New news and events on homepage sidebar. Old below.
2021 Events
10/07: I’m speaking on a panel
at New York Comic Con today.
10/01: I’ll be at the Brooklyn Book Festival moderating
a panel with Benjamin Percy and Catherynne M. Valente at 8pm (on Zoom).
08/11 at Third Place Books: I’ll be
interviewing Brian Evenson for his fantastic new collection. Online.
07/23 at Comic-Con: Orbit New Voice in SF&F panel. San Diego / online. [
Recording here.]
2021 News
12/17: Gavin Pate interviewed me for
Rain Taxi (print edition) about
The Body Scout. And
Frieze picked my interview with Joshua Cohen as
one of their 10 best pieces of 2021.
12/08: The New York Times has named
The Body Scout one of the
10 Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of the Year!
12/07: Tor.com named
The Body Scout one of the best books of the year!
11/11: I had a great time talking baseball, science fiction, and
The Body Scout with the Infinite Inning podcast.
11/04: Tor.com pairs my novel with Salvador Dalí in a fun article called “
Eight SFF Books That Echo Famous Works of Art”
10/31: NYPL named Tiny Nightmares their book of the day!
And The Body Scout was included on a list of great scary novels as picked by Hollywood screenwriters.
10/30: Somehow,
Tiny Nightmares is getting some nice coverage a year after it was published! It was rounded up in great Halloween reads at
Chicago Tribune and
The Seattle Times. And the anthology got a
very nice review at Lit Stack.
10/29: I had a great time chatting about
genre, writing, and the novel at Paraphase podcast.
10/28: For
Lit Hub,
I take a look at the literary history of baseball in time for the World Series.
10/26: WNYC calls
The Body Scout one of the best books of the fall! And
the Washington Independent Review of Books says, “Despite its many wild parts, this sci-fi/murder mystery comes together in an utterly satisfying whole.”
10/21: Libro.fm calls The Body Scout audiobook one not to miss: “great sci-fi noir mixed with a criticism of capitalistic greed.”
10/14:
Another rave for The Body Scout, this one from The Brooklyn Rail: “one hell of a mercilessly entertaining ride, one that I can’t recommend enough. Dear reader, you’re in for a treat.”
10/13: Apple Books picks
The Body Scout as one of the 10 debuts to read this year.
10/08: Tor.com reviews The Body Scout: “Michel’s worldbuilding here is both understated and devastating… a compelling vision of tomorrow.”
10/06: Boing Boing calls The Body Scout “a modern cyberpunk classic”!
9/30: For
PW, I wrote about 10 of my favorite “
strange dystopias.”
9/28: I talked with Michael Hickins
at “But I Digress…” about
The Body Scout.
9/23: New short story about ghosts and
climate change at Uncharted.
9/22: At
Crime Reads,
I wrote about why science fiction and noir pair so perfectly.
9/21: It’s pub day for
my novel The Body Scout! And I still can’t believe I woke up
to a rave from the New York Times: The Body Scout “blends noir, cyberpunk and sports into something at once timeless and original […] a wild ride, sad and funny, surreal and intelligent.”
9/21: I’ve got three new articles today!
At Tor, a defense of David Lynch’s strange and messy
Dune. At Lit Hub, I talked about genre fiction as a generative space.
And in my newsletter, I wrote about the long messy road to finishing my novel.
9/21: I
interviewed Joshua Cohen about truth, fiction, and his hilarious new novel for
Frieze.
09/10: I got to talk with the legendary Kim Stanley Robinson last night about our books, utopian fiction, punk rock, and philosophy.
You can watch a recording here.
09/02: An extremely generous review of The Body Scout at BOMB: “A sci-fi noir with the rich, earnest character development one expects from a quieter book…A refreshing and assuredly unique work.”
09/01: Extremely excited to have a (ghostly) story in the new issue of
Fantasy & Science Fiction.
08/30: Esquire names The Body Scout one of the best books of the fall!
08/24: Had a great time chatting science fiction on the
Podside Picnic podcast.
08/11: I’ll be
interviewing Brian Evenson about his stellar and creepy new collection for Third Place Books. UPDATE:
Watch on YouTube.
08/02: A
new SF story in Air/Light magazine.
06/29:The Body Scout reviewed in Kirkus: “a weird and hopefully not prescient techno-thriller… one part William Gibson, one part Cory Doctorow… It’s a dizzying world but catnip for cyberpunk fans.”
02/19: I
interviewed Swedish author Karin Tidbeck about speculative fiction and their wild new novel.
02/11: I
started a substack to blog about fiction craft and weird books.
Subscribe?
