December Update

This is it. One month until I turn thirty... and one month until my (self-imposed) deadline to have the final manuscript of Nobody Looks That Young Here ready to send out. I got a lot closer yesterday, and tomorrow, the whole thing will be a pile of paper in my hands, soon to be covered in pen marks.

There are some other exciting happenings this month, too:

• On Saturday, December 8, I'll be reading "The Short Life of Gary Q. Stuffholder III" at the Propeller Centre for the Visual Arts's Comedy & Storytelling Showcase. "Gary" is a new story, not from my current collection, and it's quite a different thing for me: it's funny. I hope the audience agrees... and if they don't, thankfully, there are a dozen of us on the bill, including my friends Shaista Latif and Shari Kasman. Shaista is from Buddies in Bad Times Theatre's Young Creators Unit, and Shari's a hilarious writer published in Joyland and elsewhere who writes the most unconventional fashion blog you've ever seen. All for five bucks at the door! 984 Queen St. W., 8pm.

• My story, "Chaser" - first read at the EW Reading Series in July - arrives at Little Fiction December 5. Little Fiction publishes two stories a month and they're free to read on your computer or whichever portable device you use: e-reader, tablet, or smartphone. Plus, it's about to have its first birthday - we're trying to talk founder/writer and super guy Troy Palmer into throwing a party - and has published great stories by my real and online friends Andrew Sullivan, Braydon Beaulieu, Jeremy Hanson-Finger and Will Johnson, who will complete the hat trick when his story, "If They Had Music," appears alongside mine. 

• From a story cover to two cover stories: The Quint, featuring my story "Projections," came out this summer - I've been meaning to post this photo forever; can you find me hiding in the long grass? - and Exile Literary Quarterly, with my Vanderbilt-Exile Award-shortlisted story "Mercy," hit newsstands in November.

• Stone Skin Press recently got the first shipment of The Lion and the Aardvark, the fable anthology to which I contributed "A Real Princess." They look like beautiful books, and also feature stories by my pals Julie McArthur and Richard Scarsbrook.

• And lastly, the new issue of In/Words (Carleton University, Ottawa) just came out as well, featuring my story "Swept Up." I'm not sure this one's on sale in Toronto - if you see it on any newsstands, please let me know... and of course, buy a copy.

On Wednesday, when "Chaser" goes live, I will have no more stories sitting between acceptance and publication. I have a few submissions under consideration by magazines and contests, but Nobody Looks That Young Here will be my primary focus for the next month or so. I'll keep the Reading Journal dispatches coming, Thursdays and Sundays, and of course I'll put up a note around the holidays, but this looks like about it for 2012. Thank you for another year of reading and for supporting my work!

October Update!

No, I have not abandoned my first book in favour of a new project called Capsular Dispatches from a Library Addict - in fact, things are going quite well:

• I'll be reading my featured story "Eyesore" at the launch party for Sterling Mag #3 this Thursday, October 25 at No One Writes to the Colonel (460 College St., Toronto). Things get underway around 7:00 p.m - details here! - and the magazine is already available to order, in print or digital.

• Michael Callaghan, publisher at Exile Editions, interviewed me in advance of Exile Literary Quarterly #36.2's release this fall, in which my short story "Mercy" will appear. Check it out!

• I can't help myself: when I see my work in a bookstore (Book City in The Annex, this time), I snap a photo. I like this issue of The Dalhousie Review (91.3) more than any previous ones because my name is on the cover - leftmost on the second line - and my short story, "Ode," is on the inside.

As for the book, it's nearly finished: the above are three of the 16 stories it includes, and the most recently-written one that rounds out the collection may have given it a new title: Nobody Looks That Young Here. This weekend I took the penultimate unfinished story in for an overhaul with the Toronto Public Library's Writer-in-Residence, Farzana Doctor - very helpful meeting! - and today I found out that though another new story, "The Territory," didn't win The Puritan's first-ever contest, it did get through several tiers of judging, which is encouraging... let's call it a (perhaps very) long list. By this time next month, all the stories should be printed as one manuscript and in hand for my final edit, as - yikes - a whole book this time. The self-imposed completion deadline is still December 31, and after some mild summer despair I've realized I'm going to hit it. I look forward to having more news to pass on - and more book reviews, hope you're enjoying them - between now and then. Thank you for reading!

