2026 reading log, weeks 2 & 3

JT LeRoy, Curtis Dawkins, Emma Binder, Judy Budnitz, Iphgenia Baal, Katherine Dunn, Bobbie Ann Mason, Brian Evenson, William Pei Shih, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, Samantha Schweblin...

I mentioned this last post, and I’m gonna do so again here, and will probably just keep doing so until it’s out. Hell, probably for a little while after it’s out, too.

You basically gotta relentlessly self-promote yourself as an author, that’s kinda just part of the gig, and even especially all the moreso as an indie press author.

And also I’m just really proud of this book, and excited for people to read it. It’s short, a fast read, and I think just really fun. Which the handful of early readers seem to be especially responding to. I don’t think there’s a ton of fun books out there. But I think there’s something of a desire for one?

Which is all just to say:

MY BOOK TACOMA IS OUT IN A COUPLE OF WEEKS, ON TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10!

You can preorder it here:

autofocusbooks.com/store/p/tacoma

Although I especially recommend you treat yourself and snag the Autofocus Books Winter 2026 Box. Three brand new books plus a bonus fourth book from the backlog (I’ll personally recommend one for you, if you’re into that kinda thing), all for only $44!!

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Last time, I linked to a couple of interviews I’d done about the book, and since then, I’ve done another, this one with Brian Birmingham, published on Vol. 1 Brooklyn.

from Brian’s very kind intro:

Burch is back with Tacoma, an autofiction novella that takes themes of nostalgia and the past to a wild new level.

How do you write an earnest story without being sentimental? How do you then toss in some speculative zaniness and make it all feel cohesive? In Tacoma, Burch has managed to craft a deeply personal, open and honest story that deals with change, beauty and wonder, but also has wormholes, hidden doors, pirates, and a literal nostalgia trip through a shopping mall. The result is a freeflowing, propulsive, hypnotic novella that takes Burch’s writing (literally and figuratively) to an exciting new dimension.

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Last time, I also mentioned that I had a new short-short forthcoming… and that’s here!

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OK. Here’s the stories I read in the last couple weeks…

the stories I read this week:

Fri. 1/9: “The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things” by JT LeRoy

JT LeRoy was such a big deal in the early 00s, when I really started reading and writing. I’ve been kinda curious to revisit for the last few years.

The story was better than I feared it might be, probably not as good as I thought it was in ~2001.

Writing these sentences now, almost two weeks after having read it, I remember almost nothing about it. Though that probably says as much, if not more, about me than it does the story.

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Sat. 1/10: “A Human Number” by Curtis Dawkins

This story is amazing, but I liked it a little less than last update’s “County.”

Dawkins is an interesting writer. Per the note in the back of the book,

Dawkins began drinking when he was twelve; later alcohol turned into a big enough problem that he dropped out of college. He entered rehab, then Alcoholics Anonymous. He got sober and by the late ’90s had earned an MFA in creative writing from Western Michigan University…

But as time progressed, Dawkins began taking prescription painkillers. His addiction grew to ketamine and heroin. On Halloween Night in 2004, he attempted to rob Thomas Bowman on the porch of his home in Kalamazoo, Michigan. When Bowman resisted, Dawkins—who was high on crack and had drank alacohol for the first time in years—shot him in the chest…

In July 2005, Dawkins was convicted of Bowman’s murder and found guilty of eight other charges related to the incident and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. Inside, Dawkins began to write again.

(It feels egotistical to say, but also weird to leave out, but also admittedly feels kinda cool to be able to say: some of those stories were sent to me, and I published him a few times in Hobart, where they were read by Jarrett Haley, who worked with Dawkins on editing the stories and finding him an agent, which all ultimately led to this book being published.)

It is hard, if not impossible, to disassociate these stories themselves from all of that context.

The beginning of the note excerpted above starts, “Countless authors have tried to capture what goes on inside a prisoner’s mind, but how much do they really know?”

These stories are interesting, and powerful, and great, in large part because Dawkins has that pedigree of his MFA (not that you need an MFA to write well; you very much don’t!; but also… how many prisoners serving life with no possibility of parole have one?), combined with the life he’s lived, combined with the time that his current life affords him to think and notice and write.

Anyway. Something about this story felt a little more “oh, this guy has an MFA” to me, in contrast to “County” feeling so raw (while also kinda perfectly told/written), and so it hit me a little less hard… but it still works. It’s real solid.

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Sun. 1/11: “What Would I Do For You, What Would You Do for Me?” by Emma Binder

I saw someone here on Substack’s Notes (oh yeah, it was Bucky Sinister!) say he’d read this story and it was great, and I’ve been wanting to read my way through this year’s Best American Short Stories anyway, so I queued it up as my next “daily morning read,” and indeed it is great.

Emma: I’m gonna hunt you down and beg you for a story for Short Story, Long!

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Mon. 1/12: “Dog Days” by Judy Budnitz

Similar to JT LeRoy, Budnitz was super important for me as an early 20something starting to discover this world of contemporary literary fiction, and I’ve been curious to revisit.

This story is 25, almost 30 years old, and feels incredibly contemporary, and is just great. I feel like I would accept it right now, were it submitted to me.

It starts,

The man in the dog suit whines outside my door.

From there, it does such a perfect, beautiful job balancing the oddness of this man in a dog suit, just acting like a dog the whole story, with its almost kinda post-apocalyptic war-torn setting, and it is that balance where I think so many stories do one thing or the other but don’t think or try to (or can’t) pull of the combination, all fed through this perfect emotional register.

