Facing Pages conference

Today I'm in Manhattan, paneling a discussion about literary magazines and the Internet with Bomb Magazine and One Story. This is at the Facing Pages conference. 

If everyone who attends is Amish, I should add a lot of value.

w/r/t AR&OP: a longer post than I had intended -- what I intended was a short thing (to make you buy the book) but look at this post, all sprawly

Matt Bell made me blush by saying nice things about me:

Adam's a spectacular writer, the editor of Publishing Genius, and an all-around great member of the literary community. I can't recommend buying this book enough, but if you need further convincing, check out the rest of the poem I've excerpted above. It's one of my favorite things Keyhole has published.

!!!


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Here's an interview with me at Dogzplot.



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On the sidebar at my blog I posted some poems that are in the book. To be honest, I guess there aren't that many. I'm not much of a submitter. I don't know why not, except that I'm disorganized and also I can't bear rejection.


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How did this book come about?
This is how I remember it. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I had done several readings around Baltimore with some cool people at some cool places. I had put out a chapbook by Lauren Bender called Whale Box (now out of print), about Heraclitus being swallowed by a whale inside Dionysus. Lauren is on the board at Narrow House (my publishers). That put me in a good milieu, you know? I had seen Lauren read Whale Box at the IE Reading series, which is a great poetry series in town, and after I saw it I asked if I could publish it.


So one night after a poetry reading where I killed it (I am often very good at poetry readings), I went to the Owl Bar, where HL Mencken used to hang out, with Lauren, Justin Sirois and Jamie Gaughran-Perez. They are the Narrow House dudes.

(Jamie's the one in the middle. The rest are Justin and Lauren.)

I knew Justin a little bit, we'd hung out a couple times. The other day we were trying to figure out how we started hanging out and couldn't put a finger on it. That is a very fun conversation to have with your friend. When you're on a car ride, I recommend it. At what point did your friend go from being someone you hung out with in a group to someone you met up with for a movie on Sunday morning? I don't know how it came to pass that Justin and I became butt buddies hanging out every Friday night until the point where I can't stand to go out on Friday nights because he is the Pope of Baltimore, but that's what happened. I still go out on Friday nights though.

I didn't really know Jamie at all. I had thought he was kind of a mean person, or too smart. I don't normally feel intimidated by smart people because I am very good at seeming like I know things when I need to, and if I can't do that I just repeat everything they say but really slowly. But! There exists this other sort of person who drives me crazy -- they're the people who are smart and also cool and also seem like they'd be good at basketball/soccer. I remember at Lauren's release party for Whale Box Jamie sat in the backyard talking to Michael Kimball and Tita Chico and Justin and I went back there -- this is the backyard to the playhouse I lived in back when life was awesomest -- and I felt nervous because Jamie was there laughing comfortably so I went back inside.

At the Owl Bar Jamie ordered a cheese plate or something like that. I mean, c'mon.

Justin wears, get this, spurs.

Lauren knows the clothes that I wear. On Saturday I asked her what pants I should wear to the show and she said, "I like your tuxedo pants." She's a good hugger.

At the Owl Bar, Lauren had a pen and with it on the paper tablecloth she drew a little guy. The little guy said, "We want to publish your book." She's a good drawer. And she wrote upside down because she sat across from me.

Now that I think about it, maybe this wasn't after a poetry reading where I killed it. That point is disputable.

Anyway, so I didn't really believe them because I didn't know if Narrow House wanted to publish my book or if the little guy did. I wasn't sure what publishing concern he represented. I was so happy but also a little incredulous.

They were like, "We want to do it the real way, 500 copies, etc."

The sky opened and a host of angles appeared. I mean angels.

It's cool when you get involved. I feel bad for Emily Dickinson. I feel like indoctrinating yourself into a like-minded society is a very good way to get your work published. I am really happy with how it happened organically, and that I didn't have to get really jaded in the process. Which I would have. If I wrote a manuscript and it got rejected a few times, I wouldn't know what to do. I would stop. But doing it this way, surprise way, was really fun. I didn't expect to do a book, I was just going to readings that I liked going to and getting asked to do them.

