The Unwelcome Guest + Nin and Nan - Eckhard Gerdes (Crossing Chaos Enigmatic Ink)

Eckhard Gerdes new book contains two novels: The Unwelcome Guest and Nin and Nan. The first is a humorous look at paranoia, and the second is a political satire about a gender-ambiguous couple who are encroached upon by the government and decide to push back. Both novels are richly humorous, but at the core of each is the pressing concern that modern concerns are pressing on us too much.

Eckhard Gerdes is the editor of The Journal of Experimental Fiction, an occasional publication dedicated to the furthering of forefront fiction. Gerdes's previoius novel, My Landlady the Lobotomist, was a top five finisher in the 2009 Preditors and Editors Readers Poll and was nominated for the 2009 Wonderland Book Award for Best Novel of the Year. He has twice been the recipient of the Richard Pike Bissell Creative Writing Award for excerpts from Przewalski's Horse. He lives near Chicago and has three sons, to whom this new book is proudly dedicated.

About Crossing Chaos Enigmatic Ink
Crossing Chaos Enigmatic Ink is an independent literary press dedicated to publishing avant-garde, experimental or otherwise unique fiction, poetry, creative non-fiction, and book art with general idealities similar to those found in absurdism, expressionism, futurism, irrealism, magic-realism, metaphysics and/or surrealism. The Crossing Chaos books are richly intelligent and imaginative in their context, and curiously stimulating in the multi-layered subtext and potential interpretations.

Eckhard Gerdes: The Unwelcome Guest + Nin and Nan
2 novels
paperback, 160 pages, $17.50
ISBN 978-1-926617-13-8

related links:
- novels+novellas
- experimental

Natural Habitat - Michelle Reale (Burning River)

Natural Habitat is a collection of previously published short stories that, according to Pank, is a “love letter to the idea of home, to natural habitats as those places where we can feel most like ourselves, where we can recognize all the people, memories and moments that have contributed to our present selves.”

This work features an introductory essay by the author on the title and collection, a deeply personal account of how, where and why this collection exists. "The whole of my life I have been interested in who we are as individuals and the world at large. Who belongs? Who doesn’t? How much of that is just a creation of our own minds? Where is our true home? ..."

Michelle Reale, while working as an academic librarian at a university in the suburbs of Philadelphia, has had her work featured in Word Riot, Gloom Cupboard, Pank, Rumble, Eyeshot, Monkeybicycle, Underground Voices and many others. This is her first collected volume.

About Burning River
Upcoming projects for Burning River include another collection slated for October, Crossing The Trestle by author Jim Meirose. Aside from publishing an annual literary journal, Burning River also accepts manuscripts for the two to three chapbooks they publish per year. They are also open for visual art for the site. Burning River is ran out of Cleveland, Ohio by author and administrator Chris Bowen.

Michelle Reale: Natural Habitat
story collection
48 pgs
paperback $6, April 2010
also available as PDF

related links:
- about a place
- short stories

Ghostmasters - Mani Rao (Chameleon)

Ghostmasters is a collection of Mani Rao's poems that "pluck and probe the various worlds of her imagination. 'Maybe the highway robbers will have a special smile for me,' she writes, and indeed the people, places, and things that haunt this book have their own special expressions, which reveal dark and delightful truths from "the ledge of knowing." - Christopher Merrill

Poems from this collection have been featured in literary journals including Wasafiri, Washington Square, Meanjin, Tinfish, XCP, How2journal, 91st Meridian, Almost Island, Softblow, Cha, Asia Literary Review, Indian Literature, Kavya Bharati, Atlas and Zoland Poetry. You can read 2 poems from Ghostmasters on Asia Writes: Mani Rao: Shorts + Drought.

"Mani’s poems are death-defying acts of language, more daring than love-poems because they are unafraid to let love go, to release the self from itself. Lost to rediscovered words, miscommunications, fading memories, frogs and natural forces are arranged and rearranged here into new and devastating ways of seeing and thinking about our lives." -- Cyril Wong

Mani Rao is the author of eight books of poetry and a translation of the Gita (forthcoming in 2010 from Autumn Hill Books and 2011 from Penguin India). She lives between India, Hong Kong and the USA.

