Why Did Mud Luscious Close? Getting busy with JA Tyler
Hello, here is an interview that I did with J.A. Tyler. We started it via email soon after the announcement that his press, Mud Luscious, would have to close down. It’s fairly long. First we talk about all the things he did with MLP, then we get into the nitty gritty of what happened that caused its demise. I really appreciate that he would do this. I’ve asked other presses to do a similar post mortem but they’ve declined. It’s not easy, I know. You run a press, you feel an almost paralyzing responsibility to the people you publish. You have a book that does well, you’re fucked because your responsibilities seem to increase. It’s not a thankless job, art — not by any means — but it’s a tough one. And the place where art intersects with business IS thankless unless your strength is on the business end of things. Anyway. Get into this interview. Remember MLP for its growth and its commitment and its problems.
Hi, J. A. How are you feeling? Would it be an understatement to say you’re sad?
Yes: Sad, overwhelmed, frustrated, sick. A million things all at once.
Well, we started this interview back in April, so it’s been a while. How are you feeling about things now? Is the remorse turning to relief? Have you started to get a glimpse of what a normal life can be yet?
Normal life, probably not. There is this residual layer of guilt that I presume will take much longer to unwind from wherever it is in me. I do see how much time I spent doing MLP related things, both on the “free time” I’m now allotted and in the size of the hole it left.
“When This Time Is the Time That Comes” by J.A. Tyler
Some fine writing by the one and only J.A. Tyler now lives on my little online book concern, Happy Cobra Books. You should go read it.
And then, READ MORE >
ANNALEMMA SIX: IT’S GOOD
bearing the cross -- for you
I just got finished with Annalemma Six (with the Sacrifice theme), which just came out. It’s fucking awesome, and not just because it features Giant familiars like Roxane Gay, Ryan Call, Jimmy “the gangbang took place in Unit #209” Chen, J.A. Tyler, Brandi Wells, and others.
Uncategorized / 18 Comments
May 26th, 2010 / 3:07 pm
May 26th, 2010 / 3:07 pm
MLP Chapbooks Arrive
J. A. Tyler’s Mudlicious Press publishes these tiny chapbooks.(Click here to order.) Mine arrived today. They are cute things, these chapbooks. I like getting them. Today I got P’.H. Madore’s “Da Vinci Died Before Cigarettes”, Matthew Savoca’s “Altruism”, “In Praise of Virgins” by Johannes Goransson (sorry that I have no umlaut) and a sticker with a picture of a dead looking whale that has the words “bleached whale” on it. READ MORE >
MLP News: You heard it here ninth
I woke up in the middle of the night, took my face off my keyboard bringing to life the monstrous beast that is my computer, named Zoroaster because it will smite you, no shit — and there in my inbox was an email from J.A. Tyler. It said, “I’ve been up all night typing this email to say you can order the next six months of MLP stories.”
So I did.
Between July and December I’m going to receive in the mail the books with the stories I could have read on the Internet. But these I can read on the john. You can too, and you oughta.
Updates
This post simply brings to your attention things worthy of attention, with extremely light commentary from me.
- Ellen Kennedy’s new book Sometimes my heart pushes my ribs is available from Muumuu house. This is probably widely known, but I wanted to officially note it here. Ellen Kennedy feels like a Dorothy Parker who doesn’t have enough energy to rhyme.
- Chelsea Martin’s new book Everything was fine until whatever will be released March 2009 by Future Tense Books. Watch her read this piece. The ingrown logic and breath-taking/sigh-inducing excess of each subsequent line reminds me of Tao Lin’s ‘the next night we ate whale,’ except each line is different.
- The prolific J.A. Tyler redesigned Mud Luscious archives and ML Press, and his entire site. He would scare me if he wasn’t so nice. His obscene publication list is prone to make one feel like a slacker.
- Juked No. 6 is out. Check out the contents and order. Juked is one of the oldest literary websites out there. It makes me feel good that they are so consistent and devoted.
- Robot Melon Issue Seven is live, including J.A. Tyler, Crispin Best, yours truly [gag], Ryan Manning’s ode to Sam Pink, and one of my personal favorite online writers, Krammer Abrahams. I really like the ‘head trauma at night in the woods’ design.
So those are my updates. I could not find a picture that embodied this post. [*UPDATE: Ryan Manning sent me a picture to post for this post. The 4 colors do not match the 5 updates. He was no doubt driven conceptually.] Thank you for supporting online literature.
Juggernaughtica
Godjira was a bad motherfucker. He was a massive green mutant dinosaur raining down death and destruction because it was Tuesday in Tokyo, and Godjira recognized it was a banal Tuesday and had nothing better to do than melt tiny Japanese flesh sacks with his radioactive fire breath.
The city would get fucked up. High rise buildings in ruin. Virgins slaughtered. Expensive military vehicles raped.
The big green guy wiped his ass with Tokyo. Gratuitous aggression at its pinnacle.
There was always a downfall to his reign.
In a few of the movies an attractive young girl with some moxie devises a way to spank his dick and send him pouting back to his ocean floor studio apartment.
The battle for Tokyo is here and now(once again). Godjira has resurfaced. I am afraid. I need to be held by a comely female or a frail man with soft skin until the battle is over.
Please pretty young girl defeat Godjira and save us all.
new from Mud Luscious
In my email (also probably in yours?), a message from JA Tyler, editor of Mud Luscious:
readers & the like.
look, look, look:
mud luscious issue six is live & death-defying. new work by brandi wells, jamie lin, jared ward, charles lennox, laura hirneisen, lauren becker, tim jones-yelvington, m.d. kempis, ryan dilbert, howie good, kyle hemmings, & drew kalbach. this issue also includes a review of every online & print work available from publishing genius press.
go here to view the issue: www.aboutjatyler.com
ml press also opens today for pre-orders of the jan. trio:
LIKE IT WAS HER PLACE by kim chinquee
A HEAVEN GONE by jac jemc
SOME OF THE LETTERS THAT WERE CUT by michael kimball
each volume is $2 (includes shipping), is limited to a single run of 50 copies, & will ship jan. 15.
five-month subscriptions are also available. $30 / 15 volumes.
go here to support ml press: www.mudlusciouspress.blogspot.com
also the new flash collection by j. a. tyler EVERYONE IN THIS IS EITHER DYING OR WILL DIE OR IS THINKING OF DEATH is available now from the achilles chapbook series. this collection will only be available in a signed, limited edition of 50 copies. $5 (includes shipping).
go here to order: www.aboutjatyler.blogspot.com
read up & share out.
happy 2009.
JA Tyler has reviewed the entire Publishing Genius catalog. That is exciting.
Someone should review the entire Dalkey Archive catalog.
Mud Luscious
Reader, go buy.
I did. I will tell you what I think of them when they arrive. And I read them. I will read them before I tell you what I think of them.
I will probably read them before I tell you what I think of them.
There is a 64% chance I will read them, or maybe at least skim them before I tell you what I think of them.
57% maybe.
Definitely I will probably read, skim, or at least open them before I tell you what I think of them.
Also, I am sorry that this post moved Kendra’s down the page a little. I apologize to you, the reader.
And Kendra.
And to…well, you know. Them.