It's here. Welcome, book.

Sudden Flash Youth, a new collection of young adult flash fiction from Persea Books, is out now. It includes my short piece, "For Good," about Juan and Cece at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. You'll find work from Steve Almond, Richard Bausch, Stuart Dybeck, Dave Eggers, Pia Z. Erhardt, Meg Kearney, Paul Lisicky, Naomi Shihab Nye, Pamela Painter, Robert Shapard, Alice Walker, and many, many others. The book is edited by Christine Perkins-Hazuka, Tom Hazuka, and Mark Budman.

This piece of art gets special mention in my story (The artist is Do-Ho Suh):

And so does this one, by artist Robert Indiana:

A funny thing happened on the way to the dinner

So there I am, at the gorgeous Central Library as part of the Indiana Author's Award event. I have two back-to-back sessions during the day, and before the first one starts, I have a minute to duck into the Author's Fair and say hello to Bich Minh Nguyen, one of the finalists for the Emerging Author award (the other finalists were Micah Ling and Aaron Michael Morales.) Bich was kind enough to invite me to join her for the awards dinner at Purdue's table -- she teaches at Purdue, which is where I earned my MFA.

I also see Dick Wolfsie sitting at one of the tables in front of a stack of books. I say hello, and tell him that I had the pleasure of watching a taping of his show with my class more than 20 years ago at Union Station.

"Great!" he says, nice as can be. "Are you still a teacher?"

This is where I had to explain that yes, I am now a teacher, but back then, well, I was in the sixth grade.

Poor Dick Wolfsie was mortified. He clapped his hands over his mouth and apologized. "Wait until my wife hears about this." (Note to Dick Wolfsie's wife: It was totally fine. Funny, in fact.)

My sessions were titled "Get Started," a course I'd taught before for the Writers' Center of Indiana. My first group kicked off with participants asking a number of questions, which helped focus the discussion. We wrote a little, talked a little more, and people discussed the stages of their various writing projects (for some, they had yet to begin, so "Get Started" made perfect sense.) It was a great, participatory group. Afterwards, I watched two attendees introduce themselves, then exchange contact information along with meaningful hugs. Not exactly typical of a short writing session, but hey: I'm thrilled that connections were made.

Have I mentioned that I did not eat lunch, not officially, on this day? It had been a busy morning. My husband had rented an aerator for the lawn, and drove across town to do my parents' lawn, too. When he got home, he looked peaked. "I feel horrible," he said, and collapsed into bed.

Really? I was thinking. I haven't showered, and the baby needs to eat, and he's taking a nap? I looked closer. He was more than peaked, he was green. And he'd have to take care of the baby -- who'd had a bug two days before, which my husband must've caught -- when I left to teach. "Rest," I said, "then call my mom if you need her." Grammy's always on call. Three cheers for Grammy!

So I wheeled the high chair over to the bathroom door and took a quick shower while the baby ate. He whined at first, then kicked his feet and laughed each time I peek-a-booed around the shower curtain. I quickly got ready and grabbed a banana to go. Got through the first session, then realized I'd need a little more sustenance. I bought a granola bar at the library cafe and ducked into the now-empty author's fair room to eat.

A man walks in. "Are you an author?" he asks. "Are you famous?"

"Um, yes?" I say. "And no."

We chatted a bit about his writing, his identity crisis, his career change. I gulped down the granola bar. I only had a few minutes before the next session, and I raced off. I do a lot of racing around these days, which is funny considering my high school volleyball teammates used to call me Eeyore. Because I was slow. Also: grumpy.

The second session went a little differently. People came in and out, sort of trying out the class before deciding it wasn't for them. Or maybe they wanted to hit more than one session before heading home. There was a distracted vibe. I talked about getting messy, creatively, rather than trying to shoehorn ideas into a prearranged format. "But I'm halfway done!" one person argued. "I've got it all mapped out on a spreadsheet, and now you're telling me to start over?"

Was I? I didn't think so. I had been talking about getting started. As the title of the session would suggest. Even so, I began to sweat. Was this nerves? Students offer challenges all the time, and usually it doesn't faze me. I like trying to think on my feet and explain something in a new way. But I was definitely sweating. Maybe I shouldn't have worn a wool sweater.

I was in the middle of a sentence, answering a question about the merits of MFA programs, when I knew that it wasn't nerves. I felt sick.

"I need to excuse myself," I said. "If I'm not back in five minutes, we'll have to cancel."

