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Author’s Note
Good things are happening. Stay tuned.
An Early Summer Update
I won’t lie to you. It has been awhile. Sorry about it.
More and more it occurs to me that this blog is turning into a live/work function. I mean that it’s my news ticker when something personally cool dislodges, rumbles around and finally occurs. Like bringing home a shiny new puppy to love and love and love. Or, winning a beauty pageant. (I have nothing to link to. That one hasn’t happened yet.)
In any event, I’ve been letting my daily crazies and finds and inspirations freakishly fly at my Tumblr blog and long-time followers (if any remain) and new supporters (if any exist) are more than welcome to visit me there. That would be aces.
Now for the news-y stuff!
Those that have made that Tumblr trek already may be familiar, but those that have stayed loyal to this hub, or those that have stumbled across me here only now may not know: I have written a collection of illustrated short stories. Above, as well as throughout this site, you’ll see some of the illustrations that may or may not be included in the book! Ooh, it’s a like a total mystery.
What is not a mystery, though, is that the artwork is all done, fantastically so, by the very large hand of Ian Dingman. He has a gift, and he’s allowed me to mooch off of it and write short stories inspired by his illustrations. You’ll find a few examples, which—again—may or may not be included in the final book, of this charming idea via the glamorous stories section on this here website of the Internet.
The stories have taken on a variety of shapes and sizes and lengths, as well as explored different themes and tones and styles in the telling. But it’s always been about making something inspired, something beautiful and unique. The writing process started a little over a year ago and picked up decidedly more steam just in the last four months. It’s been a labor and a massive confidence game to sit alone and tell myself that I was a worthy enough creator to debut a polished story collection. I still falter.
I set June 1 as my deadline to have the vast majority of writing done. I’m quite proud that next week I will be able to say that I am a very good boy in having done so. There will be bits and bobs that remain, as you shouldn’t really rush creativity, but the building blocks will be set into the ground. June will be a month of editing and tweaking and polishing as you would a pair of old shoes or something impossibly scuffed. Out the other side, blazing into July, the idea is to hold a sharpened stack of paper which can then be transformed just a bit more, morphed if you will, until it’s a stack of paper that you—yes, you!—can hold in your very hands. It’s a lot like magic, and I’m almost there. Ta-dah!
I believe this is the first official announcement here that a book is coming. We don’t have a title yet because we plan to arm wrestle over it later. I did want to announce it though. The quiet and the sound of crickets around here is not for lack of hard work or interest. I’m at this desk almost every day, very much like today, smelling like lemons:
Thanks for stopping by! Thanks, perhaps, also for the support and encouragement and personal interest in my work, or Ian’s work or the mating habits of mammals. And thanks for not sending me hate mail or telling me that I suck. Yeah. Most importantly, thanks for that.
Later on.
We Are The Friction
Just purchased. WE ARE THE FRICTION, a collection of illustrated short fiction. Half of the stories are inspired by the illustrations. Half of the illustrations are inspired by the stories.
This is very much along the lines of the project I’ve been working on with Ian Dingman, and I’m so excited to see it done here so beautifully. My oh my, it looks so good I could to take a bite out of it. Well-the-fuck-done, Sing Statistics.
Jump on this, friends. There are only 1000 of them in the world. (I now retain #462.) Inside, writers like Ben Greenman, Tao Lin, and Dan Kennedy go head-to-head with the artistic forces of Ray Fenwick, Frank Chimero, and Lizzy Stewart. The result is a collection of 24 stories and 24 illustrations worthy of bookshelves (and walls!) everywhere.
See some of the artwork below the fold, and be sure to pick up your copy soon!
Demons In The Spring by Joe Meno
If there was ever a collection that I have wanted so passionately to be both a staggering bestseller and a quiet, hushed secret all at once, it is this one by Chicago writer Joe Meno. It feels so special that I’d love to keep it all to myself, tucked down with me under the covers. That’s not how this works though.
Demons In The Spring, Meno’s second batch of published shorts, is the kind of book found in trunks, pulled out from beneath a lacy doily of cobwebs in some grandparental attic. That is to say it consists of stories that will easily last for years. It’s one you’ll want to save in a safe place and treat kindly, treat well, even as you read and re-read its contents.
I haven’t been more creatively inspired by a writer in the past two years than I have been by Demons in the Spring. The often surreal stories include everything from a wife who becomes a cloud every time her husband touches her (“People Are Becoming Clouds”) to the painful process a couple faces after suffering a miscarriage (“I Want the Quiet Moments of a Party Girl”) and the story of a famous miniature elephant (“Miniature Elephants Are Popular”). Each tale exists in a world I have always, somewhere, imagined as real. I connect to Meno’s style, and certainly count him as a great influence in my own writing.
In short: Demons is brilliant. It also features “twenty original pieces of art by twenty different groundbreaking visual artists.” The limited first-edition of the book is bound in a red wine fabric and reminds me of an old library book. It is beautiful, guys. “An Apple Could Make You Laugh” is my most favorite story in the collection, followed by “The Unabomber and My Brother,” which made me cry.
Go below the fold to see my most favorite piece of art from the book. It’s by Geoff Mcfetridge.
