You will be hearing about this a lot in the coming weeks. I sense a paradigm shift. Enter: Velvet Noir.
Website: warmedandbound.com
Twitter: @WarmedAndBound
Facebook: Warmed and Bound
Facebook (The Velvet): The Velvet
Category: Marketing & Promotion
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Warmed & Bound, a collection of Velvet Noir. You will be different after this.
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Stranger Will gets the Booked Podcast treatment; praise ensues
A few weeks ago I was turned on to Booked Podcast via their review of Christopher Dwyer’s novel When October Falls. I am always looking for more literature podcasts, and I’ve been a fan and friend of Dwyer’s for a long time, so when the two came together I did not hesitate to jump in.Livius Nedin and Robb Olson have not been doing Booked Podcast to very long yet, but they approach the format liked seasoned connoisseurs. It is the best kind of podcast; readers talking about books. Simple. Proven.
Last week they took on Stranger Will, and were not only kind enough to give my book their time but were kind enough to offer truly humbling amounts of praise. If every I meet Livius and/or Robb in person, the beers are on me.
I highly recommend you take a listen to their discussion of Stranger Will. http://www.bookedpodcast.com/2011/05/27/episode-9-stranger-will/
Then, immediately download their past episodes. Visit the Booked Podcast site here: http://www.bookedpodcast.com. Follow the Booked Podcast twitter feed here: http://twitter.com/bookedpodcast. You will regret nothing.
A few of the kind words follow, paraphrased:
“Wholly original story. Had I not been hampered by tedious things like work and sleep I probably would have read it in a single sitting. It is very well written and deals with some very dark issues….I strongly recommend you pick up Stranger Will for a very vivid picture of a guy going through some really bad stuff. 4.5 stars, highest number of stars we’ve given on Booked Podcast.”
“pulls absolutely no punches”
“The darkest book I’ve read in some time”
“a bizarre but truly original story”
“Will and Julie’s fragmented relationship is written so well. It made me feel uncomfortable”
“So disturbing in some places that I actually shuttered. This is hi-praise coming from me, as I don’t find much disturbing”
“very good at being descriptive without being pretentious”
“we should expect to see some really, really good things from Ross in the future”
“This book will stick with me for some time”
“Bravo for taking what most people would think as an impossible task and making something good of it”
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The Velvet presents Warmed and Bound, a collection of stories that will pre-crap your pants for you
I would normally hold off on announcing a publication until the publication in question has been, well, published. But Warmed and Bound is different. Warmed and Bound is a story collection many, many years in the making. Honestly, since the start of The Velvet forums, the idea of a collected story collection has been tossed around. And finally, with talent figuratively forcing apart the forum seams, it’s about time the group warmth is bound for all to read.
What makes this collection especially amazing is not only the number of stories included, but the degree of talent to be contained within. This table of contents features some of the greatest writers going right now, honestly. I truly consider my small contribution to this thing a very, very high point of my short career.
Seriously, look at this Table of Contents. This is for real, people. I’m excited to be bound next to each and every one of these people, but a few of the front-men I’m eager to play the drums for are Matt Bell, Paul G Tremblay, Jeremy Robert Johnson, Craig Davidson, Stephen Graham Jones, Blake Butler, Vincent Louis Carrella, Craig Clevenger, and THE Brian Evenson.
The full ToC:
Death Juggler by Axel Taiari
Click-Clack by Caleb J Ross
The World Was Clocks by Amanda Gowin
Mantodea by Matt Bell
All the Acid in the World by Gavin Pate
Crazy Love by Cameron Pierce
Chance the Dick by Paul G Tremblay
Soccer Moms and Pro Wrestler Dads by Bradley Sands
Take Arms Against a Sea by Mark Jaskowski
This Will All End Well by Nik Korpon
Midnight Souls by Christopher J Dwyer
The Tree of Life by Edward J Rathke
The Killer by Brian Evenson
Headshot by Gordon Highland
Inside Out by Sean Ferguson
Laws of Virulence by Jeremy Robert Johnson
Bruised Flesh by Craig Wallwork
Bad, Bad, Bad Bad Men by Craig Davidson
Three Theories on the Murder of John Wily by by J David Osborne
The Road Lester Took by Stephen Graham Jones
My German Daughter by Nic Young
What Was There Inside the Child by Blake Butler
Seed by Gayle Towell
They Take You by Kyle Minor
The Redemption of Garvey Flint by Vincent Louis Carrella
Blood Atonement by DeLeon DeMicoli
The Liberation of Edward Kellor by Anthony David Jacques
Act of Contrition by Craig Clevenger
Say Yes to Pleasure by Richard Thomas
The Weight of Consciousness by Tim Beverstock
If You Love Me by Doc O’Donnell
Touch by Pela Via
Love by JR Harlan
Practice by Bob Pastorella
Fading Glory by Brandon Tietz
Little Deaths by Gary Paul Libero
We Sing the Bawdy Electric by Rob Parker
In Exile by Chris Deal -
Like Brian Evenson? > Kill Author has published my short story homage to the man
I have been reading > Kill Author for quite some time. The fiction they publish rarely disappoints, the editors are anonymous, and the layout of the site makes reading super-dooper easy. So when they accepted my story Evenson’s Tongue for publication, I felt truly unworthy.
