Blake Butler
http://www.gillesdeleuzecommittedsuicideandsowilldrphil.com/
Blake Butler lives in Atlanta. His third book, There Is No Year, is forthcoming April 2011 from Harper Perennial.
Hi, I like So New Media
Here is a post about So New Media.
Things there are happening proactively.
Things are there that involve books, and we’re here for books. They have released books by Jackie Corley, Jen Michalski, and they have released books by Amy Guth and a new anthology by David Barringer with a lot of cool people in it.
Now there is a new editor in the house. That editor would be the excellent Amy Guth. Check out this note from passing editor David Gianatasio:
In a literary move so earthshaking I paused my pre-release X-Files: I Want to Believe dvd to spread the word, Amy Guth will be, according to an e-mail that just hit my in-box, “Taking on much of the effort at So New as Managing Editor…Amy has a ton of great ideas about the future of the press, lots of enthusiasm for the existing catalog, and just the right mix of professionalism, social-savvy and creativity.” Jim Stegall, a god-like figure on the independent lit scene, remains publisher. Both Amy and I have released mind-numbingly brilliant books through So New, so I’m not exactly a disinterested party. I was a fan of the press long before I was one of their authors. Even in their earliest chapbook days, they produced fun, challenging stuff that big-time didn’t suck — and that would surely have fallen through the cracks at large literary houses. (Early Neal Pollack, Claire Zulkey, Jami Attenberg, etc.) Having dealt with them through the editing/publishing process, I can honestly say: THEY ROCK. This is a first-rate outfit in every regard, respectful of writers, endlessly helpful and encouraging and worthy of everyone’s support. So put a crowbar in those wallets, buy some books and help Amy, Jim and So New out, OK?
I like what So New Media does. I like their books. More things are going to happen.
In the meantime, check out the Barringer-edited anthology. What Happened to Us These Last Couple Years?. Go.
Win Nick Antosca’s MIDNIGHT PICNIC
You may have heard by now that Nick Antosca‘s brightly anticipated new novel, MIDNIGHT PICNIC, is coming out this month from Word Riot Press. It’s been through some kind of phantom haunting of its own but now in the firm hands of Jackie Corley and company, it will soon available for your eyes (and is now out from preorder on the site, if you are so inclined, and should be.)
I really loved Nick’s first book, FIRES, and having read MP already I can tell you it is like a mix of Cormac McCarthy’s CHILD OF GOD on too much Kool Aid and full of magic, phantoms, surreal shopping malls, those shots from Lost Highway where it is just the car going into the night, etc.
To celebrate the coming release, Nick and WR Press have hooked us up with two copies of the book for to give away to HTML Giant readers. Entry to the give away is simple:
What is the way you would least like to die?
Answer this question in as little or as many words as you need to best elucidate the exit method. Bonus points have been promised to those who illustrate their deaths with pictures or drawings in MS paint. Whoever most effectively, creatively, disgustingly, or whatever other adverb seems good as deemed by Nick will take home what I can guarantee is a book you will not soon forget.
Another thing I won’t soon be forgetting is the picture the author requested to be included in this post, which I will now bestow up you in all good faith that it will lead your mind to the gory end that gets you the book prize.:
Contest closes Monday night. Let’s hear it.
Matt Bell’s HOW THE BROKEN LEAD THE BLIND
I’d be hard pressed to think of a better all around guy than Matt Bell, not to mention one hell of a writer. Matt somehow is able to fuse the abstruse with just great storytelling in a way that few are able to unlock, meanwhile also capable shifting gowns of from one mode to another as cleanly as any magician I can think of.
His forthcoming chapbook HOW THE BROKEN LEAD THE BLIND from Willow Wept Press is something to be excited about and look forward to. Here is a press release and how to order:
Matt Bell’s HOW THE BROKEN LEAD THE BLIND is now available for pre-order!
How the Broken Lead the Blind includes ten fabulous stories by Mr. Matt Bell. And everyone’s favorite artist, Christy Call, is working on illustrations and cover art. We have blurbs on their way from Michael Kimball, Mike Czyzniejewski, Dave Housley, Steve Gillis, Steven McDermott, Dan Wickett, William Walsh, and Ryan Call. I think my job here as promoter is done: What else is there to say? This chapbook, I know, will easily sell itself.So. What you need to know is this: How the Broken Lead the Blind will begin shipping in January. Please pre-order now, as there is a limited print run of only 100 copies.
Go here to order. At 100 copies, these will go mega fast. Do a buy.
Behind the Scenes of Tyrant 5: BEAR
A new feature in the making at HTML Giant: behind the scenes of production at your favorite litmags and presses, how things are put together, what is done, who eats first, and in today’s case, how many erections were caused during prep?
