Disseminating Josh Maday

Some things that have not been done before in exactly this way

2009-07-09T12:51:00.003-04:00

Rain Taxi's Spring 2009 issue is available online.

New work by Michael Martone from his collection of monologues entitled "Whinesburg, Indiana."

Interview with Adam Robinson re his forthcoming book ADAM ROBISON AND OTHER POEMS, and more miscellaneous brilliance at DOGZPLOT.

New work by Kim Chinquee at Web Conjunctions.

Charles Lennox's ML Press chapbook "A Field of Colors" is now available online at Keyhole Magazine. I'm glad J.A. Tyler expedited this one into the world, and that Peter Cole immortalized it online.

Call for Submissions: On the Clock: Contemporary Short Fiction of People and Their Work

2009-07-01T14:30:00.000-04:00

I will be co-editing an anthology of fiction about post-industrial work life. Here are the details. Please spread the word. Blog. Tweet. Email. Print out the flyer below and post it everywhere.

On the Clock: Contemporary Short Fiction of People and Their Work
Working Lives Series from Bottom Dog Press Inc.

We want to anthologize some outstanding fiction about working in a post-industrial world or making the transition from manual labor to intellectual labor, or the conflict of living in both spheres. In short, we want modern stories about people and their work. Although we prefer post-industrial fiction, we will also look at any fiction that deals with work in a meaningful way. Money and how we earn it are an endless source of conflict, loss, redemption and the source of great fiction. Please send us your best fiction about work.

Specifics:

Length: up to 5,000 words.

Submissions are open now.

Deadline: October 1, 2009.

Email submissions strongly preferred (query first if you absolutely must send a hard copy). Send attached .rtf or .doc file to: ontheclocksubmissions [at] gmail.com and make sure the word “Submission” is somewhere in the subject line.

Payment: $50 and two copies

Reprints are acceptable. Please let us know where it’s been published.

Simultaneous submissions are okay as long as we are notified immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.

Multiple submissions are allowed, up to three stories.

July issue of The Chapbook Review

2009-07-01T11:39:00.002-04:00

New reviews of all manner of chapbooks:

Here is my review of Leonard Schwartz's Language as Responsibility

An Insistence on Meaning: Nicolle Elizabeth in Conversation with Shya Scanlon

J.A. Tyler reviews Tina May Hall's novella All the Day's Sad Stories

Matt DeBenedictis reviews Jamie Iredell's Before I Moved to Nevada

Andrew Borgstrom reviews Norman Fischer's Charlotte's Way

Tina Hall reviews Sarith Peou's Corpse Watching

John Dermot Woods reviews Mary Ruefle's comic Go Home and Go to Bed!

Matt Bell reviews Geoffry Forsyth's In the Land of the Free

J.R. Angelella reviews Michael Kriesel's Moths Mail the House

J.A. Tyler reviews Thomas Cooper's Phantasmagoria

Andrew Borgstrom reviews a multi-writer project entitled Spider Vein Impasto

Review: Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens #8

2009-06-25T22:16:00.003-04:00

Okay, this review is about nine months late, but, really, it's right on time for the new issue of Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, which is, I believe, full of new absurdity and will be coming soon.

Issue #8 of Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens centers on no particular theme except the general theme of the absurd and surreal. The back cover says, “Some stories feature mindless violence or irreal nonsense. Others display sharp cultural satire or brain-tingling wordplay . . . issue #8 offers a zany feast for the ravenous imagination.” This is no exaggeration.

Mike Young’s short-short entitled “Share This Too” starts things off with this opening line: “In the middle of the city park I found a nun crying because her ice cream cone was full of broken teeth.” The narrator’s obvious, logical solution, “Why don’t you just flick them out?” is, of course, too simple to escape the biblically-proportioned plague of broken teeth to follow.

A couple pieces in the issue don’t give the reader much beyond the initial premise. However, I was really impressed with Ofelia Hunt’s story “Car Accident,” narrated by a person who seems to be responsible for the car accident in question and whatever other horror is connected to it. Using the movement of vague language, Hunt wrings the narrator’s trauma, disorientation, and disconnection as the authorities ask questions, and indirectly expresses the inexpressible. For example:

“What’s your name?”

“Something.”

“I need your name for hospital records and insurance. How old are you? Where were you born?”

