Who's funnier

Zachary German

or

Ryan Call

Take the poll at www.publishinggenius.com.

ADAM ROBISON & OTHER POEMS

I sent over the final (?) manuscript of my book to Narrow House yesterday at the same time as I received the final (?) manuscript for a 200-page poetry collection PG is releasing in January. I'm really excited about both things, but now I'd like to talk about my book.

It's called Adam Robison and other poems. "Robison" is spelled wrong intentionally. Or, it's not spelled wrong at all -- Adam Robison (Roe-bih-sun) is sort of an alter-ego. However, not being big into dualism, I don't recognize a definitive split between myself and Robison. It's not as if I'm the responsible one and Robison is the one who breakdances on the sidewalk. My second self overlaps infinitely with my named self. There is a purposeful ambiguity to that sentence.

The book is in four sections. The first section (I) is an introductory essay that outlines my influences including Anne Carson, Blaise Cendrars, Kurt Vonnegut and more. You can read it here, at Otoliths. The second section (II) is a collection of biographical poems, though most of these "biographies" actually reflect mostly onto me. The third section (III) is more ostensibly about me, though the work there is less personal. The fourth section (IIII) is a single poem called "Super Introduction" and is all about why I think art is the highest modality for existence.

Here is a poem from (II), at Keyhole. It is intensely personal. I read it to my family at a campfire and it sparked a 2-hour conversation.

Michael Kimball caught on video a poem from (III) having a fight with Blake Butler and some flowers. This video also features Shane Jones and the voice of Molly Gaudry.



(IIII) begins with an epigraph that I translated from Stefan George's German poem, "Das Wort":

“So I surrendered and sadly learned
There can’t be a thing where there is no word”

There are four other epigraph's in the book, from Cormac McCarthy, Gertrude Stein, Luce Irigaray and Johannes Göransson.

I'm pretty excited about this book. I am not allowed to tell you about the cover yet, but it is amazing. I mean, it's really flabbergastingly good.

I think people who don't like poetry will like Adam Robison and other poems. I also think people who DO like poetry will like it, which is a bigger accomplishment. One thing that is important to me is that people who don't care about writing one way or the other should like writing at least sometimes -- and I think this will be one of those times. I'm not afraid to ask athletes or politicians to read this book. Dudes studying econ at USC will read this book and talk to their girlfriends about it at wineries.

DUDE: I don't know, it's just different somehow.
GIRLFRIEND: Nerd.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

MLP The First Year

I'm excited about this one. Mud Luscious put together an anthology of the chapbooks so far. Preorder it here for $15. Look at this list:

ken baumann, shane jones, jimmy chen, brandi wells, blake butler, nick antosca, sam pink, james chapman, colin bassett, michael kimball, jac jemc, kim chinquee, kim parko, norman lock, randall brown, brian evenson, michael stewart, peter markus, ken sparling, aaron burch, david ohle, matthew savoca, p. h. madore, johannes göransson, charles lennox, ryan call, elizabeth ellen, molly gaudry, kevin wilson, mary hamilton, craig davis, kendra grant malone, lavie tidhar, lily hoang, mark baumer, ben tanzer, krammer abrahams, joshua cohen, eugene lim, c. l. bledsoe, joanna ruocco, josh maday, & michael martone

Darby Larson at Everyday Genius

Well, we're wrapping up September over at Everyday Genius and I'm about to hand the reins over to Lee Rourke. He's got some great things planned for October. Thanks to Michael Kimball for his great development of the series through August and into the first half of this month.

Today is Darby Larson day, and he brings us an overwhelmingly flowery story.

Me! At Barrelhouse!

Over at Barrelhouse they put together a podcast about how awesome Baltimore is (and it ends with me challenging DC -- their hometown -- to a fistfight pretty much -- cuz I'm an idiot). I got to talk to Dave Housley about isReads and Michael Kimball talked about the postcard project. Listen to it and you get to hear Josh Maday read his breathbeating poem, "The Everyday Juggernaut," which is for serious one TRUE POEM. And hear Mike Ingram get all nonsartorial and read the Barrelhouse life story from a postcard.

