Paula Bomer. Photo courtesy Bernie Knuckles.

“In New York, people express their social ambition through their family. To me, that’s a corruption. I feel somewhat critical of just wanting the good life; that’s not going to bring you joy. The one PTA meeting I attended was frightening: the people were so cruel. I find petty unkindness more powerful than people want to acknowledge, and it amazes me on a daily basis how people treat one another. Perhaps people feel it’s not significant.”

And:

“We are not what we write. If you’re not being brave as a writer, it’s hard to care.”

The interest in Paula’s book has been overwhelming and wonderful. (I’m down to a single print galley–I’ve never run out of galleys before.)

What gives me pause is that this book almost never came to be. (Paula was under contract with a small press that folded and then started looking for a new home for it.) It’s sort of the same feeling I got when I was able to put out Nick Antosca’s Midnight Picnic. You have these amazing books you want to shove into the world and they very nearly missed being born. It’s frightening, almost. Strike that–not almost. It is frightening.

1) Distribute galleys four months before the publication date. Outlets like Publishers Weekly and Booklist will not consider reviewing a book unless they’ve received a galley four months ahead of time.
2) Do not be stingy with galleys.
3) Your cover price should be about 5 times the per-book printing cost.
4) Bookland is a free barcode generator program. Works like a charm.
5) If you want libraries ordering your books, make sure you have a Library of Congress catalog control number.

Here are products and services I use for Word Riot and swear by:

1) Offset Paperback Manufacturers
Our wonderful printer is a division of Bertelsmann AG, which also owns Random House. We use their digital printing service. When I received their printing quotes for our first paperback, I was pretty astonished by the low cost. I asked for a sample book to check out the quality and it was fantastic.

You should always do your research on printers and find one your comfortable with. I probably requested quotes and samples from five printers before I decided on OPM. I’ve never looked back.

I know there are a lot of print-on-demand options available and there are ways to use it well (e.g. Electric Literature’s model), but I personally wouldn’t recommend POD. It can be very difficult to get POD books into bookstores and libraries because POD signals “self-published” or “amateur” to them. That’s not to knock self-publishing—I’ve noticed a lot of indie publishing companies have put out books by the publisher that have been very successful and well-received. These books don’t carry a “self-published” stigma because there’s a company behind them with professional printing, distribution and marketing.

POD is cheaper at the outset but I think ultimately you’re not giving your titles an opportunity to be as successful as they could be.

2) Pathway Book Service
Pathway is the only flat-rate distribution service around. What this basically means is that you pay a low monthly fee and they take care of shipping your books to whoever orders them. Pathway makes sure your title is listed in Ingram and Baker & Taylor. You can also go through them for fulfillment to Barnes & Noble and Amazon. Because they’re a distributor, they get a better percentage off of Amazon than you would get on your own with the Amazon Advantage program. Also, because they are fulfilling titles to Amazon for all the publishers they represent, the shipping cost is incredibly cheap.

What I love best about Pathway is their customer service. If I email them, I can expect a response within a few hours. And if I want to know how my titles are selling, their online reports are easy to access and use.

Unlike other distributors, Pathway is not responsible for marketing your title nor do they send out catalogs for the titles they’re distributing. This hasn’t been a problem for me because I feel comfortable handling my own marketing. You might feel differently. I’ve just seen too many distributors close up shop and leave publishers quaking in their boots. With Pathway, I feel comfortable with their years of experience and approach to fulfilling a publisher’s essential need: getting books to stores, libraries and other distributors that order them.

If you are looking for a more traditional distributor that will help with marketing, I’ve heard great things about Small Press Distribution.

3) Submishmash
Submishmash is a free, powerful submissions manager. What’s great about Submishmash is their responsiveness to input from editors and publishers. I think they’ve taken into account every suggestion my editors and I have put forward to them. When literary enthusiasts are software developers, great things happen—Submishmash is one of them.

Check out Adam Robinson’s review of Submishmash on HTMLGIANT.

4) Sigil
Sigil is free, open source ebook design software. If you have basic HTML knowledge, it should be a piece of cake to figure out how to create an EPUB file on Sigil.

