Here are two worthwhile and exciting and still-getting-their-sea-legs projects that I’m personally and professionally and spiritually invested in.

1. An anthology called American Writers on Class, featuring people like Matthea Harvey, Dorianne Laux, and myself. You should buy it because it’s a great book, about something important, and also you’d be supporting a wonderful new Brooklyn Indie Press (Big Wonderful Press) and its fantastic and committed editor Shelly Reed.

2. A Documentary being made on the Barkley Marathons!

See the trailer at Kickstarter, where you can donate to the project.

They feature my brother’s legs all torn up with saw briars, and even mention me in their “Inspiration” section.

If you’re interested, also check out Lily Brown’s excellent musings on being a writer and the internet and how the two might intersect. Her posts are up at the Michigan Quarterly.

So then I had this idea to make a blog-roll. I’ve always noticed these. You kind of declare your posse. I thought, even if my own website wasn’t that great, I could turn it into one of those shitty little towns that’s secretly a killer transportation hub. You don’t want to spend the night, but you can take a bus somewhere snazzy.

Like you can go to Tunes for Bears, my brother Julian’s blog about ultrarunning and development economics. Or my friend Colleen Kinder’s global headquarters—full of travel writing that busts the seams of ordinary travel writing, and such beautiful photos you will stay for a long time. Or Fashion for Writers, where my friend Jenny looks and writes hot,; or Large-Hearted Boy, that puts up soundtracks for works of fiction; or the Page 69 Test that is not what you think, and analyzes the 69^th page of books you’ve never heard of…Or the Claudius App, a new poetry journal, which—what to say about the Claudius App? It has a mysterious gray bar.

So go to. Get on the bus. Follow Rabbit Holes. Enjoy.

Exhibit A: In which I discuss Frida Kahlo’s corsets, generative pain, and highly personal color wheels at The Paris Review Daily.

Exhibit B: In which I discuss green Jell-O shots and and the living mythology of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at A Public Space.*

Exhibit C: In which I discuss my new neighborhood. Featuring squirrels, meat, and the catcalls of strangers. At The Nervous Breakdown.

Exhibit D: In which I discuss weddings and how it feels to attend them. This will most likely be the first in a thousand-part series. Also at The Nervous Breakdown.

*This post is part of a larger project celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop that can be found here, with awesome essays by Anthony Marra, Maggie Shipstead, Joyelle McSweeney (I loved this one a lot) and others.

Go to www.latenightlibrary.org to download a free copy of the podcast.

Like angels, they’ve appointed themselves curators of debut writers. They’ve got podcasts on Traci Brimhall’s Rookery, Kara Candito’s Taste of Cherry, Deanna Fei’s Thread of Sky, and more…

People love them, like Chang-rae Lee, who says: “Our culture desperately needs ventures like Late Night Library, which introduces new and emerging literary talents with substance and passion. Bravo!”

Erin and Paul are both bright and passionate readers; the podcast airs on Friday (the 30th). You can get it from their website: www.latenightlibrary.org.

Here are a few teasers: “I really perceive this book, to use the Greek term, as a series of dyads…There are all of these pairings in which two people have a relationship and there’s this attempt at intimacy, but then it’s never really quite achieved…Tilly’s relationship with alcohol, Tilly’s relationship with suicide, that desire to not be seen—all of these issues are filtered through the reality of what the character wants, what the character needs, and also what the character is afraid of…”

I’m grateful to Erin and Paul for getting in touch. Their project is awesome and I’m honored to be part of it.

It’s up at The Millions here.

Plus, a new review is out in the San Francisco Chronicle. It’s of The Lake, by Banana Yoshimoto, a book I was fascinated by but a little ambivalent about. Highlights: monkeys, murals, dark pasts, Japanese oddity and America’s relationship to Japanese oddity, etc.

Here it is.

Thanks to Brad and Jonathan for bringing me on board.

It’s about cookies, kitchen life, phone numbers, kohlrabi, and the midwest…

A few new pieces up, as well.

A mini fantasy library for Flavorwire on “Unlikely Heroines.” Some of my most-liked unlikeable ladies in literature.

An essay called “The Immortal Horizon” is out in The Believer. (But you can read the whole thing online.) It’s about The Barkley Marathons, a crazy ultramarathon in the backwoods of Tennessee, and has been getting some nice attention in the sports blogosphere–an utterly unknown horizon to me. (Some shout-outs here and here and here.) Plus, Graphic Novelist Warner Ellis calls it “the best thing you’ll read all day.”

“What’s important here is that Jamison does not flinch when she slices away the pale skin of her characters and reveals the bloody meat beneath.”

Amazing when someone describes your practice better than you can…

Read the whole review at The Iowa Review.

Thank you, Lucy!