Thank you for going to/listening to/reading my various plays, songs, and stories this year. Here are links to some stories that I loved writing: xraylitmag.com/only-the-sca... trampset.org/nationhoods-...

This week felt like a month.

PARTY FAVORS, a 2021 comedy for which I wrote the screenplay, directed by the essential Matt Canon for Trip Aces Media and featuring an extraordinary cast of hilarious performers, is now available on a few streaming services! Enjoy!

The essential @xraylitmag.bsky.social has published one of my new stories today - enjoy! “Everything you’re doing is perfect, Sam,” the voice says, aggressive and bright. “Now just go ahead and click on the link I just sent you.”

I’ll have a new story (“Only the Scammers Love Sam”) in the incomparable @xraylitmag.bsky.social tomorrow; meanwhile, I continue to work on new stories to see where they’ll lead me (and, ultimately lead YOU). Cocktail added for verisimilitude 😁

About to embark upon an adventure- - in IMAX.

How I spent my royalty check (fancy bread did NOT come with the movies).

Today's #TIFF50 screening lineup: NO OTHER CHOICE [Eojjeol suga eopda] (Chan-wook; South Korea); A PRIVATE LIFE [Vie privée] (Zlotowski; France); GLENROTHAN (Cox; UK); ADULTHOOD (Winter; USA) #TIFF

Today's my most packed #TIFF50 schedule: THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE (Fastvold; UK); TRAIN DREAMS (Bentley; USA); FOLLIES [Folichonneries] (Boulianne; Canada); THE WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN (Assayas; France); TWO PIANOS [Deux Pianos] (Desplechin; France). #TIFF

this story by Saoirse Bertram is so interesting ! i love how each paragraph sinks u deeper into a more unreconizable world, i love the title, i love stories where the world falls apart. don't miss 'Avalon' xraylitmag.com/avalon-by-sa...

Today's #TIFF50 screening schedule: DUSE (Marcello; Italy); BALLAD OF A SMALL PLAYER (Berger; UK); THE FOX KING (Jin; Malaysia); DUST BUNNY (Fuller; USA)

10 movies from 1995 that could have been produced/distributed by A24 if it existed 30 years ago: The Crossing Guard Dead Presidents Don Juan DeMarco Leaving Las Vegas Moonlight and Valentino Party Girl Powder Se7en To Die For To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar

Day 1 of writing new novella: my various bits of ideas since improvising on the inspiration (begun 7 days ago), ready to burn through a draft by end of month or sooner. Is there a genre called absurdist horror?

Drug abuse was a topic of great concern during the silent era and films about addiction-- drug and alcohol-- were popular and frequently graphic. This Essanay film was released in 1909.

Today's writin' music begins with a dozen bossa nova tracks with this TERRIFIC 1965 album on the turntable - if you can find it, I totally recommend the "Whisper a Word of Love" track or the insane trumpet solo on "Full Moon and Empty Arms."

The Stand by @stephenking.bsky.social stood so The End of the World As We Know It could stand up - this absolute banger of anthology has been entertaining the hell out of me all week. TERRIFIC stories!

Published in 1927; I was very entertained by it, especially the attempted murder with a green hedgehog. Yes, you read that correctly. An early Dr Priestley detective novel.

Nothing like plotting the latest murder mystery to within an inch of its life and discovering an entirely different solution that is much better (and craftier) than the one with which I began.

Terrific mystery (1927): slyly plotted, intriguing, and so tonally different (downright disturbing at the conclusion) from 1920s detective novels. I’ve found this to be true of other Connington of 1920s.

FANTASTIC movie. Starring the always incredible Ben Foster.

It's Novel/Novella Submissions Halfway Day! We're HALFWAY through our subs period: our N/N reading team is high-fiving as 1/2 switch out of the reading queue and 1/2 switch in. They're hungry to read, so SEND US YOUR NOVEL OR NOVELLA before September 1! splitlippress.submittable.com

Submitted new stories today: “Days of Deafening Fish Sex,” “The Headless Fiancée,” “The Most Important Fire on Earth,” and “Revised Instructions for the Amnesia Bomb.” July was a productive month. Onwards.

