The Stranger

A new piece in Oklahoma Humanities Magazine’s Internationalism themed issue about assembling a version of the United States from abroad.

Published on September 4, 2015 16:03.
Filed under: Clippings Tags: , , , , ,

A Grand Theory of Everything

What do you do if you’re a teenager, stranded by your parents in New Delhi, without any sort of adult supervision, with easy access to all sorts of strange drugs? If you’re James McGirk, you use your bad trip to develop a philosophy that explains the whole world and all of its complexities. In A Grand Theory of Everything, McGirk takes us from the winding backstreets of New Delhi to his cramped apartment in New York City, and then on to his eventual relocation with his wife to the empty plains of Oklahoma. And, most importantly, he takes us inside his own head, where his weird theories take shape to help him understand his alienation from his family, his struggles to find a career, his wife’s failing health, and all of life’s hardships. 

 

 

 

Published on September 3, 2015 15:39.
Filed under: Clippings, Project Tags: , , ,

Short WIRED piece

Eyelids open; flowers blossom; tiny beaks tap cracks in eggshells; crops sprout; creatures stalk, slide, and wriggle from their burrows; teenage elk scrape hooves in the dust, lower antlers, and charge their com­petition. So: Did you—yes, you, clutching your fourth Keurig of the day and still feeling sluggish—really think you were immune to the effects of circadian rhythm, aka the clock cycle of practically all living things? Please.

Published on August 16, 2015 09:11.
Filed under: Clippings Tags: , , ,

The &Now Awards 3 Anthology piece out now

The &NOW AWARDS 3: The Best Innovative Writing 
edited by Megan Milks 

Published on April 22, 2015 11:13.
Filed under: Clippings Tags:

Audible version of AMERICAN OUTLAWS

AMERICAN OUTLAWS is now available as an audiobook. I have review copies if anyone is interested in hearing it.

Published on April 19, 2015 22:32.
Filed under: Clippings Tags: , ,

Satan Comes to Oklahoma City

My ailing wife, Amy, had demanded that I take her to a Black Mass, a well-publicized one that would have meant aligning myself with Satan on local television. These people aren’t really Satanists, Amy explained. They’re blue-collar subculture types who’ve grown up and know their rights and want to thumb their noses at the judgy creeps who persecuted them growing up. Amy, who had seen more than her fair share of those creeps in her own youth, wanted to lend her support.

Published on October 30, 2014 18:35.
Filed under: Art, Clippings Tags: , , , ,

Heavy Heart, Empty Heart

In 1963, back when it was still acceptable for poets to be openly, ferociously competitive, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s whorled Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan was still new and aesthetically suspect, the greatest poet of his day mounted the stage under Wright’s spiral ramp and inaugurated a reading series sponsored by the Academy of American Poets. Robert Lowell, a tall, elegant man of letters from an old New England family, read his own work to the crowd and then introduced a friend, “an underground poet still digging.” On cue, a stooped, heavily bearded, intoxicated man approached the lectern, and, in a peculiar, strangled voice, explained why it was proper for a trick-or-treating tot to use an expletive to curse the chairman of the First National Bank who’d dropped a polished apple into his sack and broke his cookie.

Published on October 18, 2014 17:12.
Filed under: Clippings, Columbia Tags: , ,

American Outlaws

Hascia, a precocious biochemistry major (class of 1966) and the last person in world you’d ever expect to smuggle drugs, was about to tie the knot and settle down. Enter Barry, an extraordinarily gifted but roguish salesman and engineer who offered her an escape: come with me to Europe and never be bored (but beware, we’ll trample a few toes in the process). Together they left New York for Berlin, then Morocco, then a remote Spanish prison – a trip that would end up being the adventure of a lifetime.

 

 

Published on October 14, 2014 20:41.
Filed under: Clippings

Wired: Interview with John Hanke

Alternate reality games existed before the iPhone, using email, fake ads, and even faxes to send players on clue hunts. But thanks to the smartphone, games now include geospatial triggers and social media integration, allowing players to seamlessly interact with one another and the world around them.

Published on July 23, 2014 16:35.
Filed under: Clippings Tags:

Through A Printer Darkly

3D Printer Error, Credit: FailThing

A short story based on a collaborative project I participated in, looking at three-dimensional printing in the near future. The gimmick is a travel itinerary.

Published on June 25, 2014 03:54.
Filed under: Clippings, Fiction Tags: , , ,