“I think I’m me I think I’m something.” I move my head and my head hurts in a sharp and exact way, but distant somehow, as though my head’s a thing and I’m a thing and these things are different things with different nervous systems. I see another gurney and another human and the other human’s very red and black and crusted and hairless and maybe does not have enough skin, so I think about skin and how much skin’s enough skin and I think about my skin and how much skin I have and where this skin is and what if I were to lose this skin.

I also enjoyed other stories by Blake Butler, Cameron Pierce, Darby Larson, Sam Pink, Matthew Simmons, and more. Closing out this slim but potent issue are book reviews of Duncan Barlow's Super Cell Anemia and Jeremy C. Shipp's Sheep and Wolves. I think the range of style and content in this issue of Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens provides something to suit as well as stretch the sensibilities of most readers, even some who prefer traditional realism. Issue #8 and other back issues of Bust are still available (some are online as free pdf downloads, see below)and I've read that the next issue will be online. It will definitely be worth checking out.

UPDATE: The next issue of Bust will be print; online after that.

Meanwhile:

Bradley Sands interviews Sam Pink

Jason Moore interviews Blake Butler

Free downloads:

Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens Issue 7 (Winter 2008, Online Flash/Micro Fiction Edition)

Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens Issue 2 (Spring 2005, Online Flash/Micro Fiction Edition)

Dragons with Cancer

I WILL SMASH YOU is finished

2009-06-24T13:13:00.001-04:00

I have been waiting for this. And it's finished. It will be here in September. Here's the deal on I WILL SMASH YOU:

I WILL SMASH YOU is a documentary film in which dozens of people each tell a story about an object that has some personal meaning for them and then destroy that object in whatever manner they wish. Michael Kimball interviews each person about their chosen object and the story behind it, which leads to amazing realizations, for both the subject and the viewer.

There are 19 different chapters filled with people, objects, destruction, resolution, and understanding. A man burns his discharge papers from the Army in attempt to exorcise his recurring nightmares about being forced to re-enlist (and always at a lower rank). A teenage girl destroys a papier-mâché version of her mean teacher's head, which she cracks open and then burns in an attempt to get all the meanness out. A man smashes his procrastination. Another man burns his favorite double album, the one that he listened to over and over to get through adolescence. A woman destroys a ceramic bust of Zeus that bears an uncanny resemblance to her husband. Another woman destroys her Ford Taurus with a crowbar because it is cursed.

I WILL SMASH YOU is filled with moments of relief, moments of release, unexpected realizations, and a couple of political statements. You have never seen a film like this

We'll start to screen I WILL SMASH YOU in September. The release party/premiere will happen somewhere in Baltimore.
Anybody interested in getting a screener copy of the DVD can write me at lucadipierro@yahoo.it

Little Burn Films presents
I WILL SMASH YOU
a film by Luca Dipierro & Michael Kimball
concept by Michael Kimball
directed by Luca Dipierro
edited by Luca Dipierro & Michael Kimball
camera by Rachel Bradley, Luca Dipierro, Rodney McLaughlin
with, in random order: Susan Nolan, Ivan Bojanic, Adam Robinson, Chancellor Pascale, Ella Grossbach, Geoff Becker, Jessica Gill, Caitlin Cunningham, Andy Kratz, Leslie F. Miller, Gregg Wilhelm, Tom Smith, Monica Mohindra, Bonnie Jones, Mike Rippe, Jeff Rettberg, Molly Warsh and Piotr Gwiazda, Michael Kimball, Betsy Boyd.
special thanks to Crazy Ray's and Brent Green

The category is Interviews and Things That are New

2009-06-23T11:02:00.000-04:00

Chris Higgs interview at HTMLGIANT that is not old even though it was posted way back on June 14th! I could read a whole book that is only an interview with Chris Higgs.

Michael Kimball interviews editor of Unsaid Magazine, David McLendon at elimae.

