The Buddha interrupts Crown Prince Frederik's trip to Arctic Greenland, in "Joel Fauré, The Melancholy Male Model"

September 1999

News!

Welcome back, everybody!

After a summer break, this site now reverts to a monthly schedule. The fall will be a busy time. Here's what's on its way before the end of 1999: 









  • Five new short stories, one for each of the next four months (plus one for Christmas!)

    These stories introduce the main characters of Five George Washingtons: we'll see a pre-adolescent Frederic Baby on an army base in Germany; Gemma as a lonely teenage clairvoyant; Billy as his college's born loser; Jason at his first job; and Veda Bierce as an experienced scam artist.

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  • A new episode of Joel Fauré, in which The Melancholy Male Model discovers Buddhism - an enlightenment common these days among wealthy, good-looking people with time on their hands.
    This episode also stars Joel's good friend, Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark.

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  • A revised version of Five George Washingtons, which my agent is going to make another try at selling this fall.  Quite frankly, I'm beginning to think my agent couldn't sell a steak to a starving man.  But that's a moot point to you, the web community.  You can enjoy the stories at any time.

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  • An updated Readers Speak, including comments from a friendly German who said "Before you criticize Silicon Alley, look at your own design!"

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  • An new picture of me.   Just what you've always wanted!

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    Help From The Fans
    
I've had a bit of a rough time of it over the past few months, and fans of this site have come forward to offer some great moral support.

    
Several sent reassuring messages, among them Tommy Ho, Ricky Garnier, Stephanie Brownlee, and Larry Gelten.  Miriam Parker showed up to offer support at my July 21 reading at Greenwich Village's Bitter End.  I'm told that this reading, in conjunction with Rolling Stone magazine's "Book of the Beats," was a hit, although I couldn't see audience through the bright lights and squinted all the way through it. 

    
Frank Johnson, in town from Tampa, took me out for dinner at my favorite restaurant, the Scandinavian "Aquavit,"  Vinz Jones, from San Diego, bought me drinks at the corner "Blind Tiger Ale House," and offered the encouraging observation that my five-prologue format for Five George Washingtons was like a lot like "The Canterbury Tales."  (Vinz also amuses me by calling the story Lo                                    s Cinqo Jorges).  

    
Help came from overseas, as well:  Zkot Pen of the cafe-story website Le Chantier sent good wishes from Chile, and fellow short-story writer and and Israeli Army sergeant Dori Adar delivered an award-winning kiss.  Hi, Dori!

    

    Upcoming Press Coverage
    
There hasn't been much written about this site in the past six months, mostly because my agent told me to avoid all publicity, lest her negotiations to sell my book be affected. 

    
Well, screw that.   Publicity is what drives people to this website, the primary form in which these stories exist, as far as I'm concerned. 

    
So I've begun accepting offers again.  Nicole Givens wrote a lovely piece for Suite 101, although intially she had me listed as a man, she's corrected that now. 

    
I also wrote an essay about my odssey through print publishing for Cindy Penn's Write Times, and did a long interview for the online Word Museum, which will be posted whenever World Museum gets around to it. 

    
Also, Nils Oyvind Haagensen interviewed me for a Norwegian newspaper,Klassekampen.  That seems to translate as "Class Struggle," so we'll see if the story comes out from a Marxist perspective.   My grandmother was from Norway, though, so it's kind of nice to make it in the old country.