D. A. Hosek

Just another writer

  • “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…

  • Writerly resolutions: June status

    Progress has slowed but not stalled on the novel. Rewriting chapter 26 is a challenge since I’ve also been reading multiple books about the Exodus 1947 which is at the center of the chapter which has often revealed details that required rewriting scenes as well as occasional direct contradictions between one source and the next. Rewriting the…

  • Something Interesting: Microwave Lasagna

    I’ve (finally) released the first post on my mailing list. It’s about microwave lasagna. There’s also a recommendation and a link to my latest story. 

  • Dewey Decimal Project: 910.45 DUN Pirate women : the princesses, prostitutes, and privateers who ruled the Seven Seas

    Looking for a different change of pace, for the 910s—Geography and Travel—I decided to give this book about women pirates a look. Of course, as Duncombe is quick to acknowledge, there is little information about her subject available. In some cases the “pirate” women (Duncombe is a bit expansive in her definition of pirate) may…

  • Dewey Decimal Project: 901 JAC Dark Age Ahead

    This was my first read for this project after the  ibrary reopened after the first Covid shutdown. In the apocalyptic summer of 2020, this seemed an appropriate introduction to the final 100 of the Dewey Decimal System—history. Written in 2004, Jacobs was warning of an impending “dark age” where we wiykd see a collapse of society…

  • Writerly resolutions: May status

    I continue to make progress on the novel, with the first draft of chapter 26 done. It’s a big chapter—28 pages—so reading what I have in preparation for the second draft rewrite is taking a while and I keep making changes as I do my research (this is probably the best-documented historical event in the…

  • Dewey Decimal Project: 892.1 GIL Þ

    For a long time, I had managed to confuse in my mind Gilgamesh and Beowulf, most likely because of the earliness of the two narratives. I did puzzle about how I had managed to miss the flood story in Beowulf, not realizing my mistake. But then, I have a long history of this sort of…

  • Dewey Decimal Project: 882 EUR Iphigeneia at Aulis

    Greek literature gets its own decade in the 800s and I decided to pull this one off the shelf since (a) I’ve heard the title before (thanks to an assortment of operas whose titles I’ve heard even if I’ve never seen/heard any of them) and (2) it was reasonably short. Many of the classic Greek stories…

  • “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…