I had a great time talking to author/teacher Joni B. Cole on her podcast, which you can check out here: https://www.jonibcole.com/podcast/episode/49b0bdee/tim-horvath-on-unruly-fictions We discussed “unruliness” in fiction, plus research and music, and there’s a six-word memoir in there.
Quite excited that “Chop” was selected for these pages, and can’t wait to check out the other stories assembled here. Out this fall; stay tuned.
I’m excited that my short story “Idalina” is out in the latest Hayden’s Ferry Review, the “Haunted” issue. I love how broadly and imaginatively the editors have defined the idea of what it means to haunt and to be haunted. Check out, too, their online supplement to the issue here: https://haydensferryreview.com/brief-haunts
This story is also part of Un-bow, my collaboration with Rafaele Andrade. You can hear the musical track that inspired the story here:
My story “The Tungsten Record,” which emerged out of Un-bow, my collaboration with Rafaele Andrade, can be found at Conjunctions Online. While you’re there, if you click the “Listen to the audio” link, you can hear Andrade’s composition “Sasando,” the musical track that served as the story’s inspiration.
In 2017, I was invited to participate in an exhibition of visual art and ekphrastic writing at the University of New Hampshire’s Museum of Art. Two flash pieces came out of that experience, and though the exhibition is long gone, I wanted to share the work and the art that sparked it.
#1
“I am incomplete,” said the man.
“I know,” I replied. I had made him, and he was right; there was no sense in arguing. He was no mere pile of butchers’ entrails, either. I’d rendered him painstakingly, twined his sinews in tight bundles, had his organs shipped on pure ice by the swiftest of couriers.
“How, then, do I complete myself?” he asked.
I could have told him to go to the base of a cliff on Coburg Island and gaze up at the thick-billed murres and black-legged kittiwakes by the thousands, raising their choral squawk. Or to walk the perimeter of the Duomo after gazing on Medusa’s dripping head in Cellini’s sculpture. I could have urged him to bear a sickly child to the ER while she gasped, leaning in toward where he assumed her windpipe to be with moist breath, parched lips.
But I had done all of those things, and I was not complete. So I said, “There’s nothing, nothing now. Except, that is, to have a hearty breakfast.”
And so we made eggs, side by side, staring into the unbroken yolks like two versions of the same man, one of whom still had a fighting chance.
#2
My father, shattered mosaic, occasionally came into focus four drinks in. He was an optician, trade of exactitude and infinite patience. “How about this? This?” he’d say, again and again. I imagine few, if any, turned the question around. Thus they thought him quiet. Never heard him sound off–about jumping out of planes, about cow-tipping (him! Paragon of dignity!). Before the war, he and a buddy had helped transport an octopus between two aquariums. He’d sneaked down to Boston to see the Beatles on their first US tour, after they’d cancelled a gig in Montgomery that would’ve been segregated. For the thirty-five minutes they’d played, the screaming had been so all-consuming that he’d only heard a single Beatle all night, John yelling, “Shut up!”, which of course made everyone scream louder. I wish I’d needed glasses; I would’ve plied him with questions while my pupils pulsated like total solar eclipses, the kind that blind. I would’ve torqued the chair to face him head-on. Now that chair has been auctioned off and sits in some chain store, and what I have is my own fingers tugging at my eyelids, as though they could make anything appear that wasn’t already there.
Pleased to share “Chop,” a flash piece from Un-bow, up at Big Other. You can listen to Rafaele Andrade’s musical work that inspired the story as well. Thanks to editor John Madera for publishing them together, as well as for nominating it for Best Small Fictions 2021! You can find links to all the nominated stories here: https://bigother.com/2020/11/30/announcing-big-others-nominations-for-best-small-fictions-2021/
“Diagnosis” is the first of a series of pieces from Un-bow, a collaborative work with composer/cellist Rafaele Andrade, to find its way into the world. Thanks to editors Jake Rivers and Cole Phillips for including it in the gorgeous third issue of Malasaña. Read it here: https://malasana.onl/Tim-Horvath
I’m excited to share my story “The Directions,” published in the 100th(!) issue of The Collagist. Lots of other stuff in here to feast on, too! Thanks so much to Gabe Blackwell for all he’s done to sustain this journal and make it feel at once fresh, vital, and venerable. Here’s to the next issue-century!
I’m excited to share a novel excerpt entitled “A Portrait of the Composer as a Young and Then Not-So-Young Temp” in AGNI 87. AGNI has been a journal I’ve long admired, devoured, and savored, so it is a particular thrill to find my writing in its pages amidst the work of Melanie Rae Thon and Stephen Dixon and so many others of note. I invariably dig their covers, but this one by Paul Katz seems particularly captivating, and I’m looking forward to learning its story, too. Grateful to be able to work with the amazing editors there, who helped so much in honing this piece and enabling it to reach launch velocity. Here’s how to subscribe, order, or browse around: http://www.bu.edu/agni/index.html