5) Google Docs
I use a Google Doc spreadsheet to share sales and royalty information with my authors. It was my way of forcing myself to have an up-to-date record, rather than just updating some spreadsheet on my computer once a month or at royalty check time. When you have somebody else looking over your shoulder, you get to keeping things more tidy. At least I do.

I also use it for any organizational items that require input from both the author and me (e.g. who should galleys, what venues should be approached for readings, etc.)

6) WordPress
WordPress is super adaptable blog software. It’s free and easy to install.

Marketing

1) Sticker Guy
It’s my high school punk rocker coming out: I love vinyl stickers. Sticker Guy has great prices and produce a solid product. When I have a book that I think will benefit from a more guerrilla marketing technique, I always order up some vinyl stickers.

2) Mad Mimi
Mad Mimi is an email marketing service. I don’t send out email newsletters often (once, maybe twice a month) but my email list is pretty large. Mad Mimi offered the best value for the service I was looking for. They’re incredibly easy to use and their tracking stats are very helpful.

I'll probably continue to post some more thoughts and advice under the publishing tips tag.]

Every once in awhile I get emails from folks who are gung-ho about starting their own literary magazine/small press and have questions about how to go about pointing their gung-hoatude in the right direction.

This is some advice for those just starting out with a literary venture. I’ll probably be adding to it as things come to mind.

1. Do one thing and do it well

So you want to start a small press, a reading series, a mag that publishes weekly and a lit blog? All excellent goals, but trying to do everything at once will doom your projects. Start off small. Start off slow. Consider which project is the one really scratching at your brain and start with that one. Pour all your creativity and energy into it. Build the reputation of that one project before taking on the next one.

Word Riot started as the lit section of an online music magazine created by Paula Anderson. When Paula took a leave from running the online music mag, I tried to keep both running strong. I couldn’t. I was a 19-year-old college student and I knew that I couldn’t keep up with my school work and both magazines. I liked the music magazine, but I loved Word Riot, so the music magazine died.

My ultimate goal for Word Riot was to turn it into a small press. Fortunately, I knew I had no idea what I was doing and would need to figure out a solid game plan before I took the next step.

2. Research & build your network

You will be lucky if you break-even your first couple years of your literary project. That’s being generous.

I was ready to throw all my energy and extra cash at Word Riot when I got started, but I was also a broke college student so there wasn’t much money to throw. I had to make due with cheap marketing plans and building contacts while I researched printers. I wanted a printer that was high-quality but not a lot of money, and for much of that first year and a half I couldn’t find one that met both requirements. I didn’t compromise. I kept looking.

In the mean time, I kept an eye on what other presses I admired were doing, So New and Future Tense, in particular. Kevin Sampsell graciously took a phone call from me to answer my questions. I bought ISBN numbers (non-negotiable—get them if you’re putting out books or chapbooks). I started producing chapbooks, first with home-printed covers then with professionally printed ones. I got to know more about various kinds of paper than I could possibly have a use for. (Tip to chapbook publishers: fancy paper manufacturers will send you free samples.) I emailed every existing online magazine I could find to exchange links and ask question after question. I emailed authors from these online magazines and invited them to submit to mine.

I was somewhat frustrated—I wanted to publish paperbacks now!—but in that period where all I could do is research and reach out to other literary types, I was building lasting connections. These relationships have become invaluable to me.

For example, David Barringer was one of those writers I read on Nerve and invited to submit to Word Riot. He was the first person I considered a “serious” writer—meaning not a member of the music magazine staff—to send me fiction. That meant something to me. So when David mentioned a short story chapbook proposal for We Were Ugly So We Made Beautiful Things I was all over it. (Side note: seven years later, We Were Ugly is still selling.) And since then I’ve been able to call on David for his awe-inspiring design skills for project after project, all the while watching David’s tremendous growth as a writer.

With another of my writers, Paula Anderson, I got to be present at her funeral as her family and friends read from the chapbook of hers I published. Nothing will ever humble me quite the way that did. (I’ve made all of Paula’s chapbook, Blood Tender, available online. She was a brilliant writer. I think Blood Tender was the first blog published as a book when it came out in 2003, but all my publicity attempts to convince the world of this back then fell flat.)

3. Moderation and patience (a cliche is a cliche because it’s true, which is also a cliche)

Trying to conquer the world in a couple of months will drain your bank account, your sleep and your sanity. If you are starting a small press, don’t commit to more than a few titles in your first year. Keep your print runs small.

