About Me

Books

In Those Fading Stars: This collection of short fiction contains stories that straddle the line between magical realism, science fiction, and horror. A father who must trade a week of his own life to keep his son alive one day at a time. Three robots conducting a seance. A couple on a budget Honeymoon to another planet confronted by a living acidic gas cloud. A world where humans molt like cicadas. There are no limits to what these stories contain, the darkness they probe, or the characters at their center.

The Neverborn Thief: When young Connor Brighton woke in the middle of the night to discover his shadow being stolen, he found himself thrust on a perilous quest into the treacherous Shadowlands in pursuit of the thief to get it back. As he establishes tenuous friendships with denizens of the Shadowlands he doesn't know if he can trust, will he recover the part of himself that was stolen before who he is vanishes forever?

Gollitok: In a post-nuclear Eastern Europe, Hammel E Varka departs for a remote island to join a survey team cataloguing the abandoned Gollitok prison in the hopes that he will redeem his family’s tarnished reputation. After the passage across the strait leaves a team member injured, Varka quickly realizes that this survey is far from routine and that what he thought he knew about the island was a cover for more horrifying truths. As his team presses deeper into the decaying facility, hidden agendas splinter the team, and they find themselves beset with dangers beyond their worst nightmares.

The Mobius Door: Tucked away in the foothills, surrounded by pine forests, loaded with kids who still play outside, Millwood is the small town everyone knows. The local deputies grapple with petty vandalism and local drunks. The local teachers know the name of every kid in town. For Heather Bradley, it's a place that keeps her family safe and their lives in order; her biggest worries are the daily grind of her job and the kids coming home late. She doesn't know that unfathomable forces are set to converge on her town and thrust their neat lives into darkness, but when her oldest son Stuart opens a one-sided door in the woods and a black cloud pours out, the Bradleys and their whole town find themselves locked in a desperate struggle for survival. As the chaos grows and the nature of the real threat emerges, the only question becomes whether or not come morning the town will exist at all.

Andrew Najberg is also the author of two volumes of poetry: The Goats Have Taken Over the Barracks (Finishing Line Press, 2021) and the chapbook of poems Easy to Lose (Finishing Line Press 2007).

Poems

Though my poems have a wide range of influences including Kathleen Driskell, Jack Gilbert, Stan Rice, Dorianne Laux, Emily Dickinson, Tomas Morin, Federico Garcia Lorca, Seth Michelson, Debra Kang Dean, Molly Peacock, Greg Pape and many more, I would say my single greatest debt is to the late Art Smith whose collections The Late World and The Fortunate Era I regard as among the finest collections among the last fifty years.

My poetry has appeared in dozens of literary journals in print and online. Most recently, I appeared in the June 2022 issue of North American Review and the Winter issues of Asheville Poetry Review and Good River Review, and in April, my poem "Fighting Fermi" won grand prize in the Brain Mills Press National Poetry Month Competition.

The poem on the Brain Mills Press site: http://bmpvoices.com/author/mainbrainbrainmillpress-com/

A reading of the poem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVlTWaqVYlM

In addition, my poems have appeared in places such as Cimarron Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Yemassee, Louisville Review, Bat City Review and many more. I received an AWP Intro Award for my poem The Goats Have Taken Over the Barracks in 2010.

Short Stories

My short fiction has been inspired by a wide array of authors. However, my most immediate influences include Aimee Bender, Haruki Murakami, George Saunders, Michael Knight, Jeff Vandermeer, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Yoko Ogawa, and Sayaka Murata. At the same time, my interests in fiction are also steeped in classic authors, especially in the realms of science fiction, horror, and fantasy, including Ursula K. Le Guin, Hawthorne, Poe, Clarke, Asimov, Tolkien, and many others.

My short fiction ranges from the absurd, surreal, and magical real to science/speculative fiction and horror. My first published piece of short fiction appeared in Fleas on the Dog in March 2021 and many more since including The Wondrous Real, Psychopomp Magazine, Prose Online, Utopia Science Fiction, Symposeum and more.

It is my hope that in the near future I will have a collection of short stories emerging.

A reading of "Table For Two" which initially appeared in The Wondrous Real: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wB0A2bSyINY&t=3s

"Table for Two" is also forthcoming as a short film, created by Geek Prophecy Productions.

Editing

Currently, I'm serving as a senior editor at Symposeum Magazine and the co-editor of Poetry Miscellany. In addition, I served as an editorial assistant for The Showbear Family Circus for their closing issue.

Teaching

I have been teaching at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga for 16 years now. I started back in 2006, fresh out of my first masters program. I did not anticipate at the time that I would stay - instead believing that after I completed my MFA I would seek a position elsewhere.

However, within my first couple years, I was struck by the level of excellence among my colleagues and the quality of the department - and as a result, I have continued to make my home here. In that time, I've taught over a hundred sections including courses in post world war II Japanese literature, upper level fiction and poetry workshops, Traditions in Creative Non-Fiction, Intro to Creative Writing, and more.

Myself

I am married to the incredible Amber Najberg, an inspiring woman who leaves my life full of laughter. We live with our children outside Chattanooga, TN. On the side, I periodically pursue art (pastels and pen and ink mostly) and I enjoy playing the drums badly.