• Michael on NPR's All Things Considered
NPR's Madeleine Brand interviews Michael about Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard) for All Things Considered.
Listen to the interview, read about the project, and watch the slideshow build-out.
• Rave of Dear Everybody in The Believer
a "curatorial masterpiece"
• "Minute Waltz: Local Novelist Michael Kimball Pieces Together a New Kind of Film Narrative in 60 Writers/60 Places"
City Paper's Bret McCabe says, "60 Writers is a wonderful example of literary thinking becoming a visual language." He calls both "Smash" and "60" "disarmingly engaging" and that both films "subtly acc[rue] an emotive force." Plus, he describes Michael as "a tall man of almost instant affability."
• Michael featured in Poets & Writers
Suzanne Pettypiece's profile "Beyond Words" about writers who practice other arts. There's a two-page+ interview where Michael talks about painting.
• Dear Everybody named one of the "25 Important Books of the 00s" at HTMLGIANT
• Dear Everybody is on Flavorwire's Ultimate Hipster Reading List
• A bunch of suicide letters from Dear Everybody up at Vice, courtesy of the benevolent NY Tyrant
• Michael will judge Baltimore's first Literary Death Match with Jessica Henkin and Rafael Alvarez (sponsored by Opium Magazine)
A City Paper Critic's Pick
• Dear Everybody reviewed in Word Riot
John Madera says Dear Everybody is "forever embedded in my brain"
• City Paper's rave review of I WILL SMASH YOU (critic's pick)
"what emerges from these brief snippets are miniature personality portraits of human beings. It's a misdirection approach to humanity that snugly gels with Kimball's recent endeavors. His output over the past two years or so--2008's Dear Everybody, a novel of suicide notes; his ongoing, and recently expanded, "Michael Kimball Writes Your Life (on a postcard)" project; his next collaborative movie project with [Luca] Dipierro, 60 WRITERS/60 PLACES--are conceptual conceits, but they would be merely clever if they didn't smuggle intimate interpersonal contraband in the process."
"Kimball and Dipierro have put together a collection of money shots that make you care about who's coming and why. ... Smash offers vicarious thrills--personal fave is local author Betsy Boyd mirthfully demolishing her car--but it's the reasons why that stay with you when all that's left is rubble."
• The L Magazine
"Kimball's writing flourishes ... painting a sadly beautiful picture of a childhood and life"
• Video Review @ Shape of a Box
"A beautiful book, inside and out"
• Bard on Chinese
"Dear Everybody ... touches the heart of hearts ... snowflake-like letters ... exquisite ... the innermost feelings of real feeling ... "
• Jen Michalski at JMWW interviews Michael about why he opened the life story project to everybody who wants one or wants to write one
• The Faster Times: "Michael Kimball is a badass."
• Bloomington Public Library
"Your heart will ache for Jonathon as he misinterprets the world and struggles to find his place within it."
• The Lesser of Two Equals review of Dear Everybody
"Kimball’s background as a poet is apparent in his ability to isolate and frame small moments of a particular character’s experience. Fine attention to detail is exercised both as an art and as a special effect ... It has a surprisingly strong dark humor for being about such a serious topic, his observations are keen and quirky, and he knows how to let imagery make a scene swell. ... This writing spree [Jonathon's suicide letters] has all the highs and lows of a drug binge."
• This Blog Will Change Your Life
Ben Tanzer calls Michael "the dark overlord of all things writing, film and interview" and calls DEAR EVERYBODY "moving, even paralyzing"--and notes that "pain can be captured on the page both sparsely and lyrically, an achievement that is magical."
• Barrelhouse Mixtape: Indie Lit in Charm City
Barrelhouse Magazine just put up its first Mixtape, which focuses on indie lit in Baltimore. Michael talks with them about Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard) and Mike Ingram reads the postcard life story of Barrelhouse Magazine.
• Writers on Writing
Michael's new interview column at The Faster Times. Read recent interviews with Gary Lutz, Blake Butler, Rachel Sherman, and Laura van den Berg.
• Best of Baltimore
Michael is City Paper's Best Literary Agent of Change
• Full of Crow Interview Series
Peter Schwartz and Michael talk about other people, their stories, things to do with sledgehammers, and being honest.
• Profile of Michael's three novels and other projects in the Mexican journal Letras Libres
Mauricio Montiel Figueiras calls Michael "one of the authentic innovators in contemporary fiction," compares him to Raymond Carver and Italo Calvino, and says his writing "sings the most intimate tragedies of the Great American Family." Figueiras ends the profile with this: Michael Kimball "is already delivering the future of the novel."