And, seriously, get the new issue of Unsaid however you can. It is massive in every way. Here's the lineup that is also a massive name drop:

ANNE CARSON, BRIAN EVENSON, BLAKE BUTLER, DAVID OHLE, EVELYN HAMPTON, PETER MARKUS, ALEXIS ALMEIDA, ROBERT LOPEZ, BEAR KIRKPATRICK, MICHAEL KIMBALL, MEGAN LAYTON, DAWN RAFFEL, EUGENE MARTEN, DAVID HOLLANDER, OTTESSA MOSHFEGH, SHELTON WALSMITH, JASON SCHWARTZ, RUDY WILSON, SARAH MANGUSO, PAUL MALISZEWSKI, RICHARD ST. GERMAIN, SAM MICHEL, EMILIA A. PHILLIPS, BRIAN KUBARYCZ, SVEN BIRKERTS, RICK POINSETT, ALYSON JANE, BIANCA GALVEZ, JOE WENDEROTH, M SARKI, JOANNA HOWARD, WILL ENO, JESSICA NEWMAN, PATRICIA O'CONNELL, MATTHEW THOMPSON, CAROLYN ALTMAN, PETER CHRISTOPHER, ANDY DEVINE, DANIELLE BLAU, RACHEL B. GLASER, PATRICK EHLEN, M.T. FALLON, JONATHAN CALLAHAN, LAUREN MCCOLLUM, KRISTINA BORN, JULIA HOLLEMAN, TRIA ANDREWS, VIRGINIA KONCHAN, BJORN VERENSON, MICHAEL STEWART, TRENT ENGLAND, DYLAN T. NICE, BRIAN SCHORN, RYAN MURPHY, SAM PINK, BENJAMIN LANDRY, EMILY MAHAN, SHANE JONES, THOMAS LAVERTY, A. MINETTA GOULD, COOPER ESTEBAN, LINDSAY ANDERSON, JOSHUA KORNREICH, SCOTT GARSON

To get a glimpse of what's in there, check out the feature at the EWN blog where Dan Wickett asks McLendon to say a bit about each piece and why he chose to include it in Unsaid. This feature could be printed as a supplement to the issue. Thanks, Dan and David, for doing this.

Available for Pre-Order: John Dermot Woods' novel The Complete Collection of people, places & things

I ordered this as soon as the email landed. Here's the info:

PRE-ORDER SPECIAL!
Order The Complete Collection of people, places & things by July 15 and get it for only $12 (25% off the cover price) with free shipping in the U.S. (we can work something out for international too).

EXTRA STUFF FOR THE FIRST 50 100 PEOPLE WHO ORDER:
- A signed/numbered screen print, commemorating the book’s release
- personalized copy with a limited edition, signed book plate

The Complete Collection of people, places & things
a novel by John Dermot Woods
BlazeVOX Books 2009
ISBN: 9781935402466
175 pp. Perfect Bound. With Drawings.

“An accomplished artist and writer, in addition to being an entertaining and often an electrifying one. John Woods does something very original in his combining of the arts in this collection, and my hat’s off to him in his two-hat achievement.”
— Stephen Dixon

“John Dermot Woods’ Complete Collection thrills the daylights out of me. Every word, every image is infused with vitality. Every place, person and thing breathes and moves. It is an android’s heaven, a manikin’s cocktail party. It reminds me of the Golden Age cartoons where human departure imbues clocks, canned goods, books, statues, toys or brooms with sentience. When we close our eyes our kitchens Jitterbug, our teddy bears waltz. The thing I love most about this world is that while Woods’ imagination is opened full throttle, he provides an almost ethnographical structure to explicate it. His wonderland is so thoroughly startling because of — not in spite of — his ability to make his account as reliable as a Fodor’s travel guide.”
— Reginald McKnight

“John Woods’ The Complete Collection brings the small-town America of Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio into conversation with Italo Calvino’s fake travelogue, Invisible Cities, and that book’s dreamish vision of Imperial China. Like Calvino’s novel, the book evokes a kind of nearly Renaissance-like iconographic worldview of Memory and the Imagination, but one channeled through the disposable world of American children’s toys and comic books. The flat voice is disconcertingly balanced between farce, comedy and deadly seriousness.”
— Johannes Göransson

Excerpts online:

“Benvereen” (Lamination Colony)

“Voltron,” “Game Cartridges,” and “The Dining Car” (La Petite Zine)

“Gargamel” (Pebble Lake Review)

New Literary Magazine: The Collagist

Dzanc Books is pleased to announce its newest venture: an online Logo journal called The Collagist. Intent on continuing the Dzanc tradition of bringing extraordinary writing to a wide audience, the first issue of The Collagist will be published on August 15th, 2009, and appear subsequently each month thereafter at www.thecollagist.com.

