iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

"We've all seen or visited such a place — it's a suburb where ordinary people try desperately to live their lives in spite of lost loves, unhappy marriages, too many Martinis, discreet adultery and bills, bills, bills."

old pocketbook paperback of The Housebreaker of Shady Hill and Other Stories by John Cheever

back of Shady Hill Cheever paperback reading:

It really isn't a special place; birds sing, children run away, dogs romp, gardens grow, and everyone cooks steak in his backyard. We've all seen or visited such a place — it's a suburb where ordinary people try desperately to live their lives in spite of lost loves, unhappy marriages, too many Martinis, discreet adultery and bills, bills, bills.

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

kinda a spoiler, I guess, but this is such a great little mini-lesson in revision. try to make as much as possible (everything) more active, more intentional. close the distance around the tension and conflict.

In earlier drafts of the story, the father didn’t come on the road trip. He was unable to face it, in the same way he was unable to face his wife’s death, and again he off-loaded the burden to his daughter. In that version, he is simply on the phone with the narrator when she makes the decision to release Claudia. Early readers gave the feedback that a phone call was not enough—he needed to be in that car and he needed to see the release of Claudia happen. They were absolutely right. It brought so much more energy into the ending and underscored the parallels between the mother and Claudia.

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Yall think Mark from Home Improvement is stoked about Aaron Turner joining Neurosis?

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

An important part of handwriting first drafts: identifying for your future self bad ideas for possible titles.

photo of handwritten page in legal pad, which the phrase “praise or kindness or grace” underlined and an arrow drawn to “TITLE?” written in the margin

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

forgot I added this to my google calendar as a reminder to myself, just got the notification reminder email

HAD anniversary
Friday Aug 21, 2026
Organizer
Aaron Burch

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

had a dumb idea, spent a little too long this morning making it...

image of t-shirt design template mocked up to look like a 90s hardcore shirt, with a black and white image of crowd screaming along with a hardcore singer, above which the text, in "college" style block letter font reads, "Largesse of the Sea Maiden" and under the image, in typewriter font, is the sentence, "This morning I was assailed by such sadness at the velocity of life—the distance I’ve travelled from my own youth, the persistence of the old regrets, the new regrets, the ability of failure to freshen itself in novel forms—that I almost crashed the car."

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

love this rave for @jsavrankelly.bsky.social's great story! ashortstorylong.substack.com/p/man-next-d...

Something about a Short Story, Long story

I've been a sucker for blow-up doll related content since Lars and the Real Girl, so of course I found "Man Next Door" by Jennifer Savran Kelly delightful. My favorite metaphors explain a concept perfectly while also being a little bit odd, so I enjoyed the inflatable dad and the outdated ways he represents. The quick turn from something cute and quirky to something more sinister was also really well done. Then there's the final image: a frightened Paul clinging to the deflated dad (even while wanting to escape his influence) while an emboldened Maddie grips the broken wine bottle. Nailed it.

OK to share your above response?

Sure!

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

New Short Story, Long tagline just dropped! "Tell your friends! Some wonderful tales and 'hidden gems,' as they say!"

https://ashortstorylong.submittable.com/submissions/54421866?page=10&tab=activity

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Me, about the short stories and essays I’ve published:

BEN AFFLECK ON HIS OWN FILMOGRAPHY: 'I HAVE 12
MOVIES I TRULY LOVE, 25
WHERE I LIKE THIS OR THAT, AND ABOUT 10 OR 12 THAT ARE FUCKING SHIT

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

July 18 story: “The Illusionist” by Danny McBride Can already tell I’m just going to become really annoying about this book. It’s basically the kinds of stories I write and most love and often publish as an editor, with through McBride’s sensibilities and humor. Really great.