Doing readings is a good way to get a book because when you're reading, if you're good at them, you find out what works and what doesn't work.

My work of course is very audience-centric. I want you to like it. Which, you know, isn't necessarily the best place to write from. But dang if it ain't fun.

It turns out Jamie isn't mean or anything. He is very often hungry. One time, still before I knew him very well, like we had never hung out mano-a-mano, never did anything cuh-razy together, I asked him if he wanted to play bass in my band. He said, "I've never turned down an offer to join a band." I didn't even know if he could play bass, but what the heck. That was a year ago or so. He's still in the band because he isn't mean. He's AWESOME!

So that's how I got my book, and my friends. Next time I go out to get some friends I think I'm going to use a sub tracker.

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In this interview with Pat King, Baltimore dude, awesome, I suggest a position from which to read Adam Robison & Other Poems:

. . . what I distrust is the notion that our perception of reality is all that is the case. As an artist, that’s kind of a deal stopper for me. As a member of society, however, I can recognize and accept the value in going forward from this “reality is all we have to work with” presupposition — and it is in the tension between these two thoughts that I hang my poetry.

My Book Is Now Available For Pre-Order

Dear Person in front of a computer/handheld device:

My book, Adam Robison & Other Poems, is now available for pre-order.

This is exciting. I mean capital-E exciting.

It's like I just woke from a dream and it wasn't a dream: Narrow House is really publishing my book.

Narrow House hasn't released the official cover art for the book yet, though. That will be exciting all over again. The artwork alone is worth the price of admission.

The price of admission is $12, and that includes shipping. The book is 86 pages long.

I wrote about the book: here.

Here is a poem from the book: "I'm going to have SEX with these people," published in Lamination Colony.

Please let me know if you have any questions, or would like more information.

Thanks,
Adam

Sweatpants at the Cake Shop in NYC

This is from when we played up at the Cake Shop back in August. My friend Joe took it. I remember that it was very hot when we played and I would sweat a lot on stage so I wore a headband like Mark Knopfler. At one show I didn't wear it and I went blind with wet eyes.

I was very nervous playing this show because I had never played in NYC before and something about NYC seems "for real," like I felt some pressure to do it up for real. Normally I don't mind not feeling like a real band. In general I have thought of Sweatpants as a "fun thing to do" and actually, over the last year, as a way to beat out frustration and stress. Playing with Dave and Jamie is a great way to release tension that builds up from the publishing biz.

Playing in NYC, on the other hand, was very tense and nervewracking. Also my friend-from-way-back, Josh, was at the show. That's his head there in the foreground on the left. Next to him, with the girl-hair, is Leah. Josh and I were in our first bands together. In high school we played as Rocktommy. I stole a couple of the riffs in Sweatpants songs from Josh's songs over the years. We even cover one of his songs. I was hoping he wouldn't be angry.

After the show we went outside where there was a rolled-up carpet, and I whacked my friend Bill with it. Then Bill took it and threw it at me and Leah like a missile and knocked us both over. Leah was here last week and I asked her did she get any bruises from that night and she laughed and said yes. I had a bruise that was shaped like a rolled-up carpet.

We went to some bar, a kind of famous one, and got into a barfight. Some guy on the dance floor bumped into Bill and I asked Bill did he want me to take the guy down and Bill said yeah so I tackled the guy and straddled him. I was careful to tackle him gently. The guy laughed and so did I. Then I think someone tackled Josh. We were in a pretty famous bar in Manhattan and everyone was tackling each other.

I was just getting waters at the bar and the bartender was like you better tip. I tipped her a lot of money. Then Jamie and Bill and I drove to Philadelphia but only made it halfway and stayed in a Budget Inn.

1,000,000

Well, Publishing Genius just sold our one-millionth book. We are all very excited about this milestone at PG HQ.

ADAM ROBISON and OTHER POEMS

*This is not the cover it is advanced promotional material.

Joseph Young Interview

Hey, here's an awesome interview with Joe Young about his book, his writing, and his self. At Fictionaut.

On why he started writing microfiction:

I know it had something to do with wanting to get as closely to time zero as possible, to write a story, with character and narrative and action, that took up the least amount of story-time possible, close to no time. I wanted to achieve near-stasis, but without actually getting there.