The Collagist is edited by Matt Bell, with Matthew Olzmann as Poetry Editor. Each month The Collagist will deliver outstanding new short stories, poems, and essays from both emerging and established writers, as well as an exclusive excerpt from a forthcoming novel. Early excerpts will include works from the standard bearers of independent publishing, including Coffee House, Two Dollar Radio, and Unbridled Books. The Collagist will also publish several new book reviews in every issue.

The Collagist is immediately open for submissions in all categories. As you might assume, we suggest you read the books Dzanc and its imprints publish to get a flavor of what writing gets us most excited. Submissions guidelines can be found at www.thecollagist.com/submissions.html.

We thank you in advance for your submissions and your readership, and look forward to sharing this exciting new project with you when our first issue launches in August.

Sincerely,

Steve Gillis
Dan Wickett
Matt Bell
Dzanc Books

Mike Heppner's Man Talking Project

2009-06-02T14:30:00.001-04:00

So maybe you've read my review of Mike Heppner's Talking Man at The Chapbook Review. Good. That's good. Now here's some more: last October, Justin Taylor talked about Heppner's work on HTMLGIANT. He said these things:

Talking Man is the second in a series of four thematically linked novellas to be published in 2008 and 2009. The first part, Man Talking (that was released–it’s actually the fourth novella in the series; don’t ask) is available as a FREE DOWNLOAD from Heppner’s website. Talking Man is being released in a gorgeous handmade, highly limited edition of 60. I can’t wait to get my hands on one, and you shouldn’t either.

The other two novellas–Man and Talking–will be released in December ‘08 and Sometime ‘09, respectively. No word on what format(s?) those works will be available in, but why don’t you stop worrying about that right now? You’re already two novellas down–time to get cracking.

Here is a rundown of the Man Talking Project on Heppner's own website:

Mike Heppner and Small Anchor Press announce Talking, the fourth and final in a series of novellas released in 2008 and 2009.

The Man Talking Project has been written about in The New Yorker on-line, The Christian Science Monitor, The Boston Globe, Conversational Reading, AdFreak, Maud Newton, Media Bistro, The Millions and HTMLGiant. Clare Dudman (98 Reasons for Being) calls the project "...a brilliant piece of writing... innovative, interesting, and absorbing..." and Neil Peart (Road Show) raves "...an artful examination of modern life, and modern love, with perfect dialogue, wry humor, (and) psychological insight."

The four novellas were written between 2007 and 2009. Three of the four were released in full over the past year. One cannot find the entire project in a single location, however it is possible to collect and read the project in its entirety.

Part One, Talking Man, was published in September 2008 by Small Anchor Press. Small Anchor Press is a Brooklyn-based independent press specializing in finely crafted handmade books. Talking Man can be purchased exclusively at SA's website, smallanchorpress.com. A second printing came out in February 2009.

Part Two, Man, was released in December 2008. Five hundred photocopies have been left in random locations across the United States for readers to find and comment on. Some of those comments can be read here.

Part Three, Man Talking, the third in the series (but the first to be made available), can be read for free here. Over four thousand readers have visited since Man Talking went on-line in April 2008.

Part Four, Talking, is a piece of writing; it's also a contest. One winner will receive a single-copy edition of Talking, entirely handwritten by Mike Heppner, plus signed copies of the other three sections. A short documentary film will feature the author awarding the prize to the winner in person (if practical). The winner is the first person to correctly guess the secret phrase, which can be found in one of Heppner's two full-length novels, The Egg Code and Pike's Folly. Both novels are available as Vintage paperbacks.

This takes the idea of requiring work of the reader to a new level. Check out the photos of where copies of Man were left all over the US. And that the last part is also a contest pretty much makes this the most interactive series of novellas ever, and a nice hook to sell some copies of his two previous novels. If one were to play along, Talking actually becomes much longer and more complicated since part of the experience is to search out and piece together the secret phrase, which requires reading two novels, which in any case binds and tangles the novels and the novellas into one huge interactive text. Heppner's project is fascinating in so many ways. To see the contest rules for Talking (I didn't see a deadline or anything, so I assume it's still on), check out Heppner's website.