GREG WAS TAPPED OUT. He'd tried. He thought he could muster a second wind, some energyany energy—but it was looking like a Nab, kid. He didn't have it in him, nothing left in the tank.
He was going to quit, break his word, go back on all his boasts and promises. Oh, God. How fucking embarrassing
There were going to be repercussions if he quit. He could picture them so easily:
Linda would be upset. She'd scream.
"I told you so!"
His kids would be disappointed
"Whatever." "Lame."
His friends would laugh behind his back.
"What the hell was that idiot thinking?"
Roy, his brother, would be the worst, because Roy would try to
make him feel better about it.
"Dude, you tried. That's all that matters."
But that wasn't all that mattered. All that mattered was that Greg finish what he started. If he couldn't stay inside this glass box suspended by a crane in the middle of the mall for a full month like he d advertised, then the stunt was a fail. Worse, it would mean that Greg wasn't the gifted magician he'd told everyone he was.
He was no fucking Harry Houdini or even Lorenzo the Laotian, and he hated Lorenzo the Laotian. He thought Lorenzo the Laotian was a total hack. Lorenzo did basic escape techniques but dressed goth and acted like he was a magic devil or something. Shot lasers from his fingers. Flashy and dumb. That's why Greg chose to do a simple, basic escape trick like surviving through something that seems, to the common man, utterly impossible.
He had underestimated the leg cramping, for sure. He didn't love the half-assed patchy beard growing on his face. The food program was also not working; he was shitting and pissing more than he wanted. He had to pull out the black sheet and cover the glass walls of the box so the shoppers in the mall below didn't see him take a

Hand holding hardcover: THRILLING TALES OF MODERN MEN, short stories by Danny McBride

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

me, looking at myself, after I have a "great idea" for a story, but it's just another 'flash forward future tense moment' or 'a character saying he's never told anyone that before' or 'a big, zoomed-out, "jesus' son-y" description' move that I've used a hundred times before

Nurse Dana from The Pitt, glasses dropped down to tip of nose, eyes giving a "c'mon, get real" look over them

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

July 16 story: “Gerald’s Wife” by Danny McBride First few stories are 30-60 pages each, so I jumped to this one, the shortest in the book. I was kinda sure it would be, but still almost annoying how good it is. Almost like a Carver story written by DT or Maloney or Birnie or one of us.

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

July 15 story: “Downburst” by @jonathanin2k.bsky.social Really dug this one! Have read the first two stories so far, and the book is 2 for 2.

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Printed out the short story manuscript for yet another pass. I think it’s MOSTLY all bangers. Just gotta try to figure out which are the skips and if I’m wrong about them or if I should makes some cuts and still need to write a few more…

Table of Contents
OYSTERS
HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS
TRUTH & ANSWERS & BEAUTY & MAGIC & AN IDEA
SHARKS KEEP MOVING
RAMBLING, SIDLING, ABSOLVED, CRADLED
FREESTANDING
ANY NUMBER OF MOMENTS
THE BOWLING STORY
AROUND THE WORLD
THE WORLD CAN GET AWAY FROM YOU WHEN YOU'RE NOT CAREFUL
TWO TACOS
JOURNAL OF THE RIDICULOUS
INTERROBANG
EXECUTIVES
ORCAS; OR, LIFE & ART & MAGIC & BEAUTY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

An unfathomable to me idea of being a writer.

“Like, you're just kind of praying that there's a hundred thousand of these people out there.”

From The Bill Simmons Podcast: Chuck Klosterman on the Cinema Revival, Sports Tsars, Owners and Commissioners, Analytics, U.S. Soccer Groundhog Day, and State of Reading, Jul 12, 2026
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bill-simmons-podcast/id1043699613?i=1000776505959&r=6817
This material may be protected by copyright.

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

“Hey, do you have a tip for me? And I'm always like, fucking read.” Bill Simmons on how to become a writer (or podcaster, or etc.)