02/02: Cover reveal and excerpt of my forthcoming novel,
The Body Scout, at
Lit Hub.
01/12: I interviewed George Saunders about writing and reading in turbulent times.
2020 News
12/30: Final flash fiction of 2020:
“Tawny” at Post Road.
11/19: A new flash fiction fable at
No Contact magazine: “Don’s Volcano”
10/23: I have a new short story up
at The Baffler called “Red Oil.”
10/22: More raves for
Tiny Nightmares from the
New York Times and
Tor!
10/05: Another
rave for Tiny Nightmares from Library Journal: “A better entry into the world of horror as it stands today would be hard to find.”
09/24: Booklist gives Tiny Nightmares a star! “42 authors of both horror and literary fiction surprise, scare, and confound in this outstanding anthology… Highly recommended for all fiction collections.”
09/17: For
Lit Hub, I wrote about realism, SFF, and
rethinking the spectrum of fictional realities.
08/31: I have
a new novel coming out next year! (
More info here.)
08/11: I interviewed
Elisa Gabbert for BOMB.
07/29: Kirkus gives Tiny Nightmares a rave review: “exquisitely crafted fragments of horror…fans of innovative horror films like
Get Out and
Us will have a blast.”
05/29: PW gives Tiny Nightmares a starred review! “Masterful . . . This carefully crafted and genuinely scary collection is sure to impress.”
05/13: I wrote about how
George Saunders’s fiction predicted all this.
04/22: A new short story in
Granta: “
The Smart House of Mrs O”
04/22: The Believer rounded up writers on why they keep reading.
04/14: Interested in writing speculative fiction?
I have a new class up at Skillshare.
03/30: I wrote about beautiful
novels where things disappear for
Crime Reads.
1/31: A
nice write-up of Tiny Crimes at Kirkus.
1/21: I wrote about Anna Wiener’s Uncanny Valley and the uncanniness of Silicon Valley.
2019 Events
09/22 at Brooklyn Book Festival:
Active Imagination panel with Robert Lopez, Shira Erlichman, Jason Starr, and Mahogany Browne. Brooklyn, NY
04/09 at Rough Draft Bar & Books: Reading for the Rough Draft Writer’s Retreat series. Kingston, NY
03/24 at Karma: I’m
reading for Reading at Karma. New York, NY
2019 News
12/23: BOMB has a great round-up of writers (including me) looking back at the last decade in literature.
12/18: At
Frieze, I took a look back at
a decade where everything was fictionalized.
10/30: For Halloween, a
mash-up of Invisible Cities and Dracula at
Juked.
10/24: A new craft essay up at Lit Hub about using different elements to power fiction.
09/22: An interview with Rion Amilcar Scott in the new print issue of
Bomb.
08/13: I interviewed Kimberly King Parsons
for her fantastic debut Black Light.
05/22: Very excited to announce that
Tiny Crimes has been named a 2018 Shirley Jackson Award nominee for best Edited Anthology.
05/20: New science fiction story,
“Either Otto,” in Epiphany.
04/22: I wrote about
insane ideas that made brilliant books.
04/09: I’m
reading at Rough Draft Bar & Books in Kingston, NY.
04/04: A weird space opera
short story up at Motherboard.
03/24: I’m
reading at Karma Bookstore.
03/04: An interview with Mark Doten about memes, Trump, and the end of the world.
02/12: I have a poem in the
new issue of
Strange Horizons.
01/17: I review the (very good)
Samanta Schweblin story collection.
2018 Events
10/25 at NYU.
Washington Square Review launch party with Cynthia Cruz and Marwa Helal. New York, NY.
07/31 at Melville’s Arrowhead. Closing reading for The Mastheads. with Jean Ho, Jenna Lyles, Matthew Kramer, and Adrienne Raphel. Pittsfield, MA.
07/24 at Newtonville Books.
Tiny Crimes Boston launch with Laura van den Berg. Newton, MA.
07/01 at Hotel on North. Kick-off reading for The Mastheads residency with Jean Ho, Jenna Lyles, Matthew Kramer, and Adrienne Raphel. Pittsfield, MA.
06/05 at Housingworks. Tiny Crimes launch party! New York, NY.
03/09 at AWP. Alternating Current Press offsite reading. Tampa, FL.
02/08 at Stony Brook University. Reading. New York, NY.
2018 News
12/22: NPR quoted me a bit in
this segment on lit mags and the closing of the great
Tin House.
12/04: I have a new short story in
the winter issue of The Paris Review.
10/19: A bit of
satire about Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” Trump, and centrist punditry at McSweeneys.net.