About Chameleon Press
Chameleon Press is an independent Hong Kong publisher specializing in fine Asian literature and topical non-fiction. More info at www.chameleonpress.com/

Mani Rao: Ghostmasters
poetry collection, 90 pages
ISBN 9881862310

related links:
- poetry
- bilingual authors

Common Boundary: Stories of Immigration (Editions Bibliotekos)

Editions Bibliotekos announces the publication of its second book, Common Boundary: Stories of Immigration, an anthology of twenty-nine creative works (from nineteen contributors) that treat the theme of immigration (loneliness, alienation, self-questioning, doubt, and uncertainty about the past and future) with candor, humor, and insight. This is a book that will touch you in many ways as it hits home for virtually all of us, whoever we are, wherever we are. These stories might be timely because of what you read in the newspaper, but these stories are timeless since they continually intrigue us, constantly pull us back to take another look at origins and major questions.

In his Foreword, Jason Dubow writes: “. . . this book is really an anthology of anthologies: a collection of stories in which the old inextricably blends with the new, in which the tensions between what has been lost and what can be gained are grappled with (but, inevitably, not resolved), and in which the human capacity to imagine a future and make it real (more or less) is explored from a variety of different perspectives.”

The book is edited by Gregory F. Tague, Ph.D., Professor of English at St. Francis College (NY).

Contributors: Janice Eidus, Omer Hadžiselimović, John Guzlowski, Roy Jacobstein, M. Neelika Jayawardane, Rivka Keren, Eva Konstantopoulos, Dagmara J. Kurcz, Mitch Levenberg, Cassandra Lewis, Tim Nees, Muriel Nelson, George Rabasa, Nahid Rachlin, Ruth Sabath Rosenthal, Azarin A. Sadegh, Ruth Knafo Setton, Patty Somlo, Rewa Zeinati.
Honors and Awards Won by these Authors: O. Henry Prize, Bennet Cerf Award, PEN Syndicated Fiction Project Award, James Wright Poetry Prize, Pushcart Prize Nominations, NEA Grants and Fellowships, New Millenium Writings.

About Editions Bibliotekos
Editions Bibliotekos is a small press operating out of Brooklyn, NY, whose mission is “To produce books of literary merit that address important issues, complex ideas, and enduring themes.”
They are now seeking submissions for their anticipated third book, an anthology on the theme of "War" - guidelines.

Common Boundary: Stories of Immigration
Available immediately via Amazon.com
other outlets including bookstores (by request): in late July
198 pages; paperback; ISBN: 978-0982481936; $15.95US

editor's note: there is an additional (and more personal) review of "Common Boundary" up in the editor's blog: "currently reading: Common Boundary"

Skeleton Says - Scot Siegel (Finishing Line Press)

Scot Siegel's third book, Skeleton Says, is a compact collection of 24 spare, lyrical poems about love and longing in middle-age. It contains Pushcart-nominated work, as well as several previously unpublished poems. A diversity of forms is represented, as Skeleton Says contains lyrical narratives, lists, telegraphic fragments and serious blank verse disguised as light poetry. Some of the poems in this collection first appeared in unFold, tiny words, Press 1, Front Porch Journal, High Desert Journal, The Smoking Poet, Red River Review, and others.

“In Scot Siegel’s Skeleton Says, the twin voices of ‘I’ and ‘Skeleton’ reverberate one man’s experience of aging in a world not unlike Yeats’s ‘rag and bone shop of the heart.’ Here, father, lover, body, and ghost give way to the inevitable specter of all life. Like a west coast Robert Frost, Siegel reveals the marrow of nature and self.” ~ Catherine Kasper, Creative Writing Program Director, University of Texas at San Antonio


Scot Siegel lives in Oregon with his wife and two daughters. A Pushcart nominee, he edits Untitled Country Review, and is the author of two previous volumes of poetry Some Weather (Plain View Press 2008) and the chapbook Untitled Country (Pudding House Publications 2009). A second full-length collection is due out from Salmon Poetry in early 2012.

