Our first Lit Chat on October 1, 2023 was a reading from and discussion with Alec Clayton about his novel, Locked In, the story of newspaperman Willie Ray Rivers’ fight for justice in the little town of Hub City, Mississippi. Completely paralyzed and unable to talk after a stroke, Willie Ray’s story is told through … Read more
Gabi (my wife and co-founder of Mud Flat Press) came up with one of those brilliant why-didn’t-we-think-of-it-before ideas. We should have periodic Mud Flat Press Zoom events with writers and readers. We haven’t made any specific plans yet, but not much planning should be needed. We’ll invite writers who have published books with Mud Flat … Read more
I have written all my life beginning as an 8-year-old sitting on a park bench in New York City scribbling tales of Pegasus and flying through the sky and, over the past 10 years, writing a weekly 5-minute Postcard from Paradise – a radio spot for our local NPR station, but it wasn’t until Alec … Read more
In these two Mud Flat Press events, each writer will have a short time to talk, and then there will be time for comments and questions from participants. There are thirty-one stories by nineteen writers in our new anthology Mud Flat Shorts (mostly fiction) with stories of love and of war, sci-fi tales, stories of … Read more
When Gabi and Alec invited me to submit something for their upcoming anthology, I thought it was a great opportunity, but the timing was awful. During that month, I was finishing a major draft of my first novel and had carpal tunnel surgery on my wrists. I really wasn’t sure I’d be able to participate. … Read more
Mud Flat Press co-owner Alec Clayton has two short stories and a short novel excerpt in Mud Flat Shorts (mostly fiction). Here’s Alec musing on the writing of these stories: I didn’t plan it this way, but all three of these stories are about death, yet they are not without a lot of laughs. The … Read more
We asked Jackie Cassella, founder of Creative Colloquy to recommend writers for Mud Flat Shorts (mostly fiction). She recommended three writers, all of whom graciously accepted our invitation and all of whom submitted stories that were just right for the anthology. There are two stories by Jenni Prange Boran. Here she talks about her story … Read more
Having met Samuel Snoek-Brown at a Creative Colloquy reading and after reading his great Civil War novel Hagridden, I was anxious to invite him to submit something to the anthology Mud Flat Shorts (mostly fiction). He submitted two stories, “Godsend” and “Til all the Bones Are Buried,”an excerpt from a not-yet-published novel of the same … Read more
Over the past week or so I have been typing into my computer, word-for-word, the manuscript of a novel written in the early 1950s. It is tedious work but worth the effort because it’s a damn fine novel. It is set in 1942, and the narrator and all the characters use language and express commonly … Read more
People ask me what my books are about. I’ll be damned if I can give a clear and definitive answer. I’ve written a book of art criticism, As If Art Matters: Modern and Post Modern Art – Reviews and Commentary. That one’s easy. The subtitle tells what it’s about. There are essays such as “The … Read more