god is a giant crab

the adorable Jelly with Please don't be upset

2011-11-29T09:20:00.000-08:00

2011-11-01T12:27:00.001-07:00

Already feeling the AWP excitement.

Book trade?

2011-10-18T11:14:00.001-07:00

I would love to trade you a copy of Please don't be upset for your book-type-thing. Comment below or email me if you're interested in a trade.

Simon Jacobs cat with Please don't be upset

2011-10-16T17:28:00.000-07:00

Robert Kloss's cat with Please don't be upset

2011-10-13T06:48:00.002-07:00

Please don't be upset at Powells!!!

2011-10-13T06:48:00.001-07:00

Julie's cat is not impressed by Please Don't be upset

2011-10-11T08:30:00.000-07:00

My cat looks super cute with boyfriend's copy of Please don't be upset

2011-10-11T08:29:00.000-07:00

Leia Wilson's everything and Please Don't be Upset

2011-10-09T07:14:00.000-07:00

Adam Moorad's gord with Please Don't be Upset

2011-10-09T06:56:00.000-07:00

Jill Smith's dog with Please Don't be Upset

2011-10-07T11:39:00.000-07:00

Rachel Adams's dog with Please Don't be Upset

2011-10-07T07:03:00.000-07:00

Aaron Beasley's cat with Please Don't be Upset

2011-10-07T06:44:00.001-07:00

Emma Sovich's cat with Please Don't be Upset

2011-10-06T20:09:00.000-07:00

The delightful Daniela Olszewska's cat loving Please Don't be Upset

2011-10-06T13:24:00.000-07:00

Hobart!

2011-10-04T10:42:00.000-07:00

I'm reading for Hobart (web) during the month of October to guest edit a later issue.

So submit!

Please Don't be Upset

2011-10-02T10:05:00.000-07:00

2011-09-21T06:37:00.000-07:00

Go buy a copy of my book.

Look how adorable it is.

Why wouldn't you buy it?

Pretty excited to be taking this course in the spring

2011-09-19T17:00:00.000-07:00

"W/riting Through Taboo: Language, Power and Politics in Kathy Acker's Automythography."

Literary terrorist Kathy Acker projected numerous personae in her writing and performances, so that even though her written texts can arguably be traced through four increasingly sophisticated phases (autobiography, deconstruction, nihilism and myth), she is best understood if all of her works are read as one and if her public “selves” and her physical body as text are included in her oeuvre. In this course, we will use the four phases as a useful framework for exploring (1)
her use of the taboo as a revelatory alternative to other feminist attempts to dismantle or transcend language, (2) her ritualistic “mythologizing” of her biography and “biographizing” of her personal mythology, and (3) her fugue-like textual performance—a labyrinthine automythography that transcends time and space.

2011-09-15T06:18:00.001-07:00

Really starting to settle into teaching (they have quiet writing time a lot). The kids are doing peer review right now. They look so serious about it. One kid keeps writing and erasing, writing and erasing. Of course there's one kid who has been staring out the window for five minutes, but at least he looks kind of happy doing so.

Trying to edit/organize the thing (poisonhorse) I wrote last year and starting a new project that I feel excited about. Things feel organized and busy.

Lily Hoang visits Tuscaloosa

2011-09-11T12:05:00.000-07:00

So Lily Hoang came to read this past Thursday night. And I got to introduce her, interview her and hang out with her a bit.

I had an understanding of Lily from all the internet stalking I had done of her, but wasn’t prepared for the Lily Hoang that IS Lily Hoang. She’s articulate and friendly and can project her voice. She is one of the least nervous sounding writers I’ve ever heard read their work, though she claimed to be nervous on the inside. She seemed perfectly comfortable talking about writing or poop or pig zesting. She’s very easy going and her students are lucky to have her.

She sat across from me at dinner and smiled at me even when I said awkward things and interrupted the flow of conversation, which I so often do. She talked about her interest in geography, specifically geography of imaginary place. She said it was the hip thing right now, but being incredibly unhip, I had never heard of it. I feel like Martone could teach a forms class on imaginary place and I would love to take it. (In fact I am facebook chatting with him now and he recommends I read A Pattern Language and says he will consider the class but it would be a few semesters away).

