November 2009

Some Reactions to “Some Contemporary Characters” by Rick Moody

All of you know that Electric Literature recently began tweeting what they are calling ‘an experiment in participatory ePublishing’: they are publishing Rick Moody’s story “Some Contemporary Characters” over three days/153 Tweets. They’ve invited anyone who’d like to RT ((re)publish?) the story along with them to participate. As far as I can tell, here’s who is participating: @WritersGarret, @vromans, @shyascanlon, @TheSchooner, @str1cken, @StephenBruckert, @skylightbooks, @skemptastic, @OpiumMagazine, @MWSchmutterer, @litdeathmatch, @FictionAdvocate, @coppernickel, @commongoodbooks, @breathebooks, @brazosbookstore, @blackclockmag, @a_m_kelly, @Andrew_Ervin, @lunaparkreview, @BOMBMagazine, and probably more.

After tweeting the story for today, Electric Literature posted this question on their Facebook page: “Is the Multiple Tweeting of Rick Moody’s Story Awesome, Annoying, or a Bit of Both?”

After the jump, I’ve tried to answer the question as best I could.
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Mean / 63 Comments
November 30th, 2009 / 9:25 pm

“Yar yar yar.”: 45 minutes of Fugazi stage banter. If someone crowd surfed at your reading, would you be angry, proud, or confused?

I Like Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz A Lot: Part 1

aptowicz_bookheadshot

I like Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz so much that every day this week, I’ll be posting excerpts from a really long interview between Cristin and I about writing, New York and her forthcoming book Everything is Everything which will be released in January 2010 by Write Bloody Press.

Part 2 | Part 3

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I Like __ A Lot / 11 Comments
November 30th, 2009 / 4:57 pm

Amelia Gray makes sense out of the Publishers Weekly and WILLA kerfuffle at the Huffington Post: “To vastly extrapolate, assuming that the number of top-quality male and female writers is equally distributed, most journals would publish more men than women, without even considering bias.”

As well, a couple book-related holiday sales ending today: Powell’s offers free shipping (their used stacks in particular are worth exploring, plus nice discount on NYRB classics) & Keyhole‘s discounts on all of their titles & (beyond today, but still) Dzanc offering up to 50% on all of their backlist. Foom.

24 hours left to submit to No Colony, then close.  You want to be in this issue, I promise.

Back from Turkeyland w/ F for Fake

Hope everybody is fatter now. Crawling back into the void this week, last night rewatched most of Orson Welles’s last completed feature film, F for Fake, a documentary about fakes and fakers, which in itself does a little trickery and deceit, making a nice little cakebox of weird. Criterion put it out a couple years ago, but it’s also now on YouTube in a few pieces. Here’s part one, then follow the links…

Web Hype / 26 Comments
November 30th, 2009 / 12:42 pm

There are a handful of presses it would be nice to own every single title they’ve ever released. Exact Change easily makes that list. Xmas party.

Portland novelist Katherine Dunn (Geek Love) fights off a would-be purse-snatcher. She is a boxer. And I am in love. That is all.

How about next time instead of National Novel Writing Month it’s National Single Sentence Writing Month? Or National Staring Month? NaSiSeWriMo? NaEaADiMoAnStoEaAllOuLiMo?