magic helicopter press will be releasing daniel bailey’s “drunk sonnets” sometime in the fall. i don’t think i have ever read anything by daniel bailey that didn’t cause me to at least go, “dear lord” with my fingertips to my slightly open mouth. here’s a good example of some o dat bailey crunk ass shit. i’m not sure if this post contains any potentially good comment-thread arguing-points, but i have faith in each and every one of you!
A few weeks ago, Dzanc books announced that they’d started a new program called the Dzanc Books Creative Writing Sessions. There was a lot of coverage of this announcement for about a week, and then news fell off. For a while, I didn’t read anything about the program, how it was doing, what it was like, etc., so when I saw that Tim had posted on his blog that he’d signed up for it, and because he’s a regular reader around here, I thought I’d ask for his thoughts.
Okay, two small press events and one massive-ass festival.
1) Noemi Press reading at Stain barfeaturing Claire Hero, Shya Scanlon, Mark Tursi, and Lila Zemborain. >>Join us at 7 PM on 2 May 2009 for a Noemi Press reading at Stain Bar, 766 Grand Street, Brooklyn NY, 11211 (L to Grand, 1 block west) <<
2) Book Party & Reading for Eric Baus’ Tuned Droves, the new title from Octopus Books. Eric Baus, Cathy Park Hong, Karla Kelsey, & Keith Newton will read. Music from Snowblink. FREE WINE. Sunday May 3, 5:30-8pm. location: 267 douglass st, brooklyn, ny: from Union St (R / M trains): walk north three blocks on 4th Ave & turn left on Douglass. From Atlantic / Pacific: walk south on 4th Ave for seven blocks & turn right on Douglass.
3) This is also the week of the PEN World Voices festival, which has like a million events happening all over NYC and Brooklyn, throughout the day and evening. Complete festival schedule is here. I’m going to be at “The Language of Fear” event at the CUNY grad center tonight, and at the “Faith and Fiction” event at the powerHouse arena on Sunday afternoon (then heading Bausward after that).
I’m sorry for spamming the site.
This was in last week’s New Yorker but I just got around to reading it this week. It’s a long piece by Jill Lepore called “The Humbug: Edgar Allan Poe and the economy of horror.” This year is the 200th anniversary of Poe’s birth, and so there are a few new editions of his work out, as well as a biography, all of which seem only of passing interest to Lepore. Her real interest is in Poe himself, and his efforts to survive by his pen in an era of constant economic flux, where the literary market was always especially grim. When Poe wanted to bring his first book of poems out, his publisher demanded a guarantee against losses. Magazines and journals stopped paying their contributors. In short, the picture of the literary world that Lepore paints seems–to me anyway–more the same than different, compared to our own. I thought that readers here–irrespective of your particular interest in Poe–might find something heartening in that knowledge, or at least take some cold comfort in trans-generational commiseration.
from brandon’s blog
here are the contest guidelines:
work must be fiction, 300 – 5000 words
entry deadline is friday may 15, 2009
submit in the body of an email to brandongorrell[at]gmail.com with ‘contest’ in the subject heading
paypal your entry fee/ agree to mail cash or check to mailing address provided at the same time as submitting your story. stories without entry fees will not be considered
I think it’s sort of tacky that Brandon is doing this. I know he just lost his job at the BBQ Café and probably needs money. I don’t know. It doesn’t seem like a worthwhile investment for anybody. Aren’t there are other more concrete things to do with your money? And if you win you get a copy of Brandon’s book? It reminds me of the bratty girls in elementary school who would tell me I could come over to their house after school if I did their homework for them. Like, cool, great, thank you. Do you also want seven dollars?
Kevin Sampsell (seen above dancing) made our friend Shane and our Dear Leader talk about small press issues and being an “internet writer.” The conversation appears on the blog of the mighty, mighty Powell’s Books.
It’s a mighty fine conversation. Here’s an abridged highlight:
Blake: People call you and me “Internet writers” in certain forums, though I don’t necessarily ride that term at all, and think mainly it comes from people not understanding the Internet as a tool. Have there been things you’ve done that you thought effective? Have there been things you would like to do but haven’t, or are not sure how?
Shane: …The “Internet writer” thing is just a label. I don’t consider myself, or you for that matter, an Internet writer.The “Internet writer” thing is just a label. I don’t consider myself, or you for that matter, an Internet writer. I think it’s because we both have blogs and publish online that some people call us this. But we also have printed stuff in journals and printed books, so I don’t really get it. I do know that starting a blog was probably one of the most important steps I made in my writing “career.” I became involved in a community of talented writers and it let me expose my own writing to a community of readers. And that’s very important…
Blake: Yeah, saying “Internet writer” is about as arbitrary and misplaced as saying “typewriter writer.” People so desperately want to name things.
We’ve been trying to do a special Joan Didion Haut or Not for the past few months, corresponding not only with her agent, but her agent’s numerous assistants. This paper-ridden FedEx-pectation process of contracts ultimately led to her New York apartment (we even hired a professional photographer), where it was precluded, indignantly, by Didion herself. She told us to thank her rheumatism, the only reason we weren’t all punched in the face. We were, however, able to sneak a quick peak at what appeared to be The Year of Magical Thinking, no doubt a signed copy.
Rating: Not (probably).
HTMLGIANT Book Exchange is a place to post lists of books you want or books you’d like to get rid of in return for other books.
It’s pretty simple: in the comments section, post your lists. Then if you see a book you want, nest your reply under the list you found it. Though it’s up to you and the other person to work out details of the trade, we will manage the lists and hopefully make a market of it, perhaps one more closely-knit and attentive to ‘good books’ over ‘just any old thing,’ in light of the now overrun book trade sites like Bookmooch and etc.
[In that mind, when you are listing books, please try to be selective in your ‘what I have’ lists, avoiding the common things that most anyone would have or could easily find, and instead try to focus on books that might not be as readily available for trade: i.e. less classics, more contemporary. If someone is looking for, say, Stephen King or Mark Twain, they can ask for it by name, and then you can follow up.]
[Also, if you post a list and want to go back and add more, make a note nested under your original and we can consolidate. Don’t make more than one node post of haves/wants, as that will get messy.]
This will be chaotic and wonderful to begin with. We’ll learn as we go, and if plans go as plans might, we plan on developing the thread into a page of its own. More on that later.
For now, a good way to search for a specific book you want once the list populates, use the Find command in your web browser, and hope it got spelled right.
Please post your lists, use some discretion (a compendium of every book you have in your attic is not necessary). Let’s do some sharing.
J.G. Ballard Interview by John Hughes
The following interview with J.G. Ballard took place in the spring of 1996. It was recorded on to micro-cassette off speakerphone on a 6 a.m. call from the 4AD Records office in Los Angeles, CA to J.G. Ballard at his home in Shepperton, England. The tapes were transcribed in New York in 2005.
I contacted J.G. Ballard through a friend at Zone books. Zone had recently published a Ballard essay; an experimental dictionary of words for the future. I got his home number and called him to set up the interview below. The original plan was to discuss Rushing to Paradise. The interview opens, however, with the revelation that David Cronenberg was planning to release Crash at the Cannes Film Festival, summer’96.
In that respect, the interview has two parts. The first addresses the Crash movie release and the second, Rushing to Paradise.