• CBS Radio in Dallas interviews Michael
• The UK paperback of Dear Everybody now available
• Dear Everybody: UK Blog Tour Wrap Up
• Nik Perring interviews Michael
"The most recent socks-knocker-offer was Dear Everybody by Michael Kimball. It's right up there with the best I've read. Ever."
• The View From Here reviews Dear Everybody
"a quiet tour de force" -- "Writing a novel with a moral centre without being ‘preachy’ is not easy. Michael Kimball deserves great praise."
• Thunk Interview
Ryan Manning asked Michael some questions for his interview blog, Thunk, and he tried to answer them. The questions are more difficult than they first appear to be.
• Review in Trestle: Taking the Epistolary Form to a Special Place
• Katrina Denza: Illuminate; Ruminate; Create review
Dear Everybody is a "brilliantly designed novel ... It left me feeling as if the author left a huge chunk of his heart on the page and it is this generosity and depth that left me stunned."
• In Spring It Is Dawn reviews Dear Everybody
Dear Everybody is "a touching story of human relationships and how they can go wrong, and a story which made me stop to ponder the long-lasting effects our actions can have on others."
• Interview and Publishing Exclusives in Just William's Luck
William Rycroft and Michael discuss how the book took shape, unreliable narrators, and writing about mental illness. Plus, the interview includes a six-word story and a couple of other publishing exclusives.
• Writing Neuroses interviews Michael
Kay Sexton asks some really smart questions about structure, the great American novel (and its antithesis), and ghastly characters.
• Some letters concerning Michael Kimball and Dear Everybody
Elizabeth Baines writes that Dear Everybody is "striking, witty, and above all moving. ... And here’s the most impressive thing to me – what Michael Kimball has done is to portray formally the fragmentation of a life (yet in a holistic and wholly satisfying way) – something which the form of a traditional novel would belie."
• How Michael Made Fiona Robyn Cry on Planting Words
"This is Michael Kimball. ... He made me cry by creating a character called Jonathon, and making me care about him as if he were a member of my own family." Dear Everybody is "sweet, sad and completely authentic."
• Review in Digital Fiction Show
Dear Everybody "lives in the head of the reader after we have read it ... The letters combine to create a wonderful resonance that feels immensely vivid and real ... a lot of writers will read Dear Everybody wishing they had thought of something like this themselves."
• Lizzy's Literary Life reviews Dear Everybody
"unputdownable ... the most searingly honest and authentic sentiments I have ever read ... I had to pick myself up off the floor at the end ... easily the best read of 2009 thus far."
• An interview in Lizzy's Literary Life
Michael and Lizzy Siddal have cream tea and discuss the unspoken.
• Top 5: Novels that You May Not Have Heard Of in 3:AM Magazine
Michael wrote a Top 5 (novels that you may not have heard of) for 3:AM Magazine. Plus, there's a bonus Top 5 for people who have heard of the first Top 5.
• 349 Pieces: On Writing Dear Everybody in The View From Here
Michael talks about how he tries "to let a novel tell me what it is going to be." It's called "349 Pieces" because that's how many pieces make up the novel.
• Susan Tomaselli of Dogmatika talks with Michael -- and more
Michael did an interview with Susan Tomaselli for Dogmatika. And then Susan Tomaselli did something amazing with the questions and answers. In the spirit of Dear Everybody, she spliced that interview with photos and reviews and postcards and trailers and her own notes. Plus, she mentions a connection to Oulipo, the first person to make that true observation. Plus, the piece mentions that HTMLGIANT named Michael the International King of Postcards.
• Me and My Big Mouth interviews Michael
Scott Packs asks, among other things, whether Michael would hug or slap Jonathon Bender if he took corporeal form.
• Scott Pack reviews Dear Everybody in Me and My Big Mouth
"A wonderful, clever, imaginative and moving book. It really is quite something ... a fucking marvelous book."
• Just William's Luck reviews Dear Everybody
"the perfect way to tell the story of a man who has fallen through the net"
• A video of Michael's conversation with Bethanne Patrick on WETA's The Book Studio
Bethanne concludes: "I don’t always say this, so I hope you will indulge me: Read Dear Everybody. It is a work of literary inventiveness and great compassion."
