Michael Shum

Arm yourself as you desire
Look at this razor—just one swipe
Spills open the bowels of your neighbor
These are called
cutting remarks.

Of if you prefer blunt force
Here are our clubs—studded or smooth
(Studded is extra, by the way)

Read the rest in Eunoia Review

The street on which all the divining shops lay, Mannheim discovered, was in fact an alley off the main boulevard of the district. There were a half-dozen or so signs above storefronts, each advertising a particular technique or set of techniques: tarot cards, palm readings, the rolling of bones, etc. Mannheim immediately bypassed the tarot card shop, as thirty years in the gaming industry had convinced him beyond reasonable doubt that the way a set of cards fell could not convey anything of significance, ever. Instead, he entered the second shop—Madame Eckhardt, Empath, the sign read, under a meticulous rendering of a Ouija board, no appointment necessary—and found himself in a small, dark antechamber with maroon curtains.

Read the rest in Spolia Issue 10
Read my introduction to Queen of Spades on Spolia Tumblr

I prefer not to show the ocean how I feel deep down. I am very comfortable being close to boulders. Just when the sun starts to get close to me I find myself pulling away. I feel comfortable sharing my private thoughts and feelings with the hydrangea. I tell the hydrangea just about everything. For example: I do not often worry about being abandoned—I worry about being alone. I need a lot of reassurance that I am alive.

Read the rest in Your Impossible Voice Issue 5 | Listen

As one of the recipients of the 2014 John C. Hodges Graduate Writing Awards, I had the privilege of participating in a reading last night at Hodges Library on the UT campus with the other award winners: Genna Gazelka, Jake Ward, Katherine Ann Davis, Ben McClendon, and Christian Anton Gerard.  My reading of the first two pages of “The Disappearance of Herman Grimes” starts at approximately 31:00 in the video linked below.

2014 John C. Hodges Graduate Writing Awards Reading April 14, 2014

If you are attending AWP in Seattle this year, please consider joining us on Thursday, February 27 at 9:00 am to 10:15 am in Room 613/614 of the Washington State Convention Center, for our panel on how critical theory can potentially benefit our creative writing practice. The panelists include Jaclyn Watterson, Joe Mayers, Jessica Alexander, Richard Hermes, and myself.

Critical theory is considered by most writers to be at best an unnecessary and at worst harmful element in their creative work. This panel of writers explores the ways in which an understanding of theory may help inform us of the motives behind our own work, why we write, and even enrich our experience of creating that work. Writers may be wary of theory because of the various schools and the need to feel like you have to belong to one of them, but, in a sense, we belong to all of them.

For more information on the conference, please visit Association of Writers & Writing Programs

Question: Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Michael Shou-Yung Shum: I currently live in Knoxville and am a PhD student in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Tennessee. Other than writing, I love playing golf, gambling, and spending as much time as possible with my partner and our cats.

Q: Where did you grow up? Give us a quick snapshot of your life-story.

Mike: I was born and raised in Houston. I’ve also lived in Armonk (NY), Chicago, Seattle, and Corvallis (OR) at various points in my life. I was a rave DJ in my twenties, and I’ve also worked in advertising and as a poker dealer.

Read the rest of the interview on The Doctor TJ Eckleburg Review

As demonstrated in Dream Song 16, Berryman was quite ambivalent toward what it meant to be a celebrity poet in contemporary America.  In essence, he was to become, like Henry, a golden pelt hung on the wall at a sophisticated cocktail party, something for the cognoscenti barracuda to admire and whistle at before they drank their daiquiris and began to hit on one another, telling their lies.  Even so, aware of this potential fate, Berryman attacked his literary dreams with a seeming religious intensity—for the fate of the third servant, the one who had wasted his talent, was far worse: being cast in the outer darkness, with the requisite weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Read the rest in The Writer’s Chronicle October/November 2013

The atmosphere in the restaurant had been especially brutal for six weeks, since Herman’s wife had passed away. He’d been away an entire month, on bereavement leave. And then, barely recovered and somewhat bewildered why he was doing it, Herman Grimes had returned to work. That first week back had been awful, filled with so many gruesome gestures of commiseration from his regulars that they drove Herman entirely into his office. His teenaged employees treated him as if his misfortune were contagious, even using the customer bathroom to avoid crossing paths. The worst was Joe Cloud, his general manager, who had seemingly taken it upon himself to rehabilitate Herman’s psyche through sheer force of aphorism.

Read the rest in Midwestern Gothic Issue 10
Ploughshares Blog, Best Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week July 25, 2013
2014 John C. Hodges Graduate Writing Awards 2nd place in Fiction (Judge: Martin Griffin)

On a very cold day in December, Salvador called a meeting of the Science Club to inform us that he’d discovered a body in an alley several blocks from our junior high, frozen to the pavement behind the dumpsters. This was no ordinary body, he proclaimed, decayed beyond definition. You’re going to want to keep it when you see it. We were skeptical, to say the least. Because he wants to be a forensic pathologist when he grows up, Salvador feels qualified to make these kinds of sweeping statements.

Read the rest in The Doctor TJ Eckleburg Review Issue 18
2013 Gertrude Stein Award in Fiction 2nd place (Judge: Rick Moody)

Three times a week, Grandfather Chen would ferry the both of us in his enormous liability-ridden Cutlass Supreme–painted a lavish maroon, the interior laden with mountains of bundled newspapers that left the white leather permanently besmeared with ink residue–to the practice diamonds near Houston Baptist University, where I would be dropped off, smelling of fresh newsprint. Then he would leave to make his rounds.

Read the rest in Weave Issue 7
2011 Annie Dillard Award in Creative Non-Fiction Finalist (Judge: Ira Sukrungruang)