Madras Press is a new small publisher of novellas and short stories that donates its profits to charities of their authors’ choosing. The first series of 4 titles has just gone on sale at very affordable prices, including titles by Trinie Dalton (!), Aimee Bender, Rebecca Lee, and Sumanth Prabhaker. Couldn’t ask for much more.

from Tripticks

quinNot to be outdone I suggested we all strip and rub one anothers’ bodies with some very special oil I happened to have. My wife immediately muttered ‘sacrilege’, and abruptly turned away from me for the rest of the evening. Partly because of her attitude and my own position in all this I started looking around at the other women. There wasn’t really much choice. I chose about the youngest, a girl who still had the air of highschool around her. I really wasn’t turned on by her, however, she seemed to respond amazingly quickly in the candlelit room to my hands which at first I only dared put through her long dark hair. I whispered that we should go into another room. But as we were sidling out of the door, my wife, who lay naked on the altar, incense it seemed wafting from her body, called out ‘if you want to do anything do it here only don’t bug my trip.’ I had the feeling that other than the potions Nightripper had handed out he had also passed around something else. The scene resembled a Bosch vision of hell. Some women were staring, some were unusually happy, some were sick, others were screaming, and some said the walls were moving. These days if one escapes being hijacked in an airplane, mugged in the street, or sniped at by a man gone berserk, one apparently still runs the risk of getting accidentally zonked by the hors d’oeuvres at a friendly neighbourhood cocktail party. As soon as I thought this I began hallucinating, and ultimately freaked out, overturning the altar, calling Nightripper my motherfucking father. Apparently everyone soon left, except the girl, who my wife asked to stay, hoping between them they could bring me through. I remember there was a point when I didn’t want to come down, but remain on an edge that appeared to touch upon a very thin line between life and death, and such power! I felt I was capable of anything, by merely putting my hand out things would fall or rise. I was Satan with God as my servant.

– Ann Quin, Tripticks, pg. 61-62

Excerpts / 16 Comments
October 1st, 2009 / 1:38 am

“Really? Really? You were going to ruin her life, ruin my life, you cunt-probe dick-munch ass-gashing Animal? Who’s bossing who now? Gash-ass, jiz-lips, turd-munch—”

Victory Lap by George Saunders.

Random / 24 Comments
September 30th, 2009 / 8:58 pm

‘Let’s take a nap from books’ Wednesday

Someone put a computer in a dead beaver. Smarter monkeys have few close friends and a lot of acquaintances. Someone made an iPhone game based on Daniel Johnston. Did I mention that someone put a computer in a dead beaver?

Random / 27 Comments
September 30th, 2009 / 6:37 pm

A Very Brief History of the Nobel Prize in Literature

King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, who gives out the Nobel Prizes. He's kind of handsome, right? Got that "silver fox" thing going on.

King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, who gives out the Nobel Prizes. He's kind of handsome, right? Got that "silver fox" thing going on.

When the winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature is announced next month, he or she will join a club more exclusive than just about any other in the world. You know those clubs at Ivy League schools, with names like “The Scone and Pudding Society,” where it’s a bunch of white guys who dress in costumes and make up silly songs and photograph each other naked? And how, you know, the members are, against all odds, actually proud of being in it? Instead of feeling kind of dirty and ashamed? Even more exclusive than that.

One thing’s for sure: Of all the 105 women and men who have won this prestigious award, none of them will ever be forgotten. Except for most of them. After the jump, we take a look at some of the past winners, and how they changed…the very world itself. Except for the ones who didn’t. Which, like I said, is a lot of them.

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Random & Web Hype / 50 Comments
September 30th, 2009 / 1:37 pm

Interesting article by John Berry in the Baltimore City Paper questioning the merits of teaching Joyce’s ‘The Dead’, leading into a larger discussion of what the fuck short stories are supposed to be for anyway.

The news teaches me something about writing.

lewis_criedToday, the Russians launched a clown into space. He’s the first space clown, ever. The clown paid $35 million to go into space, where he intends to publicize the world’s dwindling supply of clean water.

From a news perspective, this story is just full of hooks. First clown in space. Paid $35 million dollars. Millionaire clown. Buying your way into space.

It’s just—well, the clean water thing. It’s one hook too many. His clean water awareness mission is entirely buried by the fact that he’s the first millionaire clown to buy his way to the international space station. He’s going to be a sad clown. Swimming in polluted water.

I can’t tell you how many stories I’ve read that seemed to me to be a bunch of quirky ideas thrown together, as if the writer was hoping one would really stick. I can’t tell you how many times those stories have been MY stories.

Don’t do it, everybody. Don’t bury the point with your ideas. They’ll tempt you. They do that.

(Prize for the first commenter to identify the image above. And not just who it is. Why it is appropriate, too.)

Craft Notes / 18 Comments
September 30th, 2009 / 12:44 pm

You drunks might be interested in this call for submissions to the Definitive Drinker’s Dictionary.

(via Melville House)

What isn’t ‘human’?

What I Hear You Saying Is That My Writing Sucks

Photo by Philippe LeRoyer

In the June 2009 issue of College Composition and Communication, Rosalie Morales Kearns wrote an article about the creative writing workshop in which she critiques the traditional workshop (as normative, exclusionary, and focused on fault-finding) and asserts we must rethink the format of the workshop for it to serve as a productive, inclusive experience. Changes she suggests include lifting the “gag rule” so authors can talk about their writing as it is being critiqued, the use of writing exercises, and studying published works because “students are much more accustomed to approaching published texts as literature students rather than as creative writers.”

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Craft Notes / 99 Comments
September 30th, 2009 / 9:00 am