Aaron Tillman | Haunted Waters Press

MEET Aaron Tillman

Aaron Tillman lives in Boston and teaches writing at UMass Amherst. His short story collection, Consolation Miracles, is forthcoming from Gateway Literary Press (January 2022); his book of critical nonfiction, Magical American Jew, was published by Lexington Books in 2018, and his short story collection, Every Single Bone in My Brain, was published by Braddock Avenue Books in 2017. He is a 2019 and 2018 Pushcart Prize nominee, and he has recorded a few stories for radio broadcast. His fiction and essays have appeared in a variety of journals and magazines.

Published by Haunted Waters Press

Soiling the Tree of Knowledge
"ALTHOUGH SHE WON’T say it out loud, or much of anything out loud these days, I’m pretty sure that Vera has given up on me, communicating mostly through silent exasperation: an assortment of impressively nuanced sighs and almost imperceptible swivels of her head. The occasional Why now to lose your ever-loving mind? Abe was my answer du jour. Sure, marital tensions and challenges existed before my uncle moved in, but now that he was here, Abe was the default affliction. Default impediment. Unpredictable and confrontational enough to silence and unnerve. Days after he moved in, he watched me spill a silky bag of fruit into a ceramic bowl and said “Cortland’s a bullshit apple.” When I squinted back at him, he waved his gnarled hand and left the kitchen."
Aaron Tillman, Soiling the Tree of Knowledge
Tin Can Literary Review Volume One

Tin Can Literary Review Volume One, 2021

"Haunted Waters Press has a beautiful platform and an incredible diversity of publications and published works. Online and in print, the stories and poems I've read have inspired and excited and haunted my mind in all the right ways, as only the best literature can do." Aaron Tillman

Publications, Awards, & Recognition

Believing the Attic —Harpur Palate, 2018
John Gardner Memorial Prize for Fiction —Harpur Palate, 2018
Chronicles of a Kitchen Wall —The Mississippi Review, 2017
By Virtue of What Is Imagined —Narrative Magazine, 2017.
Solo —upstreet, 2017
The Bassinet —Sou’wester, 2017
Vacancy —The Tishman Review, 2016
When the Books Turned into Butterflies —The Gateway Review, 2016
Inside Voice —Shadowgraph Quarterly, 2016
High Holy Days —The Timberline Review, 2016
Every Single Bone in My Brain —Arcadia Magazine, 2015
My Daughter’s Music —The Madison Review, 2015
Smiling —Crossborder, 2015
One Rib Short —Microchondria II, 2015
Momma Had a Baby —Fine Linen Literary Journal, 2015
The B’Jesus —great weather for MEDIA, 2014
How Do You Mind the Symptoms of a World So Black and Mysterious and Cold? —Burrow Press Review, 2014.
More Than a Kick —Prick of the Spindle, 2013.
Urges and Monsters —Scrivener Creative Review, 2013.
Nobody’s God —The Ocean State Review, 2011
Nancy Potter Short Story Contest Winner —University of Rhode Island, 2010
Heeding Doctor Eisner —The Drum Literary Magazine, 2010.
Song for Sol —Opium Magazine, 2009.
By Virtue of What Is Imagined —The Carolina Quarterly, 2005
The Great Salt Lake Desert —Glimmer Train Stories, 2002
Short-Story Award for New Writers —Glimmer Train Stories, 2002

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