“Like the question I get the most from everybody, you know, people are like people with young kids who want to be a podcast or a writer or somebody who's breaking the business or somebody who's in college, like, hey, do you have a tip for me? And I'm always like, fucking read. I feel like the reading, that was how I learned everything.
That's how I learned how to pick styles. That's how I learned information. That's how I learned what happened in the course of history and how to not repeat the same mistakes or decisions people made or analyzing the decisions.
And, you know, every book you read is going to have a different effect on you,”

From The Bill Simmons Podcast: Chuck Klosterman on the Cinema Revival, Sports Tsars, Owners and Commissioners, Analytics, U.S. Soccer Groundhog Day, and State of Reading, Jul 12, 2026
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bill-simmons-podcast/id1043699613?i=1000776505959&r=6346
This material may be protected by copyright.

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

The Outdoors Issue! There’s a killer Somerville story in there. And a great Lydi Conklin comic!

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

July 14 story: “Big World” by Mary Miller Rereading Carver, Ford, Houston always makes me wanna reread some Mary Miller. Amazing ending.

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

July 13 story: “Careful” by Raymond Carver Been rereading a bunch’a faves (Ford, Houston, Bradford), so figured I could go for some Carver, too. One of my faves. Whoever owned this used copy before me noted this story on the toc as “Ear.”

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

July 12 story: “Taking Care” by Joy Williams Was pretty sure I’d read this one before but… maybe actually not? Lots of amazing moments and sentences and paragraphs, but overall, not *totally* my storytelling tastes.

First page of story:

Jones, the preacher, has been in love all his life. He is baffled by this because as far as he can see, it has never helped anyons, even when they have acknowledged it, which is not citen.
Jones's love is much too apparent and arouses neglect. He is like an animal in a traveling show who, through some aberra-tion, wears a vital organ outside the skin, awkward and unfortu-nate, something that shouldn't be seen, certainly something that shouldn't be watched working. Now he sits on a bed beside his wife in the self-care unit of a hospital fifteen miles from their home. She has been committed here for tests. She is so weak, so tired. There is something wrong with her blood. Her arms are covered with bruises where they have gone into the veins. Her hip, too, is blue and swollen where they have drawn out samples of bone marrow. All of this is frightening. The doctors are severe and wise, answering Jones's questions in a way that makes him feel hopelessly deaf. They have told him that there really is no such thing as a disease of the blood, for the blood is not a living tissue but a passive vehicle for the transportation of food, oxygen and waste. They have told him that abnormalities in the blood corpuscles, which his wife seems to have, must be regarded as symptoms of disease elsewhere in the body. They have shown him, upon request, slides and charts of normal and pathological blood cells which look to Jones like canapés. They speak (for he insists) of leukocyto-sis, myelocytes and megaloblasts. None of this takes

hand holding paperback: Taking Care by Joy Williams Jr

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

What it looks & feels like when you’re ~1/2 done with a story and kiiiiinda have an idea for what else should happen but no real idea how to get there or what to actually do next…

photo of an approximately half done puzzle, with buffalo and landscape done but top half empty and it is all just blue and white pieces for sky and puzzle

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

July 11 story: “The Resident Poet” by Katherine Dunn Someone on Substack told me this was “the only good one” in this book, and so, after being underwhelmed with the first few, I skipped to this one, and indeed it’s great. Probs too easily reductive but kinda reminded me of Gaitskill or Mary Miller

first page of story:

The Resident Poet

AT HIS REQUEST, I am hiding in the parking lot. Every time lights show on the road, I jump behind a tree or crouch beside one of the cold parked cars.
I don't really care whether I'm seen or not, but I do plan to emerge mysteriously when he drives up. Impress him with my discretion, my knowledge of the surreptitious. But the rain is ruining my effect. I'm beginning to get angry. Who does he think would see us? Or care? I consider going back to my room and making a sign to hold up at passing cars: 1 AM WAITING TO SCREW MR. LUCAS, THE RESIDENT POET!
My mascara is running into the pouches beneath my eyes.
I can feel the thin mud of powder on my forehead and cheeks beginning to slide.
The lights from the dormitories and the dining hall glow on the hill. No shapes around them, only blackness, and the

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

July 9 story: “How to Talk to a Hunter” by Pam Houston I like reading a new-to-me story every day, but I reread some Richard Ford a few days ago and it kinda got me itching to reread some Houston. This book is a real all-timer for me, and this story was such a fun revisit.