10/16: A new short story in
Washington Square Review: “What the Landlord Knows”
08/08: I wrote about
“unlikeable characters” and Ottessa Moshfegh’s new novel for
Chicago Review of Books.
08/01: The first pages of
Herzog Park Ranger (my graphic-novel-in-progress with John Dermot Woods) are in the new issue of
The Believer. (
And also up online!)
07/15: My latest story,
“The Hair Wall,” up at The Black Warrior Review.
06/05: Tiny Crimes is officially published today!
05/30: A very
nice review of Gigantic Worlds at Tor.com.
05/27: The Wigleaf Top 50 short fictions 2018includes my story “Not Courteney Cox” from
Jellyfish Review.
05/18: Our new anthology,
Tiny Crimes, is out on June 5th!
Crime Reads has an excerpt by Amelia Gray up today.
05/17: I interviewed Rita Bullwinkel about her debut collection
Belly Up.
04/18: I reviewed Joy Williams’s
strange and beautiful The Changeling for
BOMB.
04/03: Three “strange” items: I reviewed
the remarkable and weird stories of Dino Buzzati at
BOMB. At
Crime Reads, I discussed some of the
strangest crimes in literature. And at
GQ I interviewed the directors of
the crazy documentary Wild Wild Country.
03/23: My short story “The Island Cat” is
in the new issue of LUMINA.
03/02: I interviewed Amelia Gray about being a novelist writing for TV.
02/27: A review of Mary Robison’s great fragment novel Why Did I Ever at
BOMB.
01/24: A tribute to the late, great Ursula K. Le Guin at
GQ.
01/16: A review of Denis Johnson’s posthumous collection (spoiler alert: it is good!)
01/12: I wrote about the
joys of literary remixing for Lit Hub.
2017 Events
11/02 at Housing Works: Reading with James Yeh, Helen Phillips, and more
for the TASTE fiction issue launch. New York, NY.
10/18 at Sarah Lawrence University. Craft talk. Bronxville, NY.
09/17 at Brooklyn Book Festival: Discussing David Lynch and fiction with Mark Doten and Alexandra Kleeman. Brooklyn, NY.
08/24 at Books Are Magic: Reading with Chiara Barzini and Amelia Gray. Brooklyn, NY.
06/13 at Community Bookstore: Reading with Henry Hoke and Laura Even Engel. Brooklyn, NY.
05/10: My fiction will be read by actor Bruce Altman at Symphony Space for Selected Shorts.
2017 News
12/13: A new, weird flash fiction piece in
Jellyfish Review: “
Not Courteney Cox.”
11/24: I wrote about some of
my favorite novels that break all the rules.
11/02: I have a mouth-watering science-fiction cannibalism
story up in TASTE’s fiction issue.
10/31: I talked to Alexander Chee and stole all of his novel writing secrets for
The Fold.
08/25: Mexican crime writer Yuri Herrera is one of my favorite recent discoveries.
I profiled his work at Playboy.
07/21: I have
a new short story about an aging werewolf at
Buzzfeed.
07/09: An interview with Alissa Nutting at
Vice.
07/03: A profile of Syrian author Osama Alomar at
Vice.
06/18: For Father’s Day,
I wrote about the daddest dads in literature for
Vice.
05/26: “Denis Johnson Was a Writer for the Weirdos in the World” – I wrote about the passing of Denis Johnson at
Playboy.
05/19: I reviewed four new small press story collections for the
New York Times.
05/17: I recommend weird books in the style of Twin Peaks over at
Vice.
04/24: I interviewed Jeff VanderMeer about his wonderful (and wonderfully weird) new novel
Borne at
Vice.
2016 Events
11/15 at Southeast Missouri State University:
Reading. Cape Girardeau, MO.
06/02 at PEN Live:
Prince tribute event with Porochista Khakpour, Elissa Schappell, and James Yeh. Manhattan, NY.
05/20 at Budin: Reading with
Tony Tulathimutte, Elissa Schapell, and more. Brooklyn, NY.
05/05 at WORD Bookstore: Reading with Adrian Van Young and Alice Kim. Brooklyn, NY.
04/25 at Manhattanville Reading Series:
Reading with Kyle Lucia Wu, Annabel Graham, and Julia Phillips. Brooklyn, NY.
04/09 at LA Times Festival of the Book: “The Art of the Short Story” panel with Jonathan Lethem and Karen Bender, and
“Off-Kilter” panel with Patrick DeWitt and Karl Taro Greenfeld. Los Angeles, CA.
03/30-04/02 at AWP: Tabling at
Electric Literature booth in bookfair, various events. Los Angeles, CA.