There isn’t a lot of public discussion about print runs but many small press publishers will be more than happy to give you some insight on theirs. With Word Riot, I do small print runs of 200-300 at a time and order reprints when the stock runs low. This means I have to order reprints with greater frequency but I’m also keeping my risk low should a title not resonate with an audience the way I expected. I don’t live in fear of returns.

4. Get thee a social media presence

You need to be a Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Fictionaut, the HTMLGIANT comments section, everywhere. Be insightful and interesting, of course, but be out there. If you’re not insightful or interesting, fake it and eventually you’ll figure it out. Just be visible. Independent publishing and online literary culture is more vital and exciting now than I’ve seen since I got started. Be a part of the conversation.

5. Your printer and your distributor are your life partners

Choose wisely. There’s been many a small (and large, actually) publisher screwed by a bad distribution deal. Find a distributor who is economically sound and responsive to your needs. Same with printers.

Word Riot’s printer is Offset Paperback Manufacturers and our distributor is Pathway Book Service. They are fantastic and I would not still be in business without them—I highly recommend them to everyone. There will be plenty of snafus as you navigate the road to publishing a book. Your printer or distributor should never add to your headache.

6. Start marketing four months ahead of your publication date

You need to have advance review copies and you need to not be stingy with them. Find blogs and magazines you think would be interested in your publication and ask if they would like a galley. Don’t just hurl copies at the biggest book bloggers you can find. They receive more books than they can possibly read. Pitch them on the book. You are passionate about this book or else you wouldn’t be publishing it. Use that passion to get potential reviewers interested in your book.

Many bloggers or reviewers will have specific guidelines about receiving galley copies. Follow them. You’re just wasting their time and yours if you don’t.

Four months sounds like a lot of time. It’s not. Publishers Weekly and Library Journal will not review a book unless they have received a galley copy four months ahead of time. That’s not to say sending galleys guarantees a review, but you want to at least give your book the shot at one.

7. Figure out eBooks

Not just Kindle (you really just need some basic html knowledge to format a Kindle book). Learn how to create EPUB files; Sigil is great free software for building EPUB files. Barnes & Noble is going to open up their nook eBook store later this summer to small publishers. Apple will be opening up iBooks to books with ISBN numbers soon, as well. Digital is a complement to print, but an essential one.

We as independent presses should be at the forefront of new media. We don’t have bureaucratic leviathans. Our strength is that we are agile and innovative, responsive to our authors as well as our customers. We need to be aggressive in the eBook market, and we need to be thinking about how we can advance the medium of digital books.

photo credit: Lauren Vallese June 2009

Press Release

Middletown, NJ — Punk rock-spirited independent publisher Word Riot Press will release What’s Your Exit?: A Literary Detour through New Jersey in May 2010.

The anthology, edited by Alicia A. Beale and Joe Vallese, will include feature new and previously published work from over 40 writers.  Among the book’s contributors are Joyce Carol Oates , Tom Perrotta, Robert Pinsky, Jason Biggs, J. Robert Lennon, Alicia Ostriker,  Paul Lisicky , Louise de Salvo, Donna Steiner, Joe Weil, Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Lee Klein, Suzanne Paola, James Richardson, Susan Fox Rogers, Gerald Stern, JC Todd, BJ Ward, and Sung J. Woo.

What’s Your Exit? will be comprised of contemporary literary fiction, memoir, and poetry about, inspired by, and representative of the Garden State.  Themes of family, friendship, travel, culture, sexuality, love, fear, violence, nostalgia, and longing populate the anthology, which features writers and styles as eclectic and beautiful, and as unnerving and mysterious and bold as the place that unites them in this work.

An index in the back of the anthology will list the collected works by Parkway and Turnpike exits, an homage to the traditional way Jersey folk identify and relate to one another—the simple but loaded inquiry, “What exit?”

“We want What’s Your Exit? to be our gift to New Jersey,” said Vallese, a Palisades Park native and undergraduate writing teacher at New York University.

After developing their vision for the anthology, Beale and Vallese sought a New Jersey-based publisher equally enthusiastic about the scope of the project.

“We believe Word Riot Press is a company with the passion and literary aesthetics to propel this book in both a profitable and artistic direction,” said Beale, a Long Branch native.

