I interviewed Rissi Palmer & wrote about how much I love Country Music over @ The Female Gaze!

I have dreadlocks and I love my cowboy boots and I love wearing my husband’s big ol’ belt buckle. I’m saving my pennies for an old pickup truck and I’m currently working on my second short story collection manuscript the same way I’d work on my country album. Little stories set in the south with running themes of both sugar-sweet gentle and hard-ass crooked men and feisty ladies and loss and love and all the stuff in between. I have a story called “Making Cowboys” and one called “Ladies Love Outlaws” (named after a song made popular by Waylon Jennings) and one called “Put Your Wild Heart Between Her Teeth.” I wanted all of the story titles to sound like country songs.

PS: If you asked me for a country music summer sampler mixtape I’d put these songs on there and draw some hearts on it too. I’d hand it over with a little box of sparklers, a lighter shaped like a tube of lipstick and a little bottle of Maker’s Mark. Xo, Leesa.

Country Music Sampler for Summer:
Stuck Like Glue by Sugarland
Barton Hollow by The Civil Wars
Leave the Pieces by The Wreckers
Country Girl by Rissi Palmer
Barefoot Blue Jean Night by Jake Owen
Drunk On You by Luke Bryan
Boys From The South by Pistol Annies
Hungover & Hard Up by Eric Church
Tattoos On This Town by Jason Aldean
Undermine by Kacey Musgraves or Hayden Panettiere & Charles Esten from Nashville
Long Hot Summer by Keith Urban
Look At Miss Ohio by Gillian Welch
Goodbye Earl by Dixie Chicks
Fist City by Loretta Lynn
Shame by The Avett Brothers
Snowden’s Jig (Genuine Negro Jig) by Carolina Chocolate Drops
A Song For You (feat. Emmylou Harris) by Gram Parsons
Chicken Fried by Zac Brown Band
Our Song by Taylor Swift
That’s How Country Boys Roll by Billy Currington

I have a YA summer planned! So Lord willing & the creek don’t rise, I plan on writing reviews of all/most of the books I read. Yes, yes. I’ll make a list of them soon. I also need to write abt NASHVILLE & COUNTRY MUSIC & THIS RAYNA/DEACON FANVID I LOVE  & A ONE DEACON CLAYBOURNE & how I taught myself to play “Telescope” on the guitar & how I added LORETTA LYNN’S HONKY-TONK FEMINISM to my interests over @ the ABOUT ME page + also, my feels! Next weekish. xo

+ BUT FIRST! Peep the red soles of Justin Timberlake’s Christian Louboutins in the “Mirrors” video. This song, that album, those shoes. And also, everything.
+ AND NEXT! So much YA goodness. I loved Easy by Tammara Webber so much, so much. And The Fault In Our Stars by John Green so much, so much too. I ordered The Disenchantments by Nina LaCour and Graffiti Moon by Cath Crawley and Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. I’ve also been reading reviews and stuff over @ Clear Eyes, Full Shelves. You know how I feel about FNL and Tim Riggins. I prettymuch only wanna read YA here lately. YA SUMMER!
+ I’m gonna be writing abt my YA/New Adult loves over here.
+ I wrote about McNeese Review for The Review Review.
+ I wrote a chapbook review for the Sundog Lit blog.
+ Dawn West and I had a long convo abt our love for Sons of Anarchy.
+ I also wrote about the last season of Felicity for The Female Gaze.
+ My story IS THAT RAIN is in the Spring issue of Spartan Lit. Thank you so much to the editor, Ross McMeekin, for including me!
+ My story KNOCK OUT THE HEART LIGHTS SO WE CAN GLOW will be in the Summer issue of Gigantic Sequins. Thank you thank you to Kimberly Ann Southwick and Zach Yontz for including me!
+ My story MAKING COWBOYS will be a Little Fiction title in the fall. My stories IN THIS ROOM WHERE WE PRACTICE DYING EVERY NIGHT and COLD, SWEET GRAPES are already lucky enough to be in the Little Fiction Family. Thank you to the editor, Troy Palmer, for being kind and awesome and such a pleasure and joy to work with. SO STOKED TO WORK WITH HIM AGAIN LIKE YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW.
+ Loran and I wrote a choose your own adventure-ish story abt UNCHARTED for the special games issue of Sundog Lit and Justin L. Daugherty and guest-editor Brian Oliu liked it enough to include it! Excited, excited! Loran and I loooove video games and had so much fun writing it. Loran, Justin and I play Uncharted online together too, so it gets real meta up in hrr.
+ Interviewed the beautiful Rissi Palmer for this essay I’m writing about black women + country music. I REALLY LOVE COUNTRY MUSIC. You know this.
+ Also THE LOUISVILLE CARDINALS are in the FINAL FOUR. !! Again. Love them boys so so much.
+ Also MLB OPENING DAY !! Baseball y’all!
+ So many exclamation points and so much so much-ishness in this post and hopefully you expected no less! I am Southern & Sentimental.