At the reading Lily read sans-microphone from Changing and Evolutionary Revolution and from her new novel based on a true story which is about a 250 lb woman that rolls who smothers her children with her body over a period of some years. She read well and expressively, commanding the attention of even my non-reading boyfriend. I was not even a little distracted by the 17 roaches that were crawling all over the food on the counter beside me. I wanted to trap her and prevent her from leaving Tuscaloosa until she committed to sending me the entire book to read.

The next day during the interview I asked rambling questions and sort of made sad faces at her because I felt bad for having such poorly written questions, but she answered them all, kindly and fully. The interview will probably be up on the BWR website in some weeks. Most of me being awkward will be edited out. But please, imagine me screaming at the recorder, No you will erase that part, several times.

After the interview she suggested we go get coffee until the scheduled group lunch. My whole being sort of froze with happiness that Lily Hoang wanted to have coffee with me. I ran a red light on the way to the coffee shop and we did not die. Lily didn’t look terribly afraid, but a little uncomfortable as one should look after the running of a red light. She gave me some formatting advice on a thing I’m working on and told me she’d read my writing anytime.

We sat at the German bakery/coffee shop and talked about television shows, other writers, the classes she was teaching and had taught, books, etc. She was incredibly kind and patient as I sat excitedly nodding at all she had to say. I worried that my lack of speaking and intense smiling was awkward, but did not know how to correct it.

I missed the final dinner before Lily left town (okay I got really drunk and knew better than to go in that condition) but spent my entire evening making my friends listen to me recount basically everything I could remember that Lily said to me.

After Alissa Nutting, Lily will guest edit an issue of the Fairy Tale Review.

Lily has a choose your own adventure book about an old cat lady who is not old, but in fact young and attractive.

Lily’s husband studies utopias. It is utopias, not Utopia.

Lily likes breaking bad and project run way.

Lily is allergic to alcohol.

Lily taught women studies classes. In one class they altered Barbie dolls and one student drilled a hole in the Barbie to show where the soul wasn’t, because modern Barbie (aka Lily) doesn’t believe in god.

I did not tell Lily that I wanted to crush her and keep her in a tiny box so that she could tell me stories all the time. Nor did I say any other number of creepy things I could have. I hope I did a good job not being creepy. It is hard sometimes.
But after her visit I certainly feel more motivated to be productive/hardworking/etc.

i want it

2011-09-03T12:30:00.000-07:00

Beautiful looking thing by Robert Kloss

2011-08-28T17:33:00.000-07:00

First class = taught.

One student has a pet cow.
Another has 80 pet ducks.
Another met michael jackson when she was ten and felt afraid.
Another had an incident where another child bit him in the head.
Another fell off a stage drunk.

I think I feel okay about teaching now.

2011-08-11T09:37:00.001-07:00

who knew that making a syllabus would be so stressful?

oh i adore you all

2011-08-06T15:17:00.001-07:00

feels lovely to talk to the first year mfa students (i guess i'm a second year??) and answer questions that i was asking this time last year.

also exciting to see that they're excited. amps my excitement level.

2011-08-02T08:55:00.001-07:00

my poisonhorse is growing

2011-08-02T08:17:00.000-07:00

Have a hard time keeping up with this blog. Lately facebook seems to serve the same purpose. Meant to switch over to wordpress this summer, but haven't yet.

!!!!!!!!!!

2011-08-01T08:33:00.000-07:00

Classmate Kevin Weidner is a 2011 Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship finalist.

So the goal is: be more like Kevin Weidner. (Psssh, drank beers and hug dogs)

The Reprint

2011-08-01T06:16:00.000-07:00

I'm in the current issue of The Reprint with a story originally published in Hobart. Also in this issue are the amazing Roxane Gay, Aubrey Hirsch, Xtx, Adam Moorad, Meg Pokrass, Kirsty Logan and Travis Hessman.

Do they call me Brandi or Ms. Wells or Ms. Brandi???

