Reading Room #01: A short story by Kyle Seibel

The title of his short story collection will land my email in your spam

Hello and Happy Wednesday!

Welcome to the first dispatch of “Reading Room”—a series in which I’ll read something out loud that I’m enjoying with no preamble as to why I’m enjoying it. Today’s selection—Reading Room’s first dispatch—is a short story from the collection “Hey You Assholes” by Kyle Seibel, out this year from the micro press Clash Books in Troy, New York.¹

Because I said I wouldn’t give a preamble about the thing I choose to read, I’ll talk about Troy, NY instead. Troy isn’t too far from where I live, and I’ve traveled there a few times for book-related events. It’s also a place I swing through to meet my friend and radio producer Sarah LaDuke for lunch whenever I appear on the wonderful public radio station she works for, WAMC. There’s this one place we relish in Troy’s sister city, Albany— a ramen joint inside of a caboose that has excellent craft beer. It has been raining for three days straight here in Connecticut—please transport me to that cozy caboose, now.

Troy is a gritty city with a lot of culture and a real activist spirit, and as such, it has fantastic bookshops. It’s also home to the vanity press Troy Book Makers which I can recommend personally for those looking to self-publish because I published a short story collection using their outfit in my twenties. They walked me through each step of publication, and made me something beautiful—so I’m delighted to see that Troy Book Makers is healthy, in business, and busier than ever.

Photo of downtown Troy, NY on left is by Chris Boswell; on right is the short story collection I self-published with Troy Book Makers in my twenties.

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More about the Reading Room

Since Reading Room is a new segment, I want to explain some things up front:

• To listen to me reading Kyle’s short story, use the link at the top of this post. Perhaps you’ll listen to it over breakfast; perhaps you’ll listen to it over lunch. You can treat it like a podcast; albeit a short one.

• Please do not pitch me for my Reading Room series. Keeping control over my Substack and not working with publicists and authors in “tour mode” is one of the reasons I love writing this newsletter instead of feeling obliged to write this newsletter—I’m very firm on that. I might run this vertical frequently, I might stop and start it up again—we’ll see where the wind takes us!² Sometimes, the book I choose will be a new one—sometimes it will be old. There will be little rhyme and reason to the readings I pick other than me liking them and believing there is something beneficial and unique and timely in their tone and/or content.

• I don’t know with what frequency I’ll be sharing these recordings. I do know that for this, my first recording, I had something stuck in my throat at one point and for that, Kyle, I am sorry! It’s May and there is pollen everywhere, but I couldn’t let that stop me from sharing a short story that I find funny, haunting, and timely as all get out.

(By the way, I don’t know Kyle. I have never met Kyle. He doesn’t know that I’m reading from his short story collection today but he does know that I enjoyed it because I tagged him on a few of my IG posts regarding his collection.) I hope you like it, too!)

• If you enjoy this story, consider buying the collection. You’ll be doing something major for a micro publisher and a debut author in one fell swoop. All the stories in this pint-sized collection pack an equal punch, plus, with its small size and giant title, it looks pretty bad-ass by the bed.

You can find Kyle’s debut collection on Bookshop.org and in other outlets where fine books are sold

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So, whadya think?

Paid subscribers—let us know what you think of the short story, “Unfaithful Starring Richard Gere & What’s Her Name” in the comment section.

On the comment front: please write about other people’s writing the way that you would want people to comment about your own work in a public forum—with respect for the immense effort that went into it, and the fact that this debut is a dream realized for Kyle.

Remember—the link to listen to the reading is at the top of this post. I do hope you enjoy it!

And thanks, as always, for being here.

Courtney

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1. Per their website, Clash Books “is where high and low art meet to make something fresh, new and exciting.” Clash Books publishes literary fiction, non-fiction, poetry and literary horror. During the recording, I refer to Clash Books as “Clash Fiction” twice because that’s what I was reading off the book’s ISBN page.

2. A “vertical” is publishing speak for a new segment branching from an existing brand or publication.