I ran into Alex Parsons in Austin last week, which reminded me that I’d yet to mention his second novel, In the Shadows of the Sun, here. This follow-up to Leaving Disneyland, which won the 2000 AWP Award for the novel, was nominated for the 2005 National Book Critics Circle Award and the 2005 National Book Award, and it was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. You can read an excerpt here.

Also, Bruce Bauman‘s much-talked-about novel from Other Press, And the Word Was, is now out in paperback, so if you’re on a grad school budget and didn’t read it the first time around, now’s your chance. The reviewer for the LA Times had this to say about And the Word Was:

Confidently and profoundly exploring the languages of grief, guilt, ravaged memory and lost faith, Bauman’s debut novel traverses the psyche of a man whose personal diaspora and reconnection to the world quietly alter our perception of our own.

There’s also very good news for readers who loved Sheri Joseph‘s debut story cycle, Bear Me Safely Over, but I don’t know if I’m allowed to mention it yet, so, for the moment, I’ll just let you wonder.

And I stopped by Dan Wickett‘s blog to talk about AWP yesterday. Discussed: my embarrassing fifth-grade groupie moment, happy hour at a little shack called Moonshine, and the long overdue spending of frequent flyer miles. Check out Dan’s post today about Brock Clarke‘s short story, “The Price of the Haircut.”