A linky recap:
Mike Heppner's Man Talking project:
Part One: Talking Man, available from Small Anchor Press
Part Two: Man, check out the note, and then try to find one of the 500(+?) copies
Part Three: Man Talking, free pdf download
Part Four: Talking, "a piece of writing; it's also a contest"

Also: The Making of Talking Man: "Correspondence between Mike Heppner and Jen Hyde [of Small Anchor Press] (July 23 – December 1, 2008)"

And also: read an excerpt of Mike Heppner's novel The Egg Code

And also as well:

The Chapbook Review

2009-06-01T00:09:00.000-04:00

The first issue of The Chapbook Review is here. There's a phlebotomistic (I did indeed have less blood in my body when I finished reading) double interview where Blake Butler and Christopher Higgs take turns being interviewer/interviewee. And then, of course, there are the chapbook reviews.

Tobias Carroll reviews Lawrence Millman’s Going Home: A Horror Story

Sean Lovelace reviews Matt Bell's How the Broken Lead the Blind (the hard copies of which are sold out, but is now available as a free ebook)

Andrew Borgstrom reviews Aaron Burch’s Molting

Kimberly King Parsons reviews Alan Catlin’s Only the Dead Know Albany

Matthew Simmons and Andrew Borgstrom each review Mathias Svalina’s Play

J.R. Angelella reviews Ryan and Christie Call's Pocket Finger

Nicolle Elizabeth reviews Shya Scanlon’s Poolsaid

And I review Mike Heppner's Talking Man

The Chapbook Review is John Madera's brainchild; John Madera, who put together the huge list of lists of many writers' favorite novellas. I would like to thank John for all of his help, patience, and hard work. I think TCR fills a void in the current literary world, where chapbooks go mostly unnoticed and rarely receive the close critical reading so many of them deserve.

Writing Contest: Blake Butler/Lamination Colony: This is not not a Contest

2009-05-29T08:26:00.002-04:00

You've never seen a writing contest like this. No surprised though, coming from the mind of Blake Butler. There's no entry fee. There are more prizes than any other contest ever I think, all donated (I donated my extra copy of Jimmy Chen's chapbook TYPEWRITER). From Blake's blog:

ENTRY SPECIFICATIONS:

Texts between 1 and 2000 words. Just words. Text. There can be pictures in it too. Photos. Stuff. Not poetry or fiction or creative nonfiction, in the name of it, but anything. Words. Say something.

** BY THE ABOVE LINE I MEAN ALL WRITING IS ALLOWED. All forms of words are welcome. **

1 entry per person.

I'm going to read the entries with time I would have spent looking at websites I always look at anyway or watching poker on TV or something stupid.

Winners will be judged on the basis of how much I enjoy them, or think they are good.

Anyone can enter, if you enter under a pseudonym the prize will go to the pseudonym.

If you put terms in quotes that aren't speech in the piece you are disqualified.

If anyone is interested in donating further prizes for entrants, money or books or personal items or offers of fun, please email me, I will announce them and link there here at the bottom of this post.

Please blog this contest around.

Promotional contests should not cost money. Didn't you ever listen to Fugazi.

** WHERE TO SEND **

Please send contest entries to laminationcolony [at] gmail [dot] com, include THIS IS NOT NOT A CONTEST in the title, entries will be accepted for one week, until Friday June 5.

Winners will be picked soon after and published soon after.

This is a contest about life.

Here be the details in full.

Matt Bell's How the Broken Lead the Blind now available as a free ebook

2009-05-27T11:36:00.001-04:00

Here's Matt's reasoning for making this happen:

Since How the Broken Lead the Blind is sold out and won't be reprinted, I've now posted the entire book online so that anyone who couldn't get a copy can still read it exactly as it was in print. This is something I hope to do with every book I publish, as long as the presses I'm working with are supportive of the idea. I truly believe that all books should eventually be available for free in some form, so that any one wants to read them can, regardless of where they live or how much money they have or whatever other barriers might keep them from being able to get their hands on a copy. And then, of course, there are more selfish reasons: I'm so grateful that anyone's reading my writing, and am always happy to do whatever I can to make my work more available to anyone who's interested. So here it is.

In the future, what I'd really like is to be able to to post a book for free on the same day it goes on sale, but that'll obvious depend on who (if anyone) publishes the next book. Still, it's something I plan on bringing up if I get the opportunity.

In any case, you can now read How the Broken Lead the Blind online via Issuu or download it as a PDF for reading offline. Also, if you read the book and would like to add it on Goodreads, you can do so here.

Thanks again to everyone who bought a copy, and to Molly Gaudry, Christy Call, and David McNamara for all their work on this book. I appreciate it more than you can know.