2011-07-22T09:26:00.001-07:00

Teaching two classes of Eng 101 (composition) this fall. 24 students in each class. Having just learned how to properly use a semi-colon, I'll admit that I feel under-qualified and unprepared. I'm also extremely lacking in patience.

Anyone have advice? I bet they don't like arts and crafts. I bet they don't want to make adorable paper crowns and color them, right?

!!

2011-07-13T06:54:00.000-07:00

You can pre-order my book, Please Don't Be Upset from Tiny Hardcore Press!!

Excited about forthcoming chapbook

2011-07-11T07:07:00.001-07:00

How I'm spending my summer:

2011-06-23T05:47:00.000-07:00

2011-06-22T10:28:00.001-07:00

"And the son, just like the husband, produced in Anna a feeling akin to disappointment. She had imagined him better than he was in reality."

-Anna Karenina

2011-06-20T06:48:00.001-07:00

Why did I think I didn't like Gertrude Stein? Who else am I avoiding but am actually in LOVE with?

"If the red is rose and there is a gate surrounding it, if inside is let in and there places change then certainly something is upright. It is earnest."

2011-06-13T06:52:00.000-07:00

My poisonhorse is 5550 words. It has to grow to I think 10-15K.

Feels nice to have a project.

!

2011-06-09T11:45:00.000-07:00

Check out the newest issue of Fourteen Hills!!!

2011-06-07T09:01:00.000-07:00

I have 3 short fictions at wrong tree review.

The goddamn amazing Laura Kochman has poems at alice blue.

2011-05-25T11:47:00.000-07:00

I love this story by Mathias Svalina at The Collagist.

It makes me want to write more and better and isn't that what a great story does?

2011-05-23T17:02:00.000-07:00

I have a "poem" up at Dark Sky Magazine.

2011-05-21T14:27:00.000-07:00

How can someone write all day? Why don't I write all day? I can hula hoop an hour and a half but I can't write that long without checking my facebook every 10 minutes (I mean every paragraph?)

I can get an mfa in hula hooping??

2011-05-20T10:30:00.001-07:00

This summer is hula hooping and writing.

Please never end.

2011-05-18T06:50:00.000-07:00

Tuscaloosa writers (including myself) wrote small pieces about a robot statue that's on UA's campus. All proceeds will go to Holt Elementary School, which was damaged in the tornadoes.

Check it out. Order. Promote.

Things I've been doing instead of writing:

2011-05-17T09:27:00.000-07:00

reading the box car children
watching ally mcbeal
coloring
watering plants
drinking
sleeping
watching movies about gangsters and druglords
picking at scabs
making dinner
eating dinner
meowing at the neighbor's cat through their window
reading behind the neighbors house because they have excellent patio furniture
looking at patio furniture online
swimming
looking at recipes online
making cake
texting
chasing the cats around while making dragon noises
googling 'dragon noises'
googling 'swimming for dummies'
watching videos of bunnies
riding my bike
riding the neighbor's bike
thinking about growing my hair out
stalking people on facebook
stalking people on the internet
facebook is the internet
thinking about my blog
thinking about ways to be a better blogger
thinking about deleting my blog
googling "buffets in tuscaloosa, al"

2011-05-17T07:47:00.000-07:00

I can tell whenever there's been a special on television about the Brandi Wells from Longview, TX that disappeared.

288 people googled "Brandi Wells" and looked at my blog for 10 seconds or less last night.

Crispin Best tells me what to eat for lunch

2011-05-11T09:24:00.000-07:00

me: hey crispin best what should i eat for lunch?

Crispin: hi mate
eat tortillas
and imagine
if attilla the hun
had been mexican
that dude was like 5'1'' or something... what a boss
ateeya

me: what would he have been like if he was taller?

Crispin: imagine

me: pussy-assed?

Crispin: no fricken way
he would've womp'd way more foes
just eat whatever you want as long as it's tofurkey, babe

me: i ate tofurkey once, but it wasn't shaped like a turkey. it felt like a lie.

Crispin: feeling like
"tofurkey turducken"
"tofucken"
?

me: tofucken

Crispin: get to fuck
get tofucken

Bald

2011-05-06T07:15:00.000-07:00

TRNSFR has a new blog, airport donut, and they've posted a
story I wrote and a short interview.