Deep breathing got me to the bathroom, where I proceeded to retch my meager lunch into the toilet. "Sorry," I said weakly to the person in the next stall, who was nice enough to ask if I was OK.

Actually, now I felt great. "I'm fine," I said emphatically, popped a Breathsaver, and returned to the room to finish the session. A concerned trio of library staff waited for me there, and I reassured them I could finish the remaining ten minutes. And I did. I can still make the dinner, I told myself. That was a one-time thing.

It wasn't. I had to pull over once on the way home, and couldn't even make it to the passenger side to get sick on busy College Ave. Someone, I thought, is going to drive into my open car door, and also my head, and this will be a humiliating way to die. While vomiting on the roadside.

"I can still make the dinner," I said when I got home. My husband eyed me from the couch; my mom shook her head doubtfully. I laid down on the floor. My sweet baby scooted over and flopped his body over mine as if giving me a hug.

"Just a sec," I said, and ran to the bathroom.

Old Faithful, my husband called me, once I was well enough to joke about such things. I stayed in bed until late afternoon Sunday. The bug my son had and my husband nearly had was no joke.

So, I missed the dinner, which, judging by all of your photos on Facebook, was really nice. Congratulations go out to poet Micah Ling, who won the Emerging Author award, and I wished I'd had the chance to talk to her, and to catch up with Bich, and to meet Aaron, another Purdue MFA grad.

Jell-O and soup and saltines and a really great husband (and mom, who came back on Monday to take care of me AND the baby) fixed me up right. Baby's feeling great now, too. Here's hoping I'll keep my clean bill of health for the Gathering of Writers this Saturday. I'll continue my strict regimen of granola bar avoidance, and everything should be just fine.

In which I want a crepe but do not get one

Indianapolis Monthly has just made me swoon, via "The Dish," with mention of banana and Nutella crepes. It is too late to get some, hour-wise. Must distract self. And perhaps you!

Me, in words:
A headline poem, "Monkeys Ponder What Could Have Been," in Gargoyle 57

An interview with PANK Magazine, at their blog

Short fiction, "Arrested Development," in Midwestern Gothic

Me, in events:
I'm teaching two "Get Started" sessions at the Indianapolis Central Library on Saturday, from 1-2:30 p.m., and also from 3-4:30 p.m. This is part of the Indiana Authors Award event. Very excited to attend the dinner. Business attire is recommended! I do not know exactly what this means, which is part of the excitement.

And, I'm teaching a session on the essay at the Gathering of Writers, a fantastic annual event put on by the Writers' Center of Indiana.

(I still want those crepes. Man.)

Uh-oh

Today's horoscope: "Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): The answers you need may be lost in the mail or floating in cyberspace. You and your can-do attitude will prevail."

That's a nice little uplift at the end. Still. THE ANSWERS I NEED MAY BE FLOATING IN CYBERSPACE? Super. I'll just get started tracking them down. Because cyberspace is small, easily managed, and it shouldn't take me, oh, more than an hour.

Also I have tons of spare time! So there's that.

USPS, I still love you. Whitney Houston-style: I will always love you. Do not be confused, though: I am not saying you are Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard. Which is playing simultaneously in living rooms across the nation, on three different channels, at any given point on any given day.

Except Sunday.

Ten lines in ten minutes

1. Life observed from the car window is removed times two, yet feels sped up.
2. The dancing Cash for Gold man usually wears a gold lame suit and plays cardboard guitar, though lately he has taken to wearing a vampire costume for Halloween (presumably.)
3. Once I watched a special on TV about a man who claimed, from jail, not to have killed a woman he seemed guilty of killing; during the interview, he played a small guitar he'd made of cardboard and dental floss.
4. At The Avett Brothers concert the other weekend, I entered a raffle to win a signed guitar.
5. I said I'd really learn to play this time, if I won.
6. I'm going to win, I told my friend Allison.
7. I didn't win.
8. The night was chilly, more than that, the night was cold, and we wore our blankets and stomped our feet and danced and watched the moon and the stars and listened to the Avetts singing song after song, all that emotion, what do they do with all that emotion, I love them for having it, writing it, sharing it.
9. Sometimes in class, I feel as if I'm being watched/recorded, a la Candid Camera, based on the ludicrousness of situation.
10. Maybe I am.