Launching Tuesday, June 12 at Dora Keogh: CVC Anthology, Vol. 2, featuring "Mercy"

My short story, "Mercy," was named to the short list in this year's Vanderbilt-Exile Competition, meaning that it will appear in the second volume of the Carter V. Cooper Short Fiction Anthology alongside Emerging Writers winner Christine Miscione, Established Writers co-winners Sean Virgo and Leon Rooke, and other finalists Kris Bertin, Jacqueline Windh, Amy Stuart, Linda Rogers, Martha Batiz, Phil Della, Kelly Watt and Darlene Madott. The book launches Tuesday, June 12 at the Dora Keogh, 141 Danforth Ave., Toronto, and eight of us are on the bill. Great times to follow - see you there, around 8:00pm.

"Mercy" on $5,000 Vanderbilt-Exile Prize Short List

Exactly what the title says! My long-suffering, 21 months in the making, 7,000-plus word story is among the final twelve, which is especially good news because it means the story will appear in the Carter V. Cooper Short Fiction Anthology Series, Vol. 2 this summer, and an invite to a swanky dinner in June, too. The big announcement is still forthcoming, though: who will win the $3,000 for best story by an emerging writer? And who will win the $2,000 prize for best story by a non-emerging writer, (a prize for which my writing teacher extraordinaire, Richard Scarsbrook, was long-listed for his story, "The Statistician")? Ms. Gloria Vanderbilt is currently reading the stories - definitely the most famous person to ever look at my work! - and the news should be out soon, I'll update. I'd like to take this moment to thank two people who read and commented on the story: Summer Literary Seminars pal Larry Levey, and 2011 Broken Pencil Death Match compatriot (and champion) David Griffin Brown.

Some other little updates:

-I just signed the contract for my very short story, "A Real Princess," to appear in Stone Skin Press's upcoming Modern Aesop anthology, (thanks for the swap-and-edit, Julie McArthur). My first contract, cool!

-I'll be reading at the EW Reading Series at Duffy's Tavern, Toronto, on July 10, 2012.

-I found both the The Nashwaak Review and Prairie Journal issues featuring my work at Indigo last week, check it out.

-I'm about to go check the mail for my copy of Paragon, just released, in which my very short story "Hamburger" appears, and I hope it comes today, because tonight I'm off to Italy for a week or two! (My Reading Journal may take a short hiatus, but it will be back soon.)

As always, thanks everyone for supporting my work; with a little luck, I may have even better news next time. Ciao!

Three Small, Good Things

With Writers' Reserve Grant rejections rolling in fast and furious, and my 25-page story "Mercy" painstakingly approaching completion - goal: Exile Magazine's contest, deadline pushed back to March 6 - I can pass on three little updates.

1) Paragon Press, at Memorial University of Newfoundland, has accepted my very short story, "Hamburger," for publication in Paragon Journal #5. This story came together just in time for my first public reading, at Summer Literary Seminars - check out their contest, too! - in Vilnius this summer. Special thanks to Jackie Zakrewsky, from Washington, DC, who workshopped this piece intensively with me. The issue's due out in April.

2) Echolocation has posted a litte write-up and some photos from the launch party back in November, 2011, here.

3) Stone Skin Press has solicited a contribution to a new anthology of modern fables, which is an exciting departure for me. More details on that one down the road.

Thanks again for following! More Reading Journal entries coming soon!

Merry Christmas... to me? No, to you!