“William, let me tell you how I feel (small and high-up!) when I look at your cuffed cerulean shirt sleeves, the expensive, slippery-silver watch sliding over your wrist bones. I daydream about a time when you will make my entire body feel like an ear, like a fallen eyelash; a fingertip, pointing.” My story SMALL AND HIGH-UP is in Nib Magazine this week! Thank you super-much to the editors for always being so kind to me. On the reals.

Also check out Midwestern Gothic‘s spring sale! Print copies are $6 and ebooks are $1. I bought their entire back catalog b/c I love them so much and I love reading all of the things. Got so many books in the mail this week! And a new lit mag to review for The Review Review. I also wrote a review of They Used to Dance on Saturday Nights by Gillian Devereux for the Sundog Lit Blog. I’ll holler back when it goes live. SPOILER: I loved it!

In YAishness, I’ve got The Fault In Our Stars by John Green on my list as well as Fingerprints of You by Kristen-Paige Madonia (thank you to my friend Chad Simpson for the rec!) and My Life Next Door by Huntley Fitzpatrick. And I’m stoked to preorder How My Summer Went Up In Flames by Jennifer Salvato Doktorski and The Rules for Disappearing by Ashley Elston. But after I finish Easy by Tammara Webber, which I am just loving and loving…I’m gonna read Uses for Boys by Erica Lorraine Scheidt.

In non-YAishness, I’ve also got Battleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins and I’m Not Saying, I’m Just Saying by Matthew Salesses on my list.

BOOKS! And love. I wrote a new story I love a lot and I’m saving it until April to submit it to a place I love a lot. And I’m so excited abt the new Justin Timberlake album coming out this week. Srsly. I’ve been loving me some JTims since he was on Mickey Mouse Club. I TOLD Y’ALL WHEN I STARTED THIS BLOG THAT I LOVE LOTS OF THINGS. Like spring and windows down and cherry slushies.

Things/My favorite things:
+ That picture up top that my husband took the other morning
+ Justin Timberlake (prettymuch always) & especially “Mirrors.”
+ Spring training + MLBtv
+ UofL basketball
+ The Alabama Shakes
+ “Infinity Guitars” by Sleigh Bells
+ “Dancing On My Own (acoustic)” by Robyn
+ Brown eyeliner
+ Billy Currington’s voice
+ Getting my copy of “Tell Everyone I Said Hi” signed by Chad Simpson and traveling north to hear him read and to meet him and chat. Chad’s been so sweetly supportive and encouraging to me re: my own writing and I can’t thank him enough. He and Kathy Fish have just been so kind to me and are two lovely examples of writers supporting/encouraging other writers so much and I adore them. Srsly. Between those two and finding a friend in Justin Daugherty and Roxane Gay eversokindly taking me to dinner last summer…I feel like a lucky girl to have met so many awesome peeps. THANKS Y’ALL.
+ YA/new adult novels. (Prettymuch always.) Just finished Flat-Out Love and What A Boy Wants. Now I’m reading Easy.
+ My new Kindle Paperwhite. I mean, I love it I love it I love it. And also, I love it.
+ My story IS THAT RAIN will be in the next issue of Spartan Lit and thank you thank you to Ross McMeekin!
+ My story FIND HIS BLUE will be in the next issue of Fiction Southeast and thank you thank you to the editors!
+ Revlon Colorstay Ultimate Suede in Fashionista
+ These lived-in slim khakis that I bought for my husband in coral garden, raw sienna and chimney red b/c I am forever writing abt boys in brown pants and brightly-colored pants and so when I see them (esp. on SALE) I buy them for The Boy.
+ Working on my novel. Letting it be all over the place and picking out outfits for my girl and writing long rambly scenes full of dialogue.
+ Keep on keeping on. Been a pretty suck writing week as far as rejections go, but that’s okay. I believe in my SS collection and I’m not giving up. I’ve gotten so many almosts and I’m okay w/saying that I know it’s good and that I know it’ll find a home somewhere, someday. And I’m okay w/saying that that home may be down the line @ WhiskeyPaper Press or something that I end up creating/doing on my own. If I can’t find a home, I’ll make a home! And same goes for my YA novel and the novel I’m working on rn. I really love that the publishing world is shifting a little bit and that there are so many ways to DIY and and and. All of that. I’ll holler back abt things and things, yes.