About Finishing Line Press
Finishing Line Press is an award-winning small press publisher of poetry chapbooks located in Georgetown, Kentucky, USA. The press maintains an extensive online bookstore and most of their books are available on amazon.com.

Scot Siegel: Skeleton Says
Poetry Chapbook, 26 pages
Pre-orders thru July 9, 2010
Ships September 3, 2010

related links
- the human condition
- poetry

let a thousand dictionaries bloom - Sean Burn

let a thousand dictionaries bloom: a documentation from anti-racist arts-activist residency with stanley picker gallery / live art development agency

Sean Burn: "i was recently artist-activist with the stanley picker gallery and live art development agency, one of seven residencies under the collective banner louder than bombs. my week focused on anti-racism and central with a durational performance napalm perceptible : a dictionary for the bnp - redactin 'non-indigenous' words to leave a blank dictionary. like each ov us, language is ovcourse outta everywhere. a series ov interviews on identity, race, struggle alternatin with speeches from angela davis and nelson mandela played while challenges to some tabloid headlines and other visual poetry wz also on show. walls were written up in charcoal and reverse graffiti'd with putty rubbers to provide poetic responses to the vocabularies ov hate - this included let a thousand dictionaries bloom."

films and photos from the residency:
- film: let a thousand dictionaries bloom
- film: some tabloid headlies by sean burn
- photos: photostream

Sean Burn is a writer, performer and outsider artist with a growing international reputation. He is also actively involved nationally in disability arts. He was shortlisted for a dadafest disability arts award 2009 and is currently outside in artist in residence to the new gallery walsall in association with dash (disability arts shropshire). his twenty five poetry films have received many screenings worldwide, as well as at tate modern and national film theatre studios, london.

Stanley Picker Gallery: Louder Than Bombs
Over the course of seven weeks, the Stanley Picker Gallery handed over its entire exhibition space to host a series of week-long Live Art residencies. Co-curated with the Live Art Development Agency, London, through an open call for proposals, “Louder than Bombs”: Art, Action & Activism was an ambitious programme of public workshops and live events that focussed on challenging social, political and global issues of the day, addressed through the seven invited artist/activist’s individual working practices and the Gallery audience’s direct participation and responding involvement.

Sean Burn: let a thousand dictionaries bloom
28 pages
available as paperback ($5,70)
or as free download

related links
- art
- books available as download

Blink and the World Goes Blank - Filbert Conroy (On Lives Press)

The unnamed protagonist of Filbert Conroy’s Blink and the World Goes Blank can be found in cramped apartments, on dates, on trains, on subway platforms, and wandering around other unremarkable places. Not much is known about this mysterious character except that he may in fact be you. This collection of microfiction is told through the second person narrative, lending it an oddly instructive voice (“You just woke up. Sitting on the edge of your bed, the sunlight bathes your bare legs.”)

Devising these stories as if they’re happening to the reader in real time is an odd choice, but it succeeds based on the relatable nature of Blink’s content. One becomes immersed as they wait for a train, remember sitting in a high chair as a toddler, contract food poisoning on a bus, try to fall in love, avoid a bum, have nightmares, and attempt to cry after a long drought. In these 56 infectious passages, Conroy’s narrator injures himself, falls ill, makes poor choices, and we can only laugh knowing we have done the same.

For 17 years, Filbert Conroy worked in Utica, NY at a shoe factory. As was the trend in those times (the 1980's), the factory shut down. A decade or two wandered by and Conroy realized that shoes were not the only thing he knew something about; he'd always had a soft spot for books.

This book was edited by Mike Parish, author of Subway Supplement (On Lives Press) and a forthcoming fiction collection (On Lives Press).

