Description
Fiction. "If O'Conner, Mattheissen, Danielewski, and Saunders got together to play Exquisite Corpse, they might produce something akin to Beitelman's COMMUNION but with the startling control of language of a poet. These twenty paired narrative artifacts are part flash, part poetry, part traditional short story, peeling layers of a world of grace, absurdity, and the long complicated effort to create meaning in the self and in relation to others in our familial and cultural constellations. Time, place, landscapes are all elements, but so, too, are the simple issues of the body, like our need for sustenance: a peeled orange, hand-made crab cakes, blood. Characters consecrate this living, our rituals, liturgies, survivals, re-enactments, and transmute the wounds that make us who we are."—Laura McCullough
Author Bio
TJ Beitelman is a writer and teacher living in Birmingham, Alabama. He's published a novel, JOHN THE REVELATOR (2013), a collection of short fiction, COMMUNION, and three collections of poetry: THIS IS THE STORY OF HIS LIFE (2018), IN ORDER TO FORM A MORE PERFECT UNION (2012) and AMERICANA (2015), all from Black Lawrence Press. His stories and poems have appeared widely in literary magazines, and he's received fellowships from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the Cultural Alliance of Greater Birmingham. He taught writing and literature at Virginia Tech, where he earned an MA in English, and at the University of Alabama, where he earned an MFA in creative writing and also edited Black Warrior Review. He currently directs the creative writing program at the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham.
Author City: BIRMINGHAM, AL USA