Jess Bowers

The HORSE SHOW reading tour gallops onward with a trip to Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, MO on 9/19, where I’m the featured guest for the Dorothy and Wedel Nilsen Visiting Writer Series!

I’ll be reading from HORSE SHOW at 3:30 PM at SEMO’s Catapult Creative House, which is located at 612 Broadway in Cape Girardeau. I’ll also have copies on hand for sale and signage.

Many thanks to fellow fictioneer and general awesome guy James Brubaker, as well as the rest of the English faculty at SEMO for hosting!

I was also interviewed by Matthew Schmidt for 1 Week Critique’s Interview Series earlier this month! 1-Week Critique (1WC) is “a 501(c)(3) nonprofit editing studio, which aims to provide literary education and pedagogical support to writers.” In the Interview Series, “our editors discuss editorial process with established writers, comparing, in particular, an early and published draft of a given piece of work.”

My “drafts” tend to be these Frankenstein’s Creature documents where I cobble together a lot of raw material, found text, quotes, etc., until I figure out what I’m doing, so I had fun trying to explain my strange process while researching/writing what became my (Pushcart-nominated!) story “One Trick Pony.”

Watch/listen to our conversation right here, and then do yourself a favor and delve into the deep well of author interviews, craft advice, and other free resources for writers at 1 Week Critique!

If you’ve finished reading HORSE SHOW, you can get a taste of where my writing’s going next in the inaugural issue of Blue Press: The Literary Magazine of Debut Authors, out August 26th!

Blue Press is a new UK-based print publication that features work by authors debuting full-length books during the year that each issue is published.

Enhanced by an original ouroboros-inspired illustration from Bristol-based artist Alex Dimond, my new short story “Snake” explores what happens after a romantic relationship fizzles and a once-beloved serpentine pet is left behind.

Although I haven’t seen it in person yet (the picture at left is from Blue Press’s Twitter account) I’m thrilled with how “Snake” looks on the page. I’m also beyond excited to have work in a journal alongside Jessica Manack, a fellow Hollins University M.A. Class of ’03 alum and part of the 1980s Jessica army.

Manack is a Pittsburgh-based writer whose delicious debut collection, GASTROMYTHOLOGY, is out now from Sheila-Na-Gig Editions. You can sample one of her poems, “That Kind of Night,” at Blue Press’s website right now!

To get your copy of Blue Press’s debut issue featuring “Snake,” contact the editors via their website. And if you’ve got a book coming out in 2025, consider submitting some work to them! Blue Press has been so lovely to work with, and it’s a great concept for a literary journal.

More readings/appearances to support HORSE SHOW are in the works this fall, both in-person and virtual, Midwestern and East Coast. Stay tuned for more details as I have them!

One of the best “fringe benefits” of publishing HORSE SHOW has been getting more chances to shine the spotlight on fellow writers!

Today over at Heavy Feather Review, you can read my review of Katharine Coldiron’s Wire Mothers, a delightfully odd new short story collection that you can finish in the span of a long, hot bath. Check it out here, then head over to Whisk(e)y Tit to order yourself a copy.

Meanwhile, Shepherd.com asked me to join their “Best Books of 2023” initiative and recommend my three favorite reads from 2023. As you can see above, my list includes Kathryn Scanlan’s Kick the Latch…but you’ll have to click this link to discover my other two picks!

More HORSE SHOW events are in the works for fall, including some readings…stay tuned!

This morning I had a great time guest-starring on episode 3,460 (!!!) of the podcast Horses in the Morning, the world’s leading daily morning podcast for the horse world with listeners in over 90 countries!

Billed as “A light, lively, entertaining look at the horse world and the people in it,”  the podcast features “entertaining conversation, out-of-the-ordinary guests, numerous regular horse-related segments, training tips, health segments, listener call-ins, contests, giveaways, and so much more.”

Host Glenn Hebert is originally from Lancaster, PA, literally just across the Susquehanna River from my hometown of York, PA (see what they did there?), so we had many horsey landmarks in common, from Fair Hill to the York Fair to the infamous New Holland Sales Stables, the largest livestock auction house on the East Coast. Several amazing horses I learned to ride on as a kid were rescued from New Holland, as was Hebert’s first driving pony.

In addition to chatting about Horse Show, Hebert retold the fascinating story of “One-Eyed Charley,” a famous stagecoach driver who left behind a lifetime of secrets…!

Follow this link to hear our conversation about horse history and Horse Show!

The York Daily Record, one of my hometown newspapers, was kind enough to interview me a few weeks ago for a “local kid makes good” story about Horse Show and my childhood in York, PA.

Lena Tzivekis’s story about me went out over the wire and got picked up by a few other local papers, including The Evening Sun, my mother’s hometown paper out of Hanover, PA. I guess it was a slow news day, because I ended up on the front page!

Here’s a hard copy, resplendent on my parents’ Pennsylvanian coffee table. My retired journalist father was especially pleased to see that I’m “above the fold.”

A link to the article is right here.

While at AWP earlier this spring, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by fellow short story author Jennifer Fliss over at Whale Road Review. Our wide-ranging conversation about how I wrote Horse Show is out now in Issue 35!

Fliss writes: “Jess Bowers’s Horse Show, published with SFWP (Santa Fe Writers Project) in April 2024, is a feat. In a slim but wholly dynamic collection, Bowers skillfully weaves stories from fact and her imagination to bring these incredible animals and compelling characters to explore the exploitation of horses in human industry. In riveting, intelligent, and heartbreaking scenes, Horse Show is like no other book I’ve read.”

High praise from an author I admire!

Be sure to check out Fliss’s own story collections, The Predatory Animal Ball and As If She Had A Say, both out now wherever books are sold!