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We bid bade farewell to the old year and rang in the new in a way we’ve grown quite accustomed to, attending the last two nights of Donna the Buffalo‘s three-night run at Skipper’s Smokehouse in Tampa. We’ve spent many a New Year’s Eve with this amazing band from central New York, and hope to spend many more. A catsquatch sighting during Sunday’s show certainly seems ominous, however.

But one day into 2013, and so far so good. I’ve dusted off my hang glider for a leap over the fiscal cliff. Besides that, there’s a number of things in the works: a short bit of folkloric fiction for an anthology, a piece about being a dog owner, and a short story that may never see the light of day at this rate.

More pressing, perhaps, is the upcoming Writers in Paradise conference, which marks my second year of attendance.

On the extreme likelihood that I’ll have nothing new to report this month, I thought I’d share a snippet of George Saunders reading from his short story, “Victory Lap,” at one of the January 2012 Lectores readings, sponsored by the MFA program at the University of Tampa. You can see more videos like this one at the UT website.

By the way, I have no affiliation with the University of Tampa. But I did have the opportunity last year to meet with Jeff Parker, the MFA director there, when the program was just getting off the ground. He shared some interesting ideas about steering the low-residency writing program model in new directions. I’d recommend anyone interested in pursuing a low-res MFA take a look at the University of Tampa.