Ryan Manning v Christopher Higgs

2009-05-20T14:02:00.000-04:00

in the form of an interview

Christopher Higgs re: politics = yes, I couldn't agree more

Sneak Preview of David Lynch's Interview Project

2009-05-14T17:08:00.000-04:00

Look see.

William Walsh at Apostrophe Cast

2009-05-14T09:00:00.002-04:00

William Walsh reads from his new book, Questionstruck, at Apostrophe Cast. Questionstruck is definitely one of the most interesting concepts I've seen. Walsh is a master of the derived text. He also gave an interview for the AP blog.

She Take We Apart

2009-05-12T11:07:00.002-04:00

Molly Gaudry posted a mind-blowing assemblage of lines drawn from blogs by the likes of Bailey, Madore, Bassett, Klassnik, Jemc, Regina, Pink, Best, Wells, Butler, Lin, Robinson, etc. Molly certainly has an eye for stand-alone lines, and with the way the lines juxtapose and accumulate, she has written a really good poem. On top of that, each line is linked to its source, which is fascinating to see how such different writers' lines is such dramatically different original contexts could be de/reterritorialized in an entirely new piece of writing that Barry Hannah indirectly inadvertently titled (you'll see). And be sure to check out John Madera's "bleary-eyed blurry remix" in the comments. Good stuff.

2009-05-05T12:45:00.000-04:00

Some days even a cup of coffee is violence.

Barry Hannah, Ray

Some Brian Evenson Links

2009-05-02T11:57:00.002-04:00

From 2005: "Brian Evenson: An Introduction"

Matt Bell's recent essay in The Quarterly Conversation

Larry Nolen interview with Evenson [thanks to Scott Esposito at Conversational Reading]

Ben Marcus interviews Evenson at Web del Sol

Evenson's Wikipedia page.

And, of course, Evenson's website

Barry Hannah's Long Shadow

2009-05-01T17:14:00.000-04:00

Great profile of Barry Hannah at Garden & Gun's website. [thanks to Kevin Sampsell for finding this]

Shane Jones and Blake Butler on Powell's Books Blog

2009-05-01T13:29:00.001-04:00

Kevin Sampsell posted a discussion between Shane Jones and Blake Butler on Powell's Book Blog. Topics include: whether or not they feel different now that they have published books, being labeled "internet writers" and other things like cats.

David Lynch's Interview Project

2009-05-01T12:59:00.000-04:00

Here's the trailer for David Lynch's Interview Project. Looks fascinating. Reminds me of Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard) and I WILL SMASH YOU.

New Interview Project episodes will be launched every 3 days for a year.

Looks great, of course.

Jimmy Chen's "A photo essay by Philip Roth" at HTMLGIANT

2009-04-28T11:04:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, Jimmy Chen posted "The ecstasy of a faint outdoor wind: A photo essay by Philip Roth" at HTMLGIANT. It's hilarious, the way Jimmy Chen is hilarious, which is very. Just the other day I saw an author photo and felt that warm flush of embarrassment under my skin, because, like most of the author photos I see, it was so overdone with melodramatic neck angles and hyper-serious eyes. Jimmy Chen's "photo essay by Philip Roth" hits the notes. This makes me even more excited for Jimmy's chapbook Typewriter from Magic Helicopter Press.

More Book Blurbs Available

2009-04-25T17:37:00.001-04:00

Here are some book blurbs I am making available. Also, the previous batches of blurbs I posted are still available. I had them for sale before, but If you want a blurb, just take it, use it, it's free. Donations are certainly welcome, especially since work is slow so I need to start making some money. In any case, feel free to customize (tweak, remix, etc) any blurb to include the author's name and/or the title of the book, whatever. So, in about six months, I'm going to begin assuming that every book blurb I see is really one of mine, tweaked, remixed, and attributed to someone else. Thanks and enjoy.

“I haven’t seen such daring since my grandmother left the house without her Depends.”

“Dazzling, crackling, stunning—you’ll probably be incapacitated by the time you’re done with this one. The world will soon be literally deaf, dumb, and blind, too.”

“Seriously, the hype has been so big that I can’t even bring myself to read the book. I just sit and watch the book lay on the desk and I get gooseflesh. Don’t miss out of this masterpiece, a marketing marvel . . . just flip the pages, move it from the bookshelf to the coffee table to your study, just look at the book and think about how great it is . . . buy this book immediately, I guarantee you won’t be disappointed—and you don’t even have to read it!”

