We were in the middle of an epidemic of extrasensitive hearing. We walked around with our ears swollen and red, or lay in bed trying not to hear. We only whispered anymore, an ear-shaking whisper,

Since Cape of Good Hope

Terry was here with the AIDS people, but I was just visiting. I didn’t know I needed a break until the phone calls from Terry began, calls about native African pussy and

In the old yard adjacent the high school sat a green-metal box that housed an emergency generator. At least we always said it did, though I’ve unlearned plenty since those days. Used to we’d hang

The beach is crowded and a handful of other vacationers see it: a flash of white just past the waves, then overturned quickly; a dark diamond shape, a splash as the stingray falls back to the

I bought secondhand hunting attire that I only wore around the house. You corrected me when I called our apartment a house. We howled until we were gender tired. You howled when you stubbed your

Riding through the desert I came across a cowboy in the narrow shade of a saguaro. He was doing stomach crunches. I crossed my arms over my saddlehorn and watched him for a few reps but ended up

The weirdest thing happened to me just now, which is weird in itself in that nothing weird ever happens to me. I, being on the surface at least, not weird.

Why should I lie? I've done nothing.

I was behind the mint green Toyota pickup on the way to work this morning, again. It didn’t matter if I was running late because Tommy flung his breakfast on my blouse, or if I was early because I

“The thing is,” he said, “now that I’ve stopped drinking, I don’t want to be a bore. At parties, you know.”

“You’re not boring, Grandpa,” I said. He didn’t go to parties, either.

“The thing

In the summer that followed Danny's sophomore year at U-High, he took Bridget to a White Sox game. He knocked at her door on a Sunday morning with a baseball glove in each hand and a White Sox

I met Billy Lombardo in the summer of 2007 on a sun drenched patch of grass under the Blue Ridge Mountains in Asheville, N.C. We had both just survived our first "Meet and Greet" at Warren Wilson

I did some fact-checking after the wedding. I bet you thought I never would, but I did. And you know what I found out? You were never an ace reliever in the Orioles' farm system, like I overheard

Pop loved two things, but I inherited his affection for one of those only. He read me bedtime stories during the off-season. The last one always came the night before he left for Spring Training.

I enjoy stealing. It's just as simple as that.
Jane's Addiction, "Been Caught Stealing"

Bear with me here: I don't know shit about baseball. I honestly don't think I could name a single

She woke up as excited as she had twenty years ago on a St. Patrick's Day morning in her childhood home, despite the fact that everything around her was unfamiliar, despite the fact that her hotel

She is not a warthog in the zoo. She travels with a whip and rope through space and time. She is not a girl but feels like one. She understands the principles of Schrödinger and Heisenberg,

My wife says I'm too old for rollercoasters. Maybe she's right. I'm twenty-five, I'm balding, and I have a weak beard. But I still want to go to Libertyland.

"You'll buy a funnel cake,"

Outside on his porch was an indoor sofa. But he kept the lawn mowed. Early in the morning when the grass was still too wet — there he was, limping behind the mower, cursing God and us when it

Amy: Mattox, thank you for chatting with me about your new (and first) novel, Sometimes We're Always Real Same-Same. You've had great press (Publisher's Weekly, New York Times Sunday Book

A few months ago (i.e. in August), Michael Kimball guest-edited Everyday Genius for a month (and, actually, he was kicking so much ass, it extended into much of, if not all, of September as

A Conversation with Laird Hunt (cont'd)

(read part one of the interview here)

THE REIFICATION OF FICTION
 

Ruland: When last we talked, you recommended some

I was thinking about your book and its readers, and I thought about how there are three audiences. One is very large: people who have never met you. The second is very small: people who have known

Fish Stories

This friend of mine, Greg, he's always quitting smoking. He breaks his cigarettes in half, or runs them under the tap, or both, so he can't light up. He hides all his matches. And