The recording of Dolan Morgan’s funny and exacting story, “Interior Design,” at Public Radio International’s Selected Shorts is finally available to hear at wnyc.org!
Alongside work by Joe Meno and Anne Enright, Wyatt Cenac reads “Interior Design,” a story about love and furniture and “domestic life with a twist,” followed by a brief interview with Dolan about the genesis of the story and how he approaches his work.
Anatomies debuts at #6 on the SPD fiction bestseller list!
And, even after a year, TWTKCD is still going strong at #17!
You can check out the full list here.
So happy to find this thoughtful review by Ashley Begley for That’s When the Knives Come Down in the latest issue of JMWW—here’s a peek:
“Not many people admit to feeling empty, to feeling like there is something more out there. Morgan not only writes about it, he tells us straight….It is only after letting the stories seep into our bodies that we begin to grasp what Morgan is saying. And we realize that we want it; we want time that has been stolen from us. We want space to love and hate and feel….We want more. So don’t wait. Don’t let yourself get away. Start the chase—it will be terrifying, but oh so worth it.”
You can read the full review here, and order a copy of TWTKCD here.
If you’re reading this, odds are, you’re a writer. To that end, you’re probably acquainted with writer’s block.
You’re probably also aware of the many ways in which writers attempt to stave off writer’s block.
Our very own Dolan Morgan recently shared his DIY treatment at the Story Prize blog.
An excerpt:
Now when I have writer’s block, I follow a strict regimen that I think many others could benefit from. First, I remain ever vigilant for symptoms and signs. With every new word, paragraph, or edit, I take stock of my surroundings and consider my mind and body. This must be done holistically, as things aren’t always cut and dry in life. To be safe, I go immediately into action if two or more of the following circumstances present themselves while writing:
You can read the rest here. And, while you’re at it, you can also order Dolan’s short story collection, That’s When the Knives Come Down, here.
Glowing praise continues to come in for Dolan Morgan’s That’s When the Knives Come Down!
Two of the latest reviews, in Entropy and American Microreviews:
“Dolan Morgan’s That’s When the Knives Come Down is a collection of short stories that seems to have missed almost everyone’s ‘Best of 2014’ list. This is a shame because its true place is at the top of these lists for its passion to discover new territories. Morgan is a brash talent not interested in running over ground already covered by Lorrie Moore, Lydia Davis, George Saunders and other luminaries with experimental flair. Morgan seeks something different, something along the lines of a lost continent to name after himself.” — William Lessard, Entropy
“This is a book full of strangeness, and strange books can come apart pretty easily if they’re not coming from an author with a careful control of his subject matter. That’s When the Knives Comes Down doesn’t come apart; instead, it takes an obverse, often thrilling tack in its defiance of what we normally think fiction is supposed to do.” — Zach VandeZande, American Microreviews
Order your copy of TWTKCD here!
“All of the pieces in That’s When the Knives Come Down are the product of accident and luck and time, but only as outcroppings from the moments when I felt most exasperated by my own impotence and inability to do anything. You plan and fall short, and you outline and fuck up, and you wish and want, and then you don’t so much give up as you give in. You stand atop a teetering pile of your own absurd expectations and survey the dumb landscape that surrounds you, then don the cupcake costume and offer up the warm lemon hand wedge to the universe. I have to let go of what I want from a story and try in turn to deliver what the story itself wants or demands. Which is an important distinction.”
That’s a small bit from a great interview between Dolan and J.T. Price, now up at the BOMB Magazine site. Check out the whole thing, which includes Dolan’s thoughts on nothingness, face removal, and meaning[ful/less-ness].
To celebrate the release of Liam Day’s Afforded Permanence, we’ve published three poems from the collection this week at apt! As we mentioned there, “For those of you who know Boston, you’ll recognize much in these lines. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Boston, I promise that Liam’s rendering is as faithful as it is eloquent.”