Stuff

2011-04-24T12:55:00.000-07:00

I'm in the current issue of Nano Fiction along with Brian Oliu and Annie Hartnett.

I have a ridiculous thing in abjective.

And I had a thing in pank recently.

2011-04-20T17:53:00.000-07:00

I wrote Kill Bill 2

Lines from my paper on Mike Hammer for Blood Melodrama:

2011-04-19T08:39:00.000-07:00

Mike Hammer loves women.

Women strip their clothes off and throw themselves at him.

Even though Hammer frequently fails to save the woman, sometimes shoots the woman...

A woman that gets herself killed is no woman for Mike Hammer.

Feeling kind of sentimental about 1st year in Alabama

2011-04-11T09:24:00.001-07:00

Things I've learned during my first year at grad school

2011-04-07T08:17:00.000-07:00

-Poets like birds. Or they hate birds. But I am certain that poets feel strongly about birds.

-If you want to get an mfa, you can probably get an mfa.

-To properly use a semi-colon. I am never going to use a semi-colon.

-Sometimes people have "reasons" or "a purpose."

-Not everyone has the same idea about what is good. It is probably not okay to tell someone that their idea is stupid. Even if it is.

-I should probably read those emails that I get from school/the director/anyone. Or deadlines will be missed.

-Some people are more upset by being bitten than others.

-People don't like lil Wayne. Stupid fucks.

-18 year olds in Alabama are often racist, bigoted, etc. I already knew this, but I didn't know they would say things like "well, it's not safe to live around a bunch of black people."

-I do not enjoy literature courses.

-I can not speak critically about a piece of writing. I have no desire to do so.

-Box wine is fancy.

Mike Hammer, Slash Pine, Cunty faced landlord

2011-04-04T08:23:00.001-07:00

Logical outline for Mike Hammer paper done.

I need to quit stressing out/complaining about school. I am writing a goddamn paper on Mike Hammer. So for the last week I've been reading Mike Hammer novels. If reading Mike Hammer novels is the stressful part of my week, I am doing okay.

Slash Pine Festival was this weekend. I met Tyler Gobble and Sean Lovelace and that was fun. Tyler Gobble is taller than me and told me he went out dancing the night before. He was wearing a tank top. I feel unsure about men who wear tank tops, but Tyler was so nice that it was okay. Tyler you will probably read this. My boyfriend tries to wear tank tops sometimes and I punch him in the throat until he stops.

Sean Lovelace had a long hair in a ponytail and did not have a tank top on. Good job not wearing a tank top Sean Lovelace.

My landlord is raising my rent ten dollars. She is also not repairing my fridge light (it doesn't work anymore. it's not the bulb). I like to see in my fridge when the kitchen is dark. It's my favorite thing. Sometimes I invite people over and we look in my fridge in the dark kitchen. Now we can't do that anymore.

Summer 2011

2011-03-21T08:28:00.001-07:00

I think I've pretty much decided I don't want a job this summer. Because the only thing around would be waiting tables or sitting at a desk, answering the phone. And fuck that. But I would like to travel. Can I visit you? Do you live near something neat that I can look at? It's really hot in Tuscaloosa. Do you live somewhere colder? Can we eat ice cubes together? Or drink slushies?

2011-03-20T09:02:00.000-07:00

"Then something went wrong, and she was no longer able to concentrate on the novels she brought home with her. Everything about them seemed imaginary, insubstantial, built on a tissue of fog and lies---and not just the settings and the characters, either, but the very words on the page. They might have been invented just that second by somebody who had never so much as set foot in the world."

-Kevin Brockmeier

2011-03-08T10:26:00.000-08:00

I am constantly not reading and not writing enough.

But, I am seriously considering trying to submit something to every fiction journal listed on duotrope, starting at the beginning of the alphabet and working my way down.

Also I have a new problem where I order dresses from modcloth. Or plan to order them.

I need all of the dresses. Fuck.

