"We Are Here Because of a Horse" reviewed at Ploughshares

What a nice surprise! A year after publication in Passages North, Issue 34 as theWaasmode Fiction Prize winner, my story "We Are Here Because of a Horse" received a great review from Lyndsey Reese in her Ploughshares blog, "The Best Short Story I've Read in a Lit Mag This Week." The story also got some love from Jill at "Best of the Looks, Best of the Books." Many thanks to both Lyndsey and Jill for (1) reading literary magazines, (2) adding style to the literary world, and (3) writing those wonderful responses!

A little sampling of Lyndsey Reese's review: 

"By describing the city in detail, Davidson introduces us to a narrator who is kind, patient, thoughtful, and insightful. We get to know more about him later, but his first impression of Tulsa lets us know that he isn’t someone who comes to hasty conclusions. He isn’t obsessed with the bottom line, but instead takes a more measured and even view of the world. Considering that much of the early story is stripped of background information about him and his wife, the introduction of the city serves to reveal the narrator and ground us in a physical place."

Considering that much of my writing centers around PLACE, I'm in love with this thorough and very thoughtful review.

(Read the full review at Ploughshares).

There are more Tulsa stories out there! Check out " Imaginary Oklahoma" in the Fiction/Poetry section of This Land Press. Guest writers, from Gina Ochsner and Carolyn Parkhurst to Mary Jo Bang and Jonathan Lethem, tell stories of their own versions of Oklahoma. And the gorgeous Tulsa poetry of Markham Johnson will make you linger insideThis Land's pages.

AWP13: Writers by the Thousands

Overwhelming, energizing, and inspiring, the 2013 Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference steamed straight ahead through a long March weekend. I added to the already crammed schedule by writing for Newfound Journal's blog Hothouse, which was kind of crazy, mostly fun. (The posts are included here at Thunder on a Thursday as well). Now that the AWP experience is said and done, many of us (the ten-eleven-or-twelve thousand writers who attended: the number is still being debated) are trying to catch up on sleep and reading and writing.

At the Hynes Convention Center on Boylston Street (aptly named "The Snow Globe" by Lee Martin), I spent time with friends who are poets, fiction writers, memoirists, essayists. We laughed until we cried, tried not to get locked out of yet another panel, and witnessed Seamus Heaney and Derek Walcott recite their own poems and speak of poetry. By the end of the weekend, some of us had new books and journals in hand, and we'd been able to meet and thank the editors who had accepted and published our stories and poems. We'd also been able to introduce ourselves to writers we admired--Siobhan Fallon, Bich Minh Nguyen, Andrew Lam, Myfanwy Collins, Michael Martone, Sharon Strange, Rita Dove!--and to small press publishers, like Victoria Barrett of Engine Books, Mark E. Cull of Red Hen Press, and Kevin Morgan Watson of Press 53.

For me, the experience was incredibly positive, especially in terms of meeting writers I'd only known in the virtual sense (Facebook, emails, etc.) and in attending panels like "Keeping Track of Your Novel," "The Darkroom Collective" poetry readings, "What We Talk About When We Talk About War," and the VIDA-sponsored readings and discussion with Elissa Schapell, Meg Wolitzer, and Cheryl Strayed. Engaging in literati-type venues is not always helpful for writers, those of us accustomed to being alone at our desks. But a literary conference like AWP13 can also be a window into the world of writing, one in which writers can experience the wit and shine of words, moments and sometimes hours with new and rediscovered writing friends, tables and tables lined with buttons and matchbooks, postcards and books--the physical graffiti of journals and presses--and the allowance of abstractions, lofty, floating from panels and ballrooms down the wide corridors and right out the revolving doors.

And one more sweet AWP13 moment: Ru Freeman's Huffington Post piece, 13 Bests of AWP 2013!

There's a Bear in the House

A black bear from Passages North!

Bear Hug!

Cover artist, Jennifer Burton

Inside the issue - Passages North, Issue 34, Winter 2013 - are discovered madonnas and missing horses, digging girls and dirty girls, abrupt movements, dog stars, burglars, group homes, rumbas, dress codes, drive thrus, and one pink Jesus.  Some of the stories won prizes, thanks to judges like Roxane Gay and Caitlin Horrocks. 

In Traci Brimhall's Just Desserts Short-Short Fiction Prize story, "After the Flood the Captain of the Hamadryas Discovers a Madonna," there are mangoes, macaws, morphos, and "a godawful abundance of wonder."  Exquisite, powerful, poetic.

I'm quite proud of the Waasmode Prize-winning story, "We Are Here Because of a Horse," and even prouder of the daughter who once took on a yearling and threw inspiration my way.  Three cheers for daughters, horses, judges, and exceptional editors like Tim Johnston, Jennifer A. Howard, and everyone at Passages North!

2012 Iron Horse Literary Review Single Author Competition Winner and Finalists

2012 Iron Horse Literary Review Single Author Competition - Winner and Finalists

2011 Reading List – Reverie 2011 – Day 17

Readings

Head Off and Split – Nikky Finney

The Chameleon Couch – Yusef Komunyakaa

Here, Bullet & Phantom Noise – Brian Turner

You Know When the Men Are Gone – Siobhan Fallon

Back in the World & The Barracks Thief – Tobias Wolff

The Mrs. Dalloway Reader – Virginia Woolf/Francine Prose

The Half-Known World of Fiction – Robert Boswell

A Visit from the Goon Squad – Jennifer Egan

Going Away Shoes – Jill McCorkle

All the Living – C.E. Morgan

The Vietnam Reader – Stewart O’Nan

The Book of Salt – Monique Truong

Inside Out and Back Again – Thannha Lai

The Buddha in the Attic – Julie Otsuka

Long, Last, Happy – Barry Hannah

Blue Nights – Joan Didion

The Empty Family – Colm Tobin

The Family Fang – Kevin Wilson

Dirty One – Michael Graves

Bossypants – Tina Fey

Just Kids – Patti Smith

and more...

Re-readings

On Becoming a Novelist – John Gardner

Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf’s

Love Medicine – Louise Erdrich

Dien Cai Dau and Warhorses – Yusef Komunyakaa

The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien

Monkeys – Susan Minot

and more...

And hundreds of short stories

 in literary reviews, anthologies, contest queues, writing workshops, and story collections