (sad day!), and the first of our three final readings is this very Tuesday.Come see what we've been toiling away at all year:

• Poetry! September 10. Katie Ogle will read from THE SMALLEST GUN I COULD FIND  which follows a conversation between a speaker and her homonculus (Latin for "little man").  Bill Carty will read from YOU TROUBLER (Ahab to Elijah: "Is it you, you troubler of Israel?" Taylor Swift: "I knew you were trouble.")
• Fiction! September 25.Irene Keliher will read from her dystopian novel THE VISIONARIES, Eric McMillan will read from CLEAR, his novel about the Iraq war, and I will read from my story collection MORE LIKE HOME THAN HOME.
• Nonfiction! November 21.  Elissa Washuta will read from her second memoir, STARVATION MODE, along with Claire Jackson and Catherine Slaton.

These readings will be amazing! Come, come, come!It's been a wonderful year meeting with these talented writers, hearing guest speakers on topics such as grants and first book publications, taking free Hugo House classes, and snatching up surprise opportunities along the way, like Hedgebrook's Spring Salon. This year, I started to feel much more integrated in Seattle's literary community. And the fellowship encouraged me to roll up my sleeves, get more writing done, and get my writing out into the world more aggressively than I have ever done before. "The Zoo," the first story I wrote with the fellowship in mind (while nervously waiting to hear back about the fellowship, actually), was published in January, and two stories I've revised this year will be coming out later this fall (details to come).  I workshopped what I believe will be the last story in MORE LIKE HOME THAN HOME at the Tin House conference, and I'm excited to read it on the 25th. Many thanks to Brian McGuigan for coming up with this program and to Hugo House for making it happen!And check out the 2013-14 fellows!(Whew. I think I exhausted my monthly allotment of exclamation points.)

I've recorded a brief excerpt from the opening to my novel Dirty and uploaded it to SoundCloud. You can listen to it right here:[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/95422298" params="" width=" 100%" height="166" iframe="true" /]In case you missed it, an essay I wrote about my novel was featured in Airplane Reading.

There's a real dreamy exhibit on at Photo Center NW until May 28. I'm especially fond of Erin V. Sotak's "SUGAR and Spice," which depicts a bride in a blue-papered drawing room about to eat a cube of sugar that is surely poisoned, and Christine Shank's "You Promised to Listen," an ethereal room filled with light and dust motes and a thick carpet of fuscia, white, and green flower buds, all suggesting an altercation gone seriously, and beautifully, wrong.If you're in Seattle, and in need of an art fix, do check it out! And if you're not, 26 of the pictures are available online.

Sunday night, I had the pleasure of reading a short story that takes place in Pike Place Market right in Pike Place Market, at the Can Can. The event, a literary cabaret produced by Sailor St. Claire, was called The Naked Bunch, and its theme played off of William S. Burroughs Naked Lunch, asking: what's your fix? So I read a short story called "Sugar," the first story I've set in Seattle since moving here that I actually like.  What I really loved about the event was how eclectic and yet cohesive it was - fiction, poetry, strip tease, and music all coming at that what's-your-fix question from differently kinky angles. The night before that was also a treat. I read another new story called "The Zoo" at the Long Talking Bad Conditions Blues reading series hosted by Zachary Watterson at Liberty Bar. Zachary named the series after a novel by Ron Sukenick that is comprised of one extraordinarily long sentence, which lends a certain urgency to the series that I really like.  That's two nights of readings with wonderful, talented writers - not to mention burlesque dancers and musicians! I feel really lucky.There's another reason I'm feeling really lucky these days. I've been awarded a Made at Hugo House Fellowship! This new fellowship provides funding, space, and resources to four to six writers age 35 and younger in King County. During my fellowship, I'll be completing my short story collection "More Like Home Than Home," which explores themes of migration, place, and home in settings like Bucharest, New York, and Seattle, and several places in between. So there was something extra sweet about reading "Sugar," a story set in Seattle that I'm finally happy about after three years of living here,  at such a great venue like The Can Can. Hooray!I needed a high-res photo for the fellowship webpage, so I asked my friend Sayed Alamy at GuyEatsOctopus to take a few shots. He did a super job!

October in Seattle will be brimming with literary events. Between Arts Crush, City Arts Fest and a whole slew of other goodies, I'll be glad I went back to drinking coffee and taking my multivitamins! Here are a few events I'm involved with, one way or another:

• Wed. Oct. 3, 6-7 pm. The Furnace Reading Series Presents "The Last Night at Manuela's" .What happens when a stage play is adapted for radio? That's what Buffy Aakaash has done with his award-winning play, which is set in Mexico on the Day of the Dead. Come watch it live as it's broadcast on Hollow Earth Radio! We'll have hot chocolate on hand (just sayin'). This is a free and featured Arts Crush event made possible with support from the Seattle Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs. Hosted by Corinne Manning. (Nb: I kicked off this free quarterly series in August and now help to coordinate it.) Facebook Twitter

• Sun. Oct. 6, 6-7 pm. Sunset Reading on the Melrose Promenade. An evening of poetry and sunset-gazing featuring the fabulously talented poets Brian McGuigan, Elizabeth Cooperman, and Katherine Ogle, plus one of the best views in Seattle.  One of a string of events promoting the Melrose Promenade project, which is working toward making Melrose Avenue Seattle's next great open space.

• Sat. Oct. 27, 1-5 pm. Found Stories at Richard Hugo House. I'm teaching a one-day class using found objects as generative material for new fiction. Fun! And then, right afterwards...

• Sat. Oct. 27, 6 pm. Long Talking Bad Conditions Blues reading series at Liberty Bar in Capitol Hill. I'm thrilled to be reading with Eugene Cross, Jane Wong, Katherine DeBlassie, Matthew Nienow, and Suzanne Morrison. Hosted by Zachary Watterson.

Then of course, there's the marathon Seattle Lit Crawl on Thursday, October 18, meandering from First Hill to Capitol Hill from 5 to 10 pm at which many of my talented writer friends will be reading.Whew! I think in November I might need a nap.