Author Archives: Barrett Bowlin

Ehsan Ehsani and the good folks over at Mystery Tribune were awesome enough to publish a thriller/suspense story of mine called “Lollipop Sweet.” If you liked the Truly Tasteless Jokes books from years ago and aren’t squeamish, the story might be right up your alley. Cheers, y’all.

Just a quick reminder on this “Prime Day” 2025: All billionaires are bastards. Every single one of them. Jeff Bezos in particular is a bastard. His company, Amazon, is also a bastard. Instead, be sure to support your favorite independent bookstore. And if you can’t visit them in person, you can always purchase through Bookshop.org, which splits proceeds directly with indie bookstores. Also, if you’re on the fence about what to buy, might I suggest a prickly little short story collection? Or how about a mystery & suspense anthology? [image c/o The New York Post]

I was so damn excited to get the chance to read with Nola O’Donnell, Sophia Hernandez, and mi hermano José Angel Araguz that I forgot to check that my name was spelled correctly on the flier. But if you’re in Boston this Thursday, February 27th, we’d love to see you. Come on by!

This past November, Vicki Weisfeld of Crime Fiction Lover reviewed the stories in Steph Cha & S.A. Cosby’s The Best American Mystery & Suspense 2024 anthology, and, holy shit (!), “For I Hungered, and Ye Gave Me” got a very nice shoutout. And then in December, Brian Cliff & Elizabeth Mannion of The Irish Times were awesome enough to mention the story as a standout piece in their review, too. (And thanks be unto the ridiculously awesome Nikki Dolson for the heads-up about Crime Fiction Lover. Mwah!)

And, gosh, I’d be remiss if I didn’t post a link there to some ne-er-do-well’s debut short story collection.

This week, Mariner Books released The Best American Mystery & Suspense 2024 anthology, which includes my story, “For I Hungered, and Ye Gave Me.” Again, I can’t thank the series editor, Steph Cha, and this year’s guest editor, S.A. Cosby, enough for selecting my work. If I ever get the chance to meet them, I owe them lots and lots of beer.

On Saturday, October 5th, come join me, Heather Bartlett, and Amy Monticello in Philadelphia, at Barrelhouse’s annual “Conversations & Connections” Conference! We’ll help you figure out how to write through/about/on grief, and we promise it’ll be helpful.

(And a big ol’ thanks to Dave Housley and the Barrelhouse crew for picking our panel up and letting us come down to Temple University to visit.)

I wrote a piece a few months ago about a friend I’d lost touch with back in high school, and both Chelsea Voulgares & Madeline Anthes (Lost Balloon‘s EIC & Assistant Editor, respectively) were awesome enough to feature it in their journal. I’m honored, truly.

Hot damn! Back in March, I got the chance to talk with my favorite comedian about her New York Times-bestselling memoir, Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult, as well as her & her husband’s (the artist Scott Marvel Cassidy’s) graphic narrative, Hogbook & Lazer Eyes. Our interview is now featured up at The Rumpus, and you can buy Maria’s books here.

I’m pretty sure I started hyperventilating at the gym when I read the email from (series editor) Steph Cha. She & (guest editor) S.A. Cosby selected “For I Hungered, And Ye Gave Me” for inclusion in this year’s BAMS, and I can’t thank these two crime-writing giants enough for this. (And a huge thanks goes out to Joshua Bohnsack, the editor who first published the story last year in TriQuarterly.) Y’all, this is a literal dream come true.

So I wrote an itty bitty teeny weeny CNF piece about how I got started in judo, and now I owe Mike Nagel some flowers for sending out the submission call and for selecting the piece, and I definitely owe Aaron Burch (editor extraordinaire) some bourbon for formatting and posting the work on HAD.

Last year, the good folks at Atlas + Alice were awesome enough to publish an essay of mine called “Out for Blood (or Air, or Whatever).” It’s about my first night taking a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class and how my face got just a teency, weency bit fucked up from the experience. This year, Benjamin Woodard (Atlas + Alice’s Editor-in-Chief) and Lindsey Danis (their CNF editor) were even more awesome, and they nominated the essay for inclusion in the Best of the Net anthology, for which I’ll be forever grateful.

I can’t thank outgoing managing editor Joshua Bohnsack and his team enough for featuring the story in issue #164. You can check out the work here, along with amazing stories by folks like Ben Loory, Ruth Joffre, and more.

A few weeks ago, Rita Chang-Eppig was awesome enough to let me interview her about her kick-ass, debut novel, DEEP AS THE SKY, RED AS THE SEA, for The Rumpus. We got the chance to talk about sex, pirates, and good, ol’ fashioned violence. Click here to read the interview!

One year ago, the good folks at Bridge Eight Press were awesome enough to publish my short story collection, Ghosts Caught on Film. It’s a weird, little bastard of a book, featuring lightning apocalypses, orgies, nuclear fallout, and, of course, gummi bears. Thanks to everyone who made its existence possible, and thanks especially to everyone who’s read it, reviewed it, loved it, or hated it. Y’all rock!

So my extremely kind colleagues at Suffolk University’s English Department wanted me to read from Ghosts Caught on Film, for this semester’s Faculty Lecture, on Tuesday, November 8th, 2022, right at 12:30pm EST. Come join us in person if you’re in the Boston area, and, if you’re not, come join us on Zoom! [Update: Elizabeth Finnen, the department’s administrator extraordinaire, recorded & cut the video of the reading, and it’s available here if you want to see me get really awkward in the Q&A.]