Word Riot Press publisher Jackie Corley, a New Jersey resident, sees the book’s publication as a milestone for the company.  “Up until this point, we have mainly published small paperbacks by rising literary notables, such as Nick Antosca, Kevin Sampsell and David Barringer,” Corley said. “An anthology of this range, with such an impressive collection of established and up-and-coming authors represents an exciting step in our growth.”

“Here is a collection perfectly shaped, with a strong, punch of a first story, “Amanda”, that perfectly sets the dark, funny tone for the book. …

“Throughout the collection, Waldron’s characters exhibit a simmering wrongness and inevitable falling apart. Whereas Cormac McCarthy’s work always portrays an aspect of chaos theory, Waldron’s stories better exemplify the theory of entropy. …

“World Takes represents how independent presses can do more than publish books that are too experimental (although many of these stories are formally interesting, for sure) for the major publishers, but also can publish books that make you think, “why doesn’t this guy have a major publisher?” (Elizabeth Ellen does that to me.) And the answer to that would be that they can’t publish every good thing out there, can they? That all presses are run by humans, and many a press will pass up, wrongly, a very good book. I have no idea whether or not Waldron tried to get a major publisher in the first place, but that is’t totally my point. What I mean to emphasize here is how Indie Presses can be of a different benefit to the readers of the world: they can publish the surplus of excellent manuscripts, that for whatever non-reason, are not getting published by Random House.”

“This might be the scariest thing about the book, the essential thing that all scary books need: the conviction that, for as long as you are reading the story, the world is inescapably dark, and all one’s experiences that would say otherwise are simply tricks or misunderstandings. The feeling of relief on putting the book down after its satisfying ending—of seeing that it’s light out and your loved ones are alive—is followed by a nagging feeling that one has missed something. There might be dead people right in front of the reader’s face, in a space stained by trauma.”

—-
P.H. Madore reviews The Suburban Swindle:

“These are stories which even Bruce Springsteen wouldn’t want to tell. Mostly gritty and realist: the kind of stories I love. Corley flexes some real descriptive power… Yes, The Suburban Swindle is full of the stories of street punks and noir beauties–probably the stuff of real New Jersey, not the New Jersey I’ve seen on television. I don’t know. I just know that I liked the way she painted her youthful characters and did this without apology.”

One of the first times P.H. Madore emailed me was to say that some of Word Riot’s design was lame and that I should take down the animated GIF ads I had up. That got my attention. I don’t get insulting emails very often or if I do they’re just lame and emotional and don’t have a point. I thought P.H. had balls to say that, and he was right. I took down the crappy ads.

I was nervous when I saw on Goodreads that Madore was reading The Suburban Swindle. I knew if he thought it sucked he wouldn’t have qualms about saying so. I’m glad he liked the collection.

New Jersey General Assembly
Assembly Resolution
By Assemblyman Gusciora

WHEREAS, The General Assembly of the State of New Jersey is pleased to honor and salute Timothy Patrick Waldron, an esteemed lifelong resident of West Trenton, Mercer County, in recognition of his highly acclaimed first book, World Takes; and

WHEREAS, A graduate of Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Timothy Patrick Waldron is a renowned author and editor whose work has been circulated widely on the Internet and in print, his debut book of thirteen short stories was published in March 2009 by Word Riot Press; and

WHEREAS, Timothy Patrick Waldron’s World Takes has been noted as being both darkly humorous and endearing as it leads readers through America’s interior landscape with tales that explore people of all backgrounds; and

WHEREAS, Within all spheres of his life and work, Timothy Patrick Waldron has established a model to emulate and set a standard of excellence toward which others might strive; and

WHEREAS, It is altogether proper and fitting for this House to pause in its deliberations to praise the creative work of Timothy Patrick Waldron, and to commend him as an individual of strong character and exceptional determination; now, therefore

Be It Resolved by the General Assembly of the State of New Jersey: That this House hereby salutes Timothy Patrick Waldron, pays tribute to his meritorious record of achievement, and extends sincere best wishes for continued success in his literary career; and,

Be It Further Resolved, That a duly authenticated copy of this resolution, signed by the Speaker and attested by the Clerk, be transmitted to Timothy Patrick Waldron.