Barrelhouse is just dang rad. They continue to blow me away. I honestly hadn't been to their website in a while, and I have to say I am envious like ENVIOUS capitalized. I wish I lived in DC cuz DC must be awesome.

Dave Housley is a very good host. He does that thing where sometimes you hear him ask me a question directly but sometimes he edits out the question and contextualizes what we're talking about and then tells the listener, "So I asked Adam . . ." and then he cuts me in. I LOVE that format.

And did you know "Barrelhouse" is a song or something? Yeah! Like an old blues song that ends, "Mama just wants to barrelhouse all night." Pretty neat. It's probably some very popular song by Robert Johnson or something -- what I don't know about the blues you could put in Alan Lomax's books.

Michael Kimball is an insanely good talker, it's nuts. He's really coherent and really funny.

Funny blog

Joe Young is keeping a funny blog about press for Easter Rabbit. I don't know why I think it's funny, maybe because it's so blatantly promotional. It seems like if you come within 100 e-feet of the book, like comment on it somewhere or decline writing about it for your ping pong blog or ADD IT TO YOUR GOODREADS PAGE, Joe will write, like, a microbio about you. For instance:

Jason Jordan holds an MFA from Chatham University. His forthcoming books are Cloud and Other Stories (Six Gallery Press, 2009) and Powering the Devil's Circus: Redux (Six Gallery Press, 2009). His prose has appeared online and in print in over forty literary magazines. Additionally, he’s Editor-in-Chief of decomP. You can visit him at his blog at poweringthedevilscircus.blogspot.com.

Maybe Joe didn't write that. Maybe he just copied it from one of over forty literary magazines. I dunno.

Jason Jordan agreed with me that I'm dangerous. This is further proof?

I should say that I don't really know that Joe will write about you on his blog if you come within 100 e-feet of the book. But he might. That's pretty much the best I can do.

***

My band, Oak Sweatpants Monicker, is playing at the Whole Gallery in Baltimore on Saturday. That's all I know about the show. If you want more details, maybe Google it or something. I'm probably going to catch a ride with the bassist or drummer.

Preorder Easter Rabbit

Joseph Young's book, Easter Rabbit, is now available for preorder. $12 includes shipping. Go here to preorder.

Preorders will ship on or about Oct 15.
The preorder phase of the book will continue until Nov 15.
The book will be available to the world at large on Dec 15 for $14.95.


Some info about the book:

• Easter Rabbit is 100 pages long.


• There are fewer than 3,000 words in it.


• Each word was hand selected by Joseph Young.


• He determined that over a million words were not right for this book.


• The cover is a painting done in encaustic by Christine Sajecki.


• Everyone thinks it's a beautiful painting.


• It's digitally edited by the artist. Click here to see what the painting actually looks like.
• It's digitally edited, but to be clear, the rabbit is mobile.


• The book has been proofread by four people.


• All four people were like, "Looks good."


• Jasper Johns declined the opportunity to blurb Easter Rabbit.


• He doesn't even write blurbs for his friends, he said in a handwritten note.


• When I asked him for a blurb, I didn't write "blurb" or millions of other words.


• "Blurb" I thought sounded too vulgar to say to someone like Jasper Johns.


• Anyhoo, the stories in Easter Rabbit perfectly exemplify what Publishing Genius is trying to do.


• I didn't realize this till right now.


• But Publishing Genius likes to make short books that are expansive.


• And this book is a collection of short stories, very short, like less than 50 words each.


• But each story is massive.


• For serious. I mean, it's remarkable how much Joe Young can conjure up in these things.


• If you're paying attention.

Here is a very special offer:

• If you can read the entire book in one sitting, I will refund your money.


• You won't be able to do it.


• It's too long, even though it's so short.


• I mean, fewer than 3,000 words, come on.


• So if you can read the whole thing in one sitting, email me 50 words describing what you thought, and I'll give you back your money.


• No sweat.


• I dare you.


• I defy you.

Go here to preorder.

Easter Rabbit by Christine Sajecki

New website

I have updated the Publishing Genius website.

