Anyone who reads my books and flips to the acknowledgements page will know the name Evan Hartzell. He is married to my friend Laura Alvarez, another artist who is always in the acknowledgements. Laura and Evan were my housemates in college. They were my friends when we were nineteen turning twenty. Those were not easy days. Sharing them with Evan and Laura was helpful.

4 Facts about Evan Hartzell:

1. The music he makes with Laura and the Evan Hartzell Trio (buy here or here) is evocative, smooth, haunting, melodic. Every song is a different walking field trip Evan wants to take you on. You should go.

2. The first issue of Evan’s art and literary magazine Brackish debuted last month. Take a look: brackish vol. one. That’s right, free art. Thank Evan Hartzell for it. I know I do.

3. Evan Hartzell is a photographer. Check out his photographs here. You’ll wish you lived in the same world as he does. Well guess what, you do. He just notices it better.

4. One day in 1988 Evan Hartzell taught me one of the most important lessons of my own artist’s life. He said, “Don’t say what you are supposed to say.”

Simple advice. Incredibly difficult to follow. Every story I write, however, is an attempt.