1) Josh Maday’s review of The Suburban Swindle at New Pages:

“Corley has a superlative ear for the music of language. Her lines and rhythms are rich, lyrical, and energetic, carrying the reader along and juxtaposing interestingly with the tension in the stories themselves, reflecting the tension within the characters, between the hard façade and the longing lonely vulnerability behind it… Jackie Corley’s writing captures and conveys the impassable conflict of being human at every level.”

2) Reading in Providence in two weeks organized by William Walsh, author of Questionstruck:

Myopic Books
5 S. Angell Street
Wayland Square
Providence, RI
Saturday, April 18 @ 7 p.m.
Readers: Jackie Corley, Timmy Waldron and Brian James Foley

3) P.H. Madore’s dispatch litareview lives. I have a book excerpt appearing there soon. I got paid in real world dollars – ten of ‘em.

4) So New Publishing introduced the So New Writers Prize. The winner gets their novella published in a limited run of hand-bound books.

5) Contracts are rolling in for the not-so-secret-but-I’m-not-telling-yet anthology that Word Riot Press will publish in Spring 2010. Big names attached to this one.

6) Timmy Waldron has a story appearing as part of genius ml press publisher j.a. tyler’s Stamps Stories project.

7) Tobias Carroll interviewed Nick Antosca over at the scowl

I got Keyhole’s handwritten issue in the mail and thoroughly had my mind blown.

9) I like the look on the face of the old lady on the subway when Blake Butler curses:

“And here is the key to the brilliance of this collection; there is God in these people, even if it’s hidden deep and swathed in pain and ugliness and carelessness. These are stories that don’t shy away from anything: the realities of class, the pain of love and the simmering violence in all of us. Corley’s evenness of tone truly astonishes. She shows a impressive, sustained effort and does justice to words and humans. And regardless of squalor and suffering, Corley insists that our lives have meaning, have true and astonishing beauty, and our time on earth, even in New Jersey, is profoundly precious. This is soulful stuff. Read it.”

—

Advance review copies of Timmy Waldron’s WORLD TAKES are in the mail. The files for the final copies are at the printer and the books should be ready in a few weeks.

—

Big news on the horizon for WRP’s next title. It’s an anthology with some big names attached. I’m keeping mum until the contracts are signed and make their way back to me.

• Nick Antosca tells Tao Lin a thing or two

• The Bat Segundo Show: Nick Antosca

• Popmatters reviews Midnight Picnic

• Book trailer

Also, Amazon.com sold out of Midnight Picnic but more copies are on the way.

1) 34th Parallel has an interview with me and the first short story I ever wrote in their 5th issue.

2) I started Bennington’s MFA program in January. Best decision ever. It’s a low-residency program, so I have to go up to Vermont twice a year for 10-day residencies. The rest of the time I work from home and mail in packets of writing and book annotations to my professors.

This is my book list this term:

Rabbit, Run by John Updike
Home Land by Sam Lipsyte
The Stranger by Albert Camus
Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby
Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game by William Kennedy
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Falconer by John Cheever
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
Beautiful Children by Charles Bock
Drown by Junot Díaz
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
Reasons to Live by Amy Hempel
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
The Girl in the Flammable Skirt: Stories by Aimee Bender
Affliction by Russell Banks
Hunger by Knut Hamsun
The Wonders of the Invisible World by David Gates
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson
In the Bedroom by Andre Dubus
In Cold Blood Truman Capote
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
Molloy by Samuel Beckett
Black Tickets by Jayne Anne Phillips

3) Word Riot Press news: New version of Midnight Picnic by Nick Antosca arrived from the printer. Galley copies for World Takes by Timmy Waldron are in the works.

4) I have a reading in Mass. coming up:

Dire Reading Series
Friday, March 6, 2009 @ 8 p.m.
106 Prospect Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts

I got to meet Jason in Pittsburgh last week. Great dude. He reminded me a lot of the guys I used to hang out with in high school. I’ve had Powering the Devil’s Circus on my shelf for far too long. (It’s my next read. I stumbled into Don Quixote and am just starting to stumble my way out. I loves me some fat books.)

