I’ll be joining other writers  tomorrow from the Texas Weather anthology for a reading at the Center for the Study of the Southwest at Texas State in San Marcos, Tx.

http://www.txstate.edu/cssw/news-events/events/texas-weather-reading.html

Well, the world keeps turning, eh? Here are a few writing and teaching updates:

1. New microfiction, “Strange Music,” at Gris-Gris.

2. Interview up regarding “The Handle” at Psychopomp Magazine.

3. Besides the new semester of 2017, also now teaching for the Blackbox Writing Residency starting this weekend at A&M.

1. Enjoying a productive semester at Texas A&M University teaching creative writing and world folklore/cultures/literature.
2. Got promoted to Instructional Assistant Professor.
3. Psychopomp Magazine  included my story, “The Handle,” for their July 2016 issue, which can still be read here: https://www.joomag.com/magazine/psychopomp-magazine-summer-2016/0199704001466174689?short
4. Busy at work revising novel after the helpful input from the Taos Writers’ Conference, which took place in Santa Fe this last July. John Dufresne taught the Master’s Class focusing on novel revision.
5. Read with one of my students a couple days ago as part of the BIG LAAH Reading: we both shared excerpts from our novellas.
6. That is a picture of a couple of my puppets who attended the reading.
7. One of my colleagues at Texas A&M (and a Bowling Green State University MFA alumna!), Gabriel Scala will be reading her poetry in the next installment of the BIG LAAH series: catch her on Thursday, November 17th at 4:00 PM in the LAAH building, room 453. And check out her webpage here: https://jgabrielscala.com/

A busy and rewarding semester teaching at Texas A&M University. Some wonderful papers, stories, poems, scripts, theatrical and puppet performances emerged from students.

In addition, I was lucky enough to have some stories and articles see publication within the space of several months.

My story “Echolocation” is available in the Arroyo Literary Review Print Issue 8 Spring 2016: https://arroyoliteraryreview.com/

You’ll find “Shadows of the Past in the Sunshine State”–a folklore fieldwork study of ghost legends and ghost tourism in St. Augustine, FL in Western Folklore . Summer/Fall2015, Vol. 74 Issue 3/4, p309-342. 34p. Available here: http://www.westernfolklore.org/WFVol74No3&4.html

I’ve worked on “The Handle” the last couple of years, and it will be published later this summer and reached Runner Up status in Psychopomp Magazine‘s Short Fiction contest for 2016: https://psychopompmag.com/contests/2016-psychopomp-magazine-short-fiction-award/

Most recently the online open source journal Humanities published my article, “We All Live in Fabletown: Bill Willingham’s Fables—A Fairy-Tale Epic for the 21st Century” for the special issue Fairy Tale and its Uses in Contemporary New Media and Popular Culture–Academic Editor: Claudia Schwabe
http://www.mdpi.com/2076-0787/5/2/32

Hope everyone’s 2016 is shaping up nicely. One item to wrap-up this previous year: had a short story submission (“Girl in the Trunk”) receive an Honorable Mention for the 40th New Millennium Award
http://winners.newmillenniumwritings.org/
Also had some good news that Western Folklore will be publishing an article I wrote and the Arroyo Literary Review will include one of my short stories in their next issue for 2016.

1.  This interview relates partly to the publication a couple months ago, “What the Storm Brought.”
http://midwestgothic.com/2015/08/contributor-spotlight-jason-marc-harris-2/

2.  Another story that Midwestern Gothic published of mine, “Fridge Monitor” was recently a Finalist (top 15) for the Mark Twain Royal Nonesuch humor contest. Wish there were more such contests–that episode btw of HuckleBerry Finn with the Duke & the Dauphin was indeed quite a riot.

This story is partly based on the historical tornado that hit a relative and her family in Belleville, OH on May 10th, 1973.  There’s all sorts of great poetry and fiction in this summer issue of Midwestern Gothic Issue 18 (Summer 2015).
http://midwestgothic.com/2011/01/issue-18-summer-2015/

Check out the recent Vietnam issue of Masque & Spectacle. My story “Ridden” appears there, and the entire issue has a compelling assortment of poetry, prose, video, artwork, and musical performance.
http://masqueandspectacle.com/2015/05/30/ridden-jason-harris/

To resonate with Halloween and other traditional festivals of the dark time of year, as well as the gloom of this season–single digits and Fall snow have already started to mount up in the upper Midwest, heck, the temperatures dropped below freezing at night even down here in Bryan, TX–people have often told “winter tales.” Here’s  one such winter tale that also engages not only the Upper Peninsula of MI but dallies with the Slender Man meme, which you can easily find information about if you haven’t yet encountered the Slender Sickness.
Print version here of Riding Light Review’s  Halloween Issue:
http://www.amazon.com/Riding-Light-Review-October-Special/dp/1503004716/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1415208368&sr=8-2&keywords=the+riding+light+review
Website for The Riding Light Review’s Special Halloween Issue:
http://www.ridinglightreview.com/special-issues.html

One of the great experiences of my time at Bowling Green State University’s MFA program was the opportunity to get involved with editing Mid-American Review.  My first year I was Assistant Fiction Editor, and my second year I moved on to Fiction Editor, during which time I was fortunate to have two very helpful Assistant Fiction Editors: Laura Maylene Walter (current Fiction Editor) and Sasha Khalifeh. The entire staff–from Editor-in-Chief Abby Cloud to the hardworking interns–was fantastic to work with, and the process of reading through and discussing the multifarious submissions was always interesting.

Discovering new writers was the highpoint of the time at MAR. One of several writers that stood out is Rose Whitmore.  She was in MAR XXXIV.1 for “Avenue of the Giants”–a coming-of-age adventure of a teenage girl living at a struggling Bigfoot theme park set in the redwoods.  Rose’s humor and compassion for her characters made this story rich with both depth and detail. Complex family issues and sharp prose. Rose is a writer to keep an eye on!

Check out Rose Whitmore’s bio so far: Rose Whitmore’s essays and stories have appeared in The Missouri Review, The Sun, Mid-American Review and Fourth Genre. She is the recipient of the 2013 Peden Prize from The Missouri Review, and a work-study scholarship from the Bread Loaf writer’s conference. She lives in San Diego where she is at work on a collection of personal essays and a collection of short stories.

For some reflections on the submission process from the editorial side, check out Laura Maylene Walter’s blog post here: http://lauramaylenewalter.com/?p=10777
And to keep up with MAR in general, check out Suzanne Hodsden’s updates for MAR’s blog:
http://casit.bgsu.edu/marblog/