About On Lives Press
On Lives Press puts out material you can take wherever you go. We enjoy making little books that you can carry in the inside pocket of your smoking jacket (if you have one), or misplace under the seat of your car (if you have a place like that), or do whatever other imaginary action or set of actions you want with them (if you want to). Hopefully, at some point along the way, you'll wind up reading our books, too.

Filbert Conroy: Blink and the World Goes Blank
microfiction collection
36 pages, paperback
$3.00 direct/$5.00 in stores

related links:
- microfiction
- books with black/white cover

SAND - Issue 1

An English literary journal printed bi-annually in Berlin, SAND features prose and poetry in the English language, as well as translations from other languages, art, and photography.

An index of the first issue is available online and includes some web previews: SAND Spring 2010.

“SAND, Berlin’s new English literary journal, is... a kind of lyrical introduction to the city. The low-gloss presentation and discriminating choice of photos, graphic art and nudes round off the picture. You’ll recognize a number of the contributors, but many are new and amongst these, we welcome the inclusion of some Germans. The editors are also new, and they’ve done a good job of combining prose and poetry, translations and reviews to give a good overview of what makes this city tick when it speaks English.” (- from a review in the Exberliner, June 2010)

About SAND
Co-founders Becky Crook and Jason Andrews paired up in 2009 after deciding that Berlin had waited too long for a new English literary publication to showcase the undiscovered, up-and-coming and already glamorously established talent of the city. Featuring a diverse range of art, photography, poetry and prose, some in multiple languages with side-by-side English translations, the journal—published twice annually—also accepts works from writers and artists living outside of the city. SAND is now accepting submissions for the Fall 2010 issue, which will be published simultaneously with the Berlin International Literature Festival.

SAND spring issue
Issues of SAND are now available at Saint George’s Bookshop, East of Eden International Bookstore, and Artificium Kunstbucher & Galerie in Berlin, at various readings throughout Berlin, or for direct order (email info@sandjournal.com with inquiries, issue price: 5 Euros).

related links:
- first issues of new print lit journals / magazines
- bilingual authors

lulu summer reads

The small press print+distribution service Lulu announced a summer offer:
Free Summer Shipping in the US
for orders over $19.95

"This offer can be used on multiple orders, it will be automatically be applied to all qualifying orders." (details)

Several books and small presses that were recently featured in Daily s-Press are printed and distributed through Lulu, below the direct links to the books / small presses:

1) selected single titles, previously featured in Daily s-Press
click the links, or visit the overview of the books
- Blue Crow issue 1 (Blue Crow)
- in transit - Dorothee Lang (blueprint)
- God Damsel - Reb Livingston (No Tell)
- "let a thousand dictionaries bloom" - Sean Burn
- 7x 7 - Crag Hill (Otoliths)

2) general overview of small presses with Lulu books:
- Otoliths books - authors: Paul Siegell, Mary Kasimor, Jane Joritz-Nakagawa, Joel Chace and many more
- No Tell Motel books - Bedside Guid & authors: Hugh Behm-Steinberg, Laurel Snyder, Jill Alexander Essbaum, Karl Parker, Reb Livingston and many more
- avantacular press - authors: andrew topel, john m. bennett, jim leftwich, john crouse
- Small Bear Press - A Working Writer's Daily Planner 2010, LCRW magazine

3) additional selected titles (wild mix)
- Bizarro Fiction! - Journal of Experimental Fiction
- The Unicorn And... - Beate Sigriddaughter
- Wrong Tree Review: volume 1
- qarrtsiluni "Journaling the Apocalypse"

4) some suprise summer reads at Lulu to round up your order:
- The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
- East, West: Stories - Salman Rushdie
- The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

PS: if you are an editor or author, and have a lulu book to add to the summer reads list, send the link to be added. (e-mail: editor AT blueprintreview DOT de)
.

7 x 7 - Crag Hill (Otoliths)

Scattered parts
now lie about what happened.

