Aaron Burch

in-progress Executives McSweeney's Quarterly Concern Fiction Dec 9, 2022

I kinda still think this is maybe the best story I've written. Up there, at least. I stopped sending it out, figuring it'd just be a solid, previously unpublished story in a collection. Now I kinda wonder what will happen first, hearing back from McSwys or finding a publisher for the collection...

the only classes I remember from college:
* the communications class that taught me html (which led to building the og hobart website in 2001)
* the art class where the attractive gsi told me the building I drew was "phallic" and when I asked what that word meant she said to ask a classmate

2026 reading log, week 4 (+ one week 'til TACOMA release!) Aram Mrjoian, Justin Taylor, Julian Robles, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, John Updike, Samantha Schweblin, Jessica Treadway, Camille Bordas...

here's a few notes on all the short stories I read this last week (but just a little blogging about my week or whatever, I guess)

aaronburch.substack.com/p/2026-readi...

image with 4 screenshots from an Instagram Real of Anthony Jeselnik talking to the camera, saying: Again, the goal is to get people to read more books. The world is bad. Everything else is bad.

If I ignore “write” and “gym,” I got everything done on my to-do list for the day!

@bettysueblue.bsky.social There Is News Along the Ohio River sounds great, and love the cover! Good job, @riverriverbooks.bsky.social! Congrats!!

(tho not as much as the music video for Thriller, which terrified me and def gave me nightmares)

that music video legit scared 8-year-old Aaron

Charles Portis YES

holy shit, this looks even worst and dumber than Mother!

photo of early-20s Aaron, hair bleach blonde, shirtless coming up out of water in pacific northwest lake

photo of Lakes High School ID card, 1995-1996, Aaron having obnoxiously large "poofed out" hair

two side by side Taekwondo pics of teenage Aaron, one punching at camera, one doing a front kick, black belt in both, both paired with red tinted headshots

photo of Aaron making a weird face after stagediving at a Botch show

every time I need to send a headshot for something, I open up the folder in my dropbox titled "good pics," and that's where some pics I've used as author pics are, but it also offers up pics like these...

remind: this is one week from today!

if you're interested in getting these emails, lemme know.
if you're interested in joining in on this (basically just a zoom where we chat about a story and hangout for an hour or two) but don't really need to be on the mailing list, lemme know that

I'm having my students write longhand, informal reflections based on a prompt for ~10 minutes once a week in class, and they're often so much better and more interesting than most students' actual, more formal essays.

literary fiction short stories aren't your thing? that's fine! I don't care. like whatever you like! the short form is "fundamentally not suited to realist, literary fiction"?? c'mon, bro. you crazy for that one!

just read the sentence "I just fundamentally don’t think short form is suited to realist, literary fiction" as a substack notes reply, and it is going to be so annoyingly bouncing around in my brain and driving me infuriatingly crazy the whole rest of the day, at least

2026 daily story cont'd...

1/25: "Pobrecito" by Melissa Lozada-Oliva
1/26: "Should Wizard Hit Mommy?" by John Updike
1/27: "A Fabulous Animal" by Samantha Schweblin
1/28: "An Early Departure" by Jessica Treadway

I'm only one story in, but loved it! Have read a couple others in NYer and loved them too! (How to Behave in a Crowd didn't really grab me, tho I struggle with young narrators, in general but esp when so precocious, but a friend with a similar aversion said he loved The Material; I wanna get that!)

Thanks!! 🧨

I’m only one story in (I like to read one a morning, slowly savoring) but had read a couple others in the NYer, and feel confident in the assertion.

*bid, but whatever, not gonna delete and fix and repost. full steam ahead!

One Sun Only, stories by Camille Bordas

Only January, making an early bud for story collection of the year.

there was a new strongbad email like a month ago!

YouTube video by CRITERION Patton Oswalt Introduces OLD JOY

"OLD JOY means a lot to me, too, Patton."

www.youtube.com/watch?v=n36E...

Yooooo! Idk how many of you this could apply to, but I'll be doing an event at Literati in Ann Arbor for the release of TACOMA in a couple weeks! Tuesday, Feb. 10, 6:30 pm. I'm excited!

literatibookstore.com/event/2026-0...

A fun thing about being a teacher, whose classes are all M/W this semester, with a non-academia partner, is every Wednesday saying “It’s Friday!” She loves it.

A fun thing about being a teacher, whose classes are all M/W this semester, with a non-academia partner, is every Wednesday saying “It’s Friday!” She loves it.

Really feel like, after 15+ years of teaching, I should have a better understanding on which colors and/or fabrics most/least show off how much I sweat while teaching.

I have never ever ever seen a techbro at a grindcore show

Aaron Burch

(finally) updated my website to include TACOMA

especially as someone who kinda fell into this world of writing & editing & publishing, almost by accident, bc it was fun in my mid20s when I didn't know what else to do with my life, I'm ridiculously proud of these handful of books

www.aaronburch.net

“Only wish I could retain good reviews longer in my heart”

I mean… welcome to being a writer/human.