Today is the day I examine myself

2011-02-28T08:14:00.001-08:00

Kids from creative writing club have said:

"Are we going for shock value here?"
(In regards to an assignment I gave them)

and

"Wow, angsty."
(In reference to a thing I read aloud that I wrote)

-I've also had someone (a good friend) tell me that my stories might not have consequence. I spent some time thinking about that. Do stories have to have consequence? I mean, here I am, writing about cum socks and elbows and shit and I had no idea it needed consequence. Is this something that other people think about? Consequence?

More than a dozen times I've had people in workshop say that my writing is allegorical. And I thought, really? I had no idea. I wanted to tell them, no the poisonhorse is really just a poisonous horse. He's just hanging out, all poisonous and shit. He does not stand for heroin. He doesn't stand for inoculation. He's just this horse. I think he's fun. Doesn't fun go a long way? Does fun go far enough?

-I've thought about the shock value thing. I suppose I write about things I feel are shocking because they're interesting to me. It's my way of getting at the "new." If it's shocking, it has to be new. People aren't shocked by old and done. So that's okay.

-And angsty. Well, I haven't thought about angsty much. But if you're alive and not a little angsty then well, fuck, what are you doing?

2011-02-24T11:00:00.001-08:00

Is it to early to begin worrying about summer employment?

Aggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggh.

2011-02-22T13:52:00.000-08:00

Reject me. Do it right now.

I'm eating oil and vinegar potato salad and I can take it.

2011-02-18T09:40:00.000-08:00

My days are structured so much differently than they used to be.

I've been waking up early and somehow just being awake earlier makes me feel more productive. GOOD JOB BEING AWAKE, I think.

I've been writing more. Which is always good, I think. In my fiction workshop this semester we've been writing a little in class. I forgot you could do things like write in class. It's goddamn refreshing.

I've been revising/paying closer attention to those things I have written. Which means I've been submitting less.

It's starting to warm up so I can bike to campus again.

creative writing club

2011-02-17T08:33:00.000-08:00

In teaching the high school kids for Creative Writing Club I find myself reverting back to high school Brandi. Whispering to the kids when someone else is teaching or another kid is reading their work. Agreeing with them, yes that is a stupid writing exercise. Write what you want! Look, I just drew a picture of a cat instead of writing!

Pastoralia

2011-02-15T16:22:00.000-08:00

'"Blah blah blah," he says. "What kind of praise is that? Empty praise? I'd caution against empty praise. Because empty praise is what? Is like what? Is a lie. And a lie is what? Is negative. You're like the opposite of that little boy who cried Wolf. You're like the little boy who cried No Wolf, when a wolf was in fact chewing on his leg, by the name of Janet."'

Oh George Saunders, I love you.

2011-02-12T14:02:00.000-08:00

Grad school is the place where I'm not the most negative/picky person in the room. In fact, sometimes I get the feeling that I like EVERYTHING.

Oh, academia.

AWP

2011-02-09T07:32:00.000-08:00

Pretty sure I have every button.

Several t-shirts, most of which are too large for me.

Books. So many books. Not enough books.

Wish I had bought Poor Claudia (is their website not working? what's up with that?)

Wish I bought every Tarpaulin Sky book.

Met so many people I formerly only knew on the internet. Said awkward things to them.

Somehow ate Chinese food for at least half my meals.

Got yelled at for standing left at the metro.

Jumped on the hotel beds almost as much as I slept on them.

Looked at all the amazing people and felt very very behind.

Read 13 books in January:

2011-01-31T20:55:00.000-08:00

Centuries by Joel Brouwer
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil by George Saunders
Drawing of a Swan Before Memory by Laynie Browne
Michael Martone by Michael Martone
Ms. Hempel Chronicles by Sarah Bynum
The Man Suit by Zachary Schomburg
Scary, No Scary by Zachary Schomburg
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
The Beggar Maid and other stories by Alice Munro
The Dain Curse by Dashiell Hammett
Double Indemnity by James M. Cain
A Gringo Like Me by Jennifer L. Knox
Destruction Myth by Mathias Svalina

AWP on Thursday. Hope to see you there.

2011-01-30T21:03:00.000-08:00

Amazing story by Tom Cotsonas.

