Barn Burning: Short Stories

Hello, Barn Burners! I met acclaimed writer Thomas H. McNeely at Inprint in Houston to record him reading his story, Tickle Torture. The story is from his collection, Pictures of the Shark, which I read and recommend for its powerful and relatable depictions of a tumultuous childhood.

In a starred review, Kirkus has called Thomas H. McNeely's book, Pictures of the Shark: Stories "an emotionally taut and often haunting  collection."  An East End Houston native, McNeely has published short  stories and non-fiction in The Atlantic, Texas Monthly,  Ploughshares, and many other magazines and anthologies. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts,  the Wallace Stegner Program at Stanford University, and the MacDowell  Colony.  His stories have been short-listed for the Pushcart Prize, Best American Short Stories and O. Henry Award  anthologies.  He currently teaches in the Stanford Online Writing Studio and at Emerson College, Boston. His website is www.thomashmcneelywriter.com and he can be found on Twitter @thmcneely. 

Are you a writer and want to have your short story on the podcast? You can reach me at barnburningpodcast@gmail.com!

I was honored to have British writer Kieran Wyatt share three short stories on the Barn Burning Podcast, 'Seagull' 'Leviathan' & 'Spaniel', which first appeared in The Art of Everyone. We talked on UK Mother's Day about liminal places, magical realism, and the Camel Derby. 

Kieran Wyatt lives on the Fylde Coast.  He is co-chair of GenSex (@GenSexResearch), an interdisciplinary  research group, asking probing questions about gender and sexuality. His  work has been published by Eunoia Review, The Art of Everyone, Small  Leaf Press, Fevers of the Mind, and others. He graduated from Edge Hill University in 2018 with honours in Creative Writing. You can find him on Twitter at @Kinz_Wyatt. 

"The Big Balloon" appeared in the June 2020 issue of Door is a Jar Magazine and you can find it on his website.

J. Edward  Kruft received his MFA in fiction writing from Brooklyn College, and has  been a Best Small Fictions nominee. His stories have appeared in Jellyfish Review, MoonPark Review and Typehouse Literary Magazine, among others. He is a Virgo, and as such, while working at a storied  fast food chain, he made an impassioned but reasoned argument against  polyester uniforms given their proximity to the fry machine. He was  fired. Originally from the very west of Washington  state, he now lives in the very west of Queens, NY and Sullivan County,  NY with his husband, Mike, and their adopted Siberian Husky, Sasha.

If you're a writer and would like to have your story read on Barn Burning, please email me at barnburningpodcast@gmail.com, or find me on  Twitter at @barnburnpodcast. Read on, fellows barn-burners!