“And then I think the wrong word, again, and it tears me apart.” — from “Before Carl Left” by Luke Goebel over at Wigleaf, a finely scrawled yawl of a story

“My rap name’s Director’s Commentary”: A Mixed Ape by Giant friends NewVillager here. (Songs ranted over by some sort of maybe crazy person. First person to guess the ranter gets a couple of random galleys from my desk.)

Some of you know Innocente Fontana, so I thought this might be of interest: I wrote a piece for the Paris Review‘s website about my relationship with him, who he really is, and his extraordinary novel that was just republished.

“When all your friends are writers … the writer is forced to either be more self-reflective or imaginative.” — Frances Dinger vs. Nelson Algren

The rad novel Fires, by Nick Antosca, has just been rereleased by Civil Coping Mechanisms. It’s also packed with a few short stories, including a short story that is actually uncomfortably sexy: The Girlfriend Game.

Excited about &NOW coming up this weekend. Will you be there?

http://andnowfestival.com/

Reporting more soon, during & after the conference.

If you want to read a remarkable and very short piece of writing, click here and scroll down to Bill Buford’s recollection of drinking a bowl of warm pig’s blood.

File this under “Making Shapely Fiction”: A Tea Party protest attracted Birthers and Libertarians and Constitutional “Originalists” and Anti-Abortion Activists and Christian Homeschooler Dominionists and Second Amendment Loyalists and Anti-Immigrationists and Anti-Socialists and Race-Baiters and Mainstream Republican Activists and people who want the government to keep its hands off their Medicare AND people who think they are Taxed Enough Already. If their message seemed “cohesive,” (see also this, this, or any of these) maybe that was because they had a corporate-funded lobby and an entire news network dedicated to shaping the message into a cohesive one for them.

R.I.P. Charles Napier, 1936–2011. You will be missed but you will live on forever in your cinema! I’ll be watching Beyond the Valley of the Dolls soon in your honor… (P.S. Please give my regards to Mr. Thompson!)

The Literature Party site is up for the 2012 AWP blowout. Check it out to see who’s reading and sponsoring and whatever and where.