Head over to the apt site to read “111 – Emerald Cities,” “51 – Tesseract,” and “28 – Gospel Music.”
Also, Dolan Morgan rolled out a second great book trailer for TWTKCD, with even more great music from Will Aronson!
Dear readers, we haven’t updated this space in the past few weeks, but for good reason: scads of great stuff happening at AP HQ.
TWTKCD
Dolan has been reading non-stop—in October, he read in Boston at Carissa’s very own Literary Firsts (video), and in November, he read at Baltimore’s Starts Here! series, and a month or so ago, he read part of “Infestation,” for an episode of The Catapult, which you can listen to here. Just in case you haven’t been able to catch Dolan at a reading, he’s got one more coming up in the Baltimore area: Saturday, December 6, he’ll be reading at Federal Dust in Woodlawn, MD.
Also, TWTKCD has been on the SPD fiction/non-fiction bestseller list since it hit shelves in August, most recently at #6, so if you haven’t picked up your copy yet, go get one!
Afforded Permanence
We’re less than a month away from releasing Liam Day’s debut collection, Afforded Permanence! The collection features thirty poems, inspired by bus routes on the MBTA. The book trailer is on its way and we just got the proof for the cover.
Also, if you’re in the Boston area, mark your calendar for the release party: Thursday, January 22, 7pm at The Banshee in Dorchester. Hope to see you there!
apt
We’re putting the final touches on the Long Fiction issue, apt‘s fifth print annual, due out in January. It’s going to be our biggest issue yet (nearly 200 pages!), and will feature work from Colleen Cable, Elizabeth Chandler, Kendra Fortmeyer, William Hillyard, and Matt Jones. The presale will open in the next week or so, but for now, we wanted to share the cover with you.
LONG LIVE LONG FICTION.
Words to live by.
2014 has been a huge year for AP, and it’s not over yet. Looking forward to kicking 2015 off with a bang!
We were thrilled to see a review for That’s When the Knives Comes Down in Publishers Weekly today, and even more so when we saw the red star next to the title!
“Morgan debuts his refreshing talent in a collection of 12 short stories that are as bizarre as they are brilliant. Germanely punctuated by Robin E. Mork’s playful graphite drawings, the collection is driven by an idiosyncratic and absurd mind… ‘Experimental’ would be a misleading term for this one-of-a-kind book.”
Read the full review here, then pick up your own copy today!
Exciting TWTKCD news!
Dolan Morgan talks with Nelly Reifler at The Believer. An excerpt:
“I’m super tired of the sort of traditional, twentieth-century-style void, where people feel a “dead emptiness inside the brain,” and where they get dizzy and sick at the edge of a life without meaning. Blah, blah, blah. Buncha babies. I simply don’t understand what’s so scary about nothingness. In fact, I find it uplifting and invigorating. It makes me happy. And I feel like throughout my life, I’ve always been handed an artificial set of social choices: either 1) “Things are absurd and that’s terrible,” or 2) “Things are imbued with purpose, and that’s fantastic.” But really, what about: Things are absurd, and that’s great? And how about: Purpose is terrifying. Purpose is oppressive. Get that junk out of here. Rather, we’re all flying through a pointless expanse and that’s amazing. Lucky us. Our ability to comprehend the world is imperfect, limited and often incorrect—and that’s gorgeous.“
You can read the full interview here.
And, for those of you who live in New York (and its surrounding environs), the roster for next month’s Selected Shorts is as follows: Heather Burns reading a story by Aimee Bender, Alex Karpovsky reading a story by Kurt Vonnegut, and Dave Hill reading a story from That’s When the Knives Come Down! You can (and should!) buy tickets here—a steal at eight dollars! Since this is part of the 30th anniversary of Selected Shorts, it may sell out (so don’t delay, etc.).
And if you still haven’t picked up a copy of TWTKCD, you can order it by clicking the link in the sidebar, or following us through this magic internet portal.