2011-01-30T14:45:00.000-08:00

"I love to masturbate, especially
after a poem of mine's been accepted in
a literary magazine. Shit-"

-Jennifer L. Knox, A Gringo Like Me

AWP

2011-01-24T21:30:00.000-08:00

More than a little excited about AWP next week.

Please, come stand near me. I will awkwardly smile at you and make some sort of hand motion that means, "Hello. I am excited to see you. I am trying not to urinate on myself right now."

Barry Grass!

2011-01-21T12:17:00.000-08:00

Delightful classmate Barry Grass has a lyric essay up at junk talk

Reading Tonight!

2011-01-14T08:44:00.001-08:00

2011-01-13T21:34:00.000-08:00

Read Katy Gunn at Used Furniture Review

hello

2011-01-11T14:27:00.000-08:00

Classes start tomorrow.

Hello blood melodrama, creative writing club, and fiction workshop.

Hello writing center.

Hello black warrior review.

Hello first year reading on friday.

Hello soon to faces I haven't been looking at lately.

I am pretty good at falling down.

2011-01-07T15:37:00.001-08:00

Trying out for roller derby in feb. This means I need to learn how to do things like:
skate
stop
fall proper.

Also, it is January 7th and I have finished 4 books. (I thought it was five, but I think I invented the fifth book. It's okay to invent books, I think).
Michael Martone's "Michael Martone" was amazing and well constructed. Interesting from beginning to end. Full of lies and truths. Goddamn delight.

1st year reading with 3 other first years in a little over a week. I have a really in-in-in progress thing I'm thinking of reading. I've been thinking about how things sound aloud as opposed to how they sound on paper. I think things read aloud need to be more "entertaining" but perhaps less cohesive? This may be something I'm telling myself.

AWP looms closer.

Two more quotes from Laynie Browne's Drawing of a Swan Before Memory:

"Detachment is that cloud he carries."

"She cannot abandon that which he has entirely forgotten."

See, people glow in Tuscaloosa:

2011-01-05T13:41:00.000-08:00

"Presently, explanation is a horse, followed by two hundred thousand pairs of wheels which carry nothing."

-Laynie Browne, Drawing of a Swan before Memory

2011-01-03T09:05:00.000-08:00

3 very short fictions up at Monkey Bicycle

Also, I just finished Centuries by Joel Brouwer and it was amazing.
Here's one of the poems from it: Vodka

Lucas Southworth

2011-01-02T18:41:00.000-08:00

So I was reading the latest issue of elimae and I really liked this short story by Lucas Southworth, Two Plumbers: A Love Story.

After doing a little research and reading a few more stories by Lucas, I discovered he's here. At the University of Alabama.

Fuck yeah Alabama. Go elephants.

Read in 2010

2011-01-01T20:09:00.000-08:00

Letter's to Wendy's
Everyone's Pretty: A Novel
The Little Prince
The Babies
My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate ME
Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls
Museum of the Weird
Poemland
Autobiography of Red
Black Life
Selected Plays by Frank O'Hara
Tsim Tsum
Sorry, Tree
Archicembalo
Blood Dazzler
Selected Poems by Frank O'Hara
The Cow
The Floating Bridge: Prose Poems
Primitive Mentor
A Common Pornography
Runaway: Stories
Samedi the Deafness
Under the Dome
Dad Says He Saw You at the Mall
Ever
Varieties of Disturbance
Music for Torching
On Writing: Stephen King
Men and Cartoons
The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas
The Way through Doors
I is to Vorticism
Fugue State
World War Z
The Failure Six

Today I:

2011-01-01T18:49:00.000-08:00

-Ate at the Chinese Buffet
-Read Wallace's essay "Consider the Lobster"
-Revised two stories
-Began a new story
-Road bikes around town and through a cemetery
-Ate braised cabbage, sauteed mushrooms, and roasted brussel sprouts in a lemon sauce
-Hugged seven cats
-Made banana bread with bittersweet chocolate chips and butterscotch chips
-Read part of Michael Martone's "Michael Martone"
-Read part of Joel Brower's "Centuries"

This year will be goddamn productive.

Resolutions

2010-12-31T15:22:00.000-08:00

I don't normally resolve to accomplish things for the New Year. But hell, now is as good a time as any other to improve myself. Because I sure as fuck need improving.

