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mdhicks1
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[4770052]
[2007-05-18 05:27:38 +0000 UTC]
"Micah"
(United States)
# Statistics
Favourites: 631; Deviations: 3; Watchers: 5
Watching: 244; Pageviews: 3674; Comments Made: 109; Friends: 244
# Interests
Favorite visual artist: Andy KehoeFavorite movies: Spirited Away
Favorite TV shows: Game of Thrones
Favorite bands / musical artists: She Keeps Bees
Favorite writers: Gabriel García Márquez
Favorite games: Starcraft
Favorite gaming platform: PC
Tools of the Trade: 26 letters and some punctuation
Other Interests: Stories
# About me
Micah Dean Hicks’s debut novel Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones is forthcoming in 2019 from John Joseph Adams Books. His story collection Electricity and Other Dreams—a book of dark fairy tales and bizarre fables—won the 2012 New American Fiction Prize. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Kenyon Review, Chicago Tribune, Witness, and others. He has won the Calvino Prize, Arts & Letters Prize, and Wabash Prize. Hicks grew up in rural southwest Arkansas and now lives in Orlando, Florida. He teaches creative writing at the University of Central Florida.amzn.to/1tWmXGK
From Publisher's Weekly:
“In his debut story collection, Hicks presents a compact, impressive array of the strange and the eerie, the alien and the endearing. Hicks maintains a distinct and truly original style throughout all 26 stories using off-beat perspectives and grotesque imagery. Amid the 26 stories are inexorable curses, unexplained transformations, killing lies, electrical elements in human form, epically ludicrous sword fights, exorcisms, weather magic, and more. All are carefully sculpted confections, though they vary in length. “Railroad Burial” and “Watermelon Seeds” pack the punches into just two pages each, whereas “The Hairdresser, the Giant, and the King of Roses” is a longer burn. Hicks’s protagonists seem oddly comfortable brushing up against the fantastic and the divine, taking in wonders and miracles as matter-of-factly as they might a new truck; this in no way diminishes the wonders they encounter. Hicks resists the tropes of any one genre, instead he embraces all manner of influences from the mundane to the fantastic. With striking skill in form and vision, Hicks woos readers into his wrangled worlds. (Dec.)”
# Comments
Comments: 24
You're so welcome! I love the style of your work.
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You're very welcome! Love your work.
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Thanks for the shoutout ^_^, sorry it took me so long to get back to you
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Your favourites folder is a pleasure to look through. I usually avoid them.
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Dude... thanx for the watch... much appreciated!
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You're welcome! I found you through pixieface. That Noserrus of yours rocks, by the way. Wonderfully imaginative.
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Thank ya much sir... I hope to put out a book of such creatures at a later date...
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I have issues with attention span but I'd like to sample your written work. Which of the links above do you think I should click for a quick and effective bite of your.. style?
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Hi Jakkar,
Thanks for your interest! If you want quick, "My Life With the Hare" was done for a 100 word postcard contest.
None of them are terribly long. If you like fairy tales, "Dessa and the Can Hermit" is fun. My favorite thing that's been published to date is probably "How the Weaver's Wife Killed the Motorcycle Man," and I believe it's only 6 pages (you'll have to scroll past another story to get to it at that link).
But thanks so much! It's always flattering when people are interested in what I do.
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I went for the two you suggested - I enjoyed the Weaver's Wife.
Your work reminds me of Clive Barker's. Calmly, succinctly written urban dark fantasy, could sum it up. At least, Weaver's Wife did.
Inexplicable surreality, darkness, with a calm smile and no self-awareness of the twisted nature of the content.
I approve.
What do you intend? Novels, or more short pieces such as this? Or are you happy to just see where the inspirations and opportunities take you?
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Glad you liked Weaver's Wife!
I haven't had much exposure to Barker, but I'll definitely check him out.
My current plan goes something like this: I have a year left in my fiction master's program. At the end of that time, I want to have a collection of fairy tales ready to send out to agents and publishers. Something in the style of Garcia Marquez's _Leaf Storm_ or Aimee Bender's _Girl in the Flammable Skirt_.
After that I'll hopefully be enrolled in a fiction PhD program. While there, I want to see if I can find a professor willing to guide me and try to write a novel, though I'm not sure what kind just yet.
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Why do you feel the need for such an organised track - the professor's guidance in particular? I know simply that I lack the patience to write novels, at least at this point in my life.
What do you feel a veteran's guidance would offer you?
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I'm a really organized person, I suppose. And I feel like this track is the best way for me to make a career out of this.
What I mean by guidance is a couple of things. Typically in a university writing program, we get feedback on two stories a semester, which amounts to 40 pages or less. Writing a novel, I'd be producing way more than that. I'd want the prof to read extra for me so that I'd have feedback on more than just a third of my work. Of course, any advice a veteran who's written a dozen or so novels could give on the novel-writing process would be helpful, too.
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Well, if you need that feedback, I'll probably be available. I take a keen (possibly unusual) pleasure in analysing and critiqueing creative work. Consider retaining my contact details if you need such folk, but be prepared for a large volume of feedback if I like what you produce.
My initial contact with Pixieface was to give her a pile of high grade critique, which set off quite an altercation as she prefers to keep her main gallery clear of detailed critique, due to it presently containing her professional LoS stuff. We cleared that up and I hope to contribute similarly to her work in future, before it's done this time x]
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Thanks! I'll keep you in mind if I run out of readers--which is very possible, considering that I produce a lot of work.
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