{Artist: Banksy; via Brooks Serritt}

Now Available -- On the Clock: Contemporary Short Stories of Work

Over the past year, I co-edited with Jeff Vande Zande a fiction anthology about work. On the Clock: Contemporary Short Stories of Work is now finished and available to order from Amazon or, even better, directly from the publisher, Bottom Dog Press. Jeff and all of the writers have been a joy to work with on this project.


On the Clock is 188 pages of fiction about work by Jim Daniels, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Daniel Orozco, Kennebrew Surant, Rick Attig, Lolita Hernandez, Michael Martone, Matthew Salesses, Matt Bell, M. Kaat Toy, Sean Lovelace, Billie Louise Jones, Lita Kurth, Anne Shewring, Dustin M. Hoffman, Tania Hershman, Nick Kocz, Michael Zadoorian, Steve Himmer, Peter Anderson, and Pete Fromm.

From the Introduction:

Our focus is contemporary writers writing about contemporary work. We also sought to assemble a collection that is as varied as the diversity of the global community by seeking work that is traditional and innovative in both form and content. And while we believe that it is important to know where we came from, it is also essential to be aware of our current situation, and it is necessary to look ahead to see where this trajectory may take us. The stories range from the end of the manufacturing era to our current moment of transition from muscle-to-mind economy, and even speculative fiction that looks toward our possible future as a global human culture from which every imaginable technology will be inextricable, for better and for worse. We are thankful to all of the writers who shared their work with us, which we in turn share with our readers. We hope this anthology will provoke, encourage, enlighten, and entertain.

Check out the virtual book release on Facebook.

Order your copy here.

New York Tyrant 8

I will have a collection of about 3,000 words entitled "Dark Math" in the new issue of New York Tyrant. It is part of a larger work in progress, probably a book of some shape and size. Another piece has recently been included in Dzanc's Best of the Web 2010, and another was published as part of the MLP chapbook series. I'm very happy to have my work appear in these publications.

Here's what editor Giancarlo DiTrapano said about New York Tyrant 8 (via HTMLgiant):

New York Tyrant 8 (Vol.3, No.2) is available for preorder. The book went to press today and will be back and ready to ship in two weeks. Not to blow my own horn (and I can do that, you know), but this is a pretty solid issue. Sam Lipsyte, Ken Sparling, Noy Holland, Breece D’J Pancake, an interview with Padgett Powell, Daryl Scroggins, two beautiful pieces by Brandon Hobson, Andy Devine, Ken Baumann, Sean Kilpatrick, Michael Kimball, more drawings (one sampled below) from Atticus Lish, and a shit ton of other great writers. The theme of this issue turned out, unintentionally, to be knives. Lots of knives in these stories. I swear I don’t do this shit on purpose.

A couple issues ago, we made the Tyrant 300 pages long. We are now back to a better length, less than 200 pages. I hate when journals get all bulky and are just too intimidating to even get through half of the stories. We’ll be having a launch party within the next couple of weeks so I’ll keep you updated on that. But until then, please go get your copy of the new Tyrant. Buy a subscription. Okay, here’s a deal. If you buy a 4 issue subscription or the larger 8 issue, we will throw in a copy of Brian Evenson’s novella Baby Leg. And if you buy a copy of the new Tyrant in the next 5 days, we will include a copy of Tyrant Books’ latest release, Firework by Eugene Marten. I’ve never done this discount/sale thing before but it feels good and right. No it doesn’t. It sucks and it hurts.

Interview with Ornela Vorpsi at The Collagist

My interview with Ornela Vorpsi about her new book, The Country Where No One Ever Dies, is live on The Collagist's blog. The interview begins this way:

1. Can you talk about the inspiration for The Country Where No One Ever Dies? What was on your mind while you were writing this book?
I cannot say precisely where and how I found my inspiration for this book, if it is indeed inspired, as I abandoned myself to the process of writing, without even thinking about writing a book or having it published, I just subjected myself to what was coming, organically, without seeing too clearly. Of course I wanted to talk about Albania. About some lives. About some people. It mattered deeply to me.

