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.

Shanna Compton, Designer

Photo on 6-5-13 at 11.31 AM
I just got the new Peter Davis book in the mail, Tina, published by Bloof Books.

I haven’t read it yet. This is just to say that Shanna Compton is one of my new favorite designers for poetry books. Her own book, Brink, is also wicked handsome. She has successfully rethought every element of a good book design. Why put what where? The advance praise is at the end. The copyright data gets a line at the bottom of the Table of Contents because that stuff is ugly.

Also, I love Peter Davis’s poetry. Get this for your summer shelf, silly. Review it for HTMLGiant, whydoncha? Watch the trailer, which is better than your average book trailer:

Author Spotlight & Behind the Scenes / 1 Comment
June 5th, 2013 / 11:41 am

WTF Is Happening In My Shower?

Even if you’ve never showered with me (hey ladies!) you know some weird things are going on in there. READ MORE >

Behind the Scenes / 36 Comments
May 28th, 2013 / 6:23 pm

Baltimore Book Club on Joe Hall

Devotional_Poems_web_coverDiscussed: The Devotional Poems by Joe Hall

Present: Joseph Young, Amanda McCormick, Tracy Dimond, Caryn Lazzuri, Laura van den Berg, Linda Franklin, Matthew Zingg, Jamie GP, Chris Mason, Dave K, Adam Robinson

Tardy: Megan McShea

Jamie GP: Don’t read anything, don’t read anything about Star Trek, just go see it.

Adam: Chris, I just told everyone we are going to take notes and put them on HTMLGiant like a review, is that okay?

Chris: Cool.

Adam: With all our names.

Chris: Cool.

Joe: All right. Do people like this book? I mean I want to call this guy Joe Hallmark because it’s so sappy.

Dave K: Oh!

Linda: I actually didn’t like it at all. I liked about 8 lines. READ MORE >

Author Spotlight & Mean / 9 Comments
May 20th, 2013 / 6:52 am

[in Just-]

BY E. E. CUMMINGS

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it’s
spring
and

the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

Presses / 1 Comment
April 22nd, 2013 / 7:27 pm

I Don’t Know Should Matthew Savoca Get a Dog

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HTMLGiant fave Matthew Savoca just came out with his novel yesterday, improbably titled I Don’t Know I Said. Laura van den Berg said it’s a book for anyone who has ever been bored. Michael Kimball said it’s got more charm than it should ever have. Scott McClanahan said it’s like eating baby food with a loved one. Chris Killen said he’d recommend it to anybody. The book is about Arthur and Carolina, youths in love, trying to do it right. Here’s an interview with Matthew, if you’re bored. On Friday evening Matthew will read the entire novel and broadcast it at Everyday Genius.

Hi Matthew.
Hi Sarah.

Tell me about the most exciting thing you’ve experienced in the past month.
The first thing that came to my mind is the other day when I thought about getting a dog. I was on a 2 hour drive and I just sat there and thought for a long time about having a dog again and about where I would take it and all those kinds of things. What toys I would get, would it be the kind of dog I could let off the leash when we took a walk? Stuff like that.

Oh, also, I went to see Harry Houdini’s grave a couple weeks ago. It’s great. There’s a cool inscription that says, “He went about doing good.” And people leave all this cool stuff there like eye glasses and lighters and playing cards and pictures of their children. I left a broken zipper that I had in my pocket and asked Harry to fix it for me. I gotta pick it up next week. 

What’s going to be inscribed on your tombstone?
Wish you were here.
Author Spotlight & I Like __ A Lot / 1 Comment
April 10th, 2013 / 10:29 am

Hahaha, “Ask a Mid-List Author,” good one J. Robert Lennon. AND the new Graywolf site is nice.

Comments Off on Graywolf Redesign

Quick Thoughts on the Penguin Random House Merger

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Hi, this post was in my drafts. For some reason I was too shy to post it. So it’s old news as of like February 20. So sue me.

