Jeff Goldstein is a writer living in Colorado. Before the birth of his son, he spent most of his time teaching at a private university and writing short fiction. These days, he finds himself doing a lot of very simple shape puzzles and (when his mind wanders) looking for instances of subversively placed anti-capitalist, pro-progressive agitprop in shows like “Higglytown Heroes” — if only as a way to keep his critical faculties sharp (and to keep himself distracted while he’s changing back-loaded diapers).

Jeff got his Bachelor’s from Towson University (MD), where he received a Dean of Liberal Arts scholarship and graduated with both general and departmental honors (with an emphasis on the fiction of Flannery O’Connor); he did his graduate work at Johns Hopkins and the University of Denver, and spent two summers at The School of Criticism and Theory, Cornell University, where he studied under Walter Benn Michaels and Catherine Gallagher.

He also devised and co-chaired an international conference on the intersection between creative writing and theory that has since become a signature event of the DU English Department (most recently held in Oct 2005).

His published fiction has appeared in a number of academic journals — the kinds read by other short story writers but, sadly, no one else. He’s also won a number of awards too insignificant to appear on certificates that aspire to embossing or caligraphy — though some of the awards did pay a modest sum, blessed be the Lord, amen.

Some of the writers Jeff studied under are Rikki Ducornet, Beth Nugent, Brian Kiteley,* and Brian Evenson

You can read some of Jeff’s short fiction (in Word format): Isaac and Rachel: A Love Song, “The Last Brunch”, “Graduation”, and “Unlimited Semiosis”. Portions of his novella, Brautigan, Revisited, you can find online here.

*I recently received an email from one of my old writing teachers asking that he be removed from any association with me. So, while I did in fact study with him, we’re to pretend that I didn’t. After all, one can hardly be expected to keep up the veneer of intellectualism if they are caught consorting with people whose speech they disagree with.