Thanks to Matt Bell for the opportunity to interview Ornela about her novel, which I think is brilliant; and thanks to Ornela Vorpsi for taking time out of her busy schedule to participate so generously in the interview.

Read "Bel Ami," excerpted in Issue Four of The Collagist.

The Country Where No One Ever Dies is officially available today from Dalkey Archive.

FOR now available from ML Press

Originally due out in December, my ML Press chapbook, FOR, is now available from ML Press for $3 (includes shipping). It's part of the subscription trio including work by Joanna Ruocco and Michael Martone. I'm honored to have my work alongside theirs, and to be part of the massive first year of chapbooks from ML Press. Thanks to J.A. Tyler for his incredible ambition and hard work.

I'm looking forward to the 2010 schedule of chapbooks by Rauan Klassnik, Riley Michael Parker, Cooper Renner, Amy Guth, David Gianatasio, Ben Segal, Kuzhali Manickavel, Michael Bernstein, Eric Beeny, Matt Bell, Ryan Downey, and Evelyn Hampton.

The Collagist, Issue Four

The fourth issue of The Collagist is now live.

Issue Four features fiction from Cooper Renner, Chad Benson, Kate Petersen, and Lance Olsen (with art by Andi Olsen), as well as novel excerpts from Xiaoda Xiao and Ornela Vorpsi (see my review of The Country Where No One Ever Dies in Issue Two). Also, poetry from Arlene Ang, Stephen Dobyns, Judy Huddleston, and Keith Taylor; non-fiction from Brian Oliu and Melissa Pritchard.

Book reviews of Translation is a Love Affair by Jacques Poulin, The Suburban Swindle by Jackie Corley, Girl Trouble by Holly Goddard Jones, The Southern Cross by Skip Horack, and The Halfway House by Guillermo Rosales, as well as a video review of The Bigness of the World by Lori Ostlund.

You'll also find a new Classic Reprints section, which, according to editor Matt Bell, "will be appearing frequently in the months to come." This month features a reprinting of John Cheever's "The Fourth Alarm" alongside an introductory essay written by his son, Benjamin H. Cheever.

mlp {first year} anthology

Early this morning J.A. Tyler posted the cover of the mlp {first year} anthology designed by Steven Seighman. Looks great, of course, and is available for pre-order.




Here's info about the anthology from MLP:

an anthology of everything we have ever printed in our chapbooks beginning in the fall of 2008 & going through the end of 2009 & featuring the most fantastic authors as they first appeared in mud luscious print, most of which are sold out now or will be soon, & here collected all together

The contributors:
ken baumann, shane jones, jimmy chen, brandi wells, blake butler, nick antosca, sam pink, james chapman, colin bassett, michael kimball, jac jemc, kim chinquee, kim parko, norman lock, randall brown, brian evenson, michael stewart, peter markus, ken sparling, aaron burch, david ohle, matthew savoca, p. h. madore, johannes göransson, charles lennox, ryan call, elizabeth ellen, molly gaudry, kevin wilson, mary hamilton, craig davis, kendra grant malone, lavie tidhar, lily hoang, mark baumer, ben tanzer, krammer abrahams, joshua cohen, eugene lim, c. l. bledsoe, joanna ruocco, josh maday, michael martone

This is a great chance to get a look at the early MLP Chapbooks that sold out before a lot of readers could get them.

Pre-order mlp {first year}

J.A. Tyler in a roundtable discussion about chapbook publishing at The Chapbook Review

In a few days, Issue 4 of The Collagist will publish. Meanwhile, Issue 3; it includes new work by Matthew Derby, Roxane Gay, Sarah Norek, Catherine Zeidler, Hesh Kestin, Norman Lock, Mary Biddinger, Rick Moody, Peter Jay Shippy, Ross White, Greg Bottoms, Kelley Evans, as well as a video review by Anna Clark, written reviews by Diane Leach, John Madera, Jill Meyers, and my review of Gert Jonke's The System of Vienna. Here's the opening:

Gert Jonke opens The System of Vienna, an ostensibly autobiographical work, with the following: “Allow me first of all, in the interest of facilitating the greatest possible understanding, just a few brief words concerning the methodology of the working process I have adopted, thereby also expending a few more words on myself and my academic development.” Jonke then relays a short account of the hours before his birth, an account that can't be anything but fiction, without ever returning to discuss his “methodology,” which has of course already been demonstrated through this tale of his “beginnings.” Jonke emphasizes this with the compound distance of a synoptic description: “The story begins with a description of that cold winter night and how my mother allegedly started out not being able to find her shoes ...”

