2026 week 1 reading log
Lindsey Drager, Debbie Urbanski, Iphgenia Baal, Curtis Dawkins, William Burtch, Andrew Porter, Katherine Dunn, Bobbie Ann Mason...
Happy New Year!
I started this blog last year, and was pretty good at keeping it up for… three months? At which point, I updated it once in May, and then not again.
As the year progressed, I fell out of the habit of reading a story every day; I didn’t write very much; and, by the end of the year, I barely ran in November or December. Three things I’m happiest when I’m most consistent about. So it goes.
New year, you get to start fresh!
I’ve kinda had ideas bouncing around in my head about just that — new year, starting fresh, resolutions, consistency, pleasure, habits, all of that… — sometimes drafting ideas for a rough essay as blog post as intro to this reading log… But if I follow-through and take the time to write up all that, it might not actually get done.
So I’m just going to dive right in. Here’s the stories I’ve read so far this year.
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Wait. I lied. I have a book coming out! Almost exactly one month from today!!
It’s available for preorder right now. If you haven’t already… you should preorder it right now!
Here’s the book synopsis:
Inspired to “take a break from life” by the idyllic housesitting situation they were offered for the summer, Aaron and Amber find themselves in Aaron’s hometown of Tacoma, Washington. Amber works her remote job, Aaron tries to write and goes for runs along the waterfront, and they explore their temporary summer city on daily walks and regular excursions. Soon, noticing that the landscape seems to keep shifting around them, Aaron starts drawing a map of it all, attempting to document and make sense of the changes. When Tacoma starts to open up bigger and bigger with possibility and wonder, Tacoma starts to fold in on itself, becoming both more self-referential and more like the spontaneous, fantastical stories Aaron has been writing. A friend rides an orca to come visit. Pirates guard a wormhole in the forest. A secret doorway in the Tacoma Mall tunnels back to Aaron’s childhood bedroom. Blending autofiction with fantasy, meta with magic, and earnestness with absurdity, Tacoma presents a recognizable but also magical world where we ask, if nothing is real, then why not have as much fun as possible?
Here’s a couple blurbs:
“A charming story of coupling and nostalgia. This airy romance, much like its summer-home setting, is both beautifully constructed and packed with secret rooms. Tacoma feels like a new Burch era, though it's packed with plenty of what I've always loved. As always, Burch’s self-assured prose shines.”
—Amelia Gray, author of Isadora
“Aaron Burch's Tacoma is a shape-shifting feat of pure magic. It's a book about friendship and love and the moments in life that lift you up so you can see just how perfect and strange it all is. Big-hearted, playful, ironic, and yet somehow also strikingly sincere, this is the kind of book you read straight through, all the while hoping it will never end.”
—Colin Winnette, author of Users
I’ve already done a couple interview for it! Here’s those:
w/ Ivy Grimes:
w/ James Jacob Hatfield:
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OK. For real now, here’s my reading log…
the stories I read this week:
Thurs. 1/1: “Blackbirds” by Lindsey Drager
Lindsey was my MFA-mate. Probably the best writer in the program. Was excited to see her in this year’s O. Henry anthology! I often want her writing to be a little more narrative than it is, and so I often admire her stories and novels a little more than I love them, which is entirely a “it isn’t you, it’s me” thing.
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Fri. 1/2: “The Promise of a Portal” by Debbie Urbanski
Urbanski emailed me early last year, I believe after seeing my “favorite story story collections of the year” post on Short Story, Long, saying she appreciated my short story advocacy and mentioned she had a collection coming out. We ended up doing a bookswap… and then my year got away from me and I’m only now diving in. Really enjoyed this first story, excited to read more.
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Sat. 1/3: “I Just Want to Pull Down Your Panties and Fuck You” by Iphgenia Baal
I picked up this collection from my local bookstore because the cover grabbed my attention — the image itself, and also that the title and author name are silver embossed, and maybe especially because the title is so attention-grabbing. Man Hating Psycho.
This is the second to last story in the collection. Like many of the others, I didn’t love it… but also found it almost obsessively readable, and often interesting (even when sometimes frustrating). The stories are about a very specific kind of person who I can’t help but often feel like I would find annoying irl. I don’t need my characters to be “likable,” but, sometimes, I couldn’t help but think, Why do I care about any of these people?
