Holiday Cheer

Updates for the holidays.

One, my short story "Up, Away, Here, Gone," about hot air balloons, solving a mystery, and Claude Levi-Strauss, appears here, in Route Nine, a New England journal affiliated with the UMASS-Amherst MFA program.

I did a reading there, at Flying Object, the nexus of Massachusetts literary stuff this past weekend.

The story's also been taken by the anthology They Have To Take You In, published in the future by Hidden Brook Press.

Two, The St. Petersburg Review is going to be hitting stores in January. It has my story "Remission" in it. Somehow Daniil Kharms is also in the same issue, returning from the grave to haunt us all.

Can't remember if I mentioned this, but The New Quarterly has scooped up "An Exact Replica of the Sistine Chapel," another story, after a million years of rejecting stuff I've sent them. So, you know. Keep on trucking. They'll also be running a blip on their blog about what I'm reading. The answer at the time was The Unprofessionals by Julie Hecht.

EVENT will be running my review of Into the Abyss and Antarctica: An Amundsen Journal, in their upcoming issue. Also apparently poems by Helen Guri, who writes good stuff.

That should do it.

Mess of Updates / Flan.

Hello, little blog. I'm writing on you from New England, where I live now. So if you were wondering why you haven't seen me half naked on the street, singing 'Old Grey Mare Just Ain't What She Used to Be' to pay for the outrageously pricey TTC costs in Toronto, it's because I'm here.

Anyway, some notes.

I just received a copy of The Pilot Pocketbook, which has a story I wrote in it. I encourage you to buy a copy. The quality of this little fucker is unreal.

Going through proofs for the issue of the St. Petersburg Review. They're publishing my oncology ward romance story. I mentioned this before, but so many of my literary heroes have appeared in SPR, like George Saunders. So. Will keep you posted about that.

Who knows if I can say this, but since I signed the contract, fuck it. The New Quarterly will be publishing my favourite thing I've written in a long time, that I've been trying to write, in one form or another, for like 6 years, dating back to my undergrad. I worked really hard on the story and after being rejected for like 8 years, TNQ has finally decided to accept a story of mine. Huzzah.

There's also the McNeese Review. It's an annual, so I'm not sure when the publication will be out. But the story is about mimes having sex. I know, right?

The Body Electric anthology for and/or press is said to have been completed and will be out soon. It contains "Eat Fist!", which might be the best thing I've ever written, or at least top three. Also, I wrote a book review for EVENT that'll be coming out in their next issue. EVENT is one of my favourite literary magazines in the whole world. They've been so generous

in their support of my writing, I certainly owe them a crapload of hugs, and every time I review for them I'm grateful for all that they've done with me (nominating me for two awards, continuing to fire book reviews my way, even though I'm a complete fuckup and need constant harassment to get things done).

Finally, I've started doing a poem a day on this tumblr blog. You probably know this, but I don't really write poems. But now I do. And it's really rewarding.

I did a reading at Flying Object last night, which is where the picture is from. I read from my story about the weird brother sister thing. You can find it on one my other favourite literary journals in the whole world, Taddle Creek, in its entirely.

If you're reading this from Canada, I'll see you in December / January, when I cross the border and re-enter your lives.

St. Petersburg Review / Taddle Creek reading

So tomorrow, June 14th, 2013, I'll be reading at the Taddle Creek launch. Details below. You should go, because there's free food and beer. Which is good. Said it in the last post, saying it again . . .

Taddle Creek No. 30 launches Friday, June 14, at the Jet Fuel Coffee Shop, 519 Parliament Street, in beautiful downtown Cabbagetown. As is now the tradition, there will be a barbecue for meat eaters and non–meat eaters alike, and free beer, courtesy of the Good Beer Folks at Steam Whistle. As is also tradition, there will be readings, this time by the Good Literature Folks of Michael Lista, Andrew MacDonald, and the one-and-only Michelle Winters. Doors are at 8:30 p.m.; magazines are five dollars (cheap!).

Ta. Da. Next item, The St. Petersburg Review is going to publish my oncology ward love story, "Remission," sometime in the future. No date on this one. It's crazy, flipping through past contributors and seeing people like Aimee Bender, Josip Novakovich, George Saunders, and Padgett Powell. Drrrrrr. Good stuff. xo.

Taddle Creek Launch / Four Minutes

Hey there, sportsfans. Or, you know. Whatever you are. Below are details for the upcoming Taddle Creek launchxtravaganza. My story, Four Minutes, is in it. I read it in London and someone coughed awkwardly, so there you go.