"Implicitly comparing a book to a deck of cards, and that deck of cards in turn to the world of social violence we’re dealt, Crag Hill stakes his ante on the power of poetry to witness and document the multiply-layered, self-inflicted insanity of US daily life in the Bush years. As readers we become participants and are thus empowered to say no to the game of death." —Maria Damon

"It's pure serendipity that the 49th book to bear the Otoliths imprint just happens to have the title that it does..... 7 x 7"

Crag Hill is the editor and publisher of SCORE Magazine since 1983. He tries to go where no one knows to go.

About Otoliths
Otoliths is a magazine of many e-things, published by Mark Young, Australia. The online issue of Otoliths appears quarterly. The publishing arm of Otoliths began as print editions of the e-zine Otoliths, but has since expanded to include books & chapbooks by authors associated with the journal. Recent publications include wild life rifle fire by Paul Siegell and & cruel red by Mary Kasimor.

Crag Hill: 7 x 7
poetry collection
paperback, 56 pages, $13.45

#VSS Anthology Volume 01 (Made in DNA)

Everyday hundreds of 140-character (or less) stories are posted to Twitter. This is a collection of just a few. # is a hashtag—an identifying marker—allowing users on social networking services to separate out and/or convey certain messages to other users utilizing the same markers. 'VSS' stands for 'very short story'. The #VSS Anthology Volume 1 contains over 150 stories by 37 authors.

"More than anything else, these pieces demonstrate that obstruction can spur creativity. In this case, there's something liberating about being forced to stay under 140 characters." - Moxie Mezcal

The 37 authors featured in the ebook come from many parts of the world and different walks of life, but they all met on Twitter and shared fiction. Some of the authors included: Allan Revich, Toronto (Digitalsalon); Deepti Lamba, Bangalore (deeptilamba); CharlieClose, Grand Blanc (CharlieClose); hyperjapan, Japan (hyperjapan); blpawelek, California (blpawelek); Helene Kwong, SF (hkwong), and many others - for more #vvs reads, try the hashtag-link in twitter: #vss.

About Made in DNA
The editor Made in DNA is an American short story author who is living in Japan, and an author like the 37 authors featured in this ebook. As Twitter users are scattered across the globe, he wanted a small place where a little bit of a lot of folks' work could be enjoyed.

#VSS Anthology Volume 01
anthology, 36 pages
the VSS Anthology is available in a wide variety of formats including PDF, Kindle, LRF, epub and more, and an online version.

Zahra’s Paradise - Amir and Khalil (First Second Book & coop)

So a Persian writer, an Arab artist and a Jewish editor walk into a room… Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. Actually, that’s something like the start of this unusual editorial adventure, the first of its kind. Zahra's Paradise is an online, serial webcomic in various languages: English, Farsi, Arabic, French, Italian, Spanish, Hebrew and more. It is published by First Second books in cooperation with Casterman in French and Dutch, Rizzoli Lizard in Italian, and Norma Editorial in Spanish.

Zahra’s Paradise weaves together a composite of real people and events: Set in the aftermath of Iran’s fraudulent elections of 2009, this webcomic tells the fictional story of the search for Mehdi, a young protestor who has disappeared in the Islamic Republic’s gulags. Mehdi has vanished in an extrajudicial twilight zone where habeas corpus is suspended. What stops his memory from being obliterated is not the law. It is the grit and guts of a mother who refuses to surrender her son to fate and the tenacity of a brother—a blogger—who fuses culture and technology to explore and explode absence: the void in which Mehdi has vanished.

author Amir + artist Kahlil
The author Amir is an Iranian-American human rights activist, journalist and documentary filmmaker. He has lived and worked in the United States, Canada, Europe and Afghanistan. His essays and articles have appeared far and wide in the press. Khalil’s work as a fine artist has been much praised. He sculpts and creates ceramics and has been cartooning since he was very young. Zahra’s Paradise is his first graphic novel. The authors have chosen anonymity for obvious political reasons.

About First Second Book, Casterman, Rizzoli Lizard, Norma Editorial
First Second Book is an imprint of Roaring Brook Press, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers. Casterman is a French comic publisher ("La maison Casterman a intégré le monde de la bande dessinée dans les années 1930 en éditant les albums de Tintin"). Rizzoli Lizard is an Italian comic publisher. Norma Editorial is a Spanish comic publisher.

