I'm in the midst

of fleshing out an essay that treats Blake Butler's Ever (Calamari Press), and Shane Jones's Light Boxes (Publishing Genius Press), specifically, but also touches on a number of other books, writers, presses, and lit mags. I'm working with this earlier post that I wrote, that had to do with how people are saying that the publishing industry's tanking, etc., and how--well, basically how we're saving it, or we are the future of it, and that we're not trashy or cheap like the TIME author likes to think, but that we represent a new literary movement, one that is serious, artistically sound, and vital.

More on that to come. But first, some preliminary notes on the books mentioned above:

Ever: This is a book about insides. With a daring syntax reminiscent of an unfettered Kerouac, a Visions of Cody Kerouac, Butler details the interior of a woman's mind, her house, her perceptions of her neighbors, the inside of light. If you looked up "nuance" in the dictionary in 2010, the entry would contain the full-text of Ever. Subtlety is the game here--potentially surprising to those familiar with Butler's baby-themed stories. The text is set off by architecturally-fascinating pieces by Calamari Press frontman Derek White. Without drawing away from the story, the images move the eye, like light, like a woman and her bathtub titties. At the end of this one, just like the narrator, you'll experience a "slow baptism," the insides of your insides on the outs.

Light Boxes:
Atmospheric a la Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping. Here's a fresh voice/perspective coming out of the indy-press scene. Shane Jones does not disappoint in this new take on a fairy tale/fantasy. Jones draws you into a cold, flightless, child-filled world where the season never ends, the above-mentioned children drill underground tunnels, and twist the heads of owls, and even the villains are heart-achingly cared-for. This book makes creative use of white space that suggests the snowy planes of its setting. Some of the font play is clever, such as smaller sizes used for characters when they whisper, but probably unnecessary. However, in a Nora Roberts, Denis Johnson (the new, boring, and predictable D.J.), and Stephen King-littered literary world, Jones's voice and insight are a welcomed spring from the winter readers have long been subjected to.

I can't say too much now, since the place this will likely be published doesn't accept work that's previously appeared on blogs. I would like to focus on a 3rd book, and have soem ideas of my own, but if anyone reading this has suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

I'm going to add to the list of nice things to be said about things

Rauan Klassnik said this about my chapbook, When I Moved to Nevada:

"this book is very and wonderfully Denis Johnson. Good Denis Johnson. If you're a fan of Jesus' Son then Jamie's chapbook is definitely for you."

That's spot on---as Jesus' Son was a major influence on me as a writer and on this book indirectly.

One lady at a press said that the book--the complete manuscript, and not just these chaps--glorified drugs and drug life, and because she'd had too many lives shattered by drugs in her world, she couldn't justify publishing it, despite the fact that she liked it. I wonder if she actually read the fucking book. My feeling is that she read some of it, and took away from it that this guy really likes drugs. What she didn't see is that the speaker eventually finds that the life he's been leading ain't working out, and he moves on to--well--I guess responsibility. Anyway: she sucks. She clearly did not read the book, but Rauan did--a chap part of it anyway.

If you read Atlanta, then When I Moved to Nevada is The Empire Strikes Back, or episode II, and Atlanta is Return of the Jedi, or episode III. If that makes sense.

I had a special press run of When I Moved to Nevada done for AWP, thanks to Carl, who is a god. The "official" time of release on the book won't be til March, me thinks.

My cat is dying and so I've been drinking whisky.

A couple people have been saying nice things:

Jason at What to Wear During an Orange Alert says that I am "redefining flash fiction." That's fucking sweet. Thanks dude. He also has a mini review of Atlanta here, where he says that I have "perfected" the hybridization of fiction and poetry through my "ability to spin highly creative metaphors." When I meet this guy, we're getting beer(s), or coffee--whatever he wants, I'm buying.

Emma Straub from Avery interviewed me at AWP, and here's the video (you have to give Michael Fusco a break about the camera; he was using a handheld digital (I mean like one usually used for still shots) and I'm a little taller than Emma, but still they asked some cool things about AWP and about the story and research, etc.)

AWP, The Joe Milford Poetry Show, Goons, Etc.

We just got back from AWP and I will not drink for approximately four days (maybe two).


It was a good time. I drove up from Atlanta with Chris Bundy and Man Martin, a carload of our clothes and computers and whiskey and gin, and a box full of New Souths, and a box of Blake Butler's Ever.

It takes twelve hours (ehhhh, maybe eleven) to get from Atlanta to Chicago. Through Tennessee and Kentucky there are signs all along the freeway that say things like "Hell is real."

I won't be eating french fries or hamburgers for 17 months. I don't know why I didn't just say "over a year."


Once in Chicago all of the following happened: I had the chance to actually meet all these people I had only known via the Internet: Barry Graham, Ryan and Christy Call, Mike Young, Matt Bell, Daniel Bailey, Adam Robinson, Stacey Lynn Brown, Geoffrey Gatza, Shane Jones, Molly Gaudry, god, a lot of people.

I kicked it with a lot of old friends: Chad Simpson, Eugene Cross, Todd Cincala, Matt Schmeer, Laura McCullough, Thom Caraway, Michelle Bonczak, others others others. Oh, and I talked a lot with Rauan Klassnik, who will be reading at the next Solar Anus installment in March (along with Justin Taylor, whom I also met for the first time. Rauan is funny and nice, and Justin is smart and nice. He's probably funny too. There will be more on that reading as that date approaches.