All the Layouts

Last night I completed a draft for the layout of Mairéad Byrne's poetry collection, The Best of (What's Left of) Heaven (forthcoming January 2010). At 224 pages, with a variety of heading styles and poem styles, it was no easy task. It took about 12 hours and when I finished I felt great about the whole thing. I felt so good that I did the layout for Andy Devine's book, WORDS (forthcoming April 2010). That one only took 2 hours. It's 88 pages long.

If anyone wants a review PDF of either of these, let me know. This is probably a VERY limited time offer, as both of these books are still not completely proofed or edited. There is still much undecided on these books, in fact, but I thought it would be neat to let people see the process at the beginning.

Narrow House is putting out a big book of poetry called the IE Reader. This has been in the works for a long time because it's a beast of a book, with tons of poets included like CA Conrad, Charles Bernstein, Cole Swenson . . . and people who's names begin with other letters like "A" and "L" and "^#." Maybe not that last one.

And on top of that, they sent me the reader pages for myyyyyyyy boooooooooooook

myyyyyyy book
my book

(feels GREAT to say that)

my book, Adam Robison and Other Poems. All of me is really happy with this book. It's fun to be on the other side of the publishing thing. My book RULES all the other books. It is an immodest book. It's 86 pages long I think. Who wants it?

Joe Young's book is at the printer now. I thought I would have been shipping pre-orders already but the process got delayed by the fact that I decided to use a better printer. A slower printer, but a better printer.

I'm going to stop writing now.

First though I wanted to say that since all the PG books are the same size, they look really great next to each other on the shelf.

Everyday Idiot

Here's another logo by Justin Sirois.

Justin and I went to see Where the Wild Things Are on Friday. It was at a theatre in the suburbs. There were plenty of kids. It didn't strike me as a kids movie, but they did keep yelling and all the adults kept laughing at them. The main kid in the movie, Max, wore a sweater like my brother had when he was 8ish, and later like my friend Jason Lee had when he was 28ish. Love that sweater.

I thought the movie would rule a little harder in terms of defying the time-space continuum, but I think it doesn't cover the same fare that I'm used to with Spike Jonze. Like, when Max returns home from where the wild things are, I wondered how much time had passed? Would it be like in CS Lewis where it was only an instant, or like in Rip Van Winkle where it was year? I mean, actually what I expected is for Spike Jonze to create a whole other option that I hadn't thought of, but that's not really what this movie is about.

The movie was just trying to make me really sad about how no one can ever get along. Boom, mission accomplished. But how hard is that?

I spent like the whole day in bed yesterday. Last week I spent almost no time in bed, so I deserved it. I watched the Ravens game. The Ravens game was pretty awesome, in spite of a very close loss (missed field goal).

So much rain lately. Today blue skies, but still there has been a lot of rain.

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Today at Everyday Genius, Lee Rourke brings us a story by Tom McCarthy. It's a playish thing, actually, quirky, maybe laying a diss on Greek classicists or modern dramaturgy? I'm not sure, but open to discussion.

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The Facing Pages conference I'm paneling with One Story and Bomb Magazine looks really cool, and really free to NYers if you register by the 21st. If anyone is interested in attending or meeting up, let me know somehow.

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New Survey up at the PG website.

How You Doin' You Doin' Good?

My piece at Wunderkammer is up today. I didn't know it at the time, but I was writing about a picture of Kendra Grant Malone.

Kendra Grant Malone and Tao Lin's story, "Conor Oberst Sex," came out today as a very nice looking eBook from Matthew Simmons's press, Happy Cobra Books.

I've never met KGM but I met Tao last week and we did food. I met Matthew Simmons in May. I hope I meet KGM sometime. I hope I never meet a cobra, but if I do, I hope it is happy.

I had the privilege of speaking to a publishing class at George Washington University last night. It was a lot of fun. First the professor talked about archiving and problems like bit rot and cross-platform migration, then I talked about how I want to become as big as Google and I answered a wide range of very interesting questions. Everyone was really great and I feel more confident about appearing at the Facing Pages conference at Poets House later this month.