Amir and Khalil: Zahra’s Paradise
online serial webcomic in English, Farsi, Arabic, French, Italian, Spanish and other languages
start reading at page 1

following the theme: more daily s-press books that focus on the theme of middle east / prohibited stories / east/west etc.

Best of the Web 2010 (Dzanc)

"There’s an astonishing amount of great writing on the web right now. How to even begin choosing the best? For me, I can say that the deciding factor was always the following: Did this writing open my eyes? Will I remember it months from now? Was it beautiful or strange or completely fresh and new? Did this writing unravel me? My own votes were always for those stories, poems and essays that very clearly mattered to the writer." –Kathy Fish, guest editor

Best of the Web 2010 is the newest edition of Dzanc's yearly anthology series compiling the best fiction, poetry, and non-fiction published in last year's online literary journals.

Now beginning its third year, with Matt Bell as series editor, and Kathy Fish as guest-editor of the 2010 edition, the mission of the Best of the Web series is to promote and expand the reach and prestige of online literature by offering this annual glimpse into the best writing the internet has to offer.

Best of the Web 2010 includes 95 stories, poems, and essays by Robert Olen Butler, Dan Chaon, Elizabeth Crane, Claudia Emerson, Brian Evenson, Amelia Gray, Stephen Graham Jones, Ander Monson, Oliver de la Paz, Christine Schutt, Terese Svoboda, Kevin Wilson, and many others.

About Dzanc Books
Dzanc Books was created in 2006 to advance great writing and champion those writers who don't fit neatly into the marketing niches of for-profit presses. As a non-profit, 501(c)3 organization, Dzanc Books not only publishes excellent books of literary fiction, but works in partnership with literary journals to advance their readership at every level. Dzanc is also fully committed to developing educational programs in the schools and has begun organizing many such workshops and Writers In Residency programs. Upcoming from Dzanc are: The Taste of Penny by Jeff Parker and Love Doesn't Work by Henning Koch.

Best of the Web 2010
Annual Anthology
512 pages, perfect bound paperback, $18
ISBN 978-0982520468

Oblivious to the Obvious - KJ Hannah Greenberg (French Creek Press)

Hannah Greenberg's collection of essays Oblivious to the Obvious: Wishfully Mindful Parenting invites all grownups to celebrate, to contemplate, and to gyrate in tempo to the stresses and joys of raising young ones. From mountains of laundry to lizards left roaming among dirty dishes, Oblivious to the Obvious sets up house in the hallowed hindmost region of sleep deprived adults’ minds. Junk mail, endlessly chiming computers and incorrigible kittens are only a sample of the denizens that populate this book.

"Hannah Greenberg has a gift for finding those parenting moments, big and small, that lead us to reflect, to reconsider, and to smile. With a great deal of heart, and plenty of humor, she writes about her family, and in doing so, leads us to embrace the best in ourselves and to appreciate the best in our own children." - Jeffrey Zaslow, coauthor, The Last Lecture

Online excerpts: Fiction and Phobias & Negotiating with a Kitten

Although KJ Hannah Greenberg is currently a fiction writer, essayist, and Pushcart Prize-nominated poet, she has played in other sandboxes. She worked for organizations such as The Weizmann Institute of Science and The University of Pittsburgh’s Medical Center, and as a blogger and columnist for venues such as The Jerusalem Post and Type-A Mom. As a rhetoric professor, she received National Endowment for the Humanities monies and National Communication Association honors.

About French Creek Press
French Creek Press offers all traditional publishing services. In addition French Creek Press uses print on demand for the do-it-yourself author and full social media support as the primary marketing drive.

KJ Hannah Greenberg
Oblivious to the Obvious: Wishfully Mindful Parenting
Collection of essays
paperback, 144 pages, $18.00 (US)
ISBN 9789655440034

Metrophilias - Brendan Connell (Better Non Sequitur)

Thirty-six cities. Thirty-six stories of obsession. From ancient Thebes to present day Berlin, Brendan Connell's little portraits of humans superimposed on their suburban environment are corroding treats thrown together in a past-modern beaker, landmark tales of darkness and love in the metropolis.

