High Pulp
I was serious when I said, a few days ago, that I would devote this year to being an ACTUAL WRITER, rather than a bad performance artist who plays a writer in public. Should have gotten around to it years ago, but I got sidetracked by a shiny object called hipness and followed it off a cliff. I've climbed out of the canyon, and a thousand flowers will bloom.
To that end, I present my short story Pretty Good Vacation, now appearing in the Winter 2005 edition of The Mississippi Review.com's online magazine. The theme for this issue is "High Pulp." My story covers the pulpy topic of low-end adventure tourism in Guatemala. I guess things are moving in the noir direction for me, judging by my contribution to the excellent anthology Brooklyn Noir and the fact that I'm editing a book called Chicago Noir to come out later this year. But as High Pulp's editor, Anthony Neil Smith, points out in his introduction, the words "noir" and "pulp" don't really mean anything. They just indicate a kind of gritty ungentrified realism. I hope I get close to achieving that in my story. Enjoy. And thanks to Andrew Ervin, a good friend, fine writer, excellent editor, and mentally-challenged rotisserie-baseball league player, for his help with the piece.
Meanwhile, Mediabistro is offering people a once-in-a-semester opportunity to study the art of satirical writing in a class taught by me. Online. For only $425, you can learn all my secrets. For $525, we'll make new secrets of our own, if you know what I'm saying. Such a deal!