Lost Dissertation Opportunity #267

Degree Candidate: Sarah A. Layden
Degree Sought: PhD in Popular Culture and Fast-Food Studies
Working Title: Color Me with Condiments: Representations of Race and Class in Burger King's 1974 "Have it Your Way" Campaign
Research questions: What is the cringey to sassy ratio? Is that Jon Voigt asking for four Coca-Cola? Why not colas?

15 lines in 15 minutes

1.) The deadline forces the mind to mind. 2.) I am writing about personal things, potentially exposing things, which feels hazardous and risky; but I'm telling the story as best I can, which means being honest, which can be incredibly difficult. 3.) There are many, many jobs that are more difficult than writing, chief among them police officer. 4.) The IMPD officers wear bulletproof vests at all times, over shorts and T-shirts when the weather is warm. 5.) There is something startling about a man in shorts with a visible gun holster, and a gun inside that holster. 6.) Even more startling: that man at your door. 7.) (Everything's fine, mom.) 8.) The refrain of the subconscious, the things it wants and asks for, so different from what the upfront brain says it wants. 9.) You Are Your Brain vs. You Are Not Your Brain. 10.) Polenta with pesto, chicken cordon bleu, a glass of red wine, a green salad. 11.) My week's refrain: The World Without Aunt Judy In It. 12.) A Facebook friend referred to FB as the biggest panoptican there is; look it up -- he's right. 13.) Planning to see "Contagion" and read "The Plague" by Camus, 'cause I'm sick like that. 14.) While burping the baby I sang to him, "Who let the burp out?" to the tune of that song, and he replied, Dada. 15.) I'd speculate if he knows what he was saying, but really: do any of us?

Click publish

Sometimes it seems there are too many ways to express the self, including this mode, le blogger, and we have to choose which method for which situation, which place in time, which people will see which thing, how those people might react in their particular places and times, the fallout or repercussions of those reactions or potentially the lack thereof, a silence that speaks to being ignored or worse, never seen, never heard, our lives a vacuum in which we are talking to ourselves but pretending otherwise, until the word "vacuum" reminds this particular self that I forgot to vacuum the dining room rug earlier, and now it is too late in terms of those who are awake versus those who are asleep, and whatever fell off a certain someone's high chair tray will just have to stay there, and my shoulder hurts and hoisting the vacuum wouldn't be a good idea anyway, and the movie we watched half of, "An Education," was rife with people about to act on bad ideas presented in a suspenseful fashion and I'm eager to watch the rest of it, now I am writing as "I" and not "this self," I am getting closer to saying something, maybe what I want to say is that I like distance and this mode of expression begs for assumed closeness and I want to assume as little as possible, that we (me and you, whoever you are) would share the details of our weekend around some sort of beverage cart (because really, water coolers? They are expensive enough, apparently, that they are removed from certain offices as cost-cutting measures), and I am about to backspace over all of this, just unpave the whole thing, and I see that button below, Publish, and this isn't really all that interesting, why should I click publish, or why NOT, as a little counter-argument, arguments about counters, granite vs. laminate, both heavy, and seriously: my arm and shoulder feel like they're about to fall off, and here seems like a good venue for that discussion instead of there, which would turn into "Wot happend?" and "Aww poor baybeeee" and "what did u do?" and even typing in that fashion makes me want to massage my eye sockets with a pencil eraser, and what happened was carrying a heavy but adorable baby, and yoga, and moving furniture, and being old, oldER, shall we say, if we're continuing our beverage cart chat, because this is what (wot) we do: share the mundanity of our lives, and twenty to forty-five times a day I think of doing so, sharing, and usually don't, but the mundanity is where the meaning is, the walk after getting ice cream (birthday cake flavor), the stretch of my hamstrings, listening to the baby learning to say "Uh oh," the weather today so perfect and sunny with a slight breeze and blue skies and the feeling of, Why can't every day be like this? Like Sunday, as Morrissey wondered, like grilling out for dinner and a walk down the block and calm, calm, calm, a day so lovely you almost can't believe there was a hurricane on the east coast, Irene, when you're just going about your business, and at 11:11 when I make a wish (always), it is for myself or my child or my husband and almost never do I use my wishes on strangers, and almost always is the wish the same thing, a version of the same idea, and I am close to telling, I am this close to telling, so I either unpave what I've written or click publish, and you know what? 11:11, make a wish.

