Introductions and explanations

If you are meandering here because you have read and enjoyed my stories in print and wanted to learn a little more about me, then God bless you for reading independent literary journals and for finding this blog, because it seems you can only access it by search through Blogger.com (at least with my limited expertise).

About me then:

• I have been writing all my life, but seriously hunkered down with the intention of publication, fame and riches in early 2003.
• The bibliography so far: "Two Pink Lines" a microfiction story, in Illya's Honey, Fall 2004; "My Governors' House," in The First Line (http://www.thefirstline.com/), Summer 2005, Nominated for a Pushcart Prize; "Afternoon Cowboy," in Thema (http://members.cox.net/thema/) Fall 2005, whose publication was actually blown back to early 2006 by Hurricane Katrina paying an unwelcome visit to their offices; and "From Mamma to Mother and Back," also in The First Line, Spring 2006. Everybody be sure and do a little rain dance to sprout the two dozen other short stories I have tucked into the slush piles around the nation.
• My high score after putting approximately 4,897 quarters in Galaga is 168,540.
• This Spring I completed my first novel, "Alexander Murphy's Home for Wayward Celebrities," a literary novel of the pratfalls of celebrity in America, the challenge of defining yourself through popular culture, and the good ol' fashioned ache for companionship; for which I am seeking a midwife (agent) and doctor (publisher) to deliver it into your hands.
• I have read 442 books and seen 2923 movies (lists available upon request)
• I live in a satellite of the binary system of San Francisco and Oakland, with my lovely wife, a passionate high school History teacher, my high school and college sweetheart who I married immediately after, and look forward to dedicating the book to; a five-year old son and three-year old daughter who are the right kind of crazy; a porcine cat, and the odd couple of a gregarious red beta, and a hermitic plecostomus.
• My favorite Japanese filmmakers in no particular order are: Akira Kurosawa, Hayao Miyazaki, Juzo Itami, Isao Takahata, Hirokazu Koreeda, Katsuhiro Otomo, and Takeshi Kitano.
• My greatest literary ambitions in life are to have a shelf's worth of novels with my name upon them in print, and to have read every book I own, provided I own or can borrow (though you should never lend me a book if you don't want it returned looking well loved) every book by Tom Robbins, Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, Thornton Wilder, Michael Chabon, M. Allen Cunningham, Nick Hornby, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Annie Proulx, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, Milan Kundera, Douglas Adams, Nicholson Baker, Don DeLillo, Charles Dickens, Margaret Atwood, Kazuo Ishigoro, Vladimir Nabokov, Ethan Hawke, George Orwell, Ken Kesey, Evelyn Waugh, David Mitchell, John Steinbeck...
• And why Oral Randomly for my blog title? Well, a couple years back I got the idea into my head to publish my own zine, where all of the stories and poems would be released in audio form, to reemphasize the oral tradition of storytelling, hence Oral (I considered Aural, but it just sounded too pretentious); and I figured that instead of a set publication schedule I would just release the issues when I felt they were ready, hence Randomly. I still thought that title had a good flow to it, so I resurrected it here, as the nature of blogs is more conversational that writerly, more in the moment then on a schedule.

and above all you should know that Josh loves to receive mail, so please feel free to comment or converse with me on any of the topics I present in this blog, or upon my stories, or fraternal tales on the difficulties in getting your first story or novel published, or on writing or reading or film or art or music or anything.

Unless you want to brag about a better Galaga score, in which case you are dead to me.