Joseph Young’s ‘Easter Rabbit’
I am mad excited for:
Easter Rabbit by Joseph Young
Easter Rabbit is a collection of microfictions.
100pp
perfect bound
cover art by Christine Sajecki
Pre-order cost includes shipping.
Pre-orders will ship Oct 15.
Book available in wide release on Dec 15.
Drew Toal—
Who wants to go on a midnight run to Barnes & Noble later? Anybody? Uh, anyone at all?
14
Aw, Jim. We salute you, brother.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL7QyMoh01A
(No snark here. I love this song.)
Alternate titles for this season’s two most anticipated releases
*click on covers to purchase original, and much better versions
Blake and Tao are two very talented writers, both in their own right spearheading the world of indie publishing in two very different ways. Just poking a little fun guys, good job both of you. I’m excited to read your books.
New Federman
New from BlazeVox Books:
THE CARCASSES
A FABLE
by
Raymond Federman
— but she knows from her experience on planet Earth that even if she denounces her comrades she will be thrown on the pile of carcasses known as the pile of eternally rejected carcasses — it is the worse condition — the most terrible fate for a carcass is to know that she will never be transmuted — that there is no hope of ever be transmuted — not even as an ugly vegetable — let’s say as a carrot — or as a ridiculous object like a chamber pot — meanwhile the secret forces of the authorities — known as the authoritarian militia — are in the process of arresting all those who are involved because even if the NAFC did not give their names — the OFCS denounced them — no need to say more about the pathetic failure of this revolution — what will happen in the zone of the carcasses will be told in a subsequent chapter — but as it is now said and repeated in every corner of the zone since the miscarriage of this revolt — the more things change the more they’re the same —
15 Significant Contemporary Women Writers
Blake’s recent post on Towering Literary Figures inspired me to consider a list of significant contemporary (living) women writers. By significant I mean significant to me: women writers who I admire and who I feel have significantly contributed to the advancement of literature.
Perhaps someone else on the Giant staff will take up this theme and focus on writers of color, or GLBT writers, or writers from Australia, or writers with children, or writers still living with their mothers, or etc.
For the record, I understand that what I am doing here is, to a degree, essentialist: by labeling a writer based on their gender I am furthering a world in which these distinctions exist. Furthermore, I completely sympathize with the position that argues that we should not see color or sex or race or whatever, that we should instead see only writers.
But, alas, differences exist.
So, with my disclaimer now fully realized, I give you my list of contemporary women writers that I think kick a lot of ass –(in black&white and in no particular order):
It’s a Narwhal!
Yesterday’s birthday girl Julia Cohen wasn’t the only birthday girl this week, apparently. Adele Cecilia was born Thursday in Fayetteville, Arkansas unto Katy & Matthew Henriksen, the inimitable wife-husband team responsible for Typo, Cannibal, Narwhal, The Frank Stanford Literary Festival, and the Burning Chair Series. Facebook’s being a punk right now, but later when it stops, there are pictures of the happy baby and proud parents on Matt’s page. Big internet hug to all 3 of you.
Also, just a heads up- Sunday’s birthday girl is Joshua Cohen.
Ryan Call—
Laura van den Berg’s website has been hacked by AYS Federal Atack Team.
Update: it has been fixed.
Tao Lin’s ‘Shoplifting From American Apparel’
Really excited about this one, releasing September 15th from Melville House.
Set mostly in Manhattan—although also featuring Atlantic City, Brooklyn, GMail Chat, and Gainsville, Florida—this autobiographical novella, spanning two years in the life of a young writer with a cultish following, has been described by the author as “A shoplifting book about vague relationships,” “2 parts shoplifting arrest, 5 parts vague relationship issues,” and “An ultimately life-affirming book about how the unidirectional nature of time renders everything beautiful and sad.”
From VIP rooms in “hip” New York City clubs to central booking in Chinatown, from New York University’s Bobst Library to a bus in someone’s backyard in a college-town in Florida, from Bret Easton Ellis to Lorrie Moore, and from Moby to Ghost Mice, it explores class, culture, and the arts in all their American forms through the funny, journalistic, and existentially-minded narrative of someone trying to both “not be a bad person” and “find some kind of happiness or something,” while he is driven by his failures and successes at managing his art, morals, finances, relationships, loneliness, confusion, boredom, future, and depression.
Rate Your Writers’ Teaching Ability
Well my semester has just begun, which means I’m getting emails from students trying to add my class. Many of these students and others probably check out RateMyProfessors as they try to make decisions regarding in what section they’ll enroll.
We all know how RateMyProfessors works: students anonymously rate their university instructors on a five point scale, and then type up a few sentences of comments, which can often be unintentionally hilarious. Also, anonymous raters assign chili peppers to their instructors to denote ‘hotness,’ so there’s that weird physical evaluation too.
What we might not know is that some of the very authors we’ve read, such as Evenson, Lutz, and so on, appear on RateMyProfessors, having taught at one point or another in their ‘literary career.’ I’ve gathered a handful here (as many as I could think to look for) and inserted some smarmy comments; if you know of others to link to, do so in the thread and I’ll try to add them to the post.
(Is it ‘okay’ to post these? Am I breaking some code of conduct here? I have no idea. Apologies in advance.)
What I do know is I love to gossip.
Read and click through the excerpts/list after the break.