Dissonance

I have spent the last two weeks talking, teaching many classes. I used to think I was an introvert, and Myers-Briggs even said it was so. But teaching has turned me extroverted. Truthily. The last M-B personality test I took placed me squarely in the "E" category. Who knew?

Hectic as summer programs are, I had a blast. But boy am I sick of the sound of my own voice.

Let's listen to other people for awhile.



I'm reading Bob Mould's autobiography, See a Little Light.



I sung a few bars for my husband. He thought I was singing something by this band. I wasn't, but it's always nice to revisit the 90s.



Looking forward to the new Feist album, Metals, in October. The 4th, says the knowledgeable staff at LUNA Music. I'm-a gonna get it for the baby for his birthday, which is the 5th. Almost one! Who can believe it? Not I.



That was kind of dreamy. Speaking of, awoke with this in my head...



Better than getting Rick-rolled, which just happened when I clicked on a YouTube video a minute ago. But was secretly pleasing, also.



Enjoy the random, the general specific. The happiness of the guys in this audience. One beard, two beard, red beard, blue beard.

Close to Home

The Indiana State Fairgrounds are a mile-and-a-half from our house. We can walk there, or run past on the Monon Trail. Saturday night, we were at home, not at the fair. We were on the couch, enjoying Mexican takeout and a drink and the Colts game interspersed with The Dark Knight, enjoying the fact that the baby was sleeping so we could do all of the above.

We were not at the fair. We were not there when the storm rolled in just before Sugarland was about to take the grandstand stage, when gusts of wind caused the stage to topple, when four people died (and later, at the hospital, a fifth) and dozens were injured, when concertgoers were evacuated, with people far and wide wondering whether their loved ones were all right.

We can hear muffled versions of State Fair concerts from our house, but not this night. The wind drew us to the porch, and we watched the enormous trees behind our neighbor's house sway. I moved the potted plants from the table to the porch floor. The plants are nearly dead from the heat and my neglect but I didn't want the pots to tip and shatter. The power surged briefly, then came back on. The baby slept. We went back to watching The Dark Knight, and created a hand gesture/gang sign to indicate hash tags, basically the new air quotes (#HolyHeathLedger). I thought of the tall trees in our own backyard, outside the baby's room. The biggest one's trunk veers in two different directions. We had it cabled for stability last year, I reminded myself. The wind had already died down. Just some rain now. Midwestern spring and summer storms can be wicked. We would hear the tornado sirens if it came to that, and we'd grab the sleeping baby and retreat to the basement in time to be fine, if it came to that.

When we'd had enough of TV, I logged onto Facebook. That was how I heard about the catastrophe at the State Fair, which dominated my news feed. Initial reports said four dead, at least a dozen injured. No names of victims yet. I had been about to post an update about our relaxing, fun evening staying in, but I didn't. People were dead a mile-and-a-half from my house. Mexican food and the Colts and Heath Ledger were no longer relevant. The baby sighed in his sleep over the monitor. He does this sometimes, his thoughtful way of reminding me that he's still breathing. Sugarland. A band I knew from students who recommended their music, who said their concert was the best experience of their summers.

Were any of my former students at the concert? I hit refresh, willing the list of names to appear. They didn't. (Not until midmorning Sunday: Tammy Vandam, 42, Wanatah, Ind.; Glenn Goodrich, 49, Indianapolis; Alina Bigjohny, 23 Fort Wayne; Christina Santiago, 29, Chicago; Nathan Byrd, 51, Indianapolis. People I didn't know, won't know. Rest in peace.)

I looked up Indianapolis Star music critic Dave Lindquist on Facebook and read his reports from the scene. I scrolled the feed to read about friends who updated that they were all right, and so were their friends and family.

Then the power went out. It was about 10:30 p.m. We gathered the flashlight and candles, discussed whether the baby would be too warm without air conditioning. How long the fridge and freezer contents could last without spoiling. Tom went to the store for ice, grabbing extra bags for the neighbors. We went to bed, and the power came back on around 1:30 a.m. Our food was fine. The baby's bottles were fine. Minor inconveniences. A mile-and-a-half down the road, people clutched at each other as they ran for their lives. I wasn't there. I saw the pictures.

Today we went to the zoo with our friends, and it was like being on vacation. The place was packed, perhaps in part because the State Fair was closed today. Rain clouds came and went. If there was a storm, it was meant for somewhere else. The drops mostly missed us, just a few on my face. I picked up the baby and shielded him the best I could.