this past week's reading

From the June 2026 print a Harper's Magazine, articles I've read include "Tales of Trash: Memoirs of a Garbageman" as well as Kevin Lozano's "Strangers on a Train: The City that Bernie Goetz Made." I've also read Michael Gorra's "Call My Agent" in the June 25 New York Review of Books, several articles from the June 15 print Christian Science Monitor, and the first two short stories from Richard Ford's Sorry for Your Trouble.

Tyler Dempsey's Best of the Bests

Award-winning essayist Tyler Dempsey placed "A Day's Worth" (Eclectica Magazine) at the top of his Best of the Bests for 2025.

luck

"He is just as nice and pleasant as ever, but he still does not know enough to come in out of the rain. He is the stupidest man in the universe. Until now, nobody knew it but Scoresby and myself. He has been followed, day by day, year by year, by a strange luck. He has been a shining soldier in all our wars for years. He has filled his whole military life with mistakes. Every one of them brought him another honorary title. Look at his chest, flooded with British and foreign medals. Well, sir, every one of them is the record of some great stupidity or other. They are proof that the best thing that can happen to a man is to be born lucky. I say again, as I did at the dinner, Scoresby's a complete fool."

~~ from "Luck" by Mark Twain

T. C. Boyle's collected stories

T. C.'s phone books, I & II

 

No one was in my life

"Adjunct survival led me to a bird that flew into my apartment only this past year while teaching abroad in Suzhou, China. Not dead yet and employed overseas again, I’d chased contract work to 'the Venice of the Far East'—a mainland city of man-made lakes and narrow canals—but I was alone. I had no friends. Gardens bloomed throughout the city, but there was no housing bulletin board at an American church. I had people in the program—teachers, students, staff—that I would exchange pleasantries with or occasional chitchat, but there was no one I was close to. I wasn’t going to stay up all night discussing politics, literature, or anything else. No one was in my life, and talking all about it no longer appealed to me."

~~ from "An Old Friend Called" by Alex Kudera

a primitive way

"My strength was nearly depleted when Avi stopped pressing hard against me; at last, I could see he was no threat to attack. I didn’t see anything we could win by furthering this contest, and I recognized that Avi’s theft was the initiation of the physical encounter, if not the first act of aggression. In hindsight, it’s hard to remember another time when anything I was involved with was settled in such a primitive way."

no conversion required

"Whereas Avi wanted me to know who I could become, the boy already knew who I was. An identification, no conversion required.

"He appointed me as his countryman, but he didn’t stop and give me time to pledge allegiance."

Twenty-Two Short Stories and One Poem by Alex Kudera

SHORT STORIES

"The Golden Snot," serious-lit, August 19, 2026 (forthcoming)

"Seven Twenty-Five," Loser IV, July 27, 2026

"Scout," Loser II, June 28, 2026

"The Waiter," Loser I, June 2, 2026

"Going to Hell," Russian trans. from Sergey Katukov, East West Literary Forum, Jan. 28, 2026

"A Separate Piece," Citywide Lunch, December 8-12, 2025

"A Day's Worth," Eclectica Magazine, July 2025

"Chinese Sun," Meniscus, Volume 12, Issue 2, pages 139 to 146, November 2024

"Going to Hell," Soyos Books, November 11, 2023

"An Amazing Turn," New Oxford Review, January-February 2023

"On the Plane," in Zeitgeist: Stories Capturing Different Eras in the Vast Expanse of Time, December 2022

"Early Morning Train," Humans of the World, June 2022

"An Old Friend Called," Lighthouse Weekly, March 2022

"A Thanksgiving," Eclectica Magazine, July 2021

"Bombing From Above," Heavy Feather Review, June 2020

"Over Fifty Billion Kafkas Served," Eclectica Magazine, October 2019 "Awash in Barach and Bolano," The Agonist, July 2019

"About Your Status," Monkeybicycle, June 2019 "Free Car," Heavy Feather Review, September 2018 "My Father's Great Recession," Heavy Feather Review, March 2018

"Frade Killed Ellen," Dutch Kills Press, July 2015

"Turquoise Truck," Mendicant Bookworks, September 2015

"The Betrayal of Times of Peace and Prosperity," Gone Dog Press, February 2011

POETRY

"Conversation Slam," Deadbeat Anti Lit Magazine: Volume 1, July 5, 2026 

short fiction update

"Free Car," "My Father's Great Recession," "Early Morning Train," and "The Betrayal of Times of Peace and Prosperity" are short stories accessible for free online while "Frade Killed Ellen" and "Turquoise Truck" can be accessed for ninety-nine cents wherever reading costs less than a dollar.

coming soon