Sunday, in the New York Times Book Review, Stephen King wrote a hilariously touching essay about being on his knees at his local bookstore in order to find short fiction in literary journals, hidden under the Martha Stewart Living and Us Weekly magazines. He lamented the state of the short story and asked people to support it.
Monday, my friend Nami Mun sends her just-completed short story manuscript in to her agent, who sends it out to editors immediately on Tuesday.
Wed., Megan Lynch at Riverhead takes it off the table with a preemptive.*
Thursday, the deal closed.
Thank you, Stephen King! Please everyone never say that bad thing about not being able to sell a story collection again! Or Stephen King and I will make a posse and come to your house.**
* Nami’s book will appear in the early part of 2009. She is a rising Korean American superstar short story writer. She looks like Maggie Cheung, kind of. You will in all likelihood worship her or at least try to dance like her, as I do.
** If you still talk smack about short fiction, Mr. King (who I do not know, but who is from Maine like me and will likely back me up) and I will send this HUBO robot. Which is Korean-made, and thus, very efficacious. And it is also this week’s new Koreanish Google Image Search header. It will give you a dance lesson and then afterwards you will dance to the new tune, ‘I love American Short Fiction’.
Koreanish 
I read that essay last Sunday and felt all sorts of things as a result but mostly glee because I had spent some moments on my knees, trying not to look at the woman’s crotch as she stood with companion ogling art magazines which were on the TOP shelf while I foraged the lit mags on the BOTTOM. Are you telling me that people still PAINT?
Alive but not well. There’s hope there.