Acknowledgment
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the editors of the journals in which the entries in this book originally appeared (some in different form and under different titles, and several under the pseudonym Lee Stone):
The Believer: “The Sentence Is a Lonely Place”
Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art: “Pulls”
New York Tyrant: “Kansas City, Missoula”
NOON: “I Was in Kilter with Him, a Little” and “Partial List of People to Bleach”
The Quarterly: “Home, School, Office,” “Six Stories,” and “Tic Douloureux”
Sleepingfish: “People Won’t Keep” and “You’re Welcome”
Soft Targets: “Years of Age”
3:AM: “Loo”
“The Sentence Is a Lonely Place” was delivered as a lecture at Columbia University on September 25, 2008.
Segments of “Heartscald” appeared piecemeal in Bookslut, elimae, Moistworks, The Quarterly, Salt Hill, Sleepingfish, Soft Targets, The Stranger, 3rd bed, and Wag’s Review.
Segments of “Loo” appeared piecemeal in The Believer, Big Other, The Faster Times, The Fiddleback, New York Tyrant, The Rumpus, Sleepingfish, Soft Targets, The Stranger, and Wag’s Review.
With deepest gratitude to Kevin Sampsell, Gordon Lish, Derek White, Anna DeForest, Lisel Virkler, Amy Albracht, and Bryan Coffelt.