• Johnny Red + We Were Ugly… by David Barringer = $20
  
• Eighty-Sixed by Brian Ames + Scott Bateman’s Sketchbook… = $18
  
• Eighty-Sixed by Brian Ames + Naughty Sweet Boy by Ryan Robert Mullen = $15
  
• Scott Bateman’s Sketchbook… + Naughty Sweet Boy by Ryan Robert Mullen = $15
  

To celebrate, I offered two copies to <HTMLGIANT> for contest purposes. Nick came up with this most excellent contest question:

What is the way you would least like to die?

Head over to <HTMLGIANT> and put in your best death wish.

Better hurry, though. The competition is heating up and the contest ends Monday night.

I haven’t done a workshop session since college and never on any substantial work. Anybody want to scare me with workshopping horror stories or links to horror stories? Just trying to expel the demons.

Oh, and Word Riot Press got name-checked in GalleyCat for picking up Nick Antosca’s Midnight Picnic. I keep wanting to call it Midnight Panic for some reason. I don’t know why. At least one person found Word Riot by googling “Nick Antosca” and “Midnight Panic” so I’m not alone.

Check out this gorgeous cover design by David Barringer:

Middletown, NJ — Punk rock-spirited independent publisher Word Riot Press will release Nick Antosca’s second novel Midnight Picnic on Dec. 15.

Midnight Picnic was slated to be released by Impetus Press on Oct. 31. The book’s publication was put on hold when Impetus Press publishers Willy Blackmore and Jennifer Banash announced the dissolution of the company due to financial pressures. Shortly afterward, Impetus Press, Word Riot Press and Antosca began discussions about the novel’s future.

“Willy Blackmore and Jennifer Banash’s dedication to Impetus authors is remarkable,” Word Riot Press publisher Jackie Corley said. “When Willy and Jennifer learned of Word Riot Press’ interest in Midnight Picnic, they worked tirelessly to make a deal happen.

“I’m pleased and impressed by how fast Word Riot stepped up,” Antosca said. “Jackie didn’t hesitate, and I think it’s a wonderful thing for independent literature that she runs her press so fearlessly. It’s terrific that she’s going to publish Midnight Picnic.”

An eerie story about the nature of death, Midnight Picnic is a non-traditional ghost story in which a vengeful child searches for his murderer on the deserted roads of the American countryside, drifting in and out of the afterlife.

“If there’s a real Hell out there in the American heartland, and real ghosts, I suspect Nick Antosca has seen them. Midnight Picnic reinvents the ghost story for our unsettled times—it’s a riveting and terrifying 21st Century Book of the Dead that’s one of the most frightening novels I’ve read in years,” said Elizabeth Hand, author of Generation Loss, Mortal Love, and Winterlong.

Jami Attenberg, author of The Kept Man, has called Midnight Picnic “a thrilling follow-up to his contemplative debut, Fires. His imagination makes an astonishing show in this macabre, bizarre and witty story of ghosts and revenge. Impossible to put down until the extremely satisfying end, Midnight Picnic conjures up the mounting tension of the finest Bradbury story.”

John Haskell, author of American Purgatorio and I Am Not Jackson Pollock, concurred with Hand and Attenberg’s assessment of Antosca’s uncanny ability to unearth the darker elements of human nature: “Beneath the skin of emotion there are muscles and nerves, and that’s where Antosca takes us.”

Called a “page-turner” and “a demented little novel” by Publishers Weekly, Midnight Picnic will be at home in Word Riot Press’ diverse stable of literary and experimental works of fiction.

“Nick’s forceful authorial voice has made him a young writer to watch. I’m elated to have Nick as part of the Word Riot Press family,” Corley said.

“David Gianatasio’s Mind Games messes with your head, but in the best way possible. A follow-up to 2006’s Swift Kicks, this brief collection of stories grabs you by the jugular. A mutiny of fervent voices bursts from the page, and each story is clever, bold, and off-the-charts surreal.
…
“Hilarious, irreverent, anxious, and at times unexpectedly poignant, Mind Games is full of compelling characters and outrageous contradictions. It also has something for everyone – sexed-up infomercials, sci-fi plot lines, stalker romance, and indecipherable riddles. Fans of witty experimental fiction will eagerly await Gianatasio’s next installment.”

Check out the entire review.

I contributed to Patti Abbott’s Friday’s Forgotten Books series.