“With delicate minimalism and poignant specificity, Metrophilias demonstrates the human contagions that come with our increasingly urban life.” —Lucius Shepard, author of Life During Wartime

Brendan Connell was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1970. He has had fiction published in numerous places, including McSweeney’s, Adbusters, Fast Ships, Black Sails, and the World Fantasy Award winning anthologies Leviathan 3 (The Ministry of Whimsy, 2002), and Strange Tales (Tartarus Press, 2003). His published books are: The Translation of Father Torturo (Prime Books, 2005), Dr. Black and the Guerrillia (Grafitisk Press, 2005), and Metrophilias (Better Non Sequitur, 2010). His forthcoming books are: Unpleasant Tales (Eibonvale Press, 2010), The Architect (PS Publishing, 2011), and The Metanatural Adventures of Dr. Black (PS Publishing, 2012).

About Better Non Sequitur
Better Non Sequitur publishes independent media of towering quality and is located in San Diego, CA, and is known in intimate circles for its previous editions of See You Next Tuesday, as well as other underground fictions: The Producer, The Famous & The Anonymous, Incidents of Egotourism in the Temporary World, and the short film Rubix Cube Dinner.

Seven Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary 2004 / Joy of Cooking - Tan Lin (Wesleyan)

How do we read a book as an object in a network, in a post-book, post-reading, meta-data environment? Seven Controlled Vocabularies models a generic book, a kind of field guide to the arts, wherein distinctions between various aesthetic disciplines are relaxed or dissolved and where avant-garde notions of difficulty are replaced with more relaxing and ambient formats such as yoga, disco, and meditation. Each of the book’s seven sections is devoted to a particular art form — film, photography, painting, the novel, architecture, music, and theory — and includes both text and found photographs as it explores the idea of what it means to be a book in an era when reading is disappearing into a diverse array of cultural products, media formats, and aesthetic practices. Seven Controlled Vocabularies will be available in a variety of print and electronic book delivery systems and formats.

Interview and excerpts: Bomb Magazine - Tan Lin by Katherine Elaine Sanders

Tan Lin is a writer, artist, and critic. He has published three books of poetry, Lotion Bullwhip Giraffe (1996), BlipSoak01 (2003), and Heath: Plagiarism/Outsource (2007). His visual and video works have been exhibited at the Yale University Art Gallery, the Sophienholm (Copenhagen), and the Marianne Boesky Gallery. He is a professor of English and creative writing at New Jersey City University.

About Wesleyan University Press
Wesleyan University Press has an editorial program that focuses on poetry, music/culture, dance and performance, early classics of science fiction, film-TV, American studies, and Connecticut history and culture. The mission of Wesleyan University Press is to develop and maintain a sound and vigorous publishing program that serves the academic ends and intellectual life of the University. Publishing in its current form since 1957, Wesleyan University Press has lived through many transitions while continuing to thrive.

Tan Lin: Seven Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary 2004. The Joy of Cooking
foreword by Laura Riding Jackson
224 pp, 100 b/w illus. 6 x 9"
Poetry / Fiction / New Media
$22.95 Paper
ISBN: 978-0-8195-6929-5

Blue Crow - Issue 1

The inaugural issue of Blue Crow offers short stories for the mind and soul, and also for the funny bone. It includes enthralling fictional tales from thirty authors from all around the globe, and 2 interviews (Justin Bridges interviews deceased serial killer Peter Manuel + the late writer, J D Salinger).

A free sampler of Blue Crow #1 is available as [pdf].

