The Lit Pub, WTF is it?
The Lit Pub came out today, so I asked Molly Gaudry, it’s pioneer, what the fuck it is. Take a look at the website, then read our interview.
Can you explain what The Lit Pub is in 25 words or less?
Book publicity company / online bookstore.
Okay, how about in six words or more. What do you mean by publicity company?
This is hard to answer. What we (Chris Newgent and I) are trying to do, I think, is new and not quite like traditional publicity. It’s actually Matt Bell who helped make it all come together by suggesting focused, month-long discussion, to take place on TLP’s website, about individual books. Kind of like an online book of the month club, with individual publicists focusing on books they’ve selected. Actually, Matt once put it into this context: TLP is a bookstore, and for an entire month it will hold front-table events on its home page for three lucky authors/publishers.
This is hard to answer. What we (Chris Newgent and I) are trying to do, I think, is new and not quite like traditional publicity. It’s actually Matt Bell who helped make it all come together by suggesting focused, month-long discussion, to take place on TLP’s website, about individual books. Kind of like an online book of the month club, with individual publicists focusing on books they’ve selected. Actually, Matt once put it into this context: TLP is a bookstore, and for an entire month it will hold front-table events on its home page for three lucky authors/publishers.
Can I hire you to manage publicity for Sean Lovelace’s amazing book, Fog Gorgeous Stag?
Maybe. It depends on if I also think it’s amazing, and if you can afford me. If you can’t afford me, you can try Chris who has micropress-friendly rates, and hopefully he will think it’s amazing. If he doesn’t, or if you can’t afford him, then you can still be a guest publisher, which at this point is just a matter of securing a spot, and right now we’re booked through March 2012.
Franzen v. Internet v. Love v. Iskandrian
Someone I dearly love alerted me to this op-ed which ran yesterday in the NYTimes. At the grave risk of preaching to the converted I want to say a few things about it. READ MORE >
Are you ready, or what?
All signs point to the apocalypse tomorrow. Have you heard?
Fuck: what if they’re right? (They’re not, but who would get the last laugh?)
What are you doing in preparation and/or celebration?
Seems like you should ‘read more’
i read canonical literature with my family when i was twenty-five
when i was twenty-five
i read canonical literature with my family
my dad read lolita
my mom read the bell jar
my brother read portnoy’s complaint
i read infinite jest
that night we read nabokov
the next night we read plath
the next night we read roth
the next night we read wallace
Forthcoming from Future Tense: Legs Get Led Astray by Chloe Caldwell
Future Tense has announced their first title for 2012—Legs Get Led Astray by Chloe Caldwell.
Legs Get Led Astray is a full-length collection of creative non-fiction. The connective threads throughout the book are love, relationships, obsession. The title alludes to getting lost looking for something that doesn’t exist: the perfect place to live, the perfect desk to write at, the perfect person to love, the perfect person to sleep with. There is no perfect anything and this compilation is about Caldwell coming to these realizations.
Pre-orders start at the end of the year but it is never too early to get excited about an interesting young writer. A couple excerpts from the book are below and you might also enjoy Chloe’s essay, at The Rumpus, a really moving piece about where she writes.
Live Giants 12: Noelle Kocott, Matthew Rohrer, Anthony McCann
You missed the live reading but you can still get in on the nice deal Wave is offering on their books, $10 each.
Noelle Kocot’s The Bigger World
Matthew Rohrer’s Destroyer and Preserver
Anthony McCann’s I Heart Your Fate
A Tale of Two Jennifers
Jennifer Egan had a pretty great week last week. She won the Pulitzer for her novel The Goon Squad and the news broke that HBO optioned her work for a television series. Then she did an interview with the Wall Street Journal, an interview I read and thoroughly enjoyed. She talks about winning the Pulitzer, fielding the usual questions one might get about how it feels to receive such recognition, how she found out (at a restaurant as she was sitting down), and a little about the work itself. Because she is a woman who writes, and does so prominently, Egan was asked about gender and how male and female writers come off in the press. The exchange looked like this:
Q. Over the past year, there’s been a debate about female and male writers and how they come off in the press. Franzen made clear that “Freedom” was going to be important, while others say that Allegra Goodman was too quiet about “The Cookbook Collector.” Do you think female writers have to start proclaiming, “OK, my book is going to be the book of the century”?
A. Anyone can say anything, that’s easy. My focus is less on the need for women to trumpet their own achievements than to shoot high and achieve a lot. What I want to see is young, ambitious writers. And there are tons of them. Look at “The Tiger’s Wife.” There was that scandal with the Harvard student who was found to have plagiarized. But she had plagiarized very derivative, banal stuff. This is your big first move? These are your models? I’m not saying you should say you’ve never done anything good, but I don’t go around saying I’ve written the book of the century. My advice for young female writers would be to shoot high and not cower.
Vote BULL!
Jarrett Haley, editor of BULL, needs your help:
BULL is now one of five finalists up to win 100K in funding through Dockers’ (Levi’s) “Wear the Pants” Contest. It’s an unprecedented sum for a lit journal, and an unprecedented chance for the literary community to show its strength in numbers.
WE NEED YOUR VOTES—one a day, every day this week. Here’s why you should care about this and take action:
- Your votes are a statement—that reading and writing matter, that journals and small presses are deserving of funding, that stories are important to people and their authors should be compensated.
- The money will go straight to writers. No one’s getting a salary out of this. All funds go towards expanding BULL as a journal and small press. This funding will go into the pocket of artists like you.
- The exposure will bolster the indie lit scene, engaging and informing the public of what’s happening on all these pages, on all these sites. Independent literature is too good to be kept a secret. We want to make more readers in the world, and we’re starting with men.
- This is not a handout, not a Kickstarter campaign, and we’re not asking for a dime. All you have to do is click a button on Facebook. Those clicks alone can create a paying fiction magazine, one with a proven commitment to working closely with writers and building editor/author relationships.
- The opportunity is unprecedented! This is the first time a journal and small press can be founded and well-funded simply by enough people clicking their mouse.
If this is your first time voting, you’ll have to “allow” the voting app and “like” Dockers. There will be boilerplate permission notices, but I assure you it’s legit. Dockers sees only your most basic profile info—what’s already public, what any old stranger can see. They won’t use it for evil and they won’t bombard with you ads. It’s a legitimate contest through a legitimate company.
Dockers is Levi’s, and Levi’s is fucking Levi’s. If ’49ers trusted it during the Gold Rush, so can you today. Do not let skepticism keep you from this opportunity.
A chance like this comes along never. BULL wants to win this with, and for, the literary community. We can’t do it without YOU. Just one click a day and you’ll have done your part. Vote today, and every day, here:
cool fun new stuff in NYC
TONIGHT: Eileen Myles / Jon Leon / (our own) Nathaniel Otting
8PM — 390 Seneca Ave. (Entry on Stanhope), Brooklyn, NY
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94J_oSwggFI
THURSDAY, APRIL 28TH: Brian Kalkbrenner / Dan Hoy / Amy Lawless / Maggie Wells
6:30PM — The Strand, Union Square
best video:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbVx52tKulg