My pick was Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird. I picked it up at the much-missed Book Pit, a used bookstore in Red Bank that closed up shop a few years ago. I made quite a few rare finds at the Book Pit, but The Painted Bird is probably one of my favorites.

Read the interview and bask in the glory that is Gianatasio.

David Barringer will be doing the cover design (because he likes being worked to death by me). Word Riot Press will be putting out the book in the next few months.

Here are some of the pics I took. (Industrial!)

Timmy’s gotten some awesome blurbage on the book:

In World Takes, Timmy Waldon has great fun pushing buttons. From a George Washington impersonator who loses his job to twentysomethings tripping through life with their pants down, he spins delightful, provocative and often hilarious tales about that journey we all share to find our place in the universe. It’s an impressive collection that will make you wish that all short stories were this present and amusing.
—Kemble Scott, author of the bestselling novel SoMa

Timothy P. Waldron shares my unhinged and free-floating hatred for humans, their dry Up-Space, and their promiscuous use of the be-fingered appendage known as “the hand”, especially in the provocative gestural combination known as “the Fives of Highs”. If you, like me, lurk gently in the cool grip of the benthic deep awaiting the oncoming Neo-Diluvian age when non-euclidean monoliths will cast soul twisting shadows on the unheeded faces of man, then this slender volume of World Takes shall carry you through for a while. In the meantime, appreciate with me the accurate renderings of post-millennial Americo-cubicle culture which Mr. Waldron so carefully crafts. He is truly a high-priest of this, the Immediate Age.
—Poor Mojo’s Giant Squid, of Detroit the Michigan, and the Internets (http://www.poormojo.org)

The trailer got a plug on Galleycat the other day.

(Word Riot Press put out Scott Bateman’s Sketchbook of Secrets & Shame in 2006.)

Can we actually petition some site to pay Ed for these incredible podcasts and keep it going? Like email Gawker or something? Doesn’t Nick Denton sweat money?

Ed is one of the most insightful reviewers/lit bloggers out there. So, so sad about this.

In a word, awesomeatude.

Amy Guth put on a fantastic weekend that went off without a hitch. I got to hang out with James Stegall, Kevin Sampsell, Nick Ostdick, Steve Himmer, Kevin Fanning, Lauren Cerand, Jami Attenberg, Jennifer Banash, Willy Blackmore, Zach Dodson and Jonathan Messinger (and a bunch of other folks I’ll remember and want to put down on this list later).

There was pizza. There were drinks. There was really, really cheap parking (a quarter an hour!)

There was this constant energy about the whole weekend. The panels were insightful. The Quimby’s reading was well-attended. And, perhaps best of all, the silent auction raised $4,000 for the New Orleans Public Library Foundation. The money will go to helping them rebuild in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

For a more details about what went down at Pilcrow, check out Amy’s blog.

$12 (free shipping) for American Home Life, a comic novel of suburban fatherhood.

Pay by PayPal to account “dlbarringer@gmail.com,” and include your shipping address.

Father’s Day is June 15.

It’s not every day that I find a book I love. David Barringer, a designer and author featured in Emigre, AIGA Voice, and countless other publications, explores the challenges of postmodern society with his novel, American Home Life. Barringer examines a couple’s playful attempt to raise two well rounded children, while preventing them from being trapped by greed, envy and the monotony of suburban life. The book jacket calls it the “literary equivalent of a TV sitcom,” which would make sense if sitcoms were smart, funny and addictive.–Stacy Cottrell, San Diego AIGA

We all have our lists of writers we love, those writers that not everyone in the world knows about but should. A great, talented writer deserves to be known to everyone, which is one reason why you should read the work of David Barringer. David’s latest book is the novel American Home Life, which is described as a “comic novel about contemporary suburban fatherhood,” but it’s so much more, and it’s amazing.–Bob Sassone, Professor Barnhardt’s Journal

“Edgy, funny, and heartfelt, with a smidgen of George Saunders and a touch of Aimee Bender, Barringer’s American Home Life is an original American confection: bittersweet, satisfying and true.”—Dave Housely, Barrelhouse

“A literary force to be reckoned with. Barringer’s work reminds me of the offspring of Larry Brown and George Saunders, with more pathos.”—Nathan Leslie, The Pedestal Magazine