Here’s some outtakes from the recent, amazing cover of New York Tyrant‘s fifth issue, with some words on the shoot and the culmination of the innovative cover with editor GianCarlo DiTrapano:
Bears. Bears, bears, bears. I wanted the cover of Tyrant 5 to have to do with them. So, we got a bear-suit and met Barbara Nitke (a Project Runway photog) at the NYPL. She took many shots there, on the steps there at the library. The original plan for the cover: Chris, bear-suit, NYPL. (Not sure why exactly those three things though.) Barbara was kind enough to do the shoot for free, but on the condition that Chris (the bear) would come back to her studio and sit for a portrait after we were done. She was kind enough to invite me along. “Bring the bear-suit!” Ten minutes later we were back at her studio. My clothes were on the floor and all I had on was the bear-head and my underwear.
The pig mask: Maybe kind of stupid. I saw it where we rented the bear-suit and it looked like how I felt I should look sometimes, if my outsides matched my insides. Someone later mentioned The Shining, but I swear I never even thought of that. There were many shots from the library, and there were many shots from the studio. Between the NYPL and the erotic studio shots, we relegated the literary for the porn-ish. Erik Blair did the lay-out, chose that sweet 80s metal font. Erik is a magic cover maker.
I feel like I might owe an apology to all bear-enthusiasts that bought the mag on spec, thinking there was bear porn inside. I hope they like what they found inside instead. There are definitely some stories you could masturbate to if you concentrate hard enough.
Is it selling out to put a famous person on your lit mag cover to help it sell? Of course it is. But these bitches have been selling like hotcakes so I have ceased to care.
One last thing: My belly-button wasn’t always ugly like that. I used to have a total innie. It herniated one night in Rome, at the age of 21, after over-indulging in food and wine and sex. How Roman. (Obviously, I have huge self-esteem issues to have to explain that fact.)
To check out the final cover, buy the issue (which includes work by Gordon Lish, Sam Michel, Eugene Marten, Jon Haskell, Eva Talmadge, and about 20 other loons, or to submit work for perusal and distribution to the bear community, check out New York Tyrant online.
Kitchen Reading Series
I like this: The Kitchen Reading Series, which is people doing readings in their kitchens.
Tired of boogie-boarding the net, watching laughing babies, silly cat montages, or anything scored to the Benny Hill Theme? For a grapefruit squirt in the eye, check out The Kitchen Reading Series, a video-based alternative to live literary readings. Our first batch features the following writers:
Deanna Fong
Stacey May Fowles
Jp King
Anna Leventhal
Jeff Miller
Hillary Rexe
Vince Tinguely
Here is an example, of Deanna Fong reading from her new book BUTCHER’S BLOCK from PistolPress, which looks really great:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
<50% of the people who read this site do not actually buy books.
<50% of the people who read this site will not be interested in what they are doing today in 5 to 15 years.
<50% of me is inside me too.
>50% of anyone is ready for liquidation.
<50% of Zach German woke up in America this morning.
<500000% of
~100% of me is going now to buy ice cream.Websites.
Uncategorized / 6 Comments
December 4th, 2008 / 12:32 am
December 4th, 2008 / 12:32 am
‘How to Get Linked on HTML Giant’: A 2 Step Primer
For future reference, and because it’s recently come up, if you are wanting in the worst way to get linked on HTML Giant (man, I don’t blame you, it’s a firestorm in here), it’s really pretty simple. In fact it’s so simple, there are just two steps. Here are those two steps:
PRIMER STEP ONE: (For primer step one, I am going to defer to the guidelines for submission at Muumuu House Press, which I think are absolutely brilliant, and probably the most honest thing I’ve seen a publisher write about the way they select texts:
To submit to Muumuu House find a person who has been published by or is associated with Muumuu House and read their blog. If you like their blog make a comment in their comments section in a sincere and natural manner, expressing your feelings. Eventually someone associated with Muumuu House will probably read your comment and click your name and find your blog. If that person likes your blog, to a certain degree, then they will probably tell other people in emails or in real life and then at some point you will probably be emailed, not necessarily about Muumuu House, but maybe about Muumuu House. I think this is more natural. It supports a ‘there is no good or bad in art’ mentality, is probably faster and more efficient than emailing submissions and having people read them and respond to them, and I think it decreases loneliness, boredom, and despair more effectively than with ‘normal’ submissions, based on my experiences with the internet, I believe. Muumuu House is edited by Tao Lin.
PRIMER STEP TWO: Do something good.
That’s it. Those can occur in any order. They can occur exclusively of one another. They are also dependent on me forgetting everything else already me like the fact that I really want to go run a few miles right now at 11:25 PM, which I will do right after I finish this, forgetting that and other bullshit, and thinking about these things that happen, which can happen at any instant, and then I will click the buttons and copy and past the address and you will appear like magic in the brown letters on the foam green backdrop (I am suddenly doubting my recall of our color scheme) and people maybe will see your name there and maybe sometime click on you even though if they are here and they are looking at the ‘other places’ section will likely have already heard of you because the people who tend to read shit here tend to give a crap about books and have probably already over the course of however long they’ve intermingled that caring about books with the internet somehow stumbled on those places, rendering our links section and any links section just another thing that is a thing is probably not worth mentioning most of the time, like old baby blankets and tennis socks. You might notice I haven’t added a link to the journal I’ve been editing for more than 5 years. That’s just how much it doesn’t matter. And anyhow, more often, things that get linked here that ‘we’ give ‘a shit’ (more Muumuu House props, I guess) about are linked in the blog body because this is a blog and that’s what the blog is for and that’s what happens. I am still typing.
