Today, CHEAP POP published my micro-fiction "Polaroid Snapshot: Skinny Dipping in the Little Juniata River." You can read the story here. It's a quick read, so I hope you'll spend some time on their site and check out some of the other excellent micro and flash pieces over at CHEAP POP. It's an exciting way to kick... Continue Reading →
News and Website Updates
The first half of 2018 has gone at a breakneck pace, and it's brought a few bits of exciting news. With all those updates, it seemed like a good time to overhaul the website. Since I last wrote here, I've published a couple of new pieces of literary criticism, along with a new short story.... Continue Reading →
Favorite Fiction, Essays, and Poetry of 2017
Throughout the year, I had the best intentions to actually generate some material here on my blog. As a penance for missed time, I thought I'd close out the year by pointing to some favorite reads from 2017. There are two rules here: instead of the traditional "best of" lists that float around, everything on... Continue Reading →
News: “Lucky Strikes” and “Waking the Dreamer”
I'm excited to announce some recent publications! I'm excited to see both of these pieces out in the world. One is a short story, "Lucky Strikes," which you can find over at Souvenir Lit. (While you're there, be sure to check out the other fantastic work in the issue!) You can read "Lucky Strikes" here. The... Continue Reading →
Parody, Play, and the Dark Knight Detective
I was at a dim sum restaurant with my wife and a few friends yesterday when I learned that Adam West had passed away after a short battle with leukemia. I felt a strange jolt when I heard the news. It wasn't a surprise, necessarily: West was 88 years old, after all. So I didn't... Continue Reading →
Pizza Delivery, iPhone Recovery; or, Race & Privilege in America
Yesterday was a personal object lesson in racism and white privilege in America. In the early afternoon, I ordered a pizza for delivery; I would be tutoring a student that evening and my wife would be getting home late from a conference in DC, so I thought we would both appreciate the leftovers. Upon his arrival, the deliveryman called up,... Continue Reading →
News: Featured at Bucknell University Press
Of course, I've been neglecting the blog and my [very private] resolution about using my voice here. I'm interrupting that silence with a brief update. Recently, I've been featured at the Bucknell University Press's blog. The piece is based off an interview that Olivia Kalb, the Press's current graduate intern, conducted with me over email.... Continue Reading →
Snow Days
Writing a novel that's set in a humid, swampy summer feels otherworldly when you're snowbound. (And that's all I'll publicly say about the work-in-progress.) This has been my setup since Friday, when Winter Storm Jonas (or #Snowzilla2016, if you ask WaPo) surged into northern Virginia: sitting at my desk, slowly adding pages as the inches... Continue Reading →
Don’t Forgive: A Reaction to the Shooting at Emanuel A.M.E.
Six days have lapsed since Dylann Roof committed what I will only refer to as a hate crime and an act of domestic terrorism: the calculated murder of nine people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC. While the events were unfolding, I was copyediting a special cluster of academic articles, which studied the ways... Continue Reading →
Thoughts at the Public Library
Despite my best intentions, my blog has been quiet over the past few months. Sitting on the second storey of the Alexandria Public Library, I find myself considering this silence as I looked to the street below. Occasionally, a car blurs by. Tree branches bow in the breeze. The day has been cool and breezy, a necessary respite... Continue Reading →
Patrick Thomas Henry 