-Read More

I meant to read 100 books this year. Then 50. I capped at 35 completed books. So, more than 35 books in 2011. It's about improvement.

-Write every day

I sure as fuck haven't been doing that. And isn't that the appeal of grad school? Isn't that why I came?

-Eat more raw produce.

And less pizza, tacos, chocolate chocolate chocolate. Thank you Sam's Club membership for allowing me to buy veggies and fruit in bulk for cheap.

-Read more online journals/magazines.

I've really quit doing this since I moved to Tuscaloosa. I miss it.

-Drink Less

At least during the week. Hard to read if I'm drunk.

-Less facebook, Less television.

Oh stalking, great usurper of my time. Oh 30 rock and Mad Men.

-Be more organized/clean.

Oh desk you are so gross. Time to throw away and straighten. Every time I open the cabinets, pots and pans fall out. One fell on the cat's head.

2011's motto:
See more, do more, go more.

2010-12-30T16:34:00.001-08:00

"It was never my intention to be actual."
--Joe Wenderoth, Letters to Wendy's

2010-12-29T15:17:00.000-08:00

new year is going to have fucking resolutions.

2010-12-29T11:40:00.000-08:00

"No thought is worthy of clarification. Clarification is just the process the fantasy needs to pretend its on the way to itself. Fuck clarification; give me the meat and leave me alone."
-Joe Wenderoth, Letters to Wendy's

2010-12-28T13:44:00.000-08:00

"What I want is for the collision to be more decisive."
-Joe Wenderoth, Letters to Wendy's

2010-12-14T21:31:00.000-08:00

Because Alabama was up to 110 degrees this summer, I thought it wouldn't get very cold this winter. That was wrong. Very very wrong. And my house is uninsulated. And the heater gets warm but does not spread that heat through the house. If I hug the heater it warms me some. The space heater is not worth a shit either and can APPARENTLY not be taken into the bed. It will set things (or human flesh) aflame.

2010-12-11T13:29:00.001-08:00

oh cami park.

ehhh?

2010-12-09T21:54:00.001-08:00

What's that lit journal I should be reading that I haven't been?

oh break

2010-12-08T19:45:00.000-08:00

DC hotel for AWP-booked.
Other AWP monies- Paid.

No class/work until Jan 12th. Trying to do productive things, but I find myself watching movies and taking naps at odd hours. Still pushing to read 50 books by the end of the year.

Am trying to collaborate with Ben Spivey on a thing, unless he decides I suck, which would be okay because Ben Spivey is a super-talented nice guy.

Oh that's just the awesome, that's all. Don't mind the awesome. Could you step around the awesome? Please don't drip soup on the awesome. Okay, thanks

2010-11-28T11:41:00.000-08:00

I recently finished Amelia Gray's "Museum of the Weird" and Alissa Nutting's "Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls."

Now I'm reading "My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me," which has basically everyone in it. Aimee Bender, Michael Martone, Brian Evenson, Sabrina Orah Mark, Kellie Wells, Shelley Jackson,Joy Williams, Kate Bernheimer, Lily Hoang, Lydia Millet, Alissa Nutting and fucking so many more.

Are you reading this? Have you already read it? The awesome is overwhelming.

2010-11-23T14:33:00.001-08:00

26 books read this year. 24 more to go.

Feel Excited

2010-11-18T09:13:00.000-08:00

I am excited about all different sorts of collaboration right now. You should probably be collaborating with me.

2010-11-08T22:30:00.000-08:00

My story Poisonhorse is up at Double Shiny.

classes!

2010-10-26T20:42:00.001-07:00

Excited about my spring classes:

Fiction workshop (novel in stories)
Creative Writing for Kids (get to work with high school students)
Blood Melodrama (crime fiction/noir)
and a single credit class taught by visiting prof Larry Sutin

Now I'm ready for this semester to end so the next one can start.

So. Balancing SCHOOL and RELATIONSHIP.

2010-10-23T20:41:00.000-07:00

Stayed in this evening writing papers and stuff when what I wanted to do was go out (yes it would have involved ice cream and some excitement over a letterpress). But because I stayed in and did this work, I have all tomorrow free to hang out with boyfriend.

