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CURRENT NEWS:

October 17, 2005

This summer saw the birth of the marvelous Eva Grace Sikelianos Hunt. Just shy of 9 pounds and loooong! For a look at her beautiful self visit:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/evapolkadot/

Literary projects, taken up during bits and pieces of spare time, include heavy edits to get a novel, The Exquisite (Fall ‘06 – Coffee House), into shape to turn in, composition of a longish article on Georges Perec, called “Four Gentle Persuasions”, for the French journal and publishing house Éditions Inculte, and some tidying work on a translation from the French of Oliver Rohe’s masterful novella, Terrain Vague (Vacant Lot).

Miscellaneous writings can be found now and in the future in Fence, Marginalia, Ellipsis, onedit, the American Drivel Review, Omnidawn’s forthcoming anthology of new fabulist writings, Starcherone’s PP/FF anthology and new British publishing house U.M.A.’s anthology of stories inspired by Sonic Youth.

September 18, 2004

Summer travels in Paris, Corsica, London, New York and Indianapolis (including a book signing at the Indiana State Fair!) have given way to the start of the teaching year at the University of Denver and Naropa University.

Recent writings by Laird can be found in the Cinema Lingua issue of Conjunctions and in The Future Dictionary of America. All proceeds from the highly entertaining latter, published by McSweeney's, are going to progressive causes (Vote Kerry!!!).

Look for a longish review of The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories (ed. Ben Marcus) in the next issue of Rain Taxi.

Laird is currently editing the completed first draft of Old Woman and tinkering with two finished novels, The Exquisite and Dear Laird Hunt, Author of The Impossibly.

Reading Adorno's Aesthetic Theory, The Recognitions by Gaddis, Naropa Alum Will Christopher Baer's Hell's Half Acre and Suzanna Clarke's sprawling Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel.

March 27, 2004

Laird and Eleni have accepted faculty positions, in prose and poetry
respectively, at the University of Denver starting Fall ’04. They will continue
to teach at Naropa’s Kerouac School next year to help with the transition.

Laird will be spending part of next summer at the Macdowell Colony to work on
various secret and not-so-secret projects.

Recent reading includes Selah Saterstrom’s hybrid marvel The Pink
Institution, just about to be released by Coffee House Press and Magdalena Tulli’s
wonderful Dreams and Stones, a lucid dreamer’s history of the founding and growth
of Warsaw (and all cities).

Laird is currently, almost right this second, working on a long story, set in
rural Indiana, called Old Woman. He also recently completed a very short
piece called Michiko and Akiko.

The highlight of winter ’04 for Laird was reading in January with Paul Auster
at St. Mark’s Church in New York.

January 14th, 2004

If you live in New York, please come hear Laird read with Paul Auster at St.
Mark's Church on February 11 (probably at 8 p.m.).

Look for "Happy Film", a story by Laird, in the upcoming Cinema Lingua issue
of Conjunctions. Fiction is also forthcoming in Fourteen Hills. And a short
piece in McSweeney's 12.

There was a lovely review of Indiana, Indiana by Jo Ann Wasserman in the
latest St. Mark's Poetry Project Newsletter.

The French translation of The Impossibly, being brilliantly handled by
Christophe Marchand Kiss, is moving rapidly forward. One of Laird's projects over
Christmas break will be to finish reviewing the second half of the translation.

October 24, 2003

The publication of Indiana, Indiana, along with a full load of classes at
Naropa, has made for a busy fall. Laird's book tour has taken him to
Minneapolis, home of Coffee House Press, for reading events in the Twin Cities, to New
York, for readings at Softskull (with Brian Evenson) and The Sanctum (with Nelly
Reifler, introduced by Paul Auster), and to the Bay Area, for readings at
Moe's and City Lights. A number of local events, including a book release party
(with Eleni Sikelianos) at the home of Dave and Mary Kite, and readings at the
Boulder Bookstore, Tattered Cover (with Eleni), and MOCA (with Eleni) in Fort
Collins round out the tour.

Look for new work by Laird in the next issue of McSweeneys and in San
Francisco State's 14 Hills.

Be sure to check out Eleni's new book National Poetry Series selection The
Monster Lives of Boys and Girls, just out from Green Integer.

August 2

Check out:

The Woman Who Once Swallowed the World

a collaborative story by Amy Fusselman and Laird Hunt

at:

http://www.thejournalnews.com/theline/storyline/

Look for reviews of Ira Sher's Gentlemen of Space and Nelly Reifler's
forthcoming debut short story collection See Through in the next issue of the Review
of Contemporary Fiction.

Also, please be on the lookout for Indiana, Indiana, which has been printed,
looks really handsome and will be in bookstores around month's end. To order
advance copies, visit the Coffee House website.

Well worth visiting, for those interested in great books in translation, is
the Archipelago Books website:

http://www.archipelagobooks.org/index.html

Last but not least, read Rikki Ducornet's new novel, Gazelle, just out and
ready to offer up its Egyptian world of perfume, lead soldiers, magicians and
exotic foods to your hungry eyes.

June 9

Laird just returned to the US after spending four months as writer-in-residence at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France, where he was working on the final stages of Indiana, Indiana (just out in bound galleys - please contact Coffee House Press for info), on Dear Laird Hunt, Author of The Impossibly (visit www.conjunctions.com to see an excerpt) and a new, secret project. This secret project is currently called The Narwhal. It is not a sea story. It was written at a table with a view of water, however.

Laird will be leading a workshop on contemporary European fiction during the second week of Naropa University's Summer Writing Programme in June. For more information, please visit www.naropa.edu/swp.

"Cocteau Cento," a video by Dan Boord, Luis Valdovino and text by Laird Hunt has been accepted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC to be shown as a part of a Jean Cocteau Festival. It will also be shown in Germany, Poland and various film fests across the U.S.

Laird, Anselm Berrigan and Brenda Coultas, the inaugural editorial board of Dan Machlin's fabulous Futurepoem Books, have selected manuscripts by Jo Ann Wasserman and Merry Fortune for publication in 2003/2004. Go to www.futurepoem.com to learn more.

The Fence #11 website (http://www.fencemag.com) features serial publication of Indiana, Indiana.

Reviews of the University of Texas' recent reissue of Juan Rulfo's Pedro Paramo and of Alain Robbe-Grillet's Repetition are forthcoming in the Review of Contemporary Fiction and Raintaxi.

Look for Laird's fiction in, among other places, the most recent issues of Morkville and Ploughshares, and (at least the last he heard) in McSweeney's forthcoming anthology of 20 minute stories. It may soon be possible to view portions of Indiana, Indiana on Fence magazine's web site. More on that soon.

Pour ceux qui parlent francais... The Impossibly will be published in French sometime in early 2004 year by Actes Sud.