PRINT & DIGITAL PUBLICATIONS

AVAILABLE ONLINE:

“Monkey Heaven.” Originally published in Atomjack, Issue #10. May 2008. Science fiction short story, narrated by a rebellious helper monkey.

“Battlestar Galactica vs. Star Trek.” Published by mental_floss; featured on the front page of Digg; received 834 diggs and 298 comments in three days! This short article compares the Star Trek franchise (which I love) with the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica (which I think is the greatest thing television has ever produced) and looks at some of the things that make BSG so relevant and so successful to us today. “It boils down to this: Star Trek is about who we want to be, and Battlestar Galactica is about who we are.”

“Little Fingers,” published in the Spring 2008 issue of Barrelhouse online. Short short short. “What it smells like: blood and milk and alcohol gone rancid. Last night’s ramen. Hunger and loneliness.” 

“Jerking Off to Agnostic Front.” Short story that explores the things I love, and the things I hate, about punk rock. Originally published in Verbicide, issue #17.  Summer 2006.

“Auschwitz Blowjob,” originally published by Velvet Mafia. Queer short fiction that’s not nearly as controversial as the name would lead you to hope; nominated for a Pushcart Prize and the Rauxa Prize for Erotic Writing.  The wonderful Rachel Kramer Bussel said in her blog that this story “with its Sylvia Plath reference, with its questions, with its in your face title, with its unabashed demand that sex not be cleaned up, that what we desire sometimes makes us feel dirty, and not in the hot way, is vital if we’re to talk about sex honestly. If we’re to admit that we don’t always understand our desires, or our lovers’, that “complicated” is the biggest understatement of all.”

“Paper Bomb,” published by Pindeldyboz in their January 2008 issue. Semi-speculative short fiction.

“Depression Halved Production Costs,” SMUT! Issue #5. Fall/Winter 2005. Reprinted in Best Gay Erotica 2006, Cleis Press. (Dennis Cooper, who I would rank among the best writers writing today, had a story in the same anthology, and when I left a comment on his blog he said:  “I actually really loved your story in that Best Erotica anthology, so your visit here is even more of a treat. Your site looks really good. I’ve bookmarked it so I can examine it thoroughly. In fact, everybody else reading this, go look at Sam J.’s site if you know what’s good for you”).

 ”Where the Readers Are,” published in The Quarterly Conversation. An essay critiquing the doom-and-gloom rhetoric around the supposed death of the short story and the decline of fiction readers (starting with Stephen King’s histrionic essay “What Ails the Short Story?”). My point, in a nutshell, is that fiction itself is doing just fine - but the conventional vehicles that have linked audiences with fiction are transforming so fast that people see it as the end of the (publishing) world. Includes interviews with awesome folks like the editors at The Kenyon Review, One Story, and Velvet Mafia.

“Smash Me Up,” forthcoming in Issue #3 of Swill Magazine and available as an issue teaser on their website.

“Skin on Fire,” published in the first issue of Urban Molecule. They also ran an interview with me. Both the story and the interview are in PDF format.

“Sexless in Montreal,”  originally published in Karamu, Spring 2007. Short story about sex, LSD, Madonna, and the agony of approaching the end of adolescence with no idea what you want to do with your life.

“Haunting Our Homes: Nightmares of Gentrification,” in Perforations. Essay about how the modern haunted house film is really about the anxieties caused by gentrification. Subsequently reprinted at PopPolitics.com and AlterNet.org

“Fall Out Boy’s Biggest Faggot Fan,” a creative nonfiction piece about my love-hate affair with the pop-punk band Fall Out Boy… and the broader phenomenon of mainstream artists pandering to queer audiences. Published by PopPolitics.com

“Short Sad Sordid Sexual Encounters,” in Velvet Mafia. Reprinted in Best Gay Erotica 2008, Cleis Press

“Homeless Revolution,” an article about the Housing Campaign I’ve spent the last several years working on. Published in Shelterforce. Issue #151, Fall 2007.

“Sleeping is a Crime,”  an article about a civil disobedience action where I was arrested for sleeping in Central Park along with members of Picture the Homeless, to protest the NYPD’s policies of arresting homeless people for engaging in life-sustaining activity (like sleep!) that is not against the law. Published in the late lamented Clamor, Communique #55. December 2004.

SELECTED PRINT PUBLICATIONS

“Mad Meg,” in Fourteen Hills, vol. 14.2; Spring 2008.  

“How Straight People Fuck,” in Other magazine. Issue #13, December 2007.  

“Like A Virus,” in Sex by the Book: Gay Men’s Tales of Lust and Lit. Edited by Kevin Bentley. Green Candy Press. Fall 2007.

“Social Animals,” Herbivore, issue 13. Spring 2007.

“Turn Up The Volume,” in The Christian Citizen. Volume 1, 2006. Co-written with William S. Burnett.

“My Evil Twin,” in Where The Boys Are. Edited by Richard Labonte. Cleis Press. Fall 2007.