I'm happy to have feedback, positive or negative. I thought about submitting it to test groups and web optimization people and branding agencies &c, because that's the right way to do things in the business world. I've never been able to follow procedure before though, so why start now? I'm like the Dirty Harry of the publishing world. I'm dangerous. But the safe thing about this new site is that it's really easy to make changes to it, thanks, ahem, to the fact that it's a blogger platform.

Anyway, enough hoohah, check out the new site. Take the survey (please?).

And in a couple hours I'm going to post more exciting news here.

Requiem Aeternam

I'm still finding respite in this:

Best of Baltimore

Baltimore citizens have elected Publishing Genius to the position of BEST OF BALTIMORE: Publishing House!

Thanks to the City Paper, our local alt-weekly.

My Summer Vacation

Here I am in the Adirondacks:

Hey, I'm A Writer

I joined Fictionaut a while ago but never used it. I did some looking around in it today and I think I like it now. I posted a story in it that is kind of emotional for me. I like the groups that they have there at Fictionaut. There's one for Wigleaf that seems cool. I'm still figuring out how it all works, the Internet, but Fictionaut is handsome. I have some invites. It's in Beta so you have to be invited. If anyone wants to join, okay, let me know.

I threw out a manuscript today. I mean I deleted it. I was 12,000 words into a novel when I started my MFA program in 2006 but I had to set that aside so I could describe rocks and leaves and crap for the University of Baltimore. Sometimes I would go back and look at my lonely neglected manuscript. Today I went back and looked at it and couldn't read a paragraph. I deleted it because I was completely uninterested in looking at it again.

But the good news is I put together a collection of short stories. I so infrequently think about submitting, and I never think about submitting fiction, that it didn't occur to me to do a book. I'm thinking of Sam Pinking it and just making it myself. There is a lot of flash fiction in it. The truth is, I didn't know I wrote flash fiction. I found some on my flash drive though, I mean, like a dozen stories of varying quality.

I don't know, I guess I could submit this somewhere. It's called ARob and Other Stories.

The Last Book I Loved

I had the privilege of writing about the last book I loved at The Rumpus. I feel kind of bad that the last book I loved was Alaska by James Michener, but I took the question literally. I could have said Scorch Atlas, but that is actually the second to last book I loved. And I could have said How Some People Like Their Eggs, but I hadn't loved that book by the time I Rozi Jovanovic asked if I wanted to write the thing.

And anyway, I love Alaska and am deeply impressed by it. As a book. I mean.

MLKNG SCKLS on Bookslut

There is a nice article about MLKNG SCKLS in September's issue of Bookslut. Gina Myers calls it "a smart and compassionate little book."

Is this spam?

Just got this email: 

Hello.
   Am Mr.Kelvin Chris and will like to place an order regarding some Light Boxe 172 pp 5 x 7" perfect bound paperback from your company to Singapore.I will really appreciate you email me back with those that you carry in stock and their price ranges,also your terms of payment as well.I will like to be one of your honest customer and hope you answer to my request ASAP.Thank you very much and waiting for your prompt responds.God Bless You.

Best Regards
Mr.Kelvin

Also, I forgot to mention that the other day I pre-ordered Keyhole 8.

Things I Recently Ordered

Most of the books I've been buying lately are in pre-order stage, so I keep forgetting if I ordered them or not. So I thought I'd make a list.

Working backwards:

The most recent three coinsides from Brave Men Press. The poem, "Night of 1000 Murders," by Mark Leidner is pretty fantastic.

Claudia Smith's chapbook, Put Your Head in My Lap, from Future Tense.

James Iredell's difficultly/brilliantly titled Prose. Poems. A Novel. from Orange Alert. This contains "Before I Moved to Nevada," which was published in This PDF Chapbook.

DRUNK by Daniel Bailey. There's a pretty good trailer for this book at YouTube. On Tuesday I was visiting with a friend at a hip rocker-type bar and I turned around and saw how many empty beer bottles were in the place and I thought about how many problems could have been solved with the money spent, the energy spent, the time. And how many problems were solved with the beer. It seemed about even, for a Tuesday.

