Gettin’ to Know You

Forgive me this, I posted twice below without a proper introduction. Obvs, my name is Patrick Stephenson. I grew up in Saudi Arabia and currently reside in Saint Paul, MN, former home of F. Scott Fitzgerald. I’m 24-years-old, a recent graduate of the University of Minnesota’s English department. There, I learned under such amazing (and I do mean amazing, the sort that’d change your life) profs as Edward Griffin and John Watkins.

My last day as a security guard was this past Monday—hooray!—and I begin an internship with Graywolf Press (which has published Ander Monson, Sven Birkerts, Jane Kenyon, Percival Everett, David Treuer, Charles Baxter, John D’Agata and about a billion other awesome writers) on July 1.

My websites are PatrickStephenson.net, where I haven’t posted much lately because of, y’know, busy-ness, and Smith & Stephenson, another sufferer of my inattention. (I do my best, man, c’mon.) The latter I co-run with Gregory Smith, editor of the Red Dirt Review, who appears occasionally in the comments section of this website. I expect these blogs’ll get a lot more love considering all the free time I have now.

I also TWITTER, if you’re into that sort of thing, here: Patiomensch

By the way, I’ll have a book of my own—ENDOTHERMIC—out in June, and (hopefully) beginning May 24th you can hear me every Thursday on KFAI’s “Write On Radio” show. If you live in the Twin Cities, this’ll be accessible through your radio—90.3 in Minneapolis, 106.7 in Saint Paul. If you’re not fortunate enough to live in TC, you can stream the broadcast from KFAI. I will impress you with my strong, very masculine voice and literary insights.

My favorite writers are Philip Larkin, A.M. Homes, Jonathan Ames, Richard Ford, John Updike and David Foster Wallace. Here is a photo of me wearing a reflective vest. I enjoy biking. Also, I’m attracted to girls who wear glasses. Nevertheless, prose before hos.

Wordie.org

I love this site. It’s sort of a social network for people who, like yourselves, love words. You log on, list your favorite words, and are linked to other people who like those words. Together, you can discuss your favorites in each word’s annotation section: etymologies, usage notes. It’s insanely geeky but awesome. My profile. A few words on my Favorites list: threnody, diaphanous, interrobang, synchronic, churl and pynchonian.

Nick and Tao are too modest to tell you this…

…but they’re reading together Friday night at Bluestockings.

I tell them, “Boys, ya gotta promote yourselves once in a while! It wouldn’t kill you! Stop being so self-effacing all the time!”

But do they listen to their Uncle Richard? Not on your life! They’re a pair of shrinking violents, the two of them!

I heard what Tao said to Nick when he thought I was dozing off during The Price is Right: “What does he know, he was born in the Truman administration!”

Feh. I don’t know what’s wrong with these kids today, they’re like Casper Milquetoasts or something. That’s why I had to tell them to call the Bluestockings reading “Hot Young Live Sexy Debut Novelists.”

It will also feature the lovely Douglas Light and the debonair Deb Olin Unferth. Remember, 7 p.m. Friday at my favorite Lower East Side radical feminist bookstore, Bluestockings. And I think you can nosh on something while they’re reading.

*****
UPDATE: Go know, I’ve just been informed that I am supposed to be reading with Tao, Dan Hoy and Ellen Kennedy for 3:AM Magazine tonight at Galapagos Art Space. But my VCR’s on the fritz, it’s One Tree Hill night, and I think that new girl is going to tell Lucas that it was Dan, not Jimmy, who killed his uncle. Plus, it’s sweeps month, I’m a Nielsen viewer, and if I go, the CW loses its entire 55-and-over demographic. The network can kiss those Polident and Depends ads goodbye! What a revolting development this is.