I keep looking for ways to reorganize my time. Less drinking, sure. Don't go out, sure. Don't have that nap, okay. Wake up earlier, no problem. I just keep feeling like there must be some time SOMEWHERE that can be allocated for schoolwork or writing. Time, where are you?

oh schoool

2010-10-22T13:54:00.000-07:00

Without sounding whiny, I'm counting the days until xmas break (at which point I will have almost a month and a half off from school).

I love school. Truly I do. But I also like having time to read what I want to read and to write and REVISE. There is very little revising going on this semester. I have all my work-shopped stories paper clipped together for easy reference later. And the poems.

And the poems. Well there won't be much revising going on there, because I haven't written things I like much for poetry class. I know this isn't the class's fault. This isn't my well intentioned professor's fault. It's mine. I can't write poetry if I know its going to be held up to some sort of academic standard. (For some reason I have no problem writing things that I like for fiction workshop). But that's okay. I KNOW now.

I'm very ready for my 'teaching' class to end. We're writing a response essay on a an article about AIDS and population control and then passing it off to a classmate so they can practice grading it. My response essay basically says the article was shit because it did not reference dessert items. The footnotes, which contain dessert recipes, take up more than double what the actual 'paper' does.

Observing someone else teach has been helpful though. I kind of feel like I should bake Jessica an apple pie or something for putting up with me observing her so many times this semester. And video taping her.

Oh school.

Bradley Sandssssss

2010-10-20T21:32:00.000-07:00

You should probably check out Bradley Sands's book Sorry I ruined your orgy because Bradley Sands is a winner and because it contains a prose poem titled "Today Brandi Wells’ Cat Fell Out of a Tree But He was Not Upset."

I published that delightful poem a while back on my blog!

Dolls

2010-09-19T08:36:00.000-07:00

This is creepy and I kind of want one.

And maybe one of these.

Ways I died

2010-09-15T21:24:00.000-07:00

This Shit rocks. My classmates are the best.

goals

2010-09-14T16:05:00.001-07:00

New goals:
(after speaking to a classmate with these goals)

-Write 1000 words a day.
-Read thirty minutes of non-school reading a day.

goddamn pleased

2010-09-12T16:13:00.000-07:00

Almost a month into school and I'm loving it. I love parts of it I didn't think I would. One of my favorite things is working at the writing center, tutoring folks, helping with their papers and such. I like sitting down and having a conversation with someone about what they've written. Before I started I worried it would be hard or stressful, but other than a few APA papers, nothing is hard. I'm still worried about teaching next year, but I have a while to worry.

As soon as it cools off I imagine I'll enjoy riding my extremely attractive bike to campus. On Mondays when I bike home at 10:00 PM, it feels amazing outside. And I don't mind stopping while my classmate and fellow biker goes in the convenience store to buy wine or beer.

I like reading everyone's fiction stories for workshop. For this workshop (with Michael Martone) everyone has a story due every week. So I read 12 stories a week. There have been some goddamn winners. An old woman who befriends a family brown recluses, eats one and then allows another to bungee down her throat to save it. A house that's alive. A guy who raises a child like a dog. A story featuring Rick Ross. Stories about dead dogs and pee and Jesus and Moses and drinking gravy from the bellies of attractive girls.

We had reading of just first year MFA kids at my house a couple of nights ago and it was amazing. It's interesting to hear what they wrote and way they read it. I can not imagine a better evening. Lots of wine and snacks obviously helped. One guy read about what a sloppy eater god was and another read his essay on how he shamed a rock band.

Boyfriend finally got a job. This is the clincher, the one thing that's stressed me out. He starts as a framer at Michael's this week. Hopefully he'll get together a portfolio and apply to the art mfa program in printmaking.

Right now my house is still full of chairs and hula hoops. And I feel goddamn pleased.

Here's a photo of me at dragoncon:

poetry book suggestions

2010-08-19T11:40:00.000-07:00

Aside from other assignments, I have to read a book of poetry a week for a poetry workshop. Suggestions?? Stuff I can find at the library?