We Are the Baby-Sitters Club: Essays and Artwork from Grown-Up Readers is forthcoming July 6, 2021 from Chicago Review Press. Preorder here! I co-edited this collection with Marisa Crawford and we’re so proud of the final result, which features a foreword by Mara Wilson and contributions from Myriam Gurba, Kristen Arnett, Jamie Broadnax, Yumi Sakugawa, Siobhan Gallagher, Buzz Slutzky, Jeanne Thornton, Yodassa Williams, Gabrielle Moss, Chante Griffin, Logan Hughes, Kelly Blewett, Haley Moss, Jami Sailor, Kim Hutt Mayhew, Sue Ding, Kristen Felicetti, Jack Shepherd, the Data-Sitters Club, Frankie Thomas, Caolan Madden, Jennifer Epperson, Marisa Crawford, and me.
Lucia Aniello, director and executive producer of The Baby-Sitters Club Netflix series, says: “Turns out there were a whole lot of us obsessed with the Baby-Sitters Club! We Are the Baby-Sitters Club is the ultimate companion guide for a generation of devout superfans. This book revisits the beloved series through grown-up eyes—but never loses the magic we all felt the moment we cracked open a fresh new book. BSC forever!”
And Melissa Febos, author of Girlhood and Abandon Me, says: “More than a book about a series of books, it is an ode to the child readers we were, and the ways we have learned to name the experiences we couldn’t find written.”
Learn more about the book at Chicago Review Press.
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OLD STUFF
3/4/2020: OPEN CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS! I’m at work on an anthology of writing and art related to The Baby-Sitters Club — my co-editor Marisa Crawford and I are looking for a few more pieces to round out the collection. Interested? Pitches due 3/18.
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From 2016-2020 I was Fiction Editor at The Account: A Journal of Poetry, Prose & Thought
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In 2017 I edited a column series on Entropy on issues related to names and naming. This series is a reboot of the column I edited for the Land Line Quarterly from 2011-3. (Art by Kristen Stone.)
Call for Submissions
#1: Fursonas by Tim Susman
#2: Bout My Gov’ment Name by jayy dodd
#3: Is My Name Queer Enough and (Why) Do I Care? by Kristen Stone
#4: Legal Names, Family Names by River Encalada Bullock
#5: How Naming My Family’s White Supremacy Led Me to Change My Own Name by Jessie Daniels
#6: Patron Saints by Julia Dauer
#7: Contrapuntal Name Tag by K[EI] Kaimana
#8: Bilingual Loneliness by Ela Przybylo
#9: But Alcy’s a Girl’s Name by Alcy Leyva
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The &Now Awards 3: The Best Innovative Writing 2011-13
I edited the third volume of The &Now Awards, an anthology of the best innovative writing 2011-2013. Available for order here!
This volume features contributions from: Dennis Cooper, Angela Genusa, Ji Yoon Lee, Aaron Apps,Amaranth Borsuk & Kate Durbin, Amber Sparks & Robert Kloss, Tytti Heikkinen tr by Niina Pollari, Jeff VanderMeer, Stephanie Strickland & Nick Montfort, Christopher Higgs Blake Butler & Vanessa Place, Richard Kostelanetz, Daniela Olszewska, Margo Berdeshevsky, Carmen Gimenez Smith, Brian Oliu, Diana George, Laura Relyea, Christopher Grimes, KimRosenfield, Anna Joy Springer, Stacy Doris, Karen Green, Lucas de Lima,Marina Blitshteyn, Luis Aguilar tr by Lawrence Schimel, Gina Abelkop,Pansy Petunia, Matt Bell, Lara Glenum, Kate Zambreno, Jayson Iwen,Brooke Wonders, Justin Petropoulos & Carla Gannis, Erin Kautza, Carina Finn & Stephanie Berger, Janice Lee, Laura Zaylea, Dennis James Sweeney, Elizabeth Colen, Becca Klaver, Eckhard Gerdes, Janis Butler Holm, Kim Gek Lin Short, ER Baxter III, Shanita Bigelow, Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal, Amy Wright, Kate Greenstreet, Ching-In Chen, Zoe Tuck, Duriel Estelle Harris, Emerson Whitney, Micha Cardenas, James McGirk,Suzanne Scanlon, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Michael Joyce, T. Zachary Cotler, Carol Guess & Kelly Magee, Alexandra Chasin, James Tadd Adcox, Katy Bohinc, Joseph Scapellato, Aimee Parkison, Marisa Crawford, Joanna Ruocco, Johannes Helden, Ella Longpre, Ted Pelton, Farid Matuk, Alake Pilgrim, Tom Bradley & Nick Patterson, Matthew Cooperman & Aby Kaupang, Evelyn Hampton, Joe Milazzo, Lucy Corin, & Cecilia Corrigan. Cover by J Berger.
Review by Sam Moss at Perfidious Script:
These &NOW award anthologies … read like a directory for the US (and otherwise) avant-garde writing milieux. … not only is the &NOW anthology a great way for the reader to find new writers and works, it is a great resource for writers as well, in a way a compendium of potential markets, MFA programs, grants and awards to keep an eye on for future endeavors.
Review at Raging Biblioholism:
There are emoji-poems (emoji’d and translated) in this collection – so I’m pretty sure that invalidates any criticism OR praise and insists that you just go take a look. If you’re willing to try something new or push your boundaries, this is the way to do it.
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Birkensnake 6: Neverending Tales
With Miodrag Kojadinović I co-edited one of seven issues of Birkensnake 6 as part of an experiment in collaborative literary journal editing. We were teamed up with designer/illustrator Walker Mettling. The editing portion of the project occurred between July 2012 and July 2013; design between July 2013 and now. All seven issues are available online. Print versions of the issues were available only through the Birkensnake 6 tour, which opened in Pittsburgh on November 1, 2013 and visited Chicago, Oakland, Seattle, and Denver, possibly a few other cities, in the coming months. Check the Birkensnake 6 Facebook page for updates.
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From 2005-2011, I co-edited and co-published the print arts and culture magazine Mildred Pierce with John Bylander.