Yeah, it's been out for almost a month and you've probably read it all already; but maybe you said you'd come back and get it but haven't. Today's a good day to get it. You know, because I know what's best for you and how your time should be used. I'll be emailing your time management spreadsheets soonly.

Meanwhile, the flash fiction contest judged by Kim Chinquee at The Collagist is nearing the deadline of November 15. Git yer werds to 'em.

The Dalkey Archive Holiday Sale is here again. It's going on through November 22 and applies to books published before November 2009. Get 10 books for $65 or 20 books for $120.

My review of Hungarian novelist Ferenc Barnás's The Ninth was published a few days ago at The Quarterly Conversation. Thanks to Scott Esposito for his tremendous patience and hard work editing this piece. Here is the opening:

Telling a story from a child’s point of view is one of the most difficult modes of fiction to write successfully. The narrator of Ferenc Barnás’s The Ninth is a nine-year-old boy—The Ninth child of ten (eleven, counting the brother who died) in a large Hungarian family—whose inexperience and bare vocabulary are compounded by a speech disability.

In writing The Ninth, Barnás seems to have wanted to give himself a taste of what difficulty his narrator must face when trying to give expression to his experience.

Get your hands on the new issue of NANO Fiction. Word is that copies are going quickly. NF 3.1 includes work by Dorothy Albertini, Jaynel Attolini, Andrew Brininstool, Ed Casey, Jimmy Chen, Stephanie Dickinson, Rodney Gomez, M. J. Kelley, Ashley MacLean, Josh Maday, Traci Matlock, Michael K. Meyers, Dan Moreau, Edward Mullany, Evan J. Peterson, Martin Rock, Sankar Roy, Didi Schiller, Holly Simonsen, Audri Sousa, Robin Tung, Luisa Villani, and Shellie Zacharia. My piece is an excerpt from a long work I've been laboring over, two pieces of which appeared in the Lamination Colony edited by Michael Kimball, and another long excerpt will appear in Issue 8 of New York Tyrant. Check out Jimmy Chen's piece, "A Hollow Back and Forth," from the issue. I'm a big fan of Jimmy's work. There's no question that the guy is incredibly smart. His writing is cynical yet funny, a combination which disarms any sense of condescension.

New from Barrelhouse: Mixtape, Episode One: Baltimore

The guys at Barrelhouse are tireless. Besides making it difficult to drive anywhere (I know, that was cheap), that means that they have produced yet another fine contribution to the independent literary world. The first episode of their new monthly podcast, Mixtape, is now on the virtual air. The inaugural episode focuses on the independent literary scene in Baltimore, which, for being one of the all-too-common cities left burned-out and crumbling after the decline of manufacturing and having one of the highest murder rates in the country--despite all of that, the artistic community is strong, civic-minded, and incredibly inclusive and collaborative regardless of genre or medium. Being from a smaller but similarly depressed city myself, that gives me hope.

This first episode of what I hope will become the Indie Lit channel on XM radio focuses, specifically, on Adam Robinson and Michael Kimball, two ambitious artists/creators injecting life into Baltimore's literary scene; they're cultivating a kind of contagion of creativity and innovation that is spreading around the nation (and world?) with projects like Robinson's "outdoor journal" IsReads and Kimball's Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard). I'm excited that I was able to read my poem, "The Everyday Juggernaut," from IsReads 4 for the first episode of Mixtape. Dave Housley added some city noise to the background so it sounds like I'm reading from the ledge of a tall building, which I think works really well. Thanks to Dave for asking me to record the poem and for his hard work putting the first episode of what will hopefully be a long run of more focused attention on the many facets of the independent literary world.

