Kechi and I have started going to the gym again, but one thing that takes getting used to these days is that even when I’m not hitting the gym, I’m staying active. This week, I’ve walked over five miles with Karate three times, with 2.5- and 3.5-mile days interspersed. It’s a relatively modest achievement, but it’s a big deal for someone my size—and then for me, personally...
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My family suffered a brutal and unexpected loss yesterday.
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At the beginning of 2024, Kechi, Karate, and I moved to Baton Rouge. Kechi is teaching in LSU’s performance studies department, and I’m teaching a guest fiction seminar for graduate students at the English department. Leaving New Orleans has not been easy, for various reasons, but it was the best thing for us right now….
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I don’t get a chance to talk about this a lot, but fantasy maps are extremely important to me. I can still conjure the memory of the map in the front of that old edition of The Hobbit that my father read to me and my lil bro when we were small. That style, that imagery, the deep shadows of the more dangerous haunted reaches of the world transported me entirely Elsewhere. About nine months ago, I summoned my courage and wrote to my editor Nivia Evans that I wanted to include a map in the front of The Ballad of Perilous Graves. She immediately responded that this was a great idea and asked me to send her something to give to the map maker.
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Ever since Sheree invited me to do this work during a breakfast phone call on our final day at Under the Volcano, the development has felt surreal and unexpected. Now that my first column is in, at a whopping 1,500 words, I still feel that way. I still don’t consider myself particularly qualified to give writing or career advice but looking around at the changed circumstances of my life, I can’t help thinking how many of the good things happening for me are the result of a baseline refusal to stop writing and submitting.
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Right away, my dreams felt different. I’ve always been a vivid dreamer, conjuring bizarre landscapes and mysterious figures, but in Tepoztlan, the dreams were stranger and even more vivid than usual. I dreamed of kicking around New York City with the disgraced comedian Louis CK as he filmed some sort of hybrid reality/scripted television show. Every time he approached a woman, my stomach clenched, and I worried he’d say or do something terrible. Eventually, we went to an awards show—it wasn’t clear which one, but it was Very Important. Possibly the Grammies? I was seated beside the New Orleans rapper Lil Wayne, and I was fascinated to finally see him in real life. The other younger rappers made fun of his looks and bearings, and in response, he pulled out his cell phone and rapped several bars into a voice memo. He emailed the file to a producer friend who put it to a beat and released it. It went platinum before the ceremony finished, and I thanked him for his greatness—and for being saner than Kanye, at least.
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Some brief thoughts on the cover launch for my novel, The Ballad of Perilous Graves (Red Hook, June, 2022)
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Most anyone who knows me knows that my life and career are undergoing a massive shift. Meeting Meg where/when/how I did reflects the nature and intensity of that change, how it’s ramped up over the past few years. We waited almost exactly for years to spend time this way. She’s dear to me.
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This week, Redhook, the sibling imprint to Orbit Books announced my novel, The Ballad of Perilous Graves for winter of 2022. I’ve been working toward publishing this novel for the better part of ten years now. It’s part of a three-book deal with the second and third titles TBD. Those other books might be related to Ballad, but then again, they might not.
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