Roxane Gay—
I am weirdly obsessed with Mark Twain. This is a really interesting NYT article about Twain’s marginalia.
Evelyn Hampton—
To celebrate the release of Harold Abramowitz’s book, Not Blessed, Les Figues is having a contest that involves remixing selections from the book. The deadline is April 30. Guidelines are on the Les Figues site. I read Not Blessed recently and it’s good. It works by what feels like a literary equivalent of persistence of vision.
BLACK HOLE KIDS
Fan of Charles Burns’s excellent comic Black Hole? Check this out. Via here. They’re from the current issue of the British magazine 125. This site apparently has all the images, but the bandwith is exceeded at the moment.
most likely to form a clan of dumpster-foraging suburban outcasts
Alexis Orgera—
The Slash Pine Poetry Festival is this weekend. If you’re in or around Tuscaloosa, maybe stop by.
The tree
The native range of the slash pine
I’m always surprised and impressed by the diversity of ideas at work in independent publishing. Here’s another one: Submishmash.
Not to get all Wired Magazine on you, but here I’ve done an interview that includes the words, “It’s a services-based MVC architecture. We mostly use open-source technologies (Subsonic, ASP.NET MVC, JQuery).”
See, for the last few years I’ve been managing Publishing Genius submissions through an email address that directed subs into my personal inbox, where I would use various labels to keep them straight. It was easy, so I figured it was a good solution.
But a couple months ago I stumbled across a service for managing subs called “Submishmash.” I liked the curious name, and it was free, so with an ounce of hesitation, I decided to check it out. Since it was in beta, I had to send an email off to the creators. A couple hours later, someone named Michael FitzGerald responded and set me up with an account. He even helped me out by inputting my guidelines from the PG site.
It took me a couple weeks to decide if I wanted to use the service. I had to do my “due diligence” and ask around, find out if they’re reputable. Also, I was worried that writers wouldn’t send their work if they had to deal with signing up for an account with Submishmash.
When I finally adopted the system, I was immediately surprised by how well Submishmash works. Not only did writing continue to flow in, it seems like I started getting more. I don’t know if this is accurate because my old, email-based system doesn’t give me any reports. Submishmash, however, has great analytics. It made receiving subs fun again.
Submission management systems aren’t new. Famously, One Story developed one and sold it to the CLMP. Theirs is a paid system, though, and I can’t afford that, so I have no idea how it works. But I also didn’t know how overwhelmed I was with my email solution, and how disorganized. What I do know, however, is that Submishmash has made my job exponentially easier. It’s intuitive and powerful. It’s packed with features for reading on the screen, automated responding, filtering and reporting. And best of all, at least for me – the developers are great people who know their business, and who know publishing.
I’ve asked Michael FitzGerald, who aside from being a programmer also wrote the novel Radiant Days, if I could interview him about the project. READ MORE >
James Greer Book Tour
James Greer, author of the most recently released, The Failure, from Akashic, is on the road. If you’re nearby, don’t miss this one. James is a force, and Steven Soderbergh agrees: “James Greer’s The Failure is such an unqualified success, both in conception and execution, that I have grave doubts he actually wrote it.”
Quimby’s Bookstore–CHICAGO, IL–1845 W. North Ave.,
*Featuring Zach Dodson, author of Boring Boring Boring Boring Boring Boring Boring, and Natalie Edwards
Wed., May 5, 7pm–CINCINNATI, OH–Joseph-Beth Booksellers, 2692 Madison Road
Thurs., May 6, 7:30pm–DAYTON, OH–Books & Co., 350 E. Stroop Rd.
*Robert Pollard from Guided by Voices (the band in which James once upon a time also played) will introduce James!Sat., May 8, 10am-4:30pm–COLUMBUS, OH–Ohioana Book Festival, State Library of Ohio, 274 E. First Ave.
Tues., May 18, 7pm–NEW YORK, NY–Bluestockings Books, 172 Allen St.
*Featuring Maggie Estep, author of Alice Fantastic and Joseph Mattson, author of Empty the SunWed., May 19, 7pm–NEW YORK, NY–Center for Fiction, 17 East 47th St.
*Akashic spring book party featuring Arthur Nersesian, Cristina Garcia, Bernice L. McFadden, and James Greer and Joseph Mattson, author of Empty the Sun, with cohosts Melvin Van Peebles and Johnny Temple! AN EVENT NOT TO BE MISSED!Thurs., May 20, 7pm–BROOKLINE, MA–Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St.
*Joseph Mattson, author of Empty the Sun
Poem Addressing Doubts that are Illuminated Before I Again Shift the Attention to You, Before Shifting it Back to Me Again
I want to explain more about what I’m thinking, but I’m afraid it will make me seem stupid. I do worry about how I appear in this poem. It is not cool for a poet to appear to be anxious for praise and attention in a poem. It is not cool for anyone to appear to be anxious for praise and attention. I’m just saying something that is true. I hope you will not hold that against me, or this poem. I would suggest that if you do not feel that you, or those you admire, are anxious for praise and attention, then you are not looking at yourself and the world realistically. Of course, I’m not interested in saying insightful, realistic things, which I wouldn’t say except for the fact that I’m interested in saying insightful, realistic things.