With December drawing to a close, and an embarrassing number of OAC Writers' Reserve Grant applications sent, and my first story ever accepted for publication finally in print (in The Nashwaak Review), and a few hours already spent during my two weeks off work for Christmas/writing (mostly writing), I came back today from the café down the street where I do a lot of editing - currently, I'm well into Year Two of my battle with a story called "The Seven Confessions of Constable Tom Burford", from Projections, and it's turned a corner this month - and I found an envelope in my mail from NōD Magazine, the undergraduate English publication at the University of Calgary, to which I sent my very short story, "Respect" (since retitled "Funeral," though I may change it back now), in April, for their Deface theme issue. Inside the envelope was no letter, no information slip, nor even a subscription order form, just this, (great cover), with my story at the very bottom of the table of contents! I guess it launched in October, according to their Facebook page.

I had inquired about the story by email, with no response, and was already sending it elsewhere (I have been for a while). What a great Christmas gift - much nicer than the "Please withdraw" emails I've now got to start sending. I'll be sure to send a thank you, too... a card, by lettermail, this time!

There are still submissions pending, and of course, the 15 stories that ought to make up Projections aren't all finished yet, but to my mind, this brings 2011 to a perfect ending. In my first year out there, I've published nine stories - seven from what will be my first book - and enjoyed the support of so many friends (over 100 of you on my Facebook page), and colleagues, and, strangest of all, editors and "real" writers, who have published books and everything, who've welcomed me as one of their own - even when they've not accepted my work. Thank you all for a wonderful year, and have a great holiday. I'll be back in 2012!

Reading: "Big Man" at the echolocation launch Tues., Nov. 29

Two stories for the price of one! Come by the echolocation launch this Tuesday, Nov. 29, 7pm, at The Ossington, 61 Ossington Ave., just north of Queen St. W., and pick up your copy, which includes my short story "Tabaco Babies."

Plus, if you stop by Book City in the Annex and get the last issue, echolocation #10, then present your receipt at the launch, you'll receive the new issue at half price - just five dollars!

And, because you'll be getting "Tabaco Babies" in the magazine, I'll read something else: "Big Man," from Prairie Journal #57, an advance copy of which just turned up on my doorstep last week.

Hope you can make it!

"Osvaldo's Guitar," now online!

As promised long ago, the 2011 issue of Hart House Review has gone live, including my short story "Osvaldo's Guitar." Click here to read!

"Tabaco Babies" in echolocation: launch date, and an excerpt

Issue 11 of echolocation, the graduate English literary journal at the University of Toronto, launches Tuesday, November 29, 7pm, at The Ossington, 61 Ossington Ave.

Can't wait? Neither can I! In the meantime, here's an excerpt from my story, "Tabaco Babies," on the magazine's brand-spanking-new site.

Word has it...

...that White Wall Review #35 is out! Officially launching in November, this fine magazine - published by Ryerson University's English Department - turned up at a Word on the Street booth in Queen's Park (Toronto) this weekend, and it features lots of great poetry and fiction, plus my story "Bondo," on page 12. Ask your local (independent!) bookstore when it's coming in!

Two more new stories, from Projections!

My first short fiction collection, Projections, is on a roll - and it's not even finished yet.

First, two weeks ago, indie Toronto online Wooden Rocket Press accepted "Ode," to its Sunday Paper feature, in which a four-part story is serialized every Sunday morning for a month. Part One of "Ode" goes live Sunday, October 2

And then, this week, The Prairie Journal (Calgary) accepted "Big Man." More details to follow as to when this will hit your local (independent!) bookstore.

Six of Projections's 13 stories have now found homes in Canadian litmags, which leads to one question: when the hell will the whole book be done? I have my sights set on a manuscript contest that closes December 31 - my birthday - and I can't imagine a better gift than my first book, sealed and sent off. That'll be a party.

More info on my new publications - and with any luck, some more good news - will be along soon. Like my Facebook page for updates, as well as cool links and, at the start of next month, another round of my quarterly book reviews. Thanks again for reading!