Issue 2 of The Collagist

The sophomore issue of The Collagist went live the first part of this week and it does not suffer from the old sophomore flop. The new issue includes my review of Ornela Vorpsi's The Country Where No One Ever Dies. Here's the opening of the review:

Albanian life in Ornela Vorpsi’s The Country Where No One Ever Dies revolves around sex, communist rule, and—despite the book's title—death. The book is separated into titled vignettes, reflecting the fissured self of a young girl living among the ruins of reason. Constantly accused of being or becoming a whore and dealing with her father’s disappearance and imprisonment as a political prisoner, this protagonist escapes into the otherworld of books, where even tragic novels and the darkest of Grimm’s Fairy Tales are a reprieve from her absurd world . . .

In Issue 2, you'll find fiction by Angi Becker Stevens, Elizabeth Crane, Jonathan Callahan, Sean Lovelace; novel excerpts from Stephen Elliott, Edward Falco; poetry by Jason Bredle, Rachel Contreni Flynn, Elisa Gabbert and Kathleen Rooney, Christopher Kennedy, Jamaal May; non-fiction by Erik Anderson; book reviews by Brian Allen Carr, Anna Clark, Darby Dixon III, Jill Meyers, John Madera, Stacy Muszynski, and Keith Taylor

New York Tyrant issue 7 trailer

Every issue of New York Tyrant is an event. Issue 7 will obviously be no exception.

Trailer by Luca Dipierro, who knows how to get it done with book/lit mag trailers.



(via HTMLGIANT)

John Dermot Woods is a rare combination

I meant to post about this when it actually arrived, but now weeks have passed, and etc. My copy of John Dermot Woods' book The Complete Collection of people, places & things came in the mail, along with a limited edition handmade screen print made by Woods' hands. The print is beautiful. What I did manage to do in a timely manner was put it in a frame as soon as I took it from the envelope and oogled it for awhile. The art is exceptional and the writing is, well, see some for yourself; this is why John Dermot Woods is a rare combination. And maybe the artist/writer is more common than I think, but certainly most seem to be more accomplished or inclined toward one or the other; not Woods, he nails them both. So, is this a plug, a sales pitch? Um, yeah, it is. Sure, I know John through Action Yes and Apostrophe Cast, but, as LeVar Burton would say, you don't have to take my word for it. TCCopp&t has been getting good press elsewhere, too:

Ben Tanzer's words at This Blog Will Change Your Life

Weston Cutter's review at Corduroy Books

And if you're in any of these places at these times, check out John reading from The Complete Collection:

9/22 - Soda Bar - Brooklyn, NY - w/Shanthi Sekaran

9/26 - 510 Series - Baltimore Book Festival

10/11 - Small Animal Project Series - Cambridge, MA - w/Kristen Iskandrian and Matthew Derby

10/17 - &NOW Festival - Action Books Reading - Buffalo, NY

Issue 17 of The Quarterly Conversation

Issue 17 of The Quarterly Conversation went live yesterday and includes my review of Jean-Philippe Toussaint's novel, Running Away. Many thanks to editor Scott Esposito for all of his help and hard work.

Here is the table of contents:

Features
From the Editors: On the Right Way to Write Criticism

Horacio Castellanos and the New Political Novel

The Right to Write About It: Literature, After Katrina

When a Biography Is Not a Biography: The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys

Words Are Living Tissue: The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector

Citizen of Literature: Dubravka Ugrešić

The Limits of Human Memory: On Proust and Javier Marías


Serializations
From Witold Gombrowicz’s Pornografia

From The Subversive Scribe by Suzanne Jill Levine

Launching a School of “Creative Criticism”


Reviews

Poetry

For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut by Takashi Hiraide

Selected Poems by Geoffrey Hill

Reading Novalis in Montana by Michelle Kwasny

Micrographia by Emily Wilson

Scape by Joshua Harmon

C. P. Cavafy: Collected Poems by C. P. Cavafy


Prose

Hiding Man: A Biography of Donald Barthelme by Tracy Daugherty

The Mighty Angel by Jerzy Pilch

Running Away by Jean-Philippe Toussaint

Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Love and Obstacles by Aleksandar Hemon

Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon

Imperial by William T. Vollmann

News from the Empire by Fernando Del Paso

Little Fingers by Filip Florian

The Silence Room by Sean O'Brien

The Father and the Foreigner by Giancarlo De Cataldo

The Bun Field by Amanda Vahamaki

The Feline Plague by Maja Novak

Said and Done by James Morrison

Also, be sure to check out Two Words, the blog of the Center for the Art of Translation, where Scott is the marketing coordinator and blog administrator/contributor.