First page of story:

How to Talk to a Hunter

When he says "Skins or blankets?" it will take you a moment to realize that he's asking which you want to sleep under. And in your hesitation he'll decide that he wants to see your skin wrapped in the big black moose hide. He carried it, he'll say, soaking wet and heavier than a dead man, across the tundra for two—was it hours or days or weeks? But the payoff, now, will be to see it fall across one of your white breasts. It's December, and your skin is never really warm, so you will pull the bulk of it around you and pose for him, pose for his camera, without having to narrate this moose's death.
You will spend every night in this man's bed without asking yourself why he listens to top-forty country. Why he donated money to the Republican Party. Why he won't play back his messages while you are in the room. You are there so often the messages pile up. Once you noticed the bright green counter reading as high as fifteen.

Cowboys Are My Weakness, stories by Pam Houston

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

July 8 story: “The Allies” by Katherine Dunn (Re)reading Geek Love right now, and it’s just so good, and remembered I bought this earlier this year and read a couple stories then forgot about it. Read this story and remembered none of these stories (so far) are really doing anything for me.

First page of story:

The Allies

THE RADIO PURRED from the top of the refrigerator, and Mrs. Reddle paused, listening, with her smallest sable-hair brush an inch from the canvas.
"Another unidentified flying object reported near the coast," said the radio host. "And in Texas, an insurance salesman and a hitchhiker report that they were taken aboard a huge spherical vessel that stopped their car in the desert, south of Burkburnett. More on these and other stories, after this."
Mrs. Reddle moved the brush delicately, laying a sliver of light on the face beneath her hand. The rough two-by-four easel stood in the windowed bay of the kitchen, where anyone else would put a table and chairs. The Reddles' table was in the middle of the room, with a discreetly rosy bowl in the center of its brown tablecloth. The bay was jammed with boxes of magazine clippings and old photographs, a stained

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

reminding myself of this when I decide to be lazy and veg out and watch Hot Rod again instead of go to the gym

screenshot of CNN Health story with headline reading "Engaging with arts and culture can slow biological aging as much as exercise, study says"

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

this is like getting a “Happy Anniversary!” email from an ex you haven’t talked to in 20 years

screenshot of email from LIVEJOURNAL saying "You got a new achievement!"

24

Blog's Birthday
We're together for 24 years now! Thank you!

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

July 7 story: “Rib Night” by Will Mackin Yesterday I noted I hadn’t read Mackin before and was curious if it was this story or something about his style that doesn’t click for me. Kyle Seibel said he’s incredible and recommended this story and… I liked it better but still didn’t love it.

illustration for story, from when it was published in The Atlantic, of a soldier climbing a pile of ribs on a plate

first page or so of story:

Forward Operating Base
Sharana, Afghanistan

A fight broke ou t on the far side of the dining facility, over
by the milk. A fridge door slapped shut, followed by sounds of
shoving and punches being thrown. Soldiers dodged out of the
way before a few brave souls went in to break it up. There were
noises of slipped holds and flail, of tables and chairs scraping
across the concrete floor. Then Digger’s voice rang out—I’ll kill
you!—and for a moment it seemed like this night, a Friday, was
about to transcend all its false promises.
Every Friday was rib night at this D-fAc. Soldiers spent all
day making the sauce, marinating the ribs, and stoking mesquite
embers in split oil drums. They baked a cake the size of a garage
door. They decorated the D-fAc—a giant white tent—with bal-
loons and streamers. They went to all this trouble, I knew, with
good intentions. They wanted us to feel appreciated, and to give
us a taste of home. They wanted us to enjoy, at least, the illusion
of a party—as if this were a real Friday night, with an actual week-
end to follow, and we might find it within ourselves to break a few
weekday rules. Fighting, however, was prohibited.
Tables and chairs were being moved back to where they
belonged, and a new line was forming for the milk. Digger
walked over to where Hal and I sat, where we always sat, by the
Jell-O cart.