And on readings: I was on The Joe Milford Poetry Show last night. We were driving back from Chicago, passing through Kentucky and much of Tennessee during the reading (which happened via cell phone). So, unbeknownst to Kentuckians and Tennesseans alike (and their "God is Watching" signs) poetry sped past them at 80 miles per. My fucking phone dropped the call once, but even that turned out all right. It was me, Man, and Chris again, and Mike Dockins decided to join us for the ride, instead of taking his flight. Mike read some of my poems during the show, but he's also been on the show and you can listen to him here. After the reading, when we were coming through north Georgia and into Atlanta, Mike compared portmanteau to Voltron, and I about lost my shit. Well, I did lose my shit in the sense that the shit I felt coming on disappeared while laughing. I'm just saying that that shit was funny.

Here's an old reading I did for the Joe Milford Poetry Show last spring. The title of the book I was working on then was "The Donner Party Picnic Area," a title I still love, but that doesn't fit with what happened to that book (it got split into two books). For whatever reason I can't find this reading anywhere in the poetry show's archives, or on iTunes, where it once was, or on the Jane Crown Poetry Show archives. It has disappeared into the ether. Fortunately, I burned it when it first came out. Ignore the stupid photo at the beginning. It disappears quickly.

This Friday @ 8:30 @ Kavarna in Decatur, Blake Butler and I are reading as a kind of Atlanta book release thingy for Ever and Atlanta. Some bands will be playing that night, too. Blake said about his note on this reading (which I think applies to me as well): "I don't think more than a couple Atlantans read this blog, but oh well, it's a mention."

If you're around, come by. It's sure to be a good time.

Some people have been saying nice things about Atlanta:

"Took me 13 and a half minutes to read the book. After reading it, I've come to the conclusion that you are a really fucked up individual. When PBR, Jameson, Jaeger, and cocaine are the main themes, you know the stories will be good. I laughed at least 4 times. It was therefore worth the $4."

---David Moses (some guy who's some sort of manager or something for Verizon Wireless)


"Hey I just wanted to mail you and let you now just how truly floored I am by the Atlanta chapbook. And I do mean this as I did read it once laying on the carpet with my legs resting their power outstretched. The details and story are so lush. You have written the best description and emotional feelings that go with the Clermont I have ever read. Amazing."

---Matt Debenedictis

I have to teach "Young Goodman Brown" today, just like I did yesterday.

Last

Thursday I saw ZZ Packer read. Packer's introducer (is that a word?) mentioned a January 21st TIME Magazine article about contemporary book publishing and the novel. The introducer said that it was great that writers of Packer's talent were around when publishing is tanking. To quote the TIME article:

the publishing industry is in distress. Publishing houses--among them Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, HarperCollins, Doubleday and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt--are laying off staff left and right. Random House is in the midst of a drastic reorganization. Salaries are frozen across the industry. Whispers of bankruptcy are fluttering around Borders; Barnes & Noble just cut 100 jobs at its headquarters, a measure unprecedented in the company's history. Publishers Weekly (PW) predicts that 2009 will be "the worst year for publishing in decades."

The introducer lamented the state of publishing and the novel, and disagreed (in light of Packer's work) with the article's author that the novel is evolving, and is "about to renew itself again, into something cheaper, wilder, trashier, more democratic and more deliriously fertile than ever."

The article goes on to talk about self-publishing, the keitai shosetsu (Japan's cell phone novel), and fan fiction that makes up "the wide bottom of the [literary] pyramid," the top of which is the traditional "Old Publishing" model of big New York houses filtering through work to select only the "best" for publication.

I can't disagree with Packer's talent. She read her famous story "Brownies," which, of course, won the audience. But the common denominator in both the TIME article and this introduction was the kind of fiction discussed.

I'm talking about the difference between what Annie Dillard refers to (in Living by Fiction) those contemporary fiction writers intending to "achieve traditional kinds of excellence," and those who write in what she calls "the dreadful mouthful 'contemporary modernist'" vein.

For the most part, it's obvious that the New York publishing industry has long been the stronghold of "traditional" fiction since traditional fiction in the US began, while many "contemporary modernist" writers have been relegated to university and independent presses, and self-publishing. And I haven't even mentioned poetry. Ultimately, what it seems to come down to in the case of the "old" publishing model--and the TIME author's view of the "new"--be da money. But is money what determines the outcome of a literary artist's work? Good god.

Clearly, there are "traditional" writers out there who are producing great work, and who challenge readers' ideas of what a story can do. But often, because of money, and especially because of what everyone today keeps annoyingly calling "this economy," the "old" publishing model isn't taking any chances, and these writers are having a time getting their work out.

But both the TIME article and the introducer to Packer seemed oblivious to what's going on outside of this "old" model that is not the Harry Potter fan fiction or the disgruntled amateur who sighs and goes to iUniverse to publish his psycho-sci-fi-sex-thriller that no literary agent will touch with a raybeam/dildo. While everyone's suffering in "this economy" (fuck!), there are great and innovative books coming out from small and university presses. While money is a factor for anyone, these presses seem to fly in the face of it (well, the UP is usually institutionally supported) and continue to publish work they believe in despite the probability against it being a financial success. Small presses are the literary equivalent to the off-off-off Broadway show, or the tiny art gallery that sometimes sells a single piece to help pay that month's rent.

If the TIME author argues that literature is "about to renew itself again, into something cheaper, wilder, trashier, more democratic and more deliriously fertile than ever," I agree. But it's not necessarily happening in fan fiction, in self-publishing, or on cell phones (all venues that the author argues is where the money's gonna go)--at least in the US. It's happening in small presses like Featherproof Books, Starcherone Books, The Dalkey Archive, Calamari Press, Dzanc Books (there are too many to mention), and in lit mags like Thieves Jargon, elimae, 3:AM, Avery, Tarpaulin Sky (granted, most of these are magazines I've been in, but still, there are too many to talk about). Literature has been evolving, continues to, and is thriving. "Traditional" lit has never been the only lit, and it's too bad more people in the "lit biz" don't recognize that.