• Review in Citizen Dick
"stunning...Kimball has crafted an unconventional masterpiece"
• Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard) profiled in The Guardian
• Review of Dear Everybody in The LA Times
"funny and warm and sad and heartbreaking"
• Time Out New York - Fall Books Preview
"Missive Impossible: Michael Kimball Reinvents the Suicide Note"
Profile & Review by Michael Miller, Books Editor, TONY
• Review in The Star-Democrat
"elegantly and eloquently written ... It's an unforgettable book ... I highly recommend it"
• A. Jarrell Hayes profiles Michael in Examiner.com
• Fictionaut interviews Michael
Michael talks about a few books that he wishes he had written and what he would do if he weren't a writer
• Apostrophe Cast interviews Michael
Michael answers whether he ever had a crush on a literary celebrity
• Caroline Leavitt interviews Michael at Carolineleavittville
"Read this Book": "Dear Everybody is inventive, ingenious and downright irresistible, a series of letters left behind that present an astonishing life."
• Listen to Michael read at Apostrophe Cast
"In this intimate epistolary novel, a mentally ill weather man radiates crystalline awareness and luminous delusion while his family and others who knew him try to make sense of his tragic life. Both gloomy and amusing, Kimball's flurry of short short stories remind us of the necessity of communicating and the daunting difficulty of truly connecting."
• Interview with Michael in Lucy Magazine
• Review in Bookgeeks
"very affecting, warm" and "wry and funny and sweet"
• Free signed copy of Dear Everybody at Bookgeeks!
• A Review and Fan Letter in Minnesota Reads
• Michael named "International King of Postcards" at HTMLGIANT
"The scope of the thing is just kind of flabbergasting: Kimball as a filter for all these people’s years. I can’t imagine anyone else capable of such an undertaking."
• Dear Everybody is "one of the hottest, most innovative books of the year"
• Review in The Junction
5 stars (out of 5): "beautifully heartbreaking" and "a genuine discovery"
• Interview in Hobart
"Dear Everybody is about a weatherman who commits suicide, and it is heart-achingly good."
• Review in The Rundown
one of their recommended "gripping books for fall"
• Review of Dear Everybody in The Citizen
"Kimball does a superb job"
• Michael's Word reading a TIme Out New York "Critic's Pick"
"Kimball’s book, Dear Everybody, is a truly moving and often hilarious epistolary novel"
• Review and Profile in City Paper
"Human Destiny Starkly Illuminated"
• Michael's KGB reading a NY Magazine "Editors' Recommendation"
• Dear Everybody takes "The Page 99 Test"
• Radio Interview on City Pulse on the Air
• Review and Profile in City Pulse
Kimball "scores a hit"
• Review of Dear Everybody in JMWW
"Kimball has written a book of beauty."
• Review of Dear Everybody in Baltimore Magazine
"Lightning has struck again with this Baltimorean's book."
• Michael's Lit Crawl reading a TIme Out New York "Critic's Pick"
• Michael reads from Dear Everybody on WYPR's The Signal
• Michael is an Indie Heartthrob!
John Zuarino interviews Michael for Bookslut's Indie Heartthrob Series
• Interview in Word Riot
Josh Maday and Michael talk a lot about Dear Everybody, but also about Faulkner, Beckett, and Andre the Giant
• Interview in the Sunday edition of The Baltimore Sun
Dave Rosenthal, the Managing Editor, interviews Michael in the print edition and on their books blog, Read Street
• Featured Author at Keyhole Magazine
Includes a review of Dear Everybody, an interview with Michael (a podcast and transcript), a conversation between Michael and Karen Lillis about "Form and Feeling," and an excerpt from Dear Everybody
• Playlist for Dear Everybody at Largehearted Boy's Book Notes
An author creates and discusses a music playlist that is in some way relevant to their recently published book. Largehearted Boy's David Gutowski says: "Dear Everybody is a cleverly constructed book that balances pathos and humor exquisitely, and proves Michael Kimball to be a master storyteller."
• Review of Dear Everybody in New Pages
"an addictive read"
• Review of Dear Everybody and Interview in Shooting Stars Mag
• Review of Dear Everybody on WYPR
“quite a literary feat … the character of Jonathon Bender is stripped down to his emotional core.”
• Travel Profile in The Examiner
Rafael Alvarez (one of the writers who made The Wire great) writes a profile in the Sunday edition of The Examiner. It's about the cross-country trip Michael took to revise the first draft of The Way the Family Got Away.
• The Urbanite Magazine #51 (September 2008)
An Interview with Michael that covers a lot of ground -- everything from his first novel to Dear Everybody to what he eats for breakfast
• An early review of Dear Everybody in the Greenpoint Gazette
"inventive and often extremely funny, but it will also break your heart"
• “One of the best reads ever”
R., Hey Josh
• “A masterly written work of art”
Ane Steenkamp, Life After School
• BooksQuarterly
"Quirky, and idiosyncratic, this is a very amusing novel that is oddly endearing, and conceals a warm heart beneath its wit."