03/17 at Virginia Festival of the Book: “Short Stories” panel at New Dominion Bookshop, Charlottesville, VA.
02/25 at Egg:
Table of Contents reading with Helen Phillips. Brooklyn, NY.
2016 News
12/21: My short story “Good Boy” is in the new issue of
Gulf Coast.
11/27: I have a new short story in
Post Road, an homage/sequel to Julio Cortazar titled
“Letter to a Young Man in the Ground.”
10/08: Huffington Post includes
Upright Beasts in their list of
13 Haunting Books To Read This Fall, If You Dare.
10/04: At
BOMB Magazine, Alexandra Kleeman interviewed me about genre, strange influences, and putting the weird in fiction
08/24: Brooklyn Magazine interviewed me for their 100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture series about editing and being “a master of where literary culture and the internet meet.”
07/18: I interviewed one of my favorite writers,
Joy Williams, for VICE.
07/06: A very nice and smart review from Kenyon Review for Upright Beasts: “In their omnivorous approach to genre and form, these twenty-four stories testify to literary fiction’s continued shift into the strange.”
07/05: The Colorado Review says Upright Beasts is “a debut whose great strength is a changeability that keeps the pages turning as it veers from lucidity to madness and back again.”
6/30: I wrote three book list essays recently. One on
fictional cities in literature at
The Towner, one on
novels you should read based on your favorite Game of Thrones character at
Men’s Journal, and
summer reading suggestions at
The Thrillest.
5/26: A story from
Upright Beasts was chosen for
17 Stellar Short Stories By Contemporary Writers at
Huffington Post.
05/17: I wrote about
cafe writing and cafe procrastination for
Catapult
4/13: I wrote about
literary fairy tales and the power of non-realist writing for
The Guardian
3/15: The Collagist says Upright Beasts is “a lovely, finally genreless, collection, and one that is sure to continue finding an eager audience.”
3/01: Named one of the
100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture by Brooklyn Magazine: “Lincoln Michel is a master of where literary culture and the internet meet.”
1/25: An insightful and nice
review from Strange Horizons: “If sometimes you sit and think about “The School” by Donald Barthelme and wish more stories were like that, then this is probably the book you’ve been waiting for.
1/05: Roxane Gay says Upright Beasts “reminded me of the absolute wonder great fiction creates”!
2015 News
12/31: I’ve got a new science fiction story
about dystopia and Donald Trump up at Vice’s Motherboard.
12/27: Upright Beasts named
one of the best literary debuts of 2015 by Buzzfeed Books and new reviews from
Entropy Mag and
the Minnesota Star Tribune.
12/15: It’s end-of-year list time. So far,
Upright Beasts has been named a best book by
Buzzfeed,
The Fader, and
Entropy among some very fine company.
12/14: I talk about Kobo Abe and Italo Calvino at
The Millions.
11/30: You can read the
archive of my Reddit AMA.
11/13: My list of great genre-bending books for
Publisher’s Weekly.
11/12: I wrote about the processes of writing and publishing a collection for
Blunderbuss.
11/10: I have an in-depth and wide-ranging interview about genre, diversity, and writing at The Believer Logger.
10/30: A comic strip review of Upright Beasts!
10/28: “Colony” published at
The Literary Hub, and
a nice review from KGB Bar Lit Journal: “A praiseworthy debut collection. It will haunt you long after the beasts have returned to the shadows.”
10/26: Fiction Advocate has a very nice review that uses the phrase “megadose of bonafide classics” and says the stories “move along with a straightforward feel, until they begin to subtly lop, distort, and shift (think of a Steve Reich tape-loop composition); and the cumulative effect leaves you either heartbroken or cracking with laughter.”
10/26: I have an short story called
“Things Left Outside” at Weird Fiction Review, as well as
a corresponding interview about writing the weird.
10/19: A nice write-up
of my book launch party
10/16: A very generous and genre-focused review at Tor: “To do this once in your life—write a killer short story—is a total miracle. But if you’re some kind deranged monster like Lincoln Michel, you can churn these puppies out in your sleep.”
10/13: Pub day! and I wrote
a beastly book list for Lit Hub
10/12: Vanity Fair includes Upright Beasts in October round-up: “The stories are full of monstrous surprises and eerie silences. But who is the real beast? Michel quietly, but unequivocally, leads readers to the answer as he navigates weird tragicomedy of daily life. With zombies.”
10/08: Guernica: Writing In The Bellies Of Beasts: An Interview with Lincoln Michel
10/04: New York Times Sunday Book Review on Upright Beasts: “Weird, darkly funny stories…Michel ably handles modes from lyrical to ironic.”