Remember the Gist Street Reading Series? Oh, the memories. The bathtub full of beer. Sherrie Flick. Nancy Krygowski. Andre! I gave a reading at Gist Street just as I was ... Read more

So: I write a book about dating and football. And the book ends with me still alone. Happy, but alone. Then the book comes out, and a man I knew ... Read more

John Brantingham and Peter Churchill, who have created a very lively creative writing community at Mt. San Antonio College (Mt. SAC), invited me to come to California for a reading in ... Read more

My friend Anna Leahy invited me to read at Chapman University. Then I spent another day hanging out with her complaining about my life. She listened patiently. And my former student ... Read more

The nice thing about this reading was the my whole family got to be there, plus some of Eric’s friends who lived in Indy. It made me happy to look ... Read more

This was the crowd in Sursa Hall for the first reading of The Circus in Winter, the musical. I tell the whole story here.   ... Read more

These are the Ball State students who took a class funded by the Virginia Ball Center and, in one semester, created the first draft of The Circus in Winter musical. ... Read more

The night I read at U. of Illinois, I’d just written the first draft of an essay about teaching. Most people read fiction or poetry at a reading, not a ... Read more

The Circus in Winter musical was performed on the grounds of the original winter quarters in Peru, Indiana. I got to be the narrator for two performances. Awesome. You can ... Read more

My first reading as a faculty member at Ball State. I read with my colleague Matt Mullins, who read poetry, short fiction, and showed his video poem, “Highway Coda.” I ... Read more