“The Science Fiction Writer,” an excerpt from the novel-in-slow-progress, appears in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #70, which you can pick up here.
Inside Issue 70—compiled by deputy editor James Yeh—you’ll find brilliant fiction (and two essays) from places near and far; including Patrick Cottrell’s story about a surprisingly indelible Denver bar experience; poignant, previously untranslated fiction from beloved Danish writer Tove Ditlevsen; Argentine writer Olivia Gallo’s English language debut about rampaging urban clowns; the rise and fall of an unusual family of undocumented workers in rural California by Francisco González; and Indian writer Amit Chaudhuri’s sojourn to the childhood home of Brooklyn native Neil Diamond. Readers will be sure to delight in Guggenheim recipient Edward Gauvin’s novella-length memoir-of-sorts in the form of contributors’ notes, absorbing short stories about a celebrated pianist (Lisa Hsiao Chen) and a reclusive science-fiction novelist (Eugene Lim), flash fiction by Véronique Darwin and Kevin Hyde, and a suite of thirty-six very short stories by the outsider poet Sparrow. Plus letters from Seoul, Buenos Aires, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, and Lake Zurich, Illinois, by E. Tammy Kim, Drew Millard, and more.