Years ago, when this website/blog was mainly dedicated to higher ed marketing/PR/branding/etc. and I read mainly non-fiction books, I would occasionally post, around Memorial Day, a Friday Five about some of the books I planned to read over the summer. Now that I’m attempting to carve out a “career” (*cough, cough*) of sorts in the creative writing arena, I thought it would make sense to share some of the books I plan to read this summer. Note that not all of my selections are current or even new-ish, as I am a notoriously slow reader and always am behind on my reading of the latest trendy or anti-trendy thing, so if you’re looking for recommendations on the latest summer reads, I suggest you look at LitHub’s “19 Novels You Need to Read This Summer” or The New York Times’ hyperbolically headlined list of “The Novels Everyone Will Be Reading This Summer” (gift link).
Continue reading “Friday Five: summer reads edition”Tag: reading
Crossing the AI Rubicon
What one top literary magazine’s award to a (likely) AI-generated story means for the literary world
In 49 BCE, following a seven-year campaign to expand the Roman Empire into Gaul (much of Western Europe), Junius Caesar, then a general of the Roman army, approached a river that signified an important boundary between Rome and the rest of the world. According to Roman law, if anyone crossed that river–the Rubicon–it would be considered an act of war.
As we know from history, Caesar crossed that line, uttering the words alea iacta est (“the die is cast”), a phrase that has come to mean, “no turning back.”
Earlier this week, a prestigious literary magazine, Granta, crossed a metaphorical Rubicon of its own when it published a prize-winning short story that, evidence strongly suggests, was written not by a human, but by artificial intelligence.
Continue reading “Crossing the AI Rubicon”Friday Five: Cowboy Jamboree’s Adam Van Winkle, author of ‘Count the Dust’
‘The idea became intriguing for me: write a play to be read.’
Radio plays have been around for a century or more, practically since the advent of radio. They thrived during the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s–an era sometimes called the Golden Age of Radio. In his latest novel, Count the Dust (LEFTOVER Books, December 2025), writer and literary magazine editor Adam Van Winkle taps into that approach to create a distinctive story designed for radio but equally enjoyable as a good read.
Count the Dust is set in a nameless small town in southern Oklahoma or north Texas. It’s modeled after the place where Adam grew up, Texoma, but, as he writes, it could be any of the “many small Oklahoma and Texas towns I’ve been in and through that center around a filling station on a state highway.” It’s a murder mystery, told over two time periods–1967, the year of the murder, and 1997–as well as a story of “the persistence of offspring in unideal circumstances.”
Continue reading “Friday Five: Cowboy Jamboree’s Adam Van Winkle, author of ‘Count the Dust’”“These places, like places I grew up in and around, with little money, little resources, drugs, guns, violence, strained marriages and poisonous relationships, they still find a way to produce progeny. People still meet through the circumstance of life, new people still get born.”
Thoughts on ‘Tacoma,’ by Aaron Burch (with excerpts)
A quick and quirky bit of autofiction infused with magical realism
If you’re looking for a lively, quick, and quirky read suffused with a good dose of modern magical realism, Aaron Burch‘s latest novel, Tacoma, might be the book for you.
In Tacoma, Burch mixes magical elements into this autofictional/speculative account of a modern-day quest for … something. I think Burch leaves that to the reader to decide, so I’ll refrain from making any definitive pronouncements here.
Read two excerpts from Tacoma.
On the surface, the story is about a couple who decide to “take a break from life” one summer and housesit in a luxurious mansion in Aaron’s hometown of Tacoma, Washington. The protagonist (whose name is Aaron) describes the place as “Beautiful mid-century modern, recently remodeled, state-of-the-art everything. A Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous episode devoted to a Frank Lloyd Wright house built in a waking life dream set in 21st century Pacific Northwest.”
Continue reading “Thoughts on ‘Tacoma,’ by Aaron Burch (with excerpts)”Library book sale haul
Eleven books for twelve dollars. Money well spent.
Last month, I went to the Rolla (Missouri) Public Library’s fall book sale and came home with a nice haul of reading materials. It was $12 well spent, and the money went to support our local library.
Here’s what I got, and what I hope to read over the holidays and beyond:
Continue reading “Library book sale haul”