Adam Robinson
http://www.publishinggenius.com
Adam Robinson lives in Baltimore, where he operates Publishing Genius Press. His book of poems, Adam Robison and other poems, will be published by Narrow House Books this year.
Jen Michalski’s first new book of 2013
First new book of 2013? Yep. Jen Michalski has three books coming out this year—one each from Dzanc, Black Lawrence and Aqueous Books. The first, Could You Be With Her Now, is itself sort of like two books, because it’s made up of two novellas. They’re both comprised of short chapters. “I Can Make it to California Before it’s Time for Dinner” is a story about a mentally, uh, diminished kid who kills somebody within the first 1000 words, then goes on an adventure by getting kidnapped. It’s really great, reminds me of Joyce Carol Oates in a good way. The second novella, “May – December,” is about a young woman helping an older one do a blog. I heard her read from it on Saturday and was struck by the way she braids memories around each other. Jen is an astonishingly sensitive writer. Could You Be With Her Now makes me want to yell GOAL! and celebrate the first part of Jen’s 2013 hat trick.
Adam Robinson—
The 2013 award for sheer chutzpah, for hope, goes to Lorem Ipsum books in Cambridge, MA. The innovative bookstore fell on rocky shores and, in two days, is trying to raise $30,000 so they can stay afloat. They seem cool. Do ’em five bucks? Oh and then read this short thing about losing your job at a bookstore that I saw via Hobart’s Tumblr.
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Adam Robinson—
Brian Allen Carr, from Texas, is awesome. Somebody gave his book Short Bus a 1-star review at Amazon, but he says it’s a crappy review. So he’s doing a “Lone Star” contest: write the best 1-star review of the book by the end of February, and he’ll give you all three of his books, including the newest, Edie and the Low-Hung Hands (Small Doggies Press).
Books or whatever
Orwell said, “It hardly needs pointing out that at this moment the prestige of the novel is extremely low, so low that the words ‘I never read novels’, which even a dozen years ago were generally uttered with a hint of apology, are now always uttered in a tone of conscious pride.” This, he says, is because novels are over hyped, due to the commercial aspects of book reviews:
On the face of it, the book-ramp is a quite simple and cynical swindle. Z writes a book which is published by Y and reviewed by X in the Weekly W. If the review is a bad one Y will remove his advertisement, so X has to hand out ‘unforgettable masterpiece’ or get the sack. Essentially that is the position, and novel reviewing has sunk to its present depth largely because every reviewer has some publisher of publishers twisting his tail by proxy.
This was 1936, before the WordPress “Publish” button, otherwise I think he would add to the equation a few other ulterior motives (which we’ve hauled out so much: writing reviews to climb the publishing ladder, writing reviews to boost our pals, to promote our own books or our reading series). Orwell does allow that there is no big conspiracy here, and the bigger problem is that people think all novels even deserve reviewing. In the essay, which is worth another look (turn on Clearly), Orwell talks a lot about blurbs, too, as part of the reason no one takes novels seriously anymore.
He overstates his case, of course, and 77 years later the novel is alive and well—at least among we literates. Set up an account at Zoosk, though, and try to find a match with an interest in books, and things are a bit different. How right was Orwell? Could his concern about reviews be extended to the surfeit of published books? More interesting question: is the recent “swarming” of that new Michael Jackson book, which haters killed with negative Amazon reviews, somehow a continuance of Orwellian fear?
In the comments, please discuss Clearly and Zoosk.
Mirror Poems by Polly Bresnick is a helluva thing
Polly Bresnick’s new book is here, Mirror Poems, from O’Clock Press. The book is beautiful and handmade and hefty (and has drawings from Bianca Stone, who is everywhere these days, good job), and the concept is hefty too and fun, and the poems themselves ain’t too bad, it bears saying.
What the book is is first of all a translation from the Spanish of Patricia Serra Delmar’s Poemario Rouge, and those translations appear on the lefthand page, but then Polly does a feint and provides an antonymic translation on the righthand page. So she’s translated every poem twice, and it’s fun to cross reference her ideas of antonyms. Like, Delmar has a poem called “Red and Green” but Polly changes it to its opposite, “Green or Red,” and then there’s one called “Brazil” that she changes to “Texas.” I laugh audibly sometimes as I scan the pages back and forth. Polly’s figured out a fun way to read.
From the translator’s note: “A “mirror poem” is an act of mimicry distilled into the shape of a shadow on a page. It is a compliment of the original, like a color added to another collor to dazzle the eyes.”
Gods, Men and Howard Cosell
In the summer of 1962, Howard Cosell found himself lying on his back at the side of the road, the joe-pye weed squaring off in the sun above him as he woke from his stupor. “That’s when I knew I had to make changes,” Cosell says, “those weeds bending over me like God’s many heads. It was my high, purple clarion call.”
Cosell rushed home then—a place he spent precious little time in—kissed his four children on the head as they sat on the floor watching TV, and went straight up to the bathroom. Taped to the underside of the sink was his stash, 6 brown cubes of the sweetest chat Eritrea had to offer. READ MORE >
So Say the Waiters
I hope Justin Sirois gets back to work soon. He’s written five installments of a really fun serial novel called So Say the Waiters. It’s as gripping as 24 or whatever your favorite TV show is these days. Each episode, which takes like an hour to read, ends with a cliffhanger.
I hope he gets back to work because I really want know what happens in episode 6.
Since the beginning of autumn, Justin has been releasing the episodes separately as eBooks for like $.99. Now he’s bundled what I guess would be the “first season” in a printed book, and he’s doing a contest to promote it. To win the contest, you have to send in a kidnapping scenario. The best idea, as judged by Michael Kimball and Ken Baumann, will have their submission written into a future section of the book. That’s neat.
It might seem weird that the contest is based on writing a kidnapping situation, but it wouldn’t if you’re familiar with So Say the Waiters. It’s all about this smartphone app/social network through which people can sign up to be kidnapped. It’s actually not that farfetched, the way Justin handles it. The characters seem like real people. They just want to escape for a while.
When I want to escape, I read a book like this one. I read it on my iPhone.
Adam Robinson—
They’re going to make the National Book Awards dinner a flashy thing, like the Oscars/Man Booker: The goal is to add more sex appeal to an industry that’s not exactly known for it — but not, the organizers insist, just for its own sake. “It’s not about being glitzy,” said David Steinberger, the chief executive of Perseus Books and chairman of the foundation. “It’s about increasing the impact great books have on the culture.”
Eating Donuts with Michael Kimball
I showed up at Michael Kimball’s sweet new condo with a dozen donuts.
His father was a fat man, like the title character in Big Ray, Kimball’s latest novel that you’ve heard so much about. We poured out glasses of orange juice, and in memory of his father, dug into those gross ass donuts.
For the first twenty minutes of what would be a two hour conversation, Michael recounted the events of the previous Saturday night, a rowdy, drunken time we had that I beered out of memory. Listening to the stories was like hearing about myself as if I was my own close friend who missed a party I threw.
Reading Big Ray is like hearing about an equally close friend processing some serious loss. Michael Kimball does emotional immediacy better than any writer alive, I shit you not. READ MORE >
Chris Toll (b. 1830, d. 1886)
Chris Toll, author of several books including The Pilgrim’s Process, Love Everyone, Be Light, The Disinformation Phase and the soon-to-be released Life On Earth, died on Thursday of natural causes. It was unexpected and unbelievable and too soon.
Chris was a poet and collage-maker. He lived in Baltimore, where he was an integral part of the literature scene. I invited people to send me their memories, which I’ve compiled here. Hopefully people will feel free to add more in the comments. READ MORE >