Writer’s Bloc (Rutgers) is a rare site that has a new design–a good design–with every issue. I have piece in the new issue 7. Check out the splash page to see the issue’s underwater theme in action, as well as the writing of Jimmy Chen (owner of the best personal url meme of all time) and Laura Ellen Scott (curator of VIPs on vsf, a blogsource [is that a word? should be] on very short fiction).

It’s a fresh, exciting venue, and it’s always a pleasure to see what’s going to pop up the next month.

My wife and I just watched the first few episodes of Food Network’s Worst Cooks in America because we love food and we love TV and the Food Network is a dangerous timesink. They “found” the 24 “worst” cooks in America. Then they took the worst 12 and put them in a cooking competition with two good chefs as teachers, who proceed to give them shit when they–surprise, surprise–can’t cook. It’s sorta sad watching these guys flounder and not as entertaining as the classy folks on Jersey Shore, but it’s still an entertaining twist on the endless stream of competition shows (there’s actually a hairdressing one [ick]).

“I need a friend” is another piece of Craigslist Fiction, now up in issue 30 of Right Hand Pointing, alongside fine folks like Nanoism contributor, K.M.A. Sullivan. The series continues…on January 18th.

And how about that near comeback for the Longhorns during the BCS Championship?

I say this now in part because I have three short (nontraditional-ish) pieces in the December issue: two Craigslist stories and one 21st-century epistle (aka email). I originally thought these would appear in the January issue, so it’s a final 2009 surprise.

There is something I really like about these forms, but I have a hard time articulating it. Part of it is the familiar, almost casual “realness” of using a an everyday medium to tell a story. Another, more subtle quality is the sense of a narrative within the narrative: there is a story within the ad/email itself, but then the piece can also allude to a larger story concerning the writer (i.e. what kind of person wrote this? what can I tell about their life from what they have written?). Go on Craigslist, especially the personal ad sections, and just read. You’ll see what I mean.

Nonetheless, I think a lot of publications probably have very little interest in emails and personal ads as fiction, so thanks to Roxane Gay and the other fine folks at PANK for putting these up.

This month’s edition of Monkeybicycle‘s “One Sentence Stories” is up and includes quick fiction from yours truly + Nanoism contributors Ethel Rohan and Brendan O’Brien, among others.

Also, some bonus Thaumatrope bits from November:  Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving, and (oh, I don’t know, let’s call it) 2012.

So Electric Literature just serialized a Rick Moody story on Twitter over three days and 150ish tweets. Unsurprisingly, people simultaneously applauded the “experiment” while poo-poo’ing all over it.  I don’t have the energy to treat the topic with the gusto it deserves, but—in short—I both applaud the effort and enjoyed the story. I do wonder though about serialization in the 21st century:

What is the impetus to serialize a story? After all, we don’t have the tangible, real-world constraints that necessitated the serialization of many early 20th-century stories in the first place. Do readers really digest serials bit by bit as they’re fed, or do they wait until the end to feast? My gut feeling is that the easy access to instant gratification in all forms of entertainment makes serialization (at least in terms of the storytelling itself) about as antiquated as watching live TV with commercials.

The question then becomes, what are reasons to serialize that can transcend the gimmick? I posed this question on Fictionaut.

November is a good time to share some itty-bitty poems that have been popping up here and there.

• I had a ‘stone’ in A Handful of Stones, a wonderful little site that asks us to “pay pay proper attention to one thing every day.”
• My fourth prose poem (“She Wakes…“) in Outshine (read the first three here).
• Three poems in Four and Twenty. Two (“Near Our Apartment” and “Footprint Trails”) are in the November 2009 issue, and a third (“Open Doors”) is a “Four and Twenty of the Week” for this month, which is an honor.

And that’s that. As an added bonus, I also have three pieces in Thaumatrope this month to keep an eye out for, including a very special Thanksgiving tale.

I’ve been fascinated recently by what I think of as authentic stories: writing that—while fictional—uses everyday forms to tell realistic, might-as-well-be-true stories. Now, there’s nothing wrong with the traditional narrative. It’s familiar and effective. But still, there are true stories everywhere, hidden within the innocuous interactions of the 21st century for anyone who cares to pause and consider. While many people familiar with Hemingway’s (apocryphal) famous six-word story (“For Sale: Baby Shoes. Never Worn”) note its brevity, I focus on its form: the personal ad.

I’ve been calling these types of stories “Craigslist Fiction.” A story that uses an authentic form (personal ad, email, etc.) should 1) be read convincingly as an actual example of that medium (i.e. an actual Craigslist ad)  and 2) must still relate a story. Like “hint fiction,” some of the details are merely hinted at (i.e. omitted), but it’s my view that Hemingway (or the person who probably wrote these long before him) was on to something. Because how often do you read something on a site like Craigslist and think: what kind of person would write that?

My first published very short piece of Craigslist Fiction, “Iranian Food,” appears in this month’s elimae. There are more on the way, soon to be available from where fine writing is read.