The contest winner everyone's talking about: How Some People Like Their Eggs by Sean Lovelace. I actually received this one already and read part of it in the tub this morning. I said this about it in a conversation about chapbooks:

The construction of the book really brings the form to its apex. The size, the quality of cover stock and cover art, the professional printing and hand construction actually contain some kind of electric power, I think. You hold that book and suddenly understand what a chapbook is. You read it and you know – these pieces are made for this form.

From Colin Basset's Bear Creek Feed, I ordered the limited edition chapbook of poems, Falling Stars to Smash Motherfuckers in their Face by Jillian Clark. This collection has more to it than just a great title.

lakdjflkca

Still having computer problems, I'm thinking about switching full time to my Mac. I tried to download Scribus, the open source page design software, but couldn't find the .dmg and gave up. Can someone share a link to that?

Class starts tomorrow. I am taking a class called "Advanced Creative Writing." . . .
. . .
. . .

I'm pretty sure I'm going to be working on a story told all in screen shots. Like, what stories can you glean from my current desktop view? (Hint: there are a lot.)

If anyone steals my idea I'll be pert peeved.

Last night I wrote a lot about James Michener

And today I'm here to tell you that a website at PublishingGenius.com has been created for some info about Joseph Young and his book, Easter Rabbit.

I just got really excited about this book. The cover is a painting by Christine Sajecki.

*Sweatpants Wrap Up; **A review; ***Another Review, ****Submissions Update

*
Tour was revelatory. Some highlights include:
+Throwing a rug at people for about an hour in NYC outside the Cake Shop. Then getting into a wrestling match at a dance party. Then getting stuffed into a garbage can.
+Staying in a suite in Philadelphia that cost more than a tour van whould have -- thanks Bill.
+Hanging out with the awesome guys in Mostly Dimes. Tom losing his voice because he nailed the Sweatpants theme song so dang good and then blaming us for it every night afterward. And Eric's stagedive to the onto an empty floor.
+Also meeting other bands like Pedals on Our Pirate Ships and Straight Punch to the Crotch, even though I was generally so tired at load in time that I felt antisocial.
+Going to an impromptu pool party in Charlottesville and diving into the pool everytime I did something awesome, which was often.
+Playing in DC to a really nice audience which included one of my top ten biggest musical influences (falling somewhere between Stevie Wonder and Bob Mould).
+Getting better/more serious about doing the band. Feeling like there is something to it more than just a good way to hang out with Dave and Jamie.

**
My review of Matt Bell's short collection of microfictions, How the Broken Lead the Blind (sold out from Willows Wept), is posted now at Gently Read Literature. In thinking about Matt's book, I make this point: "Regardless of the logistical framework of any story, my first judgment of each is simply that it is interesting. This is a rare feat in a genre which prioritizes mood and ingenuity over coherence and occurrence." I'm sure it's debatable. I just hope it makes sense. It reads like I got all my teeth jumbled in my mouth.

My review of The Collectors (also by Matt Bell, from Caketrain) is coming out in this issue of The Chapbook Review. Links forthcoming.

***
PH Madore's Dispatch is a cool place to read stories. I like the new logo, and I like the pictures that Christy Call draws. The latest issue is a story by Adam Moorad. In the latest news in Madore's war, he is offering stickers that you can get for free. Then you can take pictures of where you put the sticker and upload them to the Litareview website. (Suggested locations include "Betwixt the pages of quality," a police car and Miranda July's mailbox.)

****
A lot more paper submissions came in than I was expecting. Some came in after I left for tour so they didn't make it on the road with me. I'm reading them anyway, of course. I have to say, having a paper copy really helps the process a lot. I'm about 50% done with the first read-throughs. I'm honestly surprised with how good these manuscripts are. I posted about that at Facebook and someone told me if I don't say bad things about some of them, people will think I lack discernment. But it seems possible that people who are ready to mail their manuscript with just a moment's notice are also at a stage where the work is ready to be considered. At any rate, it's been fun reading hardcopy and when PG officially opens again, it will probably be a submission requirement. Or is that jerky? Is it less jerky than having long response times?