"Comets" now available online!

Great news to come home from Lithuania to: my newest published short story, Comets, is live now, in super-cool Toronto online The Broken City. I'm on Page Four. Click here to read!

Also, I'm using my Facebook page more and more often, sharing not just my own writing updates but fun links, friends' work and more. You should join! Click here, and then, click Like, to stay in the loop!

Still to come this fall: new stories in The Nashwaak Review, White Wall Review and echolocation. A handful more are finished and circulating, which means my book, Projections, is almost done, too(!).

And finally: Vilnius, Lithuania is a place everyone should visit. It's expensive to get there but affordable to live in, and the young people are fantastic (and generally, speak English, to the detriment of my flailing attempts to learn Lithuanian). Thank you to all the new friends at SLS for a great program, including workshops and other literary/cultural events, and for the inspiration and encouragement that naturally comes from being surrounded by other writers, at all levels of their careers. I did my first public reading (still hunting for pictures), and I came home with that story finished (it's called "Hamburger"), another one on the brain (wrote it Saturday and Sunday, called "Chaser"), and a poem that's called "Spiders," for now. It's the first poem I've written since undergrad! For the moment, I'm e-workshopping it with peers, and hoping something great will come of it.

This and many more updates are on the way this fall, it's going to be a busy one! Thanks again for reading!

Two new publications, and a trip to Lithuania!

The hot, hot summer continues:

• "Comets," another short story from Projections, has been accepted by cool Toronto online The Broken City. A special thanks to Leo Furey at The Antigonish Review for the kind feedback on the story.


• Have you been keeping up with my quarterly reviews? At the beginning of July, I posted a new batch, and I'm happy to report that one of them - You Comma Idiot, by Doug Harris - has stretched to about a thousand words, and will soon appear in The Antigonish Review.


• Coming soon to the Facebook page: daily dispatches from the Summer Literary Seminars program in Vilnius, Lithuania, where I'll be workshopping with Joseph Kertes and Josip Novakovich, not to mention all the writerly types in the courses!


• And, coming soon to the blog: some thoughts on book reviewing. I'm yet to publish a book, but here I am critiquing other writers... publically. Three words: fear of reprisal.

Thanks again for following!

A Silly Little Bit of Encouragement, for the Downtime

Proof was recently found in a Book City store in The Annex, in Toronto, that people are (theoretically) exchanging money for a litmag featuring one of my short stories ("Osvaldo's Guitar"). Neato! Don't live in Toronto? Click here to find out where you can get a copy!

Don't worry, reader. The purpose of this photo, and this trip to the bookstore, was not to tell you yet again how to get my work; it, and to an extent, this whole post, are mostly for my own encouragement as I linger in this odd place where I find myself. I'm calling it downtime.

It's not like I have nothing to submit. I'm waiting on responses on two stories right now: "Comets," which features some of the same characters as "The Expiry Dates," and the very first thing I wrote in Richard Scarsbrook's creative writing course at George Brown College, an extremely short story called "Respect."

And it's not like I'm not working on anything. At the moment, I'm nearly finished "Ode," about a dead young man's oldest friend and new-ish girlfriend reluctantly collaborating on his eulogy, and I've long been working on "Projections," the frustratingly hard-to-finish title story of my collection, about a small-town guy who moves away for university but comes back to re-open the town's movie theatre. Plus, I recently added two new stories to the group: "Hang-Ups," about a fractured family spread across Canada that takes place almost entirely in phone conversations (thanks, Braydon Beaulieu, for the recent edit), and another called "The Walk" (for now), about a father's misguided attempt to teach his son a lesson.

Downtime is a funny concept for a writer, but I think it applies here. Most stories I've been working on since 2009 are finished, some await publication, and as a result, I'm mired in that period of sporadically picking at several stories at once, flailing around in half-finished or frequently-abandoned drafts for the one that finally breaks through. My process is such that I don't fully commit until a story shows some promise; and when it does, I work only on the piece in question, obsessively, banging away until it (and I) can take no more.

