It Was a Good Year

Here is my year in words, by the numbers.

44 publications in magazines and anthologies.
20 interviews of other writers.
16 readings.
12 readings by my pseudonym, Andy Devine.
11 screenings of films.
10 interviews of me.
2 translations: Dear Everybody in Korean, How Much of Us There Was in Spanish.
1 documentary, 60 Writers/60 Places.
1 paperback, Dear Everybody.
1 book under a pseudonym, Andy Devine's Words.

Necessary Fiction: Remix

Robert Kloss is doing a series of remixes at Necessary Fiction this month. Up today is my story -- "The Birds, the Light, Eating Breakfast, Getting Dressed, and How I Tried to Make It More of a Morning for My Wife" (which originally appeared in Open City #20 and is actually an except from HOW MUCH OF US THERE WAS, which Tyrant Books is bringing out in the spring) -- and then Robert's remix, which removes the context to create a different tone. I remix one of his later this month.

A Monument to Love

There's a great review of Lo Que Queda de Nosotros, Tusquets' Spanish translation of How Much of Us There Was. Pepe Rodriguez calls the novel "a monument to love" ("un monumento al cariño").

New York Tyrant will release How Much of Us There Was in the US in early 2011.

Lo Que Queda de Nosotros

The Spanish translation of How Much of Us There Was, Lo Que Queda de Nosotros, officially pubs next month. It's always a special thrill each time one of my books gets translated, in part because I can't read any of them (not in any full sense). I can mostly only look at them. I think that's why I developed the habit of setting a bunch of copies out on the kitchen table, all face up, so that I can look at them every time I walk through the kitchen, which is quite a few times a day, some of which are to get a piece of my book cake. Anyway, the publishing house, Tusquets, which also published the Spanish translation of The Way the Family Got Away, Y la Familia Se Fue, has been wonderful through every step of this. They work with great translators and make really beautiful books.

How Much of Us There Was

I finished writing How Much of Us There Was in late 2003. It was first published in 2005 by Fourth Estate in the UK, then in paperback by HarperPerennial the next year, but it was never published in the US and I ended up firing my agent at the time. Now I'm happy to say that How Much of Us There Was will finally get its US release with Tyrant Books this fall. To honor the occasion, I re-read the novel and ending up making over 500 mostly little changes. Plus, I changed the ending.

Mud Luscious Eleven

There's a great issue of Mud Luscious (#11) up with incredible work by Amelia Gray, Rachel Glaser, Peter Markus, Robert Lopez, Scott Garson, Joanna Ruocco, Alissa Nutting, Ken Sparling, Roy Kesey, Lily Hoang, Aaron Burch, Jac Jemc, James Kaelan, Adam Robinson, James Chapman, Ted Pelton, and Dawn Raffel. My piece is from How Much of Us There Was, which comes out later this fall with Tyrant Books.

How Much of Us There Was

The good Nik Perring put up a great little post about How Much of Us There Was, which gets its US later this year with Tyrant Books. Along with some other nice things, Nik says: "How Much of Us There Was broke my heart. ... It is ... utterly brilliant and incredibly affecting."

I Made Fiona Robyn Cry (Again)

Back in April, I made Fiona Robyn cry when she read Dear Everybody. I made her cry again when she read How Much of Us There Was, which she calls "a distillation of what it is to be human."

Human Destiny Starkly Illuminated

There's a profile on all three of my novels in this week's City Paper, in which human destiny is starkly illuminated and and I am compared to a small woodland creature and it is revealed that I have miles-deep brown eyes.