Contributing authors: Grace Andreacchi, Lili Pâquet, Janie Dempsey Watts, Joseph M. Gant, John Dodge, Corey Mesler, David Day, Laura Solomon, Sandra Gail Lambert, Michele Freeman, Therese Mobayad, Ricky Ginsburg, Les Zigomanis, Jonathan Elsom, Matt Dennison, Tony Parker, Daniel Trask, Arne Hogan, Linda Visman, Charles Thomas, Trish Honeyfield, Blaise van Hecke, A. S. Patric, Marie-Claude Bourjon, Mark William Jackson, Ann Walters, Belinda Fidler, Kate Simonian, and Jason Gray.

About Blue Crow
Blue Crow Magazine has been created for writers who struggle to get their material published by the mainstream publishers. We like difference, and individuality. Novice writers will also be published if their stories show the necessary merit, we mainly publish short fiction only. Submissions for issue 2 will be called for from August 1, 2010.

The magazine’s all-Australian staff consists of Andrew Scobie, Matthew Ward, and Justin Bridges. All three writers pursue their own interests away from Blue Crow. Matthew also publishes Skive Future, an online journal featuring fiction, poetry and art, and has recently had a book of short stories published by World Audience (New York) titled, ‘John F Kennedy Lives in the Future!’, to go with his other published works. Andrew is currently looking to publish a novel, ‘Johnno’s Hideaway’, after previously mainly concentrating on books of short fiction. Justin remains fixed on developing his interviewing and reviewing career: he has temporarily suspended his interest in interviewing the dead and is currently looking for live souls to embarrass.

Blue Crow #1
240 pages
free sampler pdf of Blue Crow #1 [download]
paperback: $14.95
e-book: $5.00

Published For a Day - Monday, June 7

Today is “Published For a Day” day on Word Riot. The day is based on this call for manuscripts: "Do you have an atrocious novel sitting on your hard drive? Do you have an awesome short story collection you want to expose hard and fast like the town pervert? Well, step right up…"

63 authors followed the call.

The novels and story collections are all up now.
Link: Published For a Day - Monday, June 7

The list with links to downloadable PDFs of novels and book length short story collections is available for one day and one day only: 12 a.m. -11:59 p.m. on Monday, June 7.

Full list of participating authors: Grace Andreacchi, Mila Arz, Alex Bernstein, Summer Block, Paula Bomer, Linda Boroff, Chris Bowen, Jess Bowers, Mary Bowers, Arndt Britschgi, Tobias Carroll, Robert Castle, Feng Sun Chen, Chris Conroy, Jackie Corley, Dawn Corrigan, John Counts, J Francis, Adam Ford, Foust, Bruce Gatenby, Joseph Goosey, Nels Hanson, Nicholas Hayes, Russell Heller, Steve Himmer, John Oliver Hodges, Larry Kovaks, Susan Lago, Dorothee Lang, Chris Lenton, James Lewelling, Anthony Luebbert, C.K. Lowe, Larry Menlove, Drew Minh, John Minichillo, Bryson Newhart, Brian Oliu, bl pawelek, Diane Payne, Anna Reed, Christian Rose Bradley Sands, Shya Scanlon, Bart Schaneman, Pawl Schwartz, Jonathan Shipley, Ron Singer, Tyler Stoddard Smith, Mike Stein, Nick Stokes, J. Ryan Stradal, Joseph Sullivan, Jack Swenson, Matt Thomas, Nathaniel Tower, Joel E. Turner, J. A. Tyler, Pavelle Wesser, H V Whitehead, G.K. Wuori, Thom Young

Some additional links:
- Published For a Day: Guidelines
- google link list "published for a day / word riot"

About Word Riot
Word Riot publishes the forceful voices of up-and-coming writers and poets. Their take: "We like edgy. We like challenging. We like unique voices." Word Riot is published by Jackie Corley, and first opened shop in March 2002 as the literary section of a now defunct on-line music magazine, Communication Breakdown. Each month the magazine provides readers with book reviews, author interviews, and, most importantly, writing from some of the best and brightest making waves on the literary scene.

Daily s-Press: additional search tags

some extra seach tags, for more browsing joy:

flavours:
- nature
- magic realism

covers:
- faces
- black and white

format:
- e-book / pdf (free download)