Until Sunday, "Ode" was nearing that point. I was going back to it more and more often, and I was into the fourth round of revisions of the week. And then, while reading Sherman Alexie in Christie Pits, and getting a sunburn as I sort of watched the Maple Leafs baseball team get routed, the seed of "The Walk" came to me. Next thing I knew, I had an 800-word "memo" in my Blackberry - the first quarter of the story - and it was enough to bump even the almost-finished "Ode" out of focus.

So, suddenly, the downtime is back. It's ok, though. Any excuse to go to a bookstore.

New story, "Bondo," to appear in White Wall Review

Thanks, White Wall Review, for taking on "Bondo," one of my favourites among the stories I've written.

This, (for me, anyway), is a big one. I've been revising this story for a year exactly, and it's come close a few times. I don't think it would have ever seen the light of day without the feedback I received from Aspen Gainer (Other Voices) and Matthew Firth (Front & Centre), or even the recent encouragement I took from Julie McArthur's mention of those stories you refuse to give up on. Thanks also to first readers Marshall Bellamy, Marcin Mokrzewski, Eric Johanssen, and of course, to my amazing girlfriend Sidonie Wybourn, whose improv chops have taught me a ton about "raising the stakes" in a scene, and whose support for me and my work is unflagging.

Thanks also to you, for reading my work and my website. The issue's set to come out in November, 2011.

New story, "Tabaco Babies," in Echolocation!

My fourth short story, and another from my first collection featuring The Expiry Dates, has just been accepted for publication by Echolocation, a journal run by graduate students in the English Department at the University of Toronto. Forthcoming in Fall, 2011!

On Sale Now!

The Hart House review has just gone national. The 2011 issue, featuring my story, "Osvaldo's Guitar," is now available in these fine stores!

Retro Review: The Animal Library, by Jason Camlot

Issue 50 of Broken Pencil is online now, including my Retro Review of Montreal poet Jason Camlot's debut, The Animal Library. Click here to read it, and be sure to check out the rest of the magazine!

Hart House Review Launch Party

Great big thanks to André Babyn and the team at Hart House Review for a fun soirée last night. The issue looks great, and the guest readers - Tim Prior, Rebecca Rosenblum, Prathna Lor and talented U of T undergrad Tommy Leonard-Roy - were excellent choices. We were hanging off their every word! Find out more, and read some selections, at www.harthousereview.com, and to keep up with me, like my Facebook page at right.

"Osvaldo's Guitar" comes out April 15!

Two New Publications
My new short story "Osvaldo's Guitar" launches in print on Friday, April 15, in the Hart House Review! Plus, it will soon be online. Stay tuned for more details on this and "Aria di Gelato," coming this summer in The Nashwaak Review!

Death Match
Also, in case you missed it, congratulations to my new friend David Griffin Brown, who beat out my first-round opponent Colin Brush for a cool $300 in the final of the 2011 Broken Pencil Death Match - a prize he's using on a rain water catchment project in Buena Esperanza, in Panama. Go here for more details. And, you can still read my story, "The Expiry Dates," by just clicking here.

Book Reviews on Facebook
Calling all readers! My quarterly book reviews are moving from my personal Facebook page to my fan page, join to keep up with my reading and writing! What? I have fans? Cool!

2011: Year of the Short Story!
I've recently started work on a novel, because as great as short stories are, and though they're my preferred form, there's a myth out there that collections don't sell. Often, even if all the stories have run in magazines, a publisher won't take on a collection from an author who hasn't made a name with a novel.

Some Canadian writers have thrown themselves into debunking this myth, and proving me a sucker. I've got their backs, and their manifesto is here. Once you've read it, go buy Cathedral by Raymond Carver, or Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro, or The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, or...

Thanks again for stopping by Daniel Perry Fiction, and for supporting my work.