So much going on

In no particular order (actually seems to be all at once):

Michael Kimball wrote Meg Pokrass's life story on a postcard.

I know PANK Magazine has been around for a few years, but I've definitely become more aware of the magazine over the past year or so, and I like what I see.

Check out their lively blog for an interview with Gary Percesepe, Associate Editor of Mississippi Review.

They will be publishing Matt Bell's short story "Mantodea" in PANK 4 (see/hear Matt read "Her Ennead" and "Mantodea" as part of the Keyhole Press promotion for Stephanie Johnson's One of These Things is Not Like the Others and his forthcoming story collection, How They Were Found)

They are having a contest with prizes and transparency.

A little more Matt Bell: his sold-out chapbook THE COLLECTORS is now available as a free e-book. As is his chapbook from Willows Wept Press, HOW THE BROKEN LEAD THE BLIND

Jackie Corley interviewed by Lee Rourke at 3:AM Magazine

Call for submissions:

Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide

Edited by Eva Talmadge and Justin Taylor

We are seeking high quality photographs of your literary tattoos for an upcoming book. Send us your ink! Submissions are open to all kinds of literary tattoo work: quotations from your favorite writer, opening lines of novels, lines of verse, literary portraits or illustrations. From Shakespeare to Bukowski to The Little Prince in a Baobab tree, if it’s a literary tattoo and its on your body, we want to see it.

All images must include the name (or pseudonym) of the tattoo bearer, city and state or country, and a transcription of the text itself, along with its source. For portraits or illustrations, please include the name of the author or book on which it’s based. And of course, you are heartily encouraged to credit the artist who did your work.

We’d also like to read a few words about the tattoo’s meaning to you — why you chose it, when you first read that poem or book, or how its meaning has evolved over time. How much (or how little) you choose to say about your tattoo is up to you, but a paragraph or two should do the trick.

Please send clear digital images of the highest print quality possible to tattoolit@gmail.com. Pixel resolutions should be at least 1500 x 1200, or a minimum 300 dpi at 5 inches wide. Text should be included in the body of the email, not as an attached document. Also be sure to include one or more pieces of contact information, so we can let you know if you’re going to be in the book.

Blake Butler is everywhere. And while he's there he is eating a copy of his forthcoming book SCORCH ATLAS one page at a time and he's making videos of himself doing it (otherwise, he'd probably just eat candy):

Blake Butler eats Page 1 of Scorch Atlas from blake butler on Vimeo.

Blake Butler eats Page 2 of Scorch Atlas from blake butler on Vimeo.

Blake could maybe go 'Tao Lin' and put the processed pages on ebay. Maybe put them in a mason jar or something.

Glad to see the Christopher Higgs is now a contributor at HTMLGIANT.

Shya Scanlon's Forecast 42 Project, where he is serializing his novel FORECAST, essentially turning a network of online lit mags and blogs into a sort of aggregate literary magazine. The first six chapters have appeared at Juked, Northville Review, Emprise Review, John Madera's website, flatmancrooked, and Lamination Colony, and many more to come since there are 42 chapters.

In the spirit of Shya Scanlon's project, J.A. Tyler is posting his novel(la), THE ZOO, A GOING, one piece at a time, and it won't cost you a dime (good ol' Johnny Cash); each piece will be posted for 24 hours and then will make way for the next, a total of 76 pieces/days.

John Madera reviews Brian Evenson's Fugue State

Gina Myers interviewed Jeff Vande Zande about his novel, Landscape with Fragmented Figures

Everyday Genius guest edited this month by Michael Kimball

I know I'm missing a ton of stuff.