In 2002 I was 26 and living in Tokyo and wanted to write HARD.  What I thought that meant was, chain-smoking and drinking bourbon at a 4 AM keyboard.  Which made for the most pure writing fun I’ve ever had, and a manuscript complete in a little under six weeks. The writing life ain’t so…

“And So She Made Some Changes” was my first official publication. It appeared in a campus literary magazine called the MT Cup Review (a campus literary journal at Ball State University) in 1999 after I had taken two or three fiction workshops. At that point, I still considered myself a visual artist and had no…

I wrote this story in 1996 and wouldn’t dream of submitting it anymore, except when invited to include a disclaimer like this. Of course, there’s something in it I like, or I wouldn’t dare to submit it at all. I still like its characters, its dialogue, and its economy. And, sadly, I’m still somewhat enamored…

When Necessary Fiction editor Steve Himmer graciously invited me to participate in this project, I figured it’d be a great opportunity to embarrass myself publicly. But what era of early writing to choose from? Should I go with the sad pastiches of Ray Carver stories I churned out during college where the only noticeable change…

This piece was abandoned in Sept. 2009 as then a part of a proposed book called Pieces of Apocalypse that began and ended with this one text. I was reading Blake Butler at the time (still am), so you can see shades of him in it. I was also high on Shane Jones (still am),…

Here is a short story called “Gail.” It was one of the first short stories I ever wrote. Coming up, I was lucky enough to have been around wonderful writers — T.C. Boyle in high school, Bill Gass at Washington University — but it took me a long time to give myself permission to write…

I wrote this back in 2001, when I was deeply in love with Martin Amis. What a knock-off! Aside from trying to write like a British male novelist, I think the biggest change in my writing style since then is that my “writerly” presence has retreated from my storytelling — these days I take on…

A Summer Theft is from a short story workshop I took in fall of 2004. This is from the “Saul Bellow” meets “post-modernism” period that dominated my work throughout graduate school. I never really liked the story, but I just thought it was lacking because I lacked talent, not because I lacked confidence and polish.…

I wrote “Wanna Be a Cowgirl” in Spring of 2008. I had just started writing, really, after quitting a horrible job. I’ve had very little instruction in writing — I have psychology and law degrees — and you can see that quite clearly in this story. I had always written a little and, in the post-traumatic…

I wrote the first drafts of “Blanket” in late 2001, no more than a year after I decided I wanted to be a writer. It was the first story I wrote in what was then intended to be a novel-in-stories, although I only finished four of the ten or twelve I planned on. One of…

This story was included as part of my Honors Portfolio at Susquehanna University; it was likely written in 2002. The preface to my portfolio contained this cringe-inducing phrase: “I dislike of any form of political-correctness in fiction or poetry.” I was going through a few phases: emulation of William Gass’s eschewing of quotation marks in…

For the past week and a half Damien has been trying to impress me. He brings treats, usually stale cookies, into the intern office that we share, beige walls and one tiny window and, in the winter, space heaters that sputter ice. When we’re there early in the morning, before the printing press has started…