Justin Taylor is the author of the story collection Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever, and the novel The Gospel of Anarchy. He is the editor of The Apocalypse Reader, Come Back Donald Barthelme, and co-editor (with Eva Talmadge) of The Word Made Flesh: Literary Tattoos from Bookworms Worldwide. With Jeremy Schmall he makes The Agriculture Reader, a limited-edition arts annual. He lives in Brooklyn.
(via Bookslut) Justine Larbalestier speaks at length about the problems she had with the US cover of her book Liar, a YA-adult crossover novel about a black teenage girl, that somehow wound up with a vaguely emo white girl face on its cover. Justine’s restraint and professionalism is remarkable. Quite a bit more of both than I’d have likely demonstrated in the same situation. The essay is a well-thought, engrossing exploration of the cover-choosing process, which is a bizarre mating ritual few people who have never been through it (or put someone through it) know very much about. I myself have just been through it for my story collection. Harper Perennial, btw, were super-responsive to my ideas, kept me in the loop at all times, and I’m counting down the days, minutes, seconds until I can show you what we came up with. They are amazing and just thinking about them–especially Michael Signorelli–makes heart bubbles float all around my head. But back to Justine. Another fascinating part of her story is how the whole whitewash experience stirred a change of her heart with regard to what the cover ought to be. Whereas originally she wanted the US cover to look like the Australian version, which is a sweet piece of design with no faces or other human parts on it, this experience led Justine to start noticing how under-represented people of color are on book covers in general (also the way that “colored” covers are frequently either rejected by stores/libraries or else ghettoed off in the so-called “urban fiction” section). Consequently, she seems to now feel strongly that the cover of the paperback edition of Liar should be representational, and depict a young black woman who resembles her main character, hopefully so young black women like her main character will see something they identify with when browsing the largely and unforgivably white shelves of the YA section. Here’s hoping she gets what she’s after. PS to Bloomsbury, if anyone in editorial/PR is reading this: we don’t usually cover YA, but if you give Justine the cover she’s gunning for, we’d love to hear about it / see a copy.
The good people over at Jezebel are asking “Why Don’t Women Watch More Porn?” The Jez post is actually a response to / analysis of this piece by Violet Blue, “Are more women OK with watching porn?” which was published in O the Oprah Magazine and for some reason is online at…CNN? Okay, sure. But I thought the fun really started in the Jezebel comments thread, especially after Lux Alptraum from Jez’s quasi-disowned sister-site Fleshbot showed up and offered to help the group out with recommendations of more palatable porn. Also, reading this post taught me a new word–kyriarchy. It’s one of those great crit-theory words that perfectly describe a really-existing situation, and yet you just know that if anyone ever used it earnestly in your presence, you’d bolt. Oh well. Still a cool word.
Oh also, since I forgot to give it its own post when it came out the other day, there’s also a new installment of Susie Bright and her daughter Aretha doing tag-team sex Q&A, which both is and is not what it sounds like.
Our own Drew Toal talks to Brian Evenson in the July issue of Bookslut. (Did we link this already? Who cares?)
My favorite story, “An Accounting” follows the emergence of a Midwestern Jesus, who accidentally starts all of these bizarre rites with the ragamuffins of humanity out of necessity. It quickly spirals out of control. Do you think this is an accurate reflection of how many religions begin?
I think a lot of religions, especially at the beginning, either tend to spiral outward or tighten inward. They either quickly spiral out of control or they tighten in to become conventionalized and reified. In the first case they move quickly to chaos, in the second, they move toward bureaucracy. Neither is very good, but the first is definitely more interesting, at least for the writer. The trick is trying to strike a balance between those two, which is something very few religions ever manage.
Also, the Bookslut Blog links to this old piece from The Daily Texan, original run date March 22, 1935- a young Walter Cronkite interviews Gertrude Stein.
The conversation last night ranged from the Walter Winchell comment that the most beautiful girls in America are in Dallas, to the possibilities of another war.
“A writer isn’t anything but contemporary. The trouble is that the people are living Twentieth Century and thinking Nineteenth Century,” Miss Stein said in answering a query concerning the attitude of Americans toward her works.
“Why the fact was evident up at Hockaday (where she stayed in Dallas). The girls of from fourteen to seventeen understood perfectly, but their teachers did not,” she continued.
Today’s corporate malfeasance update comes from two good friends.
1) Matthew Simmons forwarded me this link to an article on The Slog about the ongoing protests at the faux-local Starbucks in Seattle. Good job guys!
