“Literary Novelist Turns to Vampires and Finds Pot of Gold.” Good for him, I say!

Some technical difficulties caused posts and comments to be jacked up during the weekend. They are fixed. Thanks for your patience.

If you’re writing an email to a magazine inquiring as to the status of your submission, the answer is they ain’t gotten to it yet.

The 20 Under 40 Pick ‘Em Contest is now closed due to The New Yorker‘s putting the June 7th issue online for subscribers. I’m closing it one day early to make sure we’re fair to those who submitted entries a while ago, just in case the list is included in that pay-walled content. When I can finally see a copy of the list, I’ll go through the entries and post the winner’s as soon as possible. Thanks for playing. Also, Lily’s post below reminded me to add to the prizes one tiny, unused Moleskine. UPDATE: Mike Young tells me the list isn’t actually out yet (he checked the issue online), so I’ll leave it open until the original deadline, 11:59pm tomorrow. Sorry for the confusion.

David Rylance wrote a massive and gorgeous essay about Blake Butler’s writing.

Smart! Thank you very much for voting for my track/s. I’ve had a very good year as usual, although it was very intense, getting on a really big roll, writing new stuff constantly, really looking forward to isolating myself next year even more! Hope everyone has a totally boring New Year’s party, overdoses on everything and chokes on their own vomit on the bathroom floor, make sure you lie face down just before you pass out!
Signed, Pritchad.g.kraymes.

The newly translated collection of Thomas Bernhard’s prose, aptly titled Prose (Seagull Books – August 15), should be anticipated as a major literary event (or at least as a book to celebrate). Whenever readers of the future want to recommend a Bernhard to start with, I hope that it will be this one. It’s possibly the most deranged, compact and dangerous performance I’ve seen Bernhard give, a performance somehow polyphonic within Bernhard’s singular voice that’s always, to often brutal and hilarious effect, dashing behind itself only to expose its weaknesses again and again. Here Bernhard is a tightrope-walker like no other. And, of course, the translation is gorgeous. More soon.

On Kickstarter, even though I don’t really like Troma movies this looks great: Movies of the Future With Lloyd Kaufman: A Movie About an Underground Film Icon.

Explore Donald Judd’s 13,000 book library.

The winners of the Robert Lopez Kamby Bolongo Mean River contest are: amelia, jim r, magicmike, moga, elizabeth, ryan mcdonald. Winners, please send your address to the htmlgiant addy to claim. Thanks to all, and sorry for the delay…