Readers of this blog will know that I am a fan of Brian Evenon’s work. He is consistently impressive. His work does things with the grotesque that many writers try yet few accomplish. So, a few years ago I wrote this piece, “Evenson’s Tongue” (a play on the title of his collection Altmann’s Tongue), as a way to say thank you to the man and his work. I even had the opportunity to give Evenson a copy of the story at the Austin AWP Conference in 2006.
Click over to > Kill Author to read the story. Bonus: I recorded an audio version of the story which can be found above the story at the > Kill Author site.
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Stranger Will tour stop #6: HTMLGiant
Click here to read the guest post. Also, don’t forget that if you comment on all guest blog posts, you will get free stuff.
About the Stranger Will Tour for Strange:
My goal is to post at a different blog every few days beginning with the release of his novel Stranger Will in March 2011 to the release of my second novel, I Didn’t Mean to Be Kevin in November 2011. If you have connections to a lit blog of any type, professional journal or personal site, please contact me. I would love to compromise your integrity for a day. To be a groupie and follow this tour, subscribe to the Caleb J Ross blog RSS feed. Follow me on Twitter: @calebjross.com. Friend me on Facebook: Facebook.com/rosscaleb
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It’s already strange in here…it’s about to get Stranger…
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Direct from Publisher:
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But you don’t have to take my word for it (click)
.Advance Praise
“As someone who teaches, edits and reads for a living, I’m always looking for the scene, the character, the story I haven’t read a thousand times over and over. Something with the spark of originality and the courage to be different. When I see that something new, it’s always a joy. And, thanks to Caleb Ross and his Stranger Will, I had those moments of joy repeatedly throughout the book. This is an original—unlike anything you’ve ever read before.”
–Rob Roberge, author of More Than They Could Chew and Drive
“Stranger Will is a nightmare landscape littered with the carcasses of fatherhood and various social mores. This is one paranoid, challenging, beautiful, and pitch-dark book. I’m a little afraid of this Ross guy now; but I’ll also read anything he writes.”
–Paul Tremblay, author of The Little Sleep and In The Mean Time
“Just like a Palahniuk novel, Stranger Will reads volatile: it could go any way. Caleb J. Ross leads you with a wry smile into dark places, but by the time you realize it’s too late. You will follow him anywhere.”
–Alan Emmins, author of Mop Men: Inside the World of Crime Scene Cleaners
“Caleb J Ross is a dangerous writer. He wields an impressive collection of hazardous, black-hearted ideas, and he has the skill to feed them right into your gray matter. Even if you’ve already got an obsidian-dark sense of humor, a cast-iron stomach, and a membership in Misanthropes Monthly, you are letting Caleb J Ross into your mind at your own risk.”
-Jeremy Robert Johnson, author of Angel Dust Apocalypse and Extinction Journals
“[Caleb] is gifted, in that his characters exhibit grotesqueries that somehow seem encoded with the same flaws of the world they inhabit, as if they are not constructs, but victims: the fruits of a tree growing upside down.”
–Jason Kane, Oxyfication.net
“More nihilistic than a chainsaw-wielding midget who wants to be the tallest man on Earth.”
–Bradley Sands, author of It Came from Below the Belt
and editor of Bust Down the Door and Eat All the ChickensBe sure to stick around for the next 9 months. Not because I just got you pregnant, but because I am embarking on a blog tour in support of Stranger Will that will take me to over 60 different blogs. That’s a lot of child support.
You want me too? Please contact me. I would love to compromise your integrity for a day. To be a groupie and follow this tour, subscribe to the Caleb J Ross blog RSS feed. Follow me on Twitter: @calebjross.com. Friend me on Facebook: Facebook.com/rosscaleb
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Talking the author performance with 4 other writers who know how to perform
Fresh from our own live readings, me, Ben Tanzer (You Can Make Him Like You), Ryan W. Bradley (publisher, Artistically Declined Press), Nik Korpon (Stay God), and Brandon Tietz (Out of Touch) have a sit down at Bourbon in Washington DC to discuss the hows and whys of author performance.
Performance is part of the author’s life. Many of us may prefer the romance of the hermit writer to the reality of the performing writing, but as the culture shifts to a system of ever-spilling minutia (Twitter) and increasingly fragmented media distribution channels (hundreds of TV channels, YouTube, Hulu, and on and on), the author is expected to play an active role in selling both his book and himself. Performance—live author readings—offers a unique opportunity to do both.
Listen to the full discussion over at The Velvet Podcast. Or you can subscribe to The Velvet Podcast via Feedburner, Podcast Alley, or iTunes.