2) Stephen Elliott sent me a link to this piece about The Rumpus’s Continuing War on Amazon.com . The latest issue (not to suggest the other issues went anywhere) is Amazon’s staunch opposition to states’ attempts to collect sales tax from it. Now, I admit, my first reaction was “why would the Rumpus be supporting the option that will result in me having to spend more money to buy books?” But the case they sketch–it’s a brief article, so please read it–makes the prescient point that by allowing Amazon to not charge sales tax, they’re given a substantial competitive advantage over locally-owned, bricks and mortar bookstores. I’m not telling you whether to join the Amazon boycott or not, but I think this article is worth considering, and the links in it are all worth clicking. And of course, when the really-existing bookstore in your neighborhood can’t produce Gershom Scholem’s 1000 page biography of Sabbatai Sevi that you stupidly got yourself a hard-on for, (and the only one at Powell’s seems to cost fifty bucks) there’s always Abebooks.
Dear Whoever this is a picture of, Call me?
THE WORD MADE FLESH:
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS! We are seeking high quality photographs of your literary tattoos for an upcoming book. Send us your ink! Submissions are open to all kinds of literary tattoo work: quotations from your favorite writer, opening lines of novels, lines of verse, literary portraits or illustrations. From Shakespeare to Bukowski to The Little Prince in a Baobab tree, if it’s a literary tattoo and its on your body, we want to see it.
All images must include the name (or pseudonym) of the tattoo bearer, city and state or country, and a transcription of the text itself, along with its source. For portraits or illustrations, please include the name of the author or book on which it’s based. And of course, you are heartily encouraged to credit the artist who did your work.
We’d also like to read a few words about the tattoo’s meaning to you — why you chose it, when you first read that poem or book, or how its meaning has evolved over time. How much (or how little) you choose to say about your tattoo is up to you, but a paragraph or two should do the trick.
Please send clear digital images of the highest print quality possible to tattoolit@gmail.com. Pixel resolutions should be at least 1500 x 1200, or a minimum 300 dpi at 5 inches wide. Text should be included in the body of the email, not as an attached document. Also be sure to include one or more pieces of contact information, so we can let you know if you’re going to be in the book.
THANK YOU RONNIE & TEAM TLB FOR SHIPPING MY COPY TO HONG KONG!!!
Got in from the Hong Kong Bookfair this afternoon (more on this later/tomorrow) and found a package waiting for me. It was my contributor copy of The Lifted Brow, the badass “biannual attack journal” out of Brisbane and Melbourne, Australia. This issue includes Joe Wenderoth, Blake Butler, two short-shorts by Jennifer L. Knox, a massive piece by Tom Bissell, twelve poems by Tao Lin, Ellen Kennedy’s short story “Probably Going to Die Alone,” something by a dude named Glen David Gold called “Pornography Available for Download from the United Dairy Council,” and a whole lot more besides. Also, a CD insert on the inside cover, accompanied by a note from no less than Daniel Handler, who harangues all readers to not make the usual CD-in-a-litmag move of totally ignoring the CD forever. Apparently, what the CD contains is an “epic rhyming sci-fi audio drama” written by Thomas Benjamin Guerney, who also narrates. Finally, my copy also included a sticker announcing THIS IS NOT ART as well as a little white string. Why don’t you get linked through to their website and order yourself one?
HTMLGiant sort of missed covering the Henry Louis Gates Jr. arrest story, so just in case you’re one of those people who gets 100% of their news from us, here’s a roundup of all the Gawker posts on the topic.
Have you ever been experienced? Stephen Elliott has.
APB FOR NYC RESIDENTS: Perpetual friend-of-Giant and all-around badass Stephen Elliott is teaching a one-day wokshop on writing from experience in NYC on August 3rd. The cost is just a measly fifty-five bucks. No idea how many spots are left, but I’m assuming just a few. Here’s the course description. Click anywhere to get put through to the reserve-me-a-spot page.
Foreignpolicy.com has a piece on the 2009 Failed States Index. And while you’re over there, you should also check out this fascinating article by Noah Efron on secular/extremist tension in Jerusalem.
Did everyone else already know that Matt Bell is going to be the series editor for Dzanc’s Best of the Web series, beginning with the 2010 book? I didn’t, but aren’t I glad to know it now? Yes. Anyway, I learned this information in a note Matt posted to facebook about also-Matt Matthew Derby, whose story “January in December” from Guernica will be anthologized in BotW2009, edited by Lee K. Abbott. (Disclosure/chest-beating: I am a proud alum of the BotW series; my story “The Jealousy of Angels” appeared in the 2008 edition, which was edited by Steve Almond.) After the jump, MB’s full facebook post: his explanation of what BotW is, his introduction of Derby, and then a long guest-post by Derby himself about the writing of “January in December.”