I wrote a piece about getting strangled by sweaty dudes (albeit not in the fun way), and the good folks at Alice & Atlas Magazine were awesome enough to edit & publish it. Thanks be unto Lindsey Danis & Benjamin Woodward for their hard work!

Way back in July, I had the chance to talk with Jonathan Escoffery about his debut linked-story collection, If I Survive You (MCD/Farrar, Straus & Giroux). It’s an outstanding book about a Jamaican-American family whose lives fall apart in and around Miami, and you should definitely check it out. You can read my interview with Escoffery here, care of The Rumpus.

Eric McDowell, the awesome editor of Fiction Writers Review, invited me up to Jamaica Plain to talk with him about Ghosts Caught on Film. It was outstanding getting to meet him in person after emailing him back & forth for years as a FWR contributor, and I can’t thank him enough for the conversation. Check it out here!

Dan Chaon, author of the forthcoming novel, Sleepwalk (among other amazing works of literature), was wonderful enough to mention Ghosts Caught on Film in a recent recommendation list in The Week. So, yeah, lots of beers.

The visual artist Ben Shattuck was awesome enough to talk with me recently about his debut book of nonfiction, Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau. It’s this beautiful meditation on nature and our place within it, and you should come check out the conversation we had over at The Rumpus.

You can now order it from such fine bookstores as: the Bridge Eight Press homepage (my publisher!); Barnes & Noble; Bookshop.org; eBooks.com; Booktopia (for my Australian readers!); Walmart (wait, Walmart sells books that aren’t Amish erotica?); Books A Million; Rakuten (shoutout to my readers in Japan!); and The Book Depository. Happy reading!

This was my first stab at trying to write something properly creepy, and the amazing editors over at Cutleaf were excellent enough to publish it. Thanks to Keith Lesmeister, Denton Loving, Kelly March, & Walter Robinson for this.

A huge thanks goes out to Tom McAllister and the rest of the creative nonfiction gang at Barrelhouse, for picking up my flash CNF piece. They do some damn good work there, and I’m proud to be part of it.

Back in August, I had the chance to talk with Jocelyn Nicole Johnson about her outstanding short story collection, My Monticello. Johnson’s story, “Control Negro,” was originally published in Guernica and was later featured in the Best American Short Stories 2018 anthology (edited by Roxane Gay). You can read more about her work here in our interview, now up at The Rumpus.

Heather Bartlett, HGR‘s editor-in-chief, was awesome enough to publish a short story of mine from the forthcoming collection. You can check it out here, and be sure to read the other contributors’ amazing works.

Aaron Burch and the good folks at Hobart After Dark were awesome enough to publish a flash CNF piece of mine that started off as an elegy for two childhood friends and wound up being something entirely different. Check it out here.

A huge, huge, huge thanks to Cris, Justin, Caleb, and everyone else on the Bridge Eight Press team for this absolute honor. (Forthcoming in Spring ’22!)

A huge thanks goes out to Juli Min, editor-in-chief of The Shanghai Literary Review, for her patience and care in accepting and editing the story.

Lauren Hough is the author of the punch-in-the-face-excellent essay collection, Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing (Vintage Books). You can find my interview with her over on The Rumpus.

Jennifer Pashley, author of The Scamp, talked with me recently about her first proper thriller, The Watcher, out now from Crooked Lane Books. You can find our interview over at Fiction Writers Review.

Back on November 19th, Heather Bartlett, Kathryn Henion, and I delivered a panel called “Total Submission: Understanding the Kinks and Quirks of Literary Magazines,” as part of the Spring Writes 2020 literary festival. The recording from that night’s panel is now up and running on YouTube. Check it out!

I have a new story up now at The Saturday Evening Post. It involves chain-smoking dance instructors, frotteurism, and a feral ex-girlfriend. (Thanks be unto Nick Gilmore, who runs the contemporary and classic fiction posts at the magazine.)

Come join Kathryn Henion, Heather Bartlett, and me for a conversation on how to send your work out to literary magazines. Registration to the Zoom event is free! (Thanks be unto Robin Schwartz, Program Director of Ithaca’s Community Arts Partnership, for organizing the event.)

You should read David James Poissant’s debut novel, Lake Life. (It’s by the same guy who wrote the insanely, unimaginably good short story collection, The Heaven of Animals.) Check it out!

I wrote a piece about a game I play with my children when we’re bored or waiting in line.

A huge thanks goes out to Aaron Burch at Hobart for publishing this little bastard of a piece.

Amber Sparks and I had the chance to talk recently about her third short story collection, And I Do Not Forgive You (Liveright). You can check out our interview over at Fiction Writers Review.

Come join me, Jose Antonio Rodriguez, Sarah Jefferis, and Sarah Pape in San Antonio, TX, on Saturday, March 7th, 2020, as we present “Round Characters: Writing Family in Creative Nonfiction.” The panel will run from 10:35-11:50am over in the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center. For the full AWP (Association of Writers & Writing Programs) Conference Schedule, you can find it here.

Fiction Writers Review was excellent enough to run the interview I did with Kristen Arnett recently, in support of her debut novel’s release. You can check it out here!

Recently, I had the chance to speak with Jason Allen about his debut novel, THE EAST END (Park Row Books). You can find our discussions at Fiction Writers Review and The Rumpus, and you can buy Jason’s outstanding book here, here, and here.

A huge thanks goes out to Terry Kennedy, storySouth‘s editor-in-chief, for accepting a CNF piece I wrote about working in a psychiatric hospital.