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

lol. dudes rock. www.ft.com/content/b312...

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://help.ft.com/faq/gifting-and-sharing-an-article/what-is-a-gift-article/.
https://www.ft.com/content/b3124b41-27b8-4133-ad67-c6da19819f0e

I meet Ishiguro at the BFI’s Stephen Street headquarters — a place he has come to know well during this foray into film curation. He watched “an awful lot of films”, he says, to arrive at the final selection of 10; but if that sounds like a sedate task, it proved to be anything but. A state of near-hysteria prevailed as friends, colleagues and perfect strangers began clamouring for him to include their favourites. (No women, however. “Sadly, only men seemed inclined to push their train film passions my way.”)

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

July 6 story: “Pig Lab” by Will Mackin First story in the NYer I’ve read in months, first story since getting back into my story-a-day that didn’t do anything for me. Don’t think I’ve read Mackin before. Curious if it’s this story or if there’s something about his style that doesn’t click for me.

Photo of fiction title page from The New Yorker, July 6 & 13, 2026: Pig Lab by Will Mackin

photo of first few pages of story:

Late as I was, I figured I'd be walking right into an active scenario. Crazy Omar, maybe. Or Outnumbered and Outgunned. I thought Id hear the thud of stun grenades and hillbilly shouts of "Allahu akbar!" I expected to taste the bitter clouds of cordite drifting over the lawn and see the green muzzle flash of machine guns firing blanks on full auto. Above all, I assumed I'd find wounded pigs dying on the grass, and the boys elbow deep in their salvation.
Turned out, however, that I hadn't missed much. The pig men were in the trailer, knocking out the pigs with anes-thesia. The pigs, perhaps sensing the looming betrayal, or at least recognizing a serious departure from their bottle-fed, sunny upbringing, fought back. Hooves banged against the metal floor. Squeals cut through the cool air. Steam leaked through the trailer's slats. Pig fear had the same sour reek as our fear.
I found the boys stooging in a patch of morning sun at the base of our comPound's tower.

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Big announcement: I owe an apology to Short Story, Long readers.

too bad, your readers would have thanked you for this one.

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

July 5 story: “Great Falls” by Richard Ford “This is not a happy story. I warn you.” A side effect of dipping in and rereading one story from ROCK SPRINGS is you end up really just wanting to (rererere)read your way through ROCK SPRINGS. There’s like 40 perfects & moments in this one.

First page of story:

GREAT FALLS
This is not a happy story. I warn you.
My father was a man named Jack Russell, and when I was a young boy in my early teens, we lived with my mother in a house to the east of Great Falls, Montana, near the small town of Highwood and the Highwood Mountains and the Missouri River. It is a flat, treeless benchland there, all of it used for wheat farming, though my father was never a farmer, but was brought up near lTcoma, Washington, in a family that worked for Boeing,
He—my father—had been an Air Force sergeant and had taken his discharge in Great Falls. And instead of going home to Tacoma, where my mother wanted to go, he had taken a civilian's job with the Air Force, working on planes…

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

July 4 story: “Fireworks” by Richard Ford 4th of July felt like a Richard Ford day so I flipped through Rock Springs and had forgotten but of course there’s a story called “Fireworks,” set on the 4th!

first page of story:

FIREWORKS
Eddie Starling sat at the kitchen table at noon reading through the newspaper. Outside in the street some neighborhood kids were shooting off firecrackers. The Fourth of July was a day away, and every few minutes there was a lot of noisy popping followed by a hiss, then a huge boom loud enough to bring down an airplane. It was giving him the jitters, and he wished some parent would go out and haul the kids inside.
Starling had been out of work six months one entire selling season and part of the next. He had sold real estate, and had never been off work any length of time in his life. Though he had begun to wonder, after a certain period of not work-ing, if you couldn't simply forget how to work, forget the…

