What’s in the latest issue of The Cleveland Review? Well, um, a short story I wrote called “Slush,” plus some other great short fiction, poetry, photography, and non-fiction.

The Cleveland Review (TCR) celebrates its one-year anniversary with this issue, so I’m glad to be a part of it. I admire their commitment to the literature of the Rust Belt. It’s made me think more about how I portray the area where I grew up–and where I still live–and challenged me to think of my work in a larger context. Certain themes, places, characters continually surface in my writing. Just about everything I write takes place somewhere in Northeast Ohio. Just as my dreams frequently take place in the house in which I grew up (even if the dream is supposed to be taking place in, say, a desert, the architecture, the structure where I am is always my childhood home), my fiction always seems somehow to be tied to this region. I can’t escape it (nor do I want to), so I might as well embrace it.

I hope you’ll embrace The Cleveland Review too. Check out their archives for the first two issues too. My favorite story from TCR is in the first issue–“Kearsley Street Bridge” by Sally York. It will haunt you. I hope you find a favorite story too (maybe “Slush,” maybe something else).