Jesse Goolsby's Blog

What a lovely sight: the paperback edition of I’d Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them! Available now everywhere…but especially awesome at independent bookstores!

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What a joy to have work in the latest issue of Pleiades and be in the company of such talented writers: Seth Brady Tucker, David Abrams, Lauren Halloran, Jerri Bell, Matt Gallagher, Brent Glays, Hugh Martin, and Benjamin Hertwig. Congrats all!

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I’m heading out this week to the AWP Conference at the Los Angeles Convention Center. I’ll be hanging out at The Southeast Review table (#941) this Thursday from 11AM-1PM. Please come say hello! I’m also on a panel titled New Directions in Contemporary War Fiction on Saturday at 1:30 PM with amazing writers and friends Andria Williams, Matt Gallagher, and Peter Molin. (Room 510, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level).

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What a thrill and surprise to get the news that I’d Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them has won the Florida Book Award in Fiction. My deepest thanks to this year’s fiction judges Enid Shomer (Chair), Chris Coward, and Florence Turcotte. Making the news even more special is my dear friend and great poet Brandi George won the award in poetry for her masterful collection Gog. Check out the announcement and the invitation to the awards banquet here.

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I’m neck deep (about 20,000 words) in the writing of my second novel Derrin of the North. The novel is based on a short story I published in Harpur Palate seven years ago. It’s been a joy and a challenge in finding ways to capture the essence of that story and expand the aperture of the narrative into novel form. It’s coming together really well, but it took me a fair amount of time to determine how I wanted to work that story to novel transition. The next few months are going to be great as I look to complete a finished draft and continue to live with this spunky first-person narrator.

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The past three months have been gloriously busy as I have been working on my PhD dissertation (a collection of stories and essays) and novel #2 (Derrin of the North). A couple acceptances have come in, which is really exciting news always, but especially as some of these pieces are my attempts at trying some new narrative techniques (very short stories, new appropriations, new voices, altered punctuation). So look out for new fiction in forthcoming issues of Pleiades and CutBank. And most important, Happy Holidays to all!

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Many thanks to Brandon Lingle for our interview in the latest War, Literature & the Arts! There’s so much to check out and appreciate in the latest issue, including standouts from Peter Molin, Richard Johnson, Claudia Hauer, Brian Turner, Taylor Collier, Dan O’Brien, Katey Schultz, Caleb S. Cage, and many more. Check it out HERE.

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Please join me Monday, October 26th in Atlanta for a great night of readings, food, and friends to support a Distinguished Fellowship for veterans at the amazing Hambidge Center. Special thank yous to Donna and Jeff Mintz for hosting, and to the Executive Director of Hambidge James Badoud. My residency at Hambidge was vital to me finishing my novel I’D WALK WITH MY FRIENDS IF I COULD FIND THEM, and I’m so thrilled to be helping create opportunities for veterans to enjoy the beauty, time, and space Hambidge offers artists. Please help spread the word about this event to any friends in/near the Atlanta area. We’d love to see you there! RSVP info & more details on the flyer. Thanks!

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I had a great time answering questions from The Southeast Review. Be sure to check out the interview HERE. An excerpt:

This summer you’ve traveled all over the United States, giving readings from your new book. Can you share any of your favorite moments from these readings? Perhaps an interesting experience or something memorable a fan said to you?

Interesting: In Boston a woman stood up during Q&A and self identified as a pacifist. She said I seemed like a nice young man and would I please let her know why President Obama hadn’t responded to her letter about ending all wars forever. She asked this wish such a sincere earnestness that it broke my heart. She obviously thought I was higher up in rank or importance than I am, or perhaps she didn’t care about that at all and just wanted someone, anyone, to respond to what seemed like an open-hearted query. I answered the only way I could, honestly, and said I wasn’t privy to the President’s communications, but that I agreed with her underlining desire to end all wars, that, in fact, a world without war sounded like paradise.

Rewarding: In Tampa a woman came up to me after a reading and said, through tears, that she worked at a local VA hospital, and that she was very thankful that I was talking about veterans not as a uniform group, but as individuals with specific hopes and fears and strengths. She gave me a hug and she didn’t let go for a long time.

Lighthearted: At one reading, just as I launched into a particularly intense scene with many expletives, a young boy, maybe 4 years old, ran up to the back of the crowd where I was reading. I glanced around for his parents while continuing to read, but the boy was just standing there, looking at me. My mind melted in the moment. Do I stop reading? Break scene? Laugh? Call out for his parents? Skip the bad words? I couldn’t scar this boy, but I’d already started this scene and the audience seemed to be into it, so I decided on the fly to just skip the expletives, so I rocked on, but every time I got to an expletive I paused, oddly, inadvertently, and no one seemed to know why the passage was choppy, or why the characters would avoid saying “shit” or “fuck” when those words were so clearly appropriate for the situation. And, of course, just as I finished the passage, the boy took off, so when I mentioned that I skipped the expletives because of a boy standing there, everyone turned around to see nothing.

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I had a great time discussing I’D WALK, writing, teaching, and reactions with Siobhan Fallon in our interview for the Words After War series for the Huffington Post. You can check the short interview out HERE.

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