The main way not to get linked is to blind query the HTML Giant email inbox because (a) I don’t know that anyone checks it regularly except for Secret Santa things recently, I know I have looked twice, again it is a ‘token’ (b) I like to find things and remember things rather than being told, I have a mother already and (c) refer to PRIMER STEPS 1 and 2.
The for certain for sure super way not to get linked, if you did go ahead and send one of those ‘link me dear god link me please!’ emails, is not to get your tits in an uproar when 6 days later you haven’t gotten an answer back (current flood of other inbox Santa happies notwithstanding), and then come publicly bitching about how you’ve published several of our writers so why not why not why? I’ll admit I’ve added two links to the links as a result of the editor emailing, but only because I did like those places, and they did not call out about who/what/when/where was published, and let me pick up the email on my own and think, oh, yeah, that’s cool, I can do that, I want to do that. Done.
I like a lot of things. I also like to be a stick in the mud and look at my own ass. It gets me off.
6 months of ML Press
Wow. ML Press announces their next 6 months of titles, and it is quite an onslaught:
we are very excited to announce the next 18 ml press authors:
BE NICE TO EVERYONE by sam pink
MISERABLE FISH by colin bassett
DON’T GIVE UP & DIE by james chapman
A HEAVEN GONE by jac jemc
LIKE IT WAS HER PLACE by kim chinquee
SOME OF THE LETTERS THAT WERE CUT by michael kimball
IN ENVY OF GLACIERS
& THE UNIVERSE OF THE BODY by norman lock
THREE ACTS WITH VINCENT by kim parko
WHAT I SAW by randall brown
THEY by brian evenson
BLUEBEARD by michael stewart
(forthcoming) by peter markus
ISN’T THIS WHAT YOU WERE LOOKING FOR? by ken sparling
THOSE BONES by david ohle
MOLTING by aaron burch
DA VINCI DIED BEFORE CIGARETTES by p. h. madore
ALTRUISM by matthew savoca
(forthcoming) by johannes göranssonsix-month subscriptions will be available until the dec. 08 trio is sold out.
$36 / 18 volumes, beginning with the dec. 08 trio.
want to order? click to the here.
SIR! Reopens for Subs
SIR! is badass. And now reading again for issue 2. If issue 1 is any indicator, myself notwithstanding, SIR! is going to be decapitating bitches for some time to come, and doing it and doing it and doing it well. Sorry, I’ve had too much coffee, but send some words:
SIR! will be taking submissions from December to January for an upcoming February issue. There is no outright emphasis on content or form, but we remain enthusiastic about poetry of all sorts. Flash fiction is accepted, but again, we are mostly looking for poetry. Send 3-6 of your latest and best inventions. You may send them in the body of an email, or as a WORD or RTF attachment. Translations very welcome. Simultaneous submissions are accepted. Please include a short cover letter and a bio. Submissions without any sort of bio will be deleted.
Send all work to – sir.editor@gmail.com
Uncategorized / 14 Comments
December 1st, 2008 / 6:08 pm
December 1st, 2008 / 6:08 pm
2 New from Magic Helicopter Press
Two really exciting new handmade chapbooks (I will not call them ‘chaps’) from the exciting, pastel colored Magic Helicopter Press: Mary Miller’s LESS SHINY and Benjamin Buchholz’s THIRTEEN STARES.
Here are specs:
Mary Miller’s LESS SHINY5×7.5
Saddlestitched
36 pg
First Printing: November 2008, 75 numbered copies• DESCRIPTION •
A collection of short short stories from the author of Big World (short flight/long drive books 2009). Mary Miller’s stories have appeared in the Oxford American, New Stories from the South 2008, Mississippi Review, Black Clock, Quick Fiction, Barrelhouse, Hobart, and elsewhere.
• EXCERPTS •
from NOÖ Journal: “This Boy I Loved a Rock”
from elimae: “South Dakota”
from SmokeLong Quarterly: “A Blind Dog Named Killer and a Colony of Bees”
Benjamin Buchholz’s THIRTEEN STARES.
5×7.5
Saddlestitched
36 pg
First Printing: November 2008, 75 numbered copies• DESCRIPTION •
A collection of poems and photographs from US Army officer Benjamin Buchholz, who is the author of the non-fiction book Private Soldiers from WHS Press, now nominated for the Book of the Year Award by ForeWord Magazine. Work Buchholz published in 2007 has been nominated for the Pushcart, the Million Writers Award, and included in the anthology Best of the Web from Dzanc Press.
• EXCERPTS •
from NOÖ Journal
from Tryst: “Promotions and Demotions”
from Tarpaulin Sky: “Nowords”
Two killer new things to read and gift and give and enjoy. Cheap! Kick it.