The Great Artist

The Great Artist

Do you ever feel like you’re reliving a similar experience that you’ve had before, but this time with a new twist or added element or slight or not so slight variation? It happens to me fairly often. Perhaps it’s because I carry certain past...
It’s tomorrow in Australia

It’s tomorrow in Australia

I don’t know how to articulate this, but I’ll give it a shot. Recently, I was standing in my sister’s kitchen and she was cooking something for her family for dinner. There was no part of it that didn’t include animal protein. She asked me to eat (like she...
From Red Lights to Gray Skies and Noses

From Red Lights to Gray Skies and Noses

It’s cold in Austria. Negative two degrees Celsius to be exact. Why did I come here? I only stopped asking myself that today, two seconds ago. Because now I know. It has something to do with Gogol and the red light district in Amsterdam. Also, the fact that I...
A Heart Like Pompei

A Heart Like Pompei

As things are really picking up around here between my ears, and as in another month and a half to decade and a half you will all be able to read my monumental latest (which has garnered a five star rating from both my mom and my girlfriend), it’s only natural...
The Artist in Academia

The Artist in Academia

How did a semi anti-establishment, rule-thwarting, convention-trashing writer such as myself end up with an M.F.A. degree after six semesters in graduate school? It’s a puzzle, sometimes even to myself. I never believed whole-heartedly in the graduate of fine...
Language (and other barriers)!

Language (and other barriers)!

I am here in Paris without my passport. That’s right, the chronic loser of things has done it again, only this time with the single most important item on my person. How did this happen? Well, maybe it’s necessary to start from the beginning. Or, from the...