Rumpus retirement, Dream Pop publication, and a sweet newsletter shoutout

After four years working on Rumpus Original Fiction, I've decided to step down to focus more on my own writing. Upon ROF's inception in 2013, I served as an Assistant Editor briefly under Andrew Foster Altschul and then under Jessy Goodman before stepping into the role of Editor in 2015. ROF first ran as a feature in a phone app called The Weekly Rumpus, then ran stories on the site and in a monthly newsletter called the Book Report, and now runs solely on therumpus.net.

I'm proud to have showcased such thought-provoking, funny, touching, bizarre stories over the years, and to have published so many first-timers in the fiction world, including PEN Award-winner Amy Sauber, C. A. Carey, Kamil Ahsan, Lauren Friedlander, Siobhan May, and Jason Phoebe Rusch. Thank you for trusting me with your words and visions.

I'm grateful to Rumpus staff, particularly Marisa Siegel and Lyz Lenz, and to all of the slush readers I've worked with. Very excited to see what Karissa Chen—the new Fiction Editor—and Dennis Norris II (Karissa's assistant and a host of Food 4 Thot, one of my favorite podcasts :P) have up their sleeves!

“The sea of red is violent and sensual; the surrounding text a well-known tale of overt and overly masculine narratives that do little good in the name of women; the poem, a small thread, rising from these backdrops and finding its own self, unapologetically. ”

— Andrew Sargus Klein

In writerly news, two of the erasure poems from my On the Road series are up at Dream Pop Press! All of Issue #2 is up here, with a direct link to my pieces here. There's a nice write-up about "she apologized" up at wildness, an imprint of Platypus Press. The full article is available here.

Poet/memoirist/novelist/BinderCon founder/everything doer Leigh Stein featured me in her newsletter, The Finishing Touch, this week: "How to write even when you're not writing." Leigh's letter is all about strategies to both produce and finish creative work. I talked about editing by hand and priming my subconscious to revise for me during the day while I drive, do other work, and live my life. I'm not sure if it's possible to get in on the letter that just went out, but if you're as jazzed on creativity strategies as I am, you can subscribe for future letters on Leigh's website.

Anthologies Launched This Summer

The weather is getting colder (and hopefully bringing rain to put out the outrageous fires raging over my entire state, holy moly), which means Summer is officially over. Before the seasons fast-forward any more, I want to highlight a couple of anthologies that launched this Summer, ones in which I was fortunate to be included! 

Inklings Book 2017

The annual Inklings Book is the culmination of the annual Society of Young Inklings contest for young writers in first through eighth grade. Winners get editorial feedback from a grown-up writer, and share their thoughts on the revision process in interviews included in the book. Each Inklings Book serves as an entertaining anthology of short stories and poems for children and educators, and "Dear Reader" letters from mentors encourage anyone to try revision techniques on their own.

I wrote a letter on "Building toward a Twist" in poetry, and how my delightful young poet turned his already-wonderful poem into something with an extra punch. I also copyedited the anthology and did the interior and cover design (featuring an illustration by Lea Lyon). If you are a writing teacher for K-8, a parent of a writerly child, or simply a children's writing enthusiast, you can grab a copy from the SYI Book Store, or on Amazon. 

PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2017 

This is a brand-new anthology series by Catapult, featuring the twelve winners of the (also brand-new) annual PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. Prizewinners had their first-ever fiction publication nominated by the editor of the magazine/journal that published it. In my case, I had the honor of nominating Amy Sauber for her hilarious, heartbreaking story, "State Facts for the New Age," and writing an introduction for it in the anthology. Nab it at Catapult's store, or basically anywhere.