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

July 3 story: “Tributary” by @jonathanin2k.bsky.social Another book I nabbed at AWP and have been meaning to dig into since. Really enjoyed this leadoff story! Excited to read more.

first page of story:

TRIBUTARY
About a month before I ended up killing my dipshit nephew, the bride came to my table carrying forty dollars in chips. For the record, those two events did not cause one another, the married woman and demise of my sister's son, but were in a sort of relationship together, like how all things become related when shit floods downstream. Like in '83 when they had to open the spillway for Hoover Dam because every creek this side of the divide had drained into Lake Powell, some four hundred miles upriver, causing it to crest and threaten to release a torrent stew of muddy water, spilt boat gasoline, and old dinosaur bones from an era long best forgotten. Like how everything converges, someway, somehow. My point is, there was the bride and there was my nephew, and when the bride came to my table, she hoisted up her gown-an outlet special poofy in all the wrong places-plopped on a barstool, dropped a five chip, and told me to deal.
"So where's the groom so I can congratulate him too?" I said, and laid her card then mine, hers then mine. Right off the bat I was guessing she was from Victorville or San Bernardino. When you've dealt as long as I have, you know how to read people, and there's a difference in the way Californians carry themselves. Like when they came to the table they expected to win. An unearned sense of entitlement, is what I'm getting at. She was pretty, or used to be, and if it wasn't for the wonky eye or faded Jesus tattoo, I might've thought she was twenty years younger. Or at least would…

The Lowest Basin, Arizona Stories by Jonathan Danielson

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

July 2 story: “Up an’ Comers” by @johnwaddy.bsky.social Interesting reading this after yesterday’s David Simmons story. Both follow kids in schools, making me kinda doubledown in elementary school this week.

first page of story:

John Waddy Bullion
UP N' COMERS
When I was in fourth grade, my school abruptly dropped physical education from its curriculum. Dr. Villanueva, our Older Group teacher, had read an article in a leading alt-ed journal over the summer which said that P.E. was bad because winning squads received "preferential treatment," so that fall she swapped out P.E. for "U.P.," which stood for Unstructured Playtime— basically, recess with more sitting around. My Up n' Comers classmates— the lazy, lumpen offspring of the town intelligentsia-used the free hour to play cards, read books, even take naps. But to me, it made no sense for us to be outside if we weren't going to do anything, because except for a brief cold snap at the end of September -the same week that my father, the Professor, had moved out of our house to shack up with his mistress-the weather that autumn had been
unseasonably warm. Instead of the usual fall foliage, our streets were lined with trees that looked as brown, sick, and shriveled as spinach left wilting on a dinner plate. Swimming pools that had closed on Labor Day had reopened to great civic fanfare.
And for the first time in the event's long and checkered history, organizers of the annual Campus Avenue Oktoberfest had reported more cases of heat exhaustion than arrests for minor-in-possession.
When the heat index hit ninety-eight one afternoon two weeks before Halloween, Dr. Villanueva, who had always been prone to drastic decisions, panicked and informed us that we would have to cut U.P. short. I was just finishing a set of chin-ups on the monkey bars, and instead of completing my last rep, Thung there in mid-air as the members of Older Group waddled drowsily past me on their way back to the classroom, a sad

THIS WORLD WILL NEVER RUN OUT OF STRANGERS
STORIES
by
JOHN WADDY BULLION

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

These AI slop spam marketing emails to authors are hella stupid and annoying, but also they can sometimes be how you find out your book has one review on Amazon, and that one review is 1 star! ⭐

Your 1.0 from 1 rating tells me nothing about quality. It tells me discoverability is the only problem and that is entirely solvable.