"This book will change your life and probably the lives of your family, friends, and even the random people you meet, just from having met you; all because you bought and read this book. If you thought Jesus and 9/11 changed things, you obviously haven't read this yet. And just imagine what you are depriving so many people of if you don't buy this book and read it. That's a heavy burden, my friend, compared to the low low cover price. I'm just saying."

“There’s a lot to like here . . . a nice dust jacket with a photo on the back inside flap with the author in his own corduroy dust jacket, posing for the camera. He looks pretty serious, like he’s mad or horny. The pages, when you have the book closed, are rugged and uneven, kind of giving it an old, rustic look (but the book is new, though, so—). The paper is nice. So I’d say the book is probably pretty good, too. The writing, I mean; the story that’s in it. I’d probably buy one from the store if they didn’t send it to me for free.”

“When the first line is “Nonplussed, the denizens gazed wistfully upon the nondescript regalia and joined in the cacophony of hearts” there is no need to read the rest to know this is an important book by a purely original mind.”

“Any book that leaves your lips bleeding, your balls aching, and your crotch burning like something out of a Nat King Cole Christmas song is worth the price of admission. A band-aid or an ice pack would make a clever freebie, though. Or even some ointment.”

“An instant classic the likes of which have not been seen since Moby Dick or even Confederacy of Dunces.”

“Superb. Delicious. A little tough in areas, but definitely lean and satisfying. Lots to chew on. Tantalizing for the developed palate. Keep a big bottle of sauce at hand and make sure your steak knife is sharp! It's difficult, but try not to eat it too quickly; your bowels will not handle it well if at all.”

“A rowdy, raucous time . . . woke the neighbors . . . police were called . . . two nights in jail . . . helluva time . . . a coloring book and so much more!”

Fiona McCrae on the Life Cycle of the Poem

2009-04-24T13:18:00.001-04:00

Fiona McCrae, director and publisher at Graywolf Press, discusses the life cycle of a poem on the Farrar Straus and Giroux poetry blog.

UPDATE: Here is Part Two.

Blake Butler Interviews Vanessa Place at HTMLGIANT

2009-04-23T16:34:00.000-04:00

This is so good. This is the kind of interview I aspire to. Blake asks Vanessa Place about her massive book (novel?) La Medusa, which was published last year by FC2. Both sides of this interview are fascinating. Here are Blake's opening questions:

BB: (a) I’d like to open our discussion of La Medusa by asking about its birth in you, as an idea. Over the span of its 500 pages, the text manages to worm through quite an insanely number of shells and forms, I believe I read somewhere that you worked on La Medusa for quite a number of years, so I am particularly interested in how the shape of the book continued to evolve and expand within itself as you found yourself deeper in the pages.

(b) What I find really interesting, is that among this huge sprawl, too, is that the bulk of the narrative consists of a set of interwoven strands that focus on the main ‘camps’, if you will, of the discourse, which are in a way defined in the very first sentences of the book:

“Doctor Casper Bowles eyes his mirror’d visor.
Feena checks her pink Barbie mirror
while Athalie her mother looks at her own hand.
Jorge can’t see for shit ‘cuz of the sun,
And the golden-bellied woman stands blind as a proverbial bat.
Then there’s me, flattened & weeping in one hundred and one windows”

These strands are attended to so fervently, and with great poise, so that often it seems like some scenes in the book that may occur over a short period in the timeline of the narrative, actually sprawl out as if minute by minute, almost in the way that David Foster Wallace managed to capture time as time in ‘Infinite Jest,’ and also how Gass used language to define space in ‘The Tunnel.’ I was wondering if you could speak more about directing the complex trajectories of each of these narratives over time and perhaps some of the process involved in how the evolving form dictated content and vice-versa.

Read on and pay attention as your brain muscles ripple and sag.

Coming Soon from Coconut Books: A Model Year by Gina Myers

2009-04-23T15:26:00.002-04:00

Gina Myers
Coconut Books

Top Ten Novellas Project Mentioned on Time Out New York Blog

2009-04-23T12:06:00.001-04:00

The massive list of favorite novellas lists put together by John Madera gets a nice mention on the Time Out New York blog.