Tag: davy mcnell

  • “The universe is broken”: The story behind the story

    “The universe is broken”: The story behind the story

    Electric Literature does a weird thing where they give a different title to the webpages that have their stories than the story actually has and use that in their promotion for the story. A couple years ago, they did this with Elizabeth Campbell’s story, “The Big Bang” giving an alternate title of “A busted family in…

  • “Place de Stalingrad”: The story behind the story

    In both Paris and Brussels, there are metro stops called “Stalingrad,” a fact I found fascinating, especially since the city of Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd in the wave of de-Stalinization under Nikita Krushchev. On my last visit to Paris, I decided I had to see what was at the stop with this name so one evening…

  • “The Norton Anthology of Self-Destructive Behavior”: The story behind the story

    This story was one that unfolded itself gradually over time. It started with the title which came to me one day during a residency  for my MFA. I wrote down the title and even got so far as writing down a list of self-destructive behaviors, but put it aside for a while after that. I picked…

  • “Saint Anthony in West Hollywood”: The Story Behind the Story

    My newest story, “Saint Anthony in West Hollywood” is up now at The Rappahannock Review. I began with a vague notion of a saint in the modern world, or perhaps someone who was delusional and just thought he was the saint, leaving the truth purposefully indeterminate. I had no idea which saint or where. Then…