Finishing up Easter Rabbit and getting it off to the printer. Thanks to Justin Sirois for his work turning Christine Sajecki's painting into a book cover. Later I will post it, with the blurbs for the book.

In conclusion: life, man. Geez, y'know?

Interview at Outsider Writers

Patrick King and I got into it at Outsider Writers in an interview called "The Unreadable Writer." One thing I said is:

I definitely see the “something more” that you’re referring to, or I catch glimpses of it, and I think that is the objective correlative for my work, as well as the starting point and constant motivation. And for me, reality is trustworthy because it’s predictable. You always know reality is going to blow it, is going to be painful. But what I distrust is the notion that our perception of reality is all that is the case. As an artist, that’s kind of a deal stopper for me. As a member of society, however, I can recognize and accept the value in going forward from this “reality is all we have to work with” presupposition — and it is in the tension between these two thoughts that I hang my poetry.

Thanks a lot, Patrick, for giving me the attention! Pat is the sheriff at OW as well as one of the hosts at one of Baltimore's best new reading series -- Last Sunday, Last Rites.

Cool, Update on Light Boxes the Movie

In New York Magazine.

Ray Tintori looks like a cool guy. Shane says the book is in good hands.

Lee Rourke is editing Everyday Genius

Lee Rourke has taken the helm of Everyday Genius for October. I don't know Lee except for the stuff I've seen at 3:AM, so I googled him and wrote a biographical poem about him with links.

MY POEM ABOUT LEE ROURKE
Seems pretty great/Does it with books/Gets the things that are the best.
He lives in London, so you read that which he writes with a funny accent.
Unless you live in London too. Then you read it normal but with tea.
He wrote a book called EVERYDAY, which is a dark collection of stories about London.
He said he wanted it "to be enveloped in a muffling fog of boredom."
I'm loathe to make judgments but that sounds paradoxically fascinating.
You know, I hope my jokes about the accent and tea didn't hurt anybody's British feelings.
Also, I hope it's okay with the joke I made in my head about y'all's teeth.
I get it from television, see. Really sorry about all that.
Lee Rourke said, "We have, more or less, turned our backs on the conglomerates."
He has another book coming out soon called THE CANAL.
He's doing that one stateside, with Melville House.
He generally has at least a little facial hair that he rocks.
Here's Lee Rourke's blog.
Sometimes he writes for The Guardian.
Sometimes he edits a journal called SCARECROW.
The Independent called that "Religiously Anti-Mainstream."
Like I said, Lee Rourke seems pretty great.

The piece that Lee gives us today, "Slumbible" by Steve Finbow, is the sort of writing that the Internet hosts best. It flourishes online, I think, because it relies on language more than story, and while a webbed world distracts me from engaging a narrative, it somehow encourages a language envelope. Online, language draws me in. (Reading "Slumbible," I literally moved closer to my monitor.) Here's an excerpt of Finbow's storyish:

Between her lips he blows chunks. Size of her schnozz. Hanani. They were merged. After her visit. The birds of prey. With this twisted white and memorized the became black as.

Beautiful, right? I think in general I default to looking for plot when I read, but this sort of writing resists that. Then, as my eyes scan the lines, as I allow myself to be engrossed by the language, bathed by it, I sense a bit of story emerging. This double-reflection proves easier in Finbow's piece than something by Andy Devine, like:

chesticular, China, eyebolt, eyebright, eyecup, eyehole, eyehook, eyelet, eyetooth, fear,

But even in Devine's work there is story.

I'm excited to see what else Lee Rourke bringst to the Internet table.

whoa cool

I just found a copy of Light Boxes in my desk at work.

A Jello Horse Review in The Believer

Jim Ruland wrote an open letter to Matthew Simmons, which you can read in full at The Believer. It's a funny read that begins, "I am writing today to ask you a question about your book, which I read with great pleasure: what is it?" I also laughed at this line that addresses the second-person perspective: "When you say “you,” you mean “me” (meaning you), right?"

Ruland also points to "a fascinating problem for a protagonist: it’s his story, but the story doesn’t belong to him, and who hasn’t been there?"

A Jello Horse is available here, for $10 and shipping daily.