Adam Robinson
http://www.publishinggenius.com
Adam Robinson lives in Baltimore, where he operates Publishing Genius Press. His book of poems, Adam Robison and other poems, will be published by Narrow House Books this year.
60 Word Short Story Reviews
Baltimore’s City Paper is currently running a series of short story reviews in 60 words or less. It’s insanely difficult to try to capture something that briefly. I’m not thrilled with my encapsulation of Giant contributor Ryan Call’s story “I Pilot My Bed Deep Into the Night,” which appeared in Keyhole 7, but what the heck. It was fun trying. Or maybe it was stressful, because I had to keep throwing away words and I thought I was killing his amazing story. Other reviews include a Breece Pancake story from Justin Sirois (who chose to use the expletive “damn” as one of his words), Barry Hannah’s “Constant Pain in Tuscaloosa” by Tim Kreider, and a couple dozen others. Here’s a writer to know: Dambudzo Marechera, covered by Bret McCabe.
The Bar-Stool Edible Worm
by Dambudzo MarecheraI am against everything
Against war and those against
War.
Against whatever diminishes
Th’individual’s blind impulse.Shake the peaches down from
The summer poem, Rake in ripe
Luminosity; dust; taste. Lunchtime
News – pass the Castor Oil, Alice.
I think the most remarkable review is Jamie Gaughran-Perez’s take on “Hills Like White Elephants,” because he doesn’t shy away from quoting the word “please” for seven of his 60 words. There are 27 reviews in all, which means you can can get mildly familiar with 27 stories and only have to read 1620 words.
Uncategorized / 18 Comments
September 23rd, 2009 / 11:13 am
September 23rd, 2009 / 11:13 am
Adam Robinson—
There is some amazing documentation about the creation of a trio of broadsides over at the NewLights Press IDE(A/O)(B)LOG(Y/UE). The broadsides are from Justin Sirois, Brian Evenson and John Yau.
The last 8 posts are filled with some truly amazing stuff.
4
I’m Not Really Sure This Will Work, But Here Goes: A Reading Group
I’m updating this post and bringing it up “above the fold” just to, y’know, make sure everyone who’s interested has a chance to comment. It looks like we’re going to be reading MAXIMUM GAGA together and talking about it. Because it’s DIFFICULT.
Original post:
For a while I’ve been thinking, you know what HTMLGIANT needs, it needs — no, you know what the WORLD needs, it needs — no, HTMLGIANT and the WORLD are the same thing — you know what we should do, I’ve been thinking, what we should do is, like, a reading group. READ MORE >
Adam Robinson—
I finally got another bookshelf and have a place for all my books now. But what do I do with the dozens of MLP chapbooks that I have? I want to take them out of their drawer, but then where will I put them? Does anyone already have a solution? Something like what they got for my One Story collection?
That’s a Wilde form for a novel
[Via The Book Design Review]
This is the cover of a new version of The Picture of Dorian Gray published by Four Corners Books in London. It’s published like a magazine, I guess cuz first it was published in a magazine. Any good books coming out in magazines nowadays? Is everybody enjoying Shya Scanlon’s “book,” Forecast? (Speaking of nice design and serialized novels?)
I mean, get outta town, that’s the cover of the book. It’s got a nasty font and a word-
break and it don’t got the title or author or nothing.
Fn-A right, that’s pretty dang wapow. (Even it was reviewed in Financial Times.) I gotta go back to school.
I checked out Four Corners. They have other awesome looking books.
TripleQuick Fiction
Featherproof is creating an iPhone app for flash called “TripleQuick Fiction.” Each story will be 333 words long or fewer, and from looking at the part of the image underneath Shane Jones’s barrelchest, I gather that readers can vote on each piece’s quality by choosing either “Good Egg” or “Rotten Egg.” To me that’s the coolest thing about the idea. Let’s let the techie dudes have a say in what works for li’l lit.
You heard it at the Examiner first, with this keen and clunky description of short fiction: “Because the stories are so short they may seem simple and disposable but writing good flash fiction is challenging because you only have so few words–333 in this case–to create, or at least suggest, a world, to take the reader there and let her experience it.” Now with mobile technology, you can let TripleQuick take you to one world while the bus takes you to work.
I’m really excited about this, even though I don’t have an iPhone. I have a G1. What are the chances some ebookish developer gets motivated enough to set this up for Android? What about people with just regular cell phones, the kind with the hinge? Are they gonna get illiterate?
What’s next? What the hell is going to happen next?
11 Questions for Stephanie Johnson
How do you make these graphics of the book cover standing up, showing fake pages?
I sent 11 questions to Stephanie Johnson about her book, One of These Things Is Not Like the Others, just out from Keyhole, and she wrote back thanking me for my close reading. But such thanks are unnecessary; the book demands and rewards it. If you don’t read One of These Things with a keen eye, it’s possible to miss out on some of the best writing in a year of great writing. I rank Johnson’s book with two of my other favorites of 2009, AM/PM by Amelia Gray and Big World from Mary Miller. It’s not because they’re all women that I make the comparison, or because of the flash sensibilities, but because they all share a profoundly affecting emotional core that, geyserlike, does most of its work below the surface.
Speaking of below the surface, Stephanie Johnson’s answers to my eleven questions are below the fold. READ MORE >
A Book That Books What A Book Would Do
Does anybody know anything about this book, The City and the City? I heard it discussed on Morning Edition today and had one of those driveway moments or whatever. It sounds flabbergasting. Apparently, it’s a detective story that takes place in a city that has another city right on top of it — but not, like, above it — both cities occupy the same space. It was funny to hear Robert Siegel trying to wrap his mind around it.
I don’t know more than that, but here’s a good review at The Guardian. I’ve never read anything by China Miéville, but this concept has me intrigued enough to maybe buy his book from wherever people buy these books from and bring it on the road with me next week.
Rate my bookshelf
The books here are pretty good or whatever, but what I like is that this bookshelf is functional. Who wants to make me one?