Category: SGJ

I tried so hard to make a YouTube playlist for Growing Up Dead in Texas. Songs that are in the book and songs that kind of encompass the book. But it wasn’t meant to be; the songs I needed can’t be included in playlists.

So, in lieu, I’ll put them all here, in the order that feels right — or, how they happen (for me) in the book. And this first one, it breaks my heart every time, but it always puts it all back together, too:

( there’s an ad on this one, sorry…

from the back jacket:

“It’s time for the annual Recipe Days bake-off in Lubbock, Texas. Soccer moms and grandmothers gather to show off their family recipes, learn new secrets for the perfect shortcake, and perhaps earn a chance to be on the famous cooking show, How Would You Cook It, Then?

When the bake-off is crashed by a federation of pro wrestlers — including American Badass, Jersey Devil Jill, Tiny Giant, The Village Person, Jonah the Whale, the Hellb…

Don’t be afraid to embrace a song, or how it makes you feel. Remember the person you were when it touched you, or where you were — Brian Azzarello

At the end of December 2011, I finally read Robert McCammon’s A Boy’s Life. One of the more amazing reading experiences I’ve had—maybe I’d somehow known to save it for the month before I turned forty? Anyway, somewhere in it the grown-up narrator says how important it is to always keep listening to the new music, how that keeps you a…

some links: LA Review of Books | Dallas Morning News | San Antonio Current | Mixedblood Message | Omnivoracious (Jeff Vandermeer) | Goodreads | Indie Bound  | Bookfight | Foreword | Manarchy (Chris Deal) | TimeStageEmbassy | WordRiot (Edward J. Rathke) |  Do Some Damage | Publisher’s Weekly | Punchnels | Austin Ame…

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A while back I was part of the cattle call for what became this article, and just found myself looking this email up as a student was coming to my office to talk about ghosts. So I figured it’d be good if I could see again what I think about them (I know nothing until I write it down, and then, because it’s written down, I don’t need to try to remember it). Anyway, couple of friends — Laird Barron, Paul Tremblay — got in the article, so all’s good an…

by the guys over at Booked. I think we were supposed to go in the area of thirty, not more than forty minutes, so, you know, fifty two, that’s us just completely exercising control, I think. but, I mean, we were talking about zombie and slashers and werewolves (a bit), about horror and hospitals, about writing and writers — how’d we ever find a stopping point, right? Right. And, I re-listened to make sure this was up to their usual standards (to make sure I hadn&…

Back in 2005 or so, I was under contract to write a sequel to All the Beautiful Sinners for Rugged Land — they’re gone now, but they were hot for a while, and produced some gorgeous books, and, as far as I know, did the first ever serious book trailer, too (For Henry’s List of Wrongs) — and it was supposed to be a sequel, this “Seven Spanish Angels,” a title I was of course ripping off, but also, it was a title that I felt would keep me honest. Becuase, I mean, you …

Some of you’ll remember a bit ago, before the hack, the crash, the switch to another host, I posted a cool excerpt by Pablo D’Stair (which the hack/crash ate, refused to spit back up, and I couldn’t figure how to get a remade version back in-line with the rest, which sucks, but that’s not why I’m here, now, talking about Pablo).  Or some of you may have the installment of Predicate we did together, and which I’m still tangled up in in my head, in the best way. Or you may remember just a c…

The Fast Red Road—A Plainsong is a gleeful, two-fisted plundering of the myth and pop- culture surrounding the American Indian. It is a novel fueled on pot fumes and blues, a surreal pseudo-Western, in which imitation is the sincerest form of subversion. Indians, cowboys, and outlaws are as changeable as their outfits; horses are traded for Trans-Ams, and men are as likely to strike poses from Gunsmoke as they are from Custer’s last stand. Pidgin, the half-blood pr…