Naturally Dennis Johnson has some dreadful things to say about the Penguin Random House merger, calling it “one of the most important publishing and cultural stories of our lifetime.” He points to the lack of coverage in the news as a big downplay, and the scandalous lack of government oversight as something that’s hard not to see as a conspiracy.

The first page of André Schiffrin’s The Business of Books discusses how, when Random House acquired AA Knopf in 1960, the DOJ started looking into the merger—until they realized that the combined companies would be worth only $15 million. Why’d they take an interest? Because it was front page news, which isn’t the case anymore (though the combined value of Penguin Random is $3 billion). Why is this Times article, about the US regulator’s approval of the merger, so short? READ MORE >

Behind the Scenes & Presses / 3 Comments
March 25th, 2013 / 11:14 am

Reviews

25 Points: The Man Who Noticed Everything [UPDATED]

AdrianVanYoungCoverThe Man Who Noticed Everything
by Adrian Van Young
Black Lawrence Press, 2013
200 pages / $16.00 buy from Black Lawrence Press
[Update]”The Sub-Leaser,” discussed here, is now available to read in Electric Literature’s “Recommended Reading” [End Update]
 

 

 

 

 

 

1. I first met Adrian Van Young at 2012 AWP, when he was hanging out at the Gigantic table. I remembered him as an engaging person to talk to. That’s saying a lot, cuz, you know, AWP.

2. Six months later he emailed me about reading in Baltimore. That’s when I remembered what a nice guy he was.

3. His email was cordial but also professional, and he attached a press release about his book, The Man Who Noticed Everything, and a headshot. The color scheme in the photo matched the colors on his book jacket: black and dark green.

4. Ben Marcus said “you’d think this book was an anthology collecting the work of the best young writers of the new generation”—talking about The Man Who Noticed Everything.

5. So we set up a reading for January, even though I hadn’t read his book and even though the main provision for the series that Stephanie Barber and I run is that we’ll only host writers whose work we really admire. I guess the thinking was, this guy has his act together.

6. And he does. I’m not just saying that because he brought a fresh bottle of Jameson to the reading.

7. At the reading, Adrian read a short story. Sometimes I have a hard time listening to fiction. It can be so boring.

8. But while Adrian read, I laughed and laughed. The story was called “The Sub-Leaser,” and listening to it, I felt like it was full of jokes. Or, actually, it struck me as a better kind of funny writing, in which there aren’t actually jokes, but the whole concept (and the way the concept is delivered) is meant to be funny.

9. What’s more, the funniness happens within the prose, which is primarily descriptive, and that is a really hard and precarious thing to do. The story’s narrator is describing his apartment. He says, “My apartment is a standard one for the part of the city where I live. It begins at the door, which opens, like so, to show the splintered wooden hallway that I mentioned before. On the right is a bathroom, ill-sequenced of tile, with a sink built onto the wall and a bathtub, where a thin and mildewed curtain hangs, clad in a pattern of green and white plaid. To the left of the curtain, an insolent toilet, coated with a film of brown.”

10. “ill-sequenced of tile”? “an insolent toilet”? You see what I mean. The whole story is like that. READ MORE >

4 Comments
March 19th, 2013 / 11:09 am

A Mountain City of Toad Splendor by Megan McShea

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Yeah but come on, that’s the title of a book right there.

As Blake put it, it’s as if Megan studied at the Harvard for Ooh, and as Jeff Jackson said nicely, “You’re never sure what’s around the next comma.”

Lucy Corin said she remembers Megan’s dreams as if they were her own.

This book comes out today. It’s poetry and microfiction. It’s just $9 at PGP. And there are videos about it. Cool.

Author Spotlight / Comments Off on A Mountain City of Toad Splendor by Megan McShea
March 19th, 2013 / 8:37 am

Literature Party 2013

 

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READ MORE >

Events / 4 Comments
February 26th, 2013 / 1:42 pm