Taddle Creek No. 30 launches Friday, June 14, at the Jet Fuel Coffee Shop, 519 Parliament Street, in beautiful downtown Cabbagetown. As is now the tradition, there will be a barbeque for meat eaters and non–meat eaters alike, and free beer, courtesy of the Good Beer Folks at Steam Whistle. As is also tradition, there will be readings, this time by the Good Literature Folks of Michael Lista, Andrew MacDonald, and the one-and-only Michelle Winters. Doors are at 8:30 p.m.; magazines are five dollars (cheap!).

The month of June also will see the Jet Fuel host the Second Taddle Creek Art Show: Cover Star, a retrospective of original cover photos from Taddle Creek’s first decade (1997–2007) in their original context, uncropped, uncoloured, un-type-ified, blown up really big. The show will run from June 1–30, with the launch party doubling as the show’s opening.

But back to that thirtieth issue: It’s jam-packed with new fiction and poetry by Dani Couture, Jim Johnstone, James Lindsay, Michael Lista, Andrew MacDonald, Emily Pohl-Weary, David Ross, Nick Thran, and Michelle Winters. Plus: Lorenz Peter’s ironically black-and-white comic about rainbows, Clive Thompson looks back at a hundred and thirty-five years of Acta Victoriana covers, Jay Somerset investigates the fate of the Toronto Reference Library’s film collection, Juliet Waters talks to Saleema Nawaz, and Dave Lapp makes you uncomfortable with the latest installment of People Around Here. With a cover by the Doug Wright Award–winning Nina Bunjevac!

How could you even think of missing such an awesome night? (If you don’t show up, how will you complain that the free beer and food aren’t to your liking?) Taddle Creek so hopes to see you on June 14th.

The drawing, which is so perfect it hurts my junk, is courtesy of Matthew Daley.

Random Thingies

I should really have more of a web presence. Apparently, if you google "Andrew MacDonald writer Toronto" my picture comes up a lot. In one of them I'm drinking. That's fun, right? In the next few months, I've got three stories coming out in three different publications:

1. "Four Minutes" in Taddle Creek

2. "Blindspots" in The Windsor Review: Best Writers Under 35

3. "Something More Vital Than Air" in the Pilot Pocket Book.

Not a lot of people who don't know me know this, but I'm probably leaving Canada soon, and before I do, I'm going to bombard the literary journal circuit with the stories I've been finishing / editing / sitting on for no good reason. Some of these are about . . .

1. Love in an oncology ward

2. A historical-noir set in Renaissance England, featuring two goons who have to reclaim a body (though it's actually about loving family members who disappoint you)

3. One about two guys who try to build a particle accelerator at their cottage (though it's actually about being the family member who disappoints everyone)

4. A woman who tries to find the perfect man for her terminally ill, recently-out-of-the-closet gay husband

5. This dude's relationship with a girl who wants to go to Ukraine to shoot the uncle who abused her when she was younger

6. How a prison librarian in 1980s Romania deals with HIV and a riot that breaks out (note: story features a character called the Peruvian Death Star)

Anyway. Hopefully someone will want to accept one or all of the above for publication.

xo a

Newsy Things

Time flies, don't it. This Thursday, Feb 21, I'll be reading at Fanshawe College, in good ol' London, Ontario (the real London, har har). It's kind of a weird thing - I'm going to be the only reader, and there's supposed to be a book signing, but since I don't have a book, I'll be hawking the Journey Prize Stories 22. So if you're around, come and throw tomatoes at me. I'll even let you pronounce it 'toe-maw-toe.' Anyway. Details . . .

Andrew MacDonald Fanshawe College Letters and Arts Society Reading Series February 21, 2013 Andrew MacDonald was a finalist for the Journey Prize and won the Western Magazine Award for Fiction. His writing has appeared in journals all over Canada and the United States, including The Fiddlehead, Event, Prism International, The Pinch, Riddle Fence, and has been collected in the anthologies The Journey Prize Stories 22: Canada’s Best Young Writers (McClelland & Stewart, 2010) and A Manner of Being: Writers on their Mentors (University of Tampa Press, 2013). He also won the inaugural Adam Penn Gilders Award for Best Graduate Creative Thesis from the University of Toronto (a Fanshawe College grad). Thursday, February 21, 2013, 2:00 p.m. Room D1060, London Campus. Reading: 2:00 to 2:50 p.m. Book sale and signing: 2:50 to 3:00 p.m. The public and book clubs are welcome to this free event. Metred visitors' parking on-site.

- - It's cute that they say 'the public and book clubs are welcome to this free event.' Also newsworthy: Taddle Creek graciously offered to publish my short story, "Four Minutes," in their next issue. Which is boss.