Testimonials

“A fantastic writer.” —Giancarlo DiTrapano, editor of Tyrant Books

“What a pleasure to read this odd, visionary work!"Charlotte Pence, poet and author of Code

“Cinematic. . . devastatingly honest”Fourth Genre

"‘What We Have Seen Waiting for the War to End’ is a very good story. . . it felt like good journalism."Redivider

"Mesmerizing. Wonderful writing and material."StoryQuarterly

"Extremely interesting idea. . . voice is fantastic."Boston Review

"A persuasive narrative voice similar to John Banville and Paul Auster."New Writing (UK)

"You have generated a lot of discussion among our pool of readers." American Short Fiction

"Reading ‘ Dim Conflagration’ is the closest experience one can have to what it is actually like to write like Nabokov." The King’s English

Why subscribe?

I have always resonated with Joan Didion’s admission: “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking.”

As I look back and come to understand the path my life has taken, it seems somewhat inevitable that I became a writer.

Collected Uncollected is my Substack offering writing tips, knowledge, and speculative thoughts about writing and the writing process. My goal is to share insights from my fifteen plus years of writing and publishing.

For about ten years I wrote a blog, The Literary, which I found an essential outlet for all of the writing that I inevitably did that I could not place in literary journals. It was usually the writing that I had to write, for whatever reason, that I was compelled to write. I came to enjoy this kind of thinking in the margins and found that I was good at it. I may have first done it only for myself, but I also felt compelled to share it. Writing is the most selfish of acts that then passes in front of the eyes of others and if you (the writer) are lucky enough, your words get taken into the heads of your readers. This might be my selfish motivation, trying to reach someone sympathetic, or curious, someone who will be interested in exploring these thoughts with me. And the discipline of thinking, for me, is inextricably linked to writing. In other words, when I have a problem to work out, after a lot of thought—or maybe only a little—I'm compelled to reach for a pen. In fact, I still write my drafts the old-fashioned way, with a pen and paper. This keeps me closer to that idea of writing to find out what I think.

About me

I have published nationally and internationally, fiction, poetry, essays, and reviews in over seventy-five literary journals and publications, and am the author of the novel IMPOSSIBLE LIVES OF BASHER THOMAS (Figureground Press). Journals include Antioch ReviewPleiadesSanta Monica ReviewSoutheast Review, and The Southampton Review. Among online literary journals, my work has appeared in Akashic Books ThursdazeFjords ReviewNewfoundNew Orleans ReviewThe Smart Set, and numerous others. My short stories have been finalists on two occasions for the New Letters Literary Awards and nominated for the Best of the Net, and a story collection was a finalist for the Acacia Fiction Prize from Kallisto Gaia Press, and a semifinalist for the Hudson Prize from Black Lawrence Press. I have written journalism for the San Francisco Chronicle, and Yahoo!, and have been a regular contributor to Rain Taxi Review of BooksNomadic Press, and the Superstition Review Blog. I have attended writing conferences at the Abroad Writers’ Conference in Chiang Mai, Thailand, working with celebrated authors Chris Abani and Rebecca Walker, and, at the Virginia Quarterly Review, working with legendary short story writer Amy Hempel. I received an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College and hold a degree in architecture from the University of Michigan. I grew up in Flint, Michigan, and currently reside in Oakland, California.

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Writing about Writing: Dispatches on Craft, Process and Inquiry

People

Robert Detman has published short fiction, essays, and reviews in myriad literary journals, including Antioch Review, Pleiades, Santa Monica Review, Southeast Review, and The Southampton Review. medium.com/notes-from-burmaunderground