Here is one photo for each story in my story collection, Happy Rock. It is available now. 

All the stories in Happy Rock are set in Upper Michigan. Most in the towns of Gladstone or

on page 97, between sections that detail time Paul and Erin spend in Ohio with “Calvin” and “Maggie” (Jordan Castro and Mallory Whitten), I wrote: Manson Family, in large black letters.

FLYING SAUCER ATTACK: “Beach Red Lullaby” (b/w “Second Hour,” 7. single, Planet, 1995) 

Driving westbound on the Massachusetts Turnpike’s thirty-mile Berkshire run between Exits 3 and 2,

It started that stupid night you convinced me to walk with you over the bridge and along the river. I shouldn't have done that and I knew it—even before we left, I knew it—and I thought to

I can take just about anything now.

Like how I returned from Christmas vacation to an inch of melted snow and a gaping hole above where I pee. Lake Effect, my landlord said, simply, squinting

I fell in love with Lena Dunham from the first scene of the first episode of her hit TV show, Girls. I connected with her instantaneously, and knowing that she also wrote the script for the show

I. There’s a message from home—a place we call Pineapple for the two kinds of trees that hide it from the river. It’s a clipping from my father. No greeting, just a photo and a little

The Atlanta AWP was the first one that I attended. Among many memories that explode to mind: perhaps the worst breakfast served by a restaurant to four people in the history of restaurants,

It’s the 26th of September 2007. I’m driving from work to pick up my daughter at school. On the radio Melissa Block is telling me that “From NPR News, this is All Things Considered” and that

Here in the US, it’s often said that the best way to experience the so-called “real” America is to visit small towns. Right along Main Street, sipping low-grade Arabica bean coffee at the counter

The night before you were born, your mother and I watched Knocked Up downstairs in the family room.

1) Technically, everything remains but the stereo, circa 1998, a sound system so old it couldn't play CD's for more than an hour without overheating into unbearable skips...

a short comic 

The Ship: Behind the bar is a small window, and behind the window, a small room. On the left side, stacked within metal lattices, are wooden barrels tilted on their sides and filled with unknown

It’s a different gator every year, but we talk like it’s the same one.

I remember one robot was called a SENTRY and it guarded the door...

It’s 10:57 Albuquerque time, eight minutes before kickoff, and I’m already flustered. I hosted a party last night, which means I woke up this morning with a clogged kitchen drain and beer bottles

I was twenty-two the year I realized I was scared of everything.

Welcome to Camp Bread Loaf. Put your apron on.

We are family
I got all my sisters with me

Do you know the song “We are Family” by Sister Sledge? Of course you do; you don’t even need to think about it. When you were nine, in your early

Stewart O'Nan,
Author of Emily, Alone, Last Night at the Lobster, and Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season (with Stephen

America’s Game: It is the place where memory gathers.
 – Walt Whitman

1.
My mother, Brooklyn-born and raised, used to tell me that if the Dodgers had been in the World Series in 1943,

When I was a kid, my dad took me to a Mets game at Shea on my birthday. I remember walking up the ramps and looking outside the stadium, past the corrugated blue and orange panels that hung

In May of 2003 there appeared, in a small corner of the internet, a literary webzine called "Pindeldyboz."

Pindeldyboz was more than just another webzine with a name that doesn't mean anything

It is 1:38 pm the day after the event and the best way I can think of to describe the way I feel is: food hangover. I'm dressed in the loosest clothing I own with a throbbing, deep-seated headache