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Tues. 1/13: “Crazy Menu” by Iphgenia Baal

This was the last story in Baal’s collection, Man Hating Psycho. This story, and really the whole book, kinda mystifies me. It is all so readable, kinda addictively so… all while making me hate most of the characters, and frustrating me with its very looseness which is also its strength. I don’t know that I’d recommend it, but I also wouldn’t not, and maybe even very much would? I don’t know. I like that it stirred so much in me.

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Wed. 1/14: “The Flautist” Katherine Dunn

This book is kinda mystifying me, too, but in different ways. I liked this story — I would probably accept it, were it submitted to HAD, but also I didn’t love it. A kinda unfair response, because I’m holding it to such a high standard, because Dunn’s novel, Geek Love, is so important to me, but also I’m not sure the book would have been published posthumously were it not for her reputation?

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Thurs. 1/15: no story :(

Got busy. Get over it. It happens.

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Fri. 1/16: “Airwaves” by Bobbie Ann Mason

I love this collection (Love Life). None of the stories individually feel like all-timers, but I kinda think the collection as a whole is? I almost never (maybe literally never?) hear people talking about Mason. Let’s bring Mason back!

It almost kinda reminds me of, like, a female Raymond Carver who loves, or at least was interested in, pop culture (I don’t remember Carver stories ever mentioning Letterman or MTV or Mary Tyler Moore, etc.), though that also feels unfair. Why feel like I have to compare? Why not just write about on her own terms? But also, I love Carver, and the ways that this feels… similar, but also wholly its own thing, is just really really my jam.

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Sat. 1/17: “The Din of Celestial Birds” by Brian Evenson

I said this on bluesky:

This book has been on my shelf forever (so long, in fact, it is signed to my ex, from when he came to town for her reading series when I was away in grad school, way back in 2010; I guess I took it when I moved out? oops) but I've never dug in. Grabbed it and read the title story for my daily morning read.

&:

Evenson is easily up there among my fave writers, and he's one of the best people I've ever met, but I also think often about his career. His first book was a Big 5, and then next... 𝘧𝘦𝘸 were small indie and university presses, and then he found a consistent home at one of the best bigger indie presses.

He has numerous little side projects with real small indie presses. He gave me a story for Ho2 when I was a 20something who had no idea what I was doing, because I asked for one nicely.

All the while, I think he's one of the best, and maybe even 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵, contemporary American writers.

I wanna be Brian Evenson when I grow up.

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Sun. 1/18: “The Masterclass” by William Pei Shih

I found this story real boring.

Michael M——— wrote at length, and really smartly, about his own negative reaction to this story.

I just didn’t really like the voice it is written in? Though I think for slightly different reasons than Michael.

Here’s the first couple sentences:

Not so long ago, when I used to play the piano, a well-respected Record Producer approached me at the Music Festival in New England to say that they had heard of my name, and some good things about my piano playing, and asked if I would like to sit down for coffee in order to discuss the prospect of signing me and recording an album together—a debut album: The Rach 3rd. Few pianists were attempting to record the piece at the time, and the Record Producer had already heard of my interpretation of the Rach 2nd and not to mention, the Rach 1st, and also my performance of the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, the collection of Rachmaninoff’s 24 Preludes and the Études-Tableaux, and so on.

I love a long run-on sentence. But, to my ear, these don’t have any musicality to them (unsure if that pun is intended or not, but an odd complaint, given the story living in this world of music), they don’t have any reason for the breathlessness. They just feel like an awkward piling up of conjunctions.

Michael’s is a much more thoughtful, in-depth take, whereas mine is mostly just: this story is boring.

When people disparage “MFA fiction” or “boring ‘highbrow’ New Yorker fiction” or whatever, it almost always feels like a like a projection, like a made up strawman to complain about (no one in MFAs is actually writing like that, and the NYer publishes a lot of really great, interesting fiction!), but I think this story is basically what they’re imagining.

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Mon. 1/19: “Beyond All Reasonable Doubt, Jesus is Alive!” by Melissa Lozada-Oliva

This story fucking rules. Holy wow. Probably my fave story I’ve read so far this (admittedly still very young) year.

I’d never read anything by Lozada-Oliva before, didn’t know who she was, but I picked up this collection because Chris Gonzalez recommended it:

Short Story, Long's fave story collections of 2025!

I can’t wait to keep reading the book. Like Binder above, I’m def gonna be hounding for a story for SSL!

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Tues. 1/20: “Welcome to the Club" by Samantha Schweblin (translated by Megan McDowell)

Another collection I picked up because of “Short Story, Long’s fave collections of 2025,” this one via Adam Fleming Petty’s rec. This story is also a banger. This collection is also one I’m excited to keep reading.

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Wed. 1/21: “Sunshine” by Curtis Dawkins

I went long on Dawkins above.

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Thurs. 1/22: “Daytime Drama” by Curtis Dawkins

See above. Maybe I’ll have some new takes or insights on this collection, The Graybar Hotel, next time!

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Here’s something I wrote this week:

JK, I didn’t write anything this week.

Except for all of the above?

Should I have spent this time working on a story or novel instead? Maybe! So it goes.

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Thanks for reading.

Any fave reads of your own this past week or two?

—Aaron

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