Ronald Sukenick Video Interview 1997
RE: FC2, 98.6, small press longevity, obscenity, “experimental” vs. “innovative,” etc.
Amelia Gray !!! FC2 !!!
Mad congrats to the firestorm known as Amelia Gray, who has just been announced as the winner of 2008 FC2 Ronald Sukenik / American Book Review contest:
Lidia Yuknavitch, our final judge chose Amelia Gray’s manuscript titled Museum of the Weird as this year’s winner. A complex and piercing collection, as poetic as it is poignant, Museum of the Weird features twenty four short stories that collectively expose both the hilarity and heartbreak of life in the twenty first century. Congratulations again, to our winner, Amelia Gray!
Like T.I. said: what you know about dat?
Mega congratulations to Amelia. I am super excited for her. I hope it includes two of my favorites, There Will Be Sense from DIAGRAM, and ‘Diary of the Blockage’ from Caketrain.
If you have not already picked up her first collection AM/PM from Featherproof/Paper Egg, now’s the time, kid.
Jonathan Baumbach at Maud Newton
not USAirways #1549, from which everyone appears to have safely escaped
I just finished reading this post by Jonathan Baumbach over at Maud Newton’s blog. He talks a little about the founding of FC(2) and then mentions his surprise at how long the collective has lasted. Originally, he had meant for the alternative press to be a ‘stopgap action in a period of emergency.’ He writes though that his assessment of the situation back then was maybe too optimistic, which explains, perhaps, why FC2 has continued so long. I hadn’t realized that the original collective was meant only as a temporary fix, to ‘jostle the publishing establishment into taking more chances with work that was out on the edge.’ But as time passed, Baumbach says, the industry turned more conservative in its tastes, and FC2 was needed more than ever.
Here’s a tiny bit more from the post:
Originality tends to generate difficulty in that it breaks faith with expectation, undermines the prevailing verities of last season’s fashion. Originality, by definition, takes us by surprise.
And:
Commercial publishing tends to court literary work that is a thinly disguised variation on the recognizably artful — last year’s award winner tricked out to seem at once new and safely familiar.
Thanks to Maud Newton for posting this.
Soon I will have absolutely no $$ and more books than I can see
Dang. SPD is having a 75% off sale. I am about to call the bank and ask for a loan. ‘For what?’ ‘For more books’ ‘I thought you had books.’ ‘I have books.’ ‘Let’s do it up!’
Kissed By…
I road the bus to work this morning, and 1) listened to Disintegration Loops by William Basinski and 2) read a random story from Kissed By by Alexandra Chasin.
The story was called “They Come From Mars” and in one of those all-too-common moments of synchronicity, that story is essentially a disintegrating language loop. It contains only—until its surprise ending—four letter words. (No, not profanity.) There are twelve words a line. The font is Courier, I think, which is a monospaced (fixed width) font, so all the words are the same size.
What begins as an incantatory: They come from Mars they come from Mars…gives way to a discussion of the arrival of visitors from Mars. Chasin abbreviates. “There” and “their” become “ther.” When we speak, we abbreviate without realizing it, and she uses that to her advantage. “Suspect” becomes “spec.” (Unless she means “expect,” but, she uses that ambiguity to her advantage as well.)
The long columns of twelve word, monospaced lines, the paranoia in the prose (they come from Mars, for Heaven’s sake!), the flatering, disintegrating prose loops—it reminds me of Howard Finster a little, outsider art. The text on the bottles of Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint Soap.
And, as I said, it dovetailed nicely with the Basinski, a recording of a long, old tape loop repeating and repeating and repeating and slowly falling apart moment by moment in such minimal steps, you miss it.
Blake sent me this book. Thanks, Blake.
fc2 Blog
In the world of blog competitors, fuck, we might have one here now: FC2 is blogging live live. Mostly about their authors and new releases and the like, all of which remain good news in my book. Worth a bookmark? Fo sho.
It also seems a brother to the Now What blog, run by similar company, Lance Olsen and crew.
If someone can convince Gary Lutz to start blogging, I will cry a baby doll that will stand on America.
Please?
3 New FC2
There are three new titles just out from FC2 for summer: LA MEDUSA by Vanessa Place, LEDFEATHER by Stephen Graham Jones, and THE BRUISE by Magdalena Zurawski, all of which look incredible and make me want to order order order.
I really like when FC2 updates their new books as they always supply lots of info to troll around in. Each title has excerpts from the book, info on the the author, press, and so on. It seems pretty easy to get an idea of what the books are like and whether you will want them, and I usually do. You can also always dig around in their excellent archives for same sorts of info on all the great books they’ve done over the years.
They are also still accepting subs for this year’s Ronald Sukenik Innovative Fiction prize throughout the end of the month.