The five novels I read last month during my summer reading adventure, all fantastic (Brazilian, American, Swedish, Irish, and British authors): SAŌ BERNARDO (1934) MORTE D’URBAN (1962) SUN CITY (1974) THE PORNOGRAPHER (1979) WISH HER SAFE AT HOME (1982)

Double feature tonight at my joint: two outstanding 2024 movies released this year by Vertical. I’m cooking deviled chicken and my guests are bringing the wine. Good times. #Filmsky

Story acceptance today (a lit mag I love), especially fun because I wrote "Only the Scammers Love Sam" with them in mind. Will share when it drops. This year has validated my decision to return to writing fiction after the screenwriting gigs (not dissing screenwriting).

Summer Reading Adventure Book # 4 : Published 1934. A Brazilian novel of trenchant irony; its final chapter is one of the most gutting things I have ever read.

Summer Reading Adventure Book # 3 : Published 1979. One of the best Irish novels I’ve ever read. Our hero narrates, but we feel no nearer to his soul, and that’s to the story’s benefit. We contain multitudes, however, and each is the truth.

Summer Reading Adventure Book # 2 : Published 1974. A Swedish author’s take on elderly life in Florida. It feels like a mosaic of mostly bewildered lives yet doesn’t feel sad or miserable. The writing is clear and deceptive.

Summer Reading Adventure Book # 1: Published 1962 - one of the best American novels I’ve ever read. Father Urban is like if Lewis’s Babbit took the vows, and his Minnesota reassignment is less comeuppance than destiny.

Here's the cover for Thomas Pynchon's #ShadowTicket, his first novel in over a decade, arriving just after Paul Thomas Anderson's #Vineland adaptation hits theaters. thefilmstage.com/a-new-novel-...

THE OLD COLLEGE TRY is my version of the infamous College Kidnappers who held gangsters and bootleggers for ransom in Chicago from 1931-33. It didn’t end well for anybody, but my new play is (as always) an ensemble comedy that thinks it’s a drama. Felt good to write for the stage again. #playwriting

There is no more delightful publishing arc than the one traveled by @chucktingle.bsky.social. Love is real, and so is kindness, and talent. slate.com/culture/2025...

Our competitions always introduce us to new talent. Chi Pham's story "Man Spelt Backwards" is the author's first published story. We are THRILLED to be the first. And we have nominated the story for PEN America's Robert J. Dau Short Story Award for Emerging Writers. @seaheye.bsky.social‬

Short story "The Memory Garden" by Zary Fekete @zaryfekete.bsky.social. www.theargylelitmag.com/fiction-2/th...

Part II of my summer reading adventure arrived: German, Peruvian, Brazilian, British, West African, American, French, and Swedish authors of the 2Oth Century.

Diabolical Plots is opening for submissions in 8 days! Ask any questions you want to ask before the window is here!

Today's writin' music, a prized album from my childhood when K-Tel Records were the shit!

Summer reading stack (part 1): Works by 20th Century French, Canadian, Russian, Dutch, Chinese, and Argentinian writers.

Writing a story wherein the main character is a pair of pants, so I've got that going for me today.

She’s 103 years old and has been my trusted companion for 37 of those years. Just got tuned, still sings sweetly. Working on a load of new songs with her right now; she’s my first critic. And rare (built by Lyon & Healy in Chicago in 1922, explains her harp-like tone).

It's the 5 year anniversary of one of my novels hitting the market (THE HANGING ARTIST) - this photo was taken by my niece of a Barnes & Noble display table at the time. I know that I celebrated at the time by buying the Vandermeer-edited tome! #kafka

So stoked to be teaching Novel in a Year again. If you're looking for a formative, dedicated year to start or finish that novel, come write with me! :)

Day # 1 of a massive purge of my creative life. So far I’ve filled 3 bags and 5 boxes of plays, scripts, stories, songs, scores, and notes for projects that came to naught over the past 20 years. I’ll say one things about my life: I sure wrote a great deal of recyclables!

New today on the site! The Community issue continues, with @nataliesnotinit.bsky.social on love, laughter, connection, and community in the JACKASS franchise: "One of JACKASS's perpetual charms is that it feels like it can belong to anybody, that anybody can become a part of it."

Current bedside table stack o’ books.

Well, this was all kinds of excellent. Highly recommended.

Late to the party, but I thought this was amazing, blew the sawdust out of my head.

I saw someone say AI is useful because it generates ideas. My dude, I'm full of ideas. I have docs and docs marked under 'ideas.' I have outlines and fragments of stuff I might work on. Trunked stories galore. Even if I continue to write a novel a year for the next 40 years I won't run out of ideas.