+ Aaaand HOUSE OF CARDS on Netflix. Also, love everything abt it. So beautifully shot, stylish, compelling. Kevin Spacey is a National Treasure. And I really love Kate (and Rooney, altho she’s not on the show) Mara too. I love how when someone gets a text, it comes up on the screen. & I love the wardrobe on this show! The girls are always wearing gauzy v-necks and beautiful pajamas. Just, everything! LOVE.

What is your working title of your book (or story)?
EVERYONE BREAKS EVERYONE’S HEART

Where did the idea come from for the book?
I had several ideas for short stories but thought they were too similar. They were prettymuch all abt couples/ppl trying to stay in love. Then I read “Cowboys Are My Weakness” by Pam Houston and those stories are all about cowboys and drifters and hunters and the women who love them and relationships and I was like WOW YOU CAN DO THAT? And so I wrote my stories, knowing that not only was it was okay to have a theme…but that in the short story collection world, it’s kinda preferred.

What genre does your book fall under?
Short story collection; literary fiction, chick-lit.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
“Whiskey & Ribbons”: Shaved-head Taylor Kitsch or Charlie Hunnam as Dalton and Anthony Mackie or Mekhi Phifer as Eamon in flashbacks. Rosario Dawson/Zoe Saldana-type for Evangeline.
“Wayfaring:” Ross Partridge as my unnamed dude. (His name is West and he’s in another story in the collection called “The Wild Hunt.”) And Zulay Henao as Scarlett.
“Sinnerman:” Either Idris Elba or Simon Baker as Sam. Idk abt Peri! Still thankin’ on it.
“In This Room Where We Practice Dying Every Night:” Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Tim. Rashida Jones as Marisa.
In my story “Ephemeral or Evergreen” there is a girl called Lena and I’ve always pictured her as Olivia Munn. And the guy is named Scott and I’m not quite sure who I’d pick for him yet.
And there are plenty more but I don’t give away all of my secrets @ once!

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, EVERYONE BREAKS EVERYONE’S HEART.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
Hopefully represented by an agency or published by a small press. If not, I’d probs self-publish down the line if I couldn’t get someone to take it on. But my hope and prayer is that a small press or an agency will love it as much as I do and wanna cradle it in their hands like a little fuzzy warm baby bird.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Idk exactly but I’ll say abt a year. Or almost a year. Or a year-and-a-half.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Idk this either! But I’ll mention “Cowboys Are My Weakness” again and collections like “No One Belongs Here More Than You” by Miranda July and maybe an Erica Jong novel thrown in there for good measure. Just, relationshippy stories abt men and women and life and things.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
My brain and my love for writing abt complicated relationships and hanging out and God and love and men and women and Kentucky and also, my husband. Also Sarah Lynn Knowles encouraged me to put a collection together and I love her for that.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Twenty-one stories. Some are long and some are teeny. One of the stories won Editor’s Choice in the 2011 Raymond Carver Short Story Contest and was recognized as one of the Million Writers Award Notable Stories of 2011. One of the stories was featured over @ Longform Fiction. Some of the stories have been published in places like Five [Quarterly], Pithead Chapel, Word Riot, NAP and Juked. The manuscript was a finalist for the 2012 Flannery O’Connor Short Fiction Award and a semifinalist for the 2012 Iowa Short Fiction Award and some of the stories have the same characters and most of them are set in Kentucky and I’m planning on spinning @ least two of the stories off into longer novella/novel-ish things. I’ve also been called “sentimental” probably more than once re: my writing and three of the stories are written in second person b/c I love writing in second person! Also, I believe in it and I think it’s cozy.

I’m still dreaming abt that day someone takes a chance on me & publishes my collection. I think abt it a lot. It used to feel like it was kinda impossible and far away. Sometimes, on somedays it feels close and almost.

I am working on another short story collection. I am working on a novel abt Violet. (Story one, two and three) I am reading The Silver Linings Playbook and I am loving reading The Silver Linings Playbook. Excited to see BCoops and Kentucky-girl Jennifer Lawrence in the movie.

And next up is Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain b/c of reasons. I’m also gonna finish up writing abt Felicity for The Female Gaze, then tag-team write abt Sons of Anarchy, then write abt Jess Mariano and Gilmore Girls. Also I’m planning to write abt being a highly sensitive person. I’ll holler back.

Things! Love!