The story starts,
In the ten years they’ve known each other, there’ve been countless opportunities for them to do it.
And then, near the end of the story (50 pages later!), we get
For the first time in ages, she writes
There’d been plenty of opportunities
In the ten years they’d known each other
In the ten years they’d known each other, there’d been plenty of opportunities for them to do it.
I admit, I can be and incredible sucker for this kind of meta, folding back and in on itself, move!
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Sun. 1/4: “County” by Curtis Dawkins
I published Dawkins a handful of times with Hobart years & years ago and was in semiregular correspondence with him. Never picked up this collection, though I don’t know why not. Tyler McAndrew sent it to me earlier this year, with a couple other books, as part of something of a “thank you” care package for blurbing his book. We’ve talked about Dawkins a handful of times over the years and this is one of his fave books of all time. I surely would have (finally!) picked it up at some point, but I’m thankful for the gift! This is the first story in the collection and is my fave story I’ve read so far this year. Don't want to be hyperbolic, but it felt up there with Jesus’ Son stuff, which feels among the best compliments I can give.
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Mon. 1/5: “Wab and Splinter” by William Burtch
I was in an online writing with Burtch… years ago now, it already is! One of those workshops hosted by David Byron Queen at Word West. This one was themed around Denis Johnson. It was a great class! Every week, we read a Johnson book and would talk about it for the first hour or so, and then the second hour would be workshopping two or three of us. We read Angels and Fiskadoro and Resuscitation of a Hanged Man, Jesus’ Son and Train Dreams and The Largesse of the Sea Maiden. And I wrote a bunch of stuff I was really proud of, including “Two Tacos” and “Sharks Keep Moving.”
Like a couple above (the Urbanski and Dawkins!) this is the first story in the collection. One thing I so enjoy about this “read a story every morning” practice is it makes me dig into some of these collections on my shelf that I’ve been meaning and wanting to dig into. Enjoyed this story and looking forward to reading more.
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Tues. 1/6: “Angelo” by Andrew Porter
I think Porter is one of the best short story writers at it right now. A new one is always a treat!
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Wed. 1/7: “Fanno Creek” by Katherine Dunn
I’m enjoying this collection (Near Flesh) but maybe less than I’d hoped. But that’s probably due to unfair expectations built on my love for Geek Love and that novel’s importance in my life. I’m only a few stories in though, and I’m glad to have it.
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Thurs. 1/8: “Coyotes” by Bobbie Ann Mason
I picked this collection up… I think it was on the “free” bookshelf in the English Building at work. Mason is one of those writers who’s name I’ve kinda always been familiar with but had maybe never read? Maybe a story or two at some point? I’ve been reading a story here, a story there on and off for months and just rally loving it. None of the stories themselves seem especially like “all-timers” but in a way that is kinda making the collection as a whole become a favorite? The stories feel like a part of that “80s dirty realism” tradition, while never seeming in any way especially showboat or drawing attention to themselves. One thing that I feel like sets them apart is the way they engage with the contemporary world at the time, especially pop culture, in a way that I’m maybe just blanking about but feel like I wouldn’t consider a part of that genre? The characters watch MTV, they comment on the music video for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” they watch Letterman. Reading them now, in 2025 (ack! 2026, now!! (though I read those two stories last year)), they feel really nostalgic, but the stories themselves aren’t nostalgic. It’s been an interesting reading experience I’m really enjoying.
This story’s version of that nostalgic capturing of the 80s is the main character works at a 24-hour photo development place. I really loved it.
Here’s something I wrote this week:
So far this year, I’ve written… 3 of the first 8 days? Not bad. Not great! But not bad.
I have a story coming out next month, as part of the debut of a new journal, The Bulb Region.
I wrote the first half longhand, near the end of this year’s Thanksgiving, after putting back a bottle of wine:
I’m excited for it! To share this story, specifically, and for the journal as a whole. It is edited by Sarp Sozdinler, who I am a big fan of. I’ve published him a handful of times on HAD, and a great longer story on SSL:
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Let’s wrap it up there! Thanks for reading.
Any fave reads of your own this week/8 days of 2026?
—Aaron
Pre-ordered! I love the journal pic. I wrote a bunch of stories long hand this fall and had a blast!
Added the Dawkins to my TBR thanks