This is significant

This is my copy of a new book that features a piece of fiction I wrote. The book is called Significant Objects. It's co-edited by Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn, and it features work by Jonathan Lethem, Curtis Sittenfeld, Neil LaBute, Sheila Heti, Kurt Anderson, Ben Greenman, Lydia Millet, and William Gibson.

Here's how it worked, from the Significant Objects Tumblr:

The project auctioned off thrift-store objects via eBay; for item descriptions, short stories purpose-written by over 200 contributing writers ... were substituted.

The objects, purchased for $1.25 apiece on average, sold for nearly $8,000.00 in total. (Proceeds were distributed to the contributors, and to nonprofit creative writing organizations.)

The story I wrote for it is about a necking team.

Buy it.

Significant

There's a book coming out soon, and I have a story in it. It's called Significant Objects: 100 Extraordinary Stories About Ordinary Things.

Basically, the creators asked me and other writers to write a piece of short fiction about an object, and that object was then sold -- well, let me let them explain it.

The project auctioned off thrift-store objects via eBay; for item descriptions, short stories purpose-written by over 200 contributing writers, including Meg Cabot, William Gibson, Ben Greenman, Sheila Heti, Neil LaBute, Jonathan Lethem, Tom McCarthy, Lydia Millet, Jenny Offill, Bruce Sterling, Scarlett Thomas, and Colson Whitehead, were substituted.

The objects, purchased for $1.25 apiece on average, sold for nearly $8,000.00 in total.

It's a really amazing project, and I am happy to be a part of it.

Pre-order it HERE.

I'm in a book

I'm happy to announce the story I wrote for Significant Objects, "Necking Team Button," will be included in the book version of Significant Objects, which will be published by the esteemed Fantagraphics.

Of the 200+ stories that appeared on the site, only 100 will appear in the book, so it's clear I'm special and superior to at least a very small subset of people. At their suggestion, I donated the small honorarium they paid me for the piece to Girls Write Now. About a quarter of the stories will be illustrated, I would assume by cool Fantagraphics artists, which will be awesome.

Thank you, Rob and Josh!

I reached my hand into the drawer, withdrew it, and looked at what lay in my palm. “ALL AMERICAN OFFICIAL NECKING TEAM,” the pin read. It was hard to reconcile the words with my father. At this point, he had been dead for nearly 15 years. After he had passed away, my mother and I had stood over the dining room table upon which sat a large box that contained what was left of him. Cremains, the man had called them. My father, I had longed to correct him.

[Necking Team Button]