Garrett Dennert's Blog

*This post contains spoilers. If you haven’t yet done so, read “Flask” by Garrett Dennert now.

“Flask” still agonizes me, due to its inclusion of a terrible racial slur. The protagonist of “Flask” is Lucas, an eight-year-old white boy growing up in 1960s Arkansas. His father is a mortician at a funeral home owned by Mr. Xavier, a racist man who has seen in integration efforts the opportunity to make more money. For the first time, the funeral home’s doors have been opened to black people....

In 2016, I published my novel Wounded Tongue through Orson’s Publishing, a company I founded that same year. This November will mark three years from Wounded Tongue’s publication date. It really doesn’t seem like that much time has passed. But, I still love that project, and am very proud of what I was able to put together.

Hopefully I’m not alone in thinking it seemed like something worth celebrating, if only with something small.

Over at Orson’s Publishing I put together a Wounded Tongue Q...

*This post contains spoilers. If you haven’t yet done so, read “ Q&A” now.

This isn’t a new idea, but something I like doing to inspire creativity as a storyteller is to create a box for myself. By that I mean introducing restrictive elements to the storytelling process. For example, in Wounded Tongue, the protagonist Reyn is hearing impaired, which impacts how she communicates with everyone she comes in contact with. Here, in “Q&A” the restrictive element is the Q&A format, which I love. Unli...

*This post contains spoilers. If you haven’t yet done so, read “ Heel to Lung, Ear to Ear ” now.

Odell isn’t fucking you the way you told him to. Not once have you requested these slow thrusts, nor have you asked for his eyes to hover over yours and stare, stare until his thin orange brows angle with concern, embers misled by the night. This fire-haired boy is more confused than pleased and you do not care. You care so little that all you want to tell him is that he doesn’t need to do that, tha...

*This post contains spoilers. If you haven’t yet done so, read “Rasp” now.

The first draft of “Rasp” was written, I want to say, in 2011, as a creative writing student at Grand Valley State University (Go Lakers!). I don’t remember many details about the first draft, or the second draft, or the third, but I do remember that it was, at most, half the length of what it is today. I think it was one of those stories that I proudly handed in for workshop on multiple occasions that came back each t...

Hi there, folks. My name is Garrett Dennert. Welcome to my website, and to my blog.

As it is with many things, aside from the introduction above, I’m struggling to figure out how to begin this first blog post. Maybe here: I’m a person that deeply values privacy. Which makes running something like a blog a challenge on occasion, it being something that carries audience expectations of mining into that which is personal, whether those scrapes be deep or shallow. I grew up in a place and within...

In 2018, Orson’s Publishing helped introduce Mike Corrao and his debut novel, Man, Oh Man, to the world. Two cats were soon thereafter let out of the proverbial bag: 1) Mike Corrao is mega talented, and 2) Mike Corrao has something unique to say.

Proved true by Man, Oh Man, Mike’s latest project with Orson’s Publishing is sure to cement the aforementioned. Two Novels: Howl Revisited and Green Detectives is a manifestation of loss and confusion, constructed in its own textual landscape; rea...

For some time now, we here at Orson’s have considered deleting our accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, leaving social media altogether. The reasoning has been simple: it can be a dangerous place on which to focus our energy.

That reasoning holds true today. Where we want to focus our energy is on our catalog of books, on forthcoming issues of Orson’s Review, and on the Orson’s Publishing bookstore—the core of Orson’s Publishing.

Supporters of social media could read that and suggest...

*First delivered as an email to the Orson’s Reading Group. SUBSCRIBE HERE

While it isn't often that we publicly reflect, it's true that we here at Orson's Publishing think often of where we've come from and how it is that we've arrived at this point.

Doing so allows us to say, as objectively as we possibly can, that 2018 was a crazy year for Orson's Publishing. Not crazy in terms of things going wrong, but crazy in terms of things going right: crucial steps taken in certain directions; growth...

As outlined on its website, KFAI’s mission is:

KFAI is a volunteer-based community radio station that exists to broadcast information, arts and entertainment programming for an audience of diverse racial, social and economic backgrounds. By providing a voice for people ignored or misrepresented by mainstream media, KFAI increases understanding between peoples and communities, while fostering the values of democracy and social justice.

KFAI serves up dozens of programs to the Minneapolis / St....