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Tried to listen to this — a book that was kinda life-changing to me at 24 — on a cross-country drive a handful of years ago and was saddened I couldn’t lock into it, but just reread the first chapter and was reminded I just can’t click into audiobooks, the novel itself is still total bonkers magic.

passage from Geek Love:

Al was a standard-issue Yankee, set on self-determination and inde-pendence, but in that crisis his core of genius revealed itself. He decided to breed his own freak show.
My mother, Lillian Hinchcliff, was a water-cool aristocrat from the fastidious side of Boston's Beacon Hill, who had abandoned her heritage and joined the carnival to become an aerialist. Nineteen is late to learn to fly and Lillian fell, smashing her elegant nose and her collarbones.
She lost her nerve but not her lust for sawdust and honky-tonk lights. It was this passion that made her an eager partner in Al's scheme. She was willing to chip in on any effort to renew public interest in the show.
Then, too, the idea of inherited security was ingrained from her child-hood. As she often said, "What greater gift could you offer your children than an inherent ability to earn a living just by being themselves?" The resourceful pair began experimenting with illicit and prescription drugs, insecticides, and eventually radioisotopes. My mother developed a complex dependency on various drugs during this process, but she didn't mind. Relying on Papa's ingenuity to keep her supplied, Lily seemed to view her addiction as a minor by-product of their creative collaboration.
Their firstborn was my brother Arturo, usually known as Aqua Boy.
His hands and feet were in the form of flippers…

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

July 1 story: “Frog Money” by David Simmons First day of second half of the year a good opportunity to get back into the daily short story rhythm I’d fallen out of. Pretty sure this was the story David read at the @neonpajamas.bsky.social reading we were both a part of at AWP.

photo of first page of story:

FROG MONEY
IN DUNDALK MIDDLE SCHOOL, the 8th graders have to dissect crabs because the admin smoked the frog money. Right before they're supposed to cut up the frogs, the science teacher's husband's brother's coworker drops off a bushel of blue crabs sick with chitinoclastic disease, spotted shells, not fit for eating. The streetlight sodium-yellow reek of piss fills the classroom.
There is a saying in Baltimore: if it smells like ammo-
nia, leave it alonia.
The death scent. Once the crab has reached this state it is no longer safe to eat. Hell, some folks won't eat a crab unless it can bite them back, preferring the underwater spider to be alive until they can find a boiling pot of water to drop it into.
The teacher has trouble getting the class to settle, partly because she's going through post-acute suboxone with-drawal, but mostly because a student named Bernard, with the voice of an angel, has diverted the attention of the entire class.
Callinectes sapidus.

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

A beautiful day to cut a bunch of molding in the backyard!

Screenshot of weather app: 90°, RealFeel 109°

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

This is also what I said to my gf when she looked suspicious when I told her about the crowds at my and @housleydave.bsky.social’s readings in Morgantown, Pittsburgh, and Columbus.

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Ignoring that I'm pretty sure this is AI so that I can hold onto my story being "brilliant."

Something about a Short Story, Long story

Aaron Burch's Two Tacos reads like a fever dream—and in many ways it is a fever dream.
In this daring and humorous piece, our main character tries to quell the monotony of his life by taking an edible and ordering an inordinate amount of food from Taco Bell. Then, he drives to his office, and—while eating his way through his order—recalls events about his life.
It is a strikingly mundane story, one where nothing critical ever happens, but it is also a fiercely introspective piece of narration. It does not aestheticize itself with philosophical grandness, but it does not fade under austerity either. Burch manages to meld creative insight and self-epiphany in this very funny story that culminates with a man almost choking to death on the meal he ordered while high on edibles. It is both absurd, and brilliant. I really enjoyed reading it.

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Aaron Burch @aaronburch.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

A handful of people have highlighted liking the intros to stories on SSL, and it makes me really happy! They (as well commissioning original art and also follow-up interviews with the authors), started as just trying to come up with ideas to encourage ppl to read + what would excite me as a writer.