I saw the news today that Paul Buckley has left Penguin Books, where he was design director for 34 years. Paul did the covers for my collections Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day and Tales of Falling and Flying and was always such a pleasure to work with. On top of that, I loved both covers and felt like he really understood my work and “got” was I was all about as a writer and a human. I remember when they were in the process of putting together Stories for Nighttime, my editor wrote and asked me if I had any ideas for the cover. “Yes,” I said, “I’ve always known what it should look like—it should be bright yellow and have absolutely nothing on it!” I got a nice email in response, and then a few weeks later they sent me the cover Paul had designed. “Oh!” I said, “That’s even better!” (In a flash I suddenly understood why I was not a book designer.) And when, a few years later, they sent me the cover he’d designed for Tales of Falling and Flying, I remember thinking, “Wow, this guy is really going for it—he’s even more out there than I am!” It was such a great feeling to have such a genius on my side. To this day, both covers make me giddy with glee; I can hardly believe they actually happened.

Anyway, the point here is that today I read this piece about Paul Buckley over in PRINT Magazine; Paul talks about the ten projects he’s most proud of from over his 34-year career at Penguin, and I was delighted to find Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day and Tales of Falling and Flying rounding out the list! It makes me so happy to know that he’s as proud of making those covers as I have always been to have them on my books. Best wishes to Paul—I know that whatever he does next, it will be amazing!

My story “The Man and the Moose” (from Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day) is on the Selected Shorts podcast right now, as read by actor Michael Cerveris! It’s Episode 51, “Perfectly Unmatched,” which also features stories by Roger Mais and some guy named William Trevor. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts, or on YouTube, or here.

I have a story called “The White Bird of the Forest” out in TriQuarterly today, alongside work by Rose Bunch, Ruth Joffre, and Leyna Krow, among others. Many thanks to Managing Editor Joshua Bohnsack for making it happen! Read it here.

My story “The Book,” from Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day, is on the Selected Shorts Podcast right now, as read by actress Jane Kaczmarek (from Malcolm in the Middle (and the 80s remake of D.O.A. (which I was just talking about with my dad!))). It’s Episode #42: Reading Between the Lines—which also features “Things I Know to be True” by Kendra Fortmeyer—and you can find it here (or wherever else you listen to your podcasts).

I have a story called “Man Woman Egg Bird” over at Aaron Burch’s new venture Short Story, Long today. This is a story that grew out of my obsession with 1930s/40s romantic comedies (Capra, Lubitsch, Sturges) and, perhaps weirdly, the creatures of Ray Harryhausen. Also, if you subscribe the newsletter, you will unlock the bonus material: an interview with me about the story, and an additional short-short called “The Book of Jokes & Stories.” Enjoy!

Delighted to find my story “Bear” from Craft Literary on this year’s Wigleaf Top Fifty Longlist. The Wigleaf Top Fifty is a yearly round-up of the best very short fiction on the web, and it’s a tremendous honor to be included. Many thanks to all the editors and readers at Wigleaf, and congratulations to the writers! Guess I have some reading to do….

A nice thing happened today—my second collection, Tales of Falling and Flying, made this Good Housekeeping list of the 25 Best Fantasy Books of All Time! A pleasure to be in such good company.

I have a new story called “The Man with the Hand of Gold” up over at Uncharted Magazine today. I’ve been working on this one for a long, long time—I wrote the first draft many years ago while sitting at Book Expo America watching my friend Jonathan Evison sign copy after copy after copy of his first novel (All About Lulu) for what seemed like an infinitely long line of readers… I remember him pausing to shake out his hand and all of a sudden the name of the story popped into my head and I got out my little notebook. Then somehow over the years the story seemed to morph into one about Michael Jackson? Then for a while the sorcerer in it disappeared and it became kind of a story about that Preminger-Sinatra movie The Man with the Golden Arm? Anyway eventually everything sorted itself out and the sorcerer returned and the story became itself and bing bang boom 50 or 60 drafts later and here we are! Anyway, it’s one of my favorite stories I ever wrote and it’s great to finally get it out into the world. Many thanks to editor Tommy Dean for his help. I hope you like it!

I taught a workshop in the fall at Chapman University on Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy. It was an advanced workshop, partly grad students and partly undergrads. I organized the undergrad section around helping students prepare stories to submit to the Dell Award, which is an annual contest for “Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing.” Today the Dell Award Winners were announced, and three of my students were on the list!

My student Sam Wilson won the Award outright for his story “blooming bleeding hearts.” Olivia Garcia was the first runner-up with her story “Of the Known Universe,” and Emely Menjivar was an Honorable Mention with her story “Blind Faith.”

The Dell Award is a pretty big deal in Science Fiction & Fantasy; it’s judged in part by Sheila Williams, who is the editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction, and the winning story each year is published in Asimov’s (which is a career goal in itself for many writers (including me!)). Many Dell Award honorees go on to have long careers in SF&F. The students are also invited to the award ceremony, which is next month at ICFA, the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, in Orlando, Florida.

You can read more about the Dell Award here.

And you can see the winners and finalists from the last 30 years here.

If you happen to be in Dallas, Texas this Saturday, February 4, my story “The Man and the Moose” (from Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day) will be read as part of the Selected Shorts “Friendship!” Event at the Dallas Museum of Art, along with stories by Anthony Marra, Jorge Hernandez, and Lorrie Moore. “The Man and the Moose” will be read by actor Michael Cerveris (from, among other things, the show Treme). Showtime is 5:30pm; tickets are available on the Dallas Museum of Art website.