A full list of my publications is available at kaufmanwrites.com.
Publications
March 22, 2013Is ‘Flash-Memoir’ a Thing? Either Way, Let Me Bleed for You In This New Flash-Memoir Piece at Zouch Magazine
June 19, 2013Zouch Magazine has just published a very brief memoir piece I wrote shortly after, first, discovering my father had Stage 4 colon cancer, and second, moving to Utah to attend the MFA program at the U. It is, in fact, the first piece I wrote for my MFA, the first piece of nonfiction I’d ever written, and the first piece I wrote about my father’s eventual death. So, yeah…
Go find out about snow, cancer, a cactus flower, and the kind of pathos that comes from typing by shorting out the key switches with salty, salty tears. Read “Stage IV: The Metastasis of Snow, Cactus Flower” in Zouch Magazine.
New story in Bourbon Penn
May 15, 2013
I’ve got a new story out in the lovely Bourbon Penn. It’s called “Caretaker,” and, oddly enough, it’s about a woman who works as a caretaker for a cemetery. I mean, I guess it happens to be the only cemetery in the world and it’s so big she can’t see the walls…
Head over to Bourbon Penn and read “Caretaker,” then check out the rest of the wonderful stories in this issue. You can also pick up a copy of the issue for Kindle, or buy it as a printed object.
Finalist in Origami Zoo’s First Ever Chapbook Contest
May 8, 2013I’m proud to say that my novella, No Window, was chosen as a finalist in Origami Zoo’s first ever chapbook contest. I got a great response from the editors, and it’s generally nice to know that the really talented people who ran this contest read my work work at all, let alone found it worth giving a finalist nod.
I’ll be very excited to read the winning and honorable mention chapbooks, and in the meantime I’ll keep hunting for a home for No Window.
And you should head over to Origami Zoo, buy some of their amazing books, and check out the full results of the contest. You should also probably buy all of everything Matt Bell (the final judge for the contest) has ever written. I loved Cataclysm Baby, and you should too.
This Is Not the Death of the American Author
April 8, 2013Oh, woe be unto us, for the American author is an untenable and dying breed. The world conspires against the American author, actively seeking to destroy this noble breed!
Bullshit.
Read the rest of this entry »
Death, Chinese Food, Professor Fate
January 12, 2013It’s been two years since my dad died. It took me the first year to be able to recall him without recalling him as he died. It was a gift the first time I remembered him as something other than bed-ridden and deathly ill.
Yesterday The Great Race was on TCM, and I watched a few minutes. That had been our favorite movie when I was a kid. When we got in an elevator or had to open the garage or ring a doorbell he’d shout, “Push the button, Max!” When he wanted to tell me I’d done something dumb without really scolding me, he’d call me “a thimble-headed gherkin.”
My father was a scientist, and he had a mustache, and he loved Professor Fate.
I couldn’t watch the movie.
Today Green Apple (the bookstore he took me to all the time, back when) happened to post a picture of ducks hanging in the window of a Chinese deli on Clement Street in San Francisco. I grew up a few blocks away, and my father and I often walked down to Clement to eat Chinese. Whenever he came to visit me when I was in college he’d bring a whole Clement-Street care package: duck with buns, steamed bao, those glazed ribs…
He kept that up even when I was in grad school.
It was always too much food, and I always wound up throwing some out.
And you know what he’d say if I ever left food uneaten? He’d say, “You’ll wish you had that later.” Well, today he’s right. Today I wish he’d bring me some Chinese food .
Our relationship was often troubled, and we were often not close. Sometimes I hated him, sometimes I didn’t want to be around him. There were reasons. Today, that doesn’t matter. Today, for what it’s worth, I miss him.
On the Fatal Flaw of Co-working Spaces
January 4, 2013I’m trying out this co-working space…you know, you pay a monthly membership and in return you basically get to be a part of an office. You get a desk and wifi and there are other people around you working, only you’re all working on whatever the hell you want and no one’s yelling at you for failing to fill out your TPS reports.
It’s a nice concept, and it’s certainly making me more productive. I’ve showered and I’m wearing pants, and I feel bad dicking around when all these people can see me. Except I have one big problem with this place.
See, there’s a sign out front that claims this is “the office you wish you had.” But they’re falling short of that mark. It’s not the desks or the decor or atmosphere or anything. No, it’s the bathrooms.
My ideal office has an institutional bathroom. The kind with three or more of everything: stalls, sinks, urinals, paper-towel dispensers. A bathroom that’s cleaned twice a day by janitorial staff, and that’s uncomfortably well-lit. A place you can take a break, lock yourself in a stall and play Carcassonne on your phone for twenty minutes. A haven, where no one comes knocking. This place has a perfectly serviceable bathroom, but it’s just a toilet in a dimly-lit room, and everybody has to share.
This can never really be “the office I wish I had” without the office bathroom I wish I had.
Ah well, we all have our burdens to bear.
