Things to not say in blurbs or reviews so as to not sound like a tool: tour de force, startling, bad adverb + adjectives like furiously alive or wildly inventive or utterly involving, triumphant, [last name] swings for the fences, like [blank] on crack, like [blank] on LSD, romp, rollicking, breathless, a unique voice, poignant, sexy (horny is OK), well-wrought, death rattle, tongue fart doublespeak like dizzyingly-high-concept debut of genuine originality, any reference to Dada or surrealism, any employment of the phrase experimental, neo-anything, any vague or direct use of the phrase meditation such as resonant meditations, “[last name] really sings,” cautionary tale, anything about Kafka or Carver or Bukowski, any reconjuring of the phrase reminds us what it is to be human…

Things to not include in your bio so as to not look like a tool: Pushcart or other award nominations, that you were a finalist in a contest or a judge, every magazine credit you’ve ever gotten, where you went to school, where you got a grant or were handed money, what kind of book you’re currently shopping, why you write…

Imagine if their logo had been a picture of a bumblebee. A rabid bat. A great white shark: chomp chomp.

(via MobyLives)

Paul Zukofsky doesn’t like people quoting his parents, especially ‘innocent grad students.’ Anyone want to help me type out Louis Zukofsky’s collected fiction?

(via Poetry Foundation)

What books or authors do you despise? Why?

#oneletteroffliterarymagazines

I can haz canon? Has the LOL internet meme gone too far? Or not far enough?

(via @asfmag)

Why do you write? Why waste your time?

Repeating the same thing over and over in social networks and blanket emailing my inbox is never going to make me want to buy a book. In fact, it might make me want to not buy a book. Try something else. Or better yet: just exist.