You don’t have my handsome voice to fluff your ear chubs this time, but I promise you won’t be disappointed by the talent here. Featuring three brand new voices to The Velvet Podcast. Make them feel welcome.
Writers Richard Thomas (Transubstantiate), Nik Korpon (Stay God), Pela Via and Nic Young grind out the topic of sex and violence in fiction and their complex relationship to sadistic bedfellows, love and shock..
Mr. Gordon Highland and I took in a Jonathan Franzen reading this evening at the Kansas City Unity Temple (presented by Rainy Day Books). Franzen read from the same stage on which I met (re: awkwardly shook hands with) Chuck Palahniuk a few years ago. I bring these two authors together here not just because of their temporal-turned-spacial bond, but because the association allowed me to ponder their very different approaches to the live author reading.
Via a video posted on August 14th, Franzen noted his “profound discomfort” in having to make promotional author videos, basically, to me, implying that any promotional discussion taken place off the page stands in contrast to the intimate nature of a novel…
I get that. In fact, I may even sometimes agree with that. So I was glad when one of the audience members during the night’s reading asked a question that allowed Franzen to tangentially elaborate on his remarks (I post the abbreviated question below to show that Franzen wasn’t specifically addressing the above video, but instead a matter that relates to the video’s message):
Q: When the writer reaches a certain level of prominence, does the focus on the author’s personality threaten to overshadow the work or become an irrelevant distraction?
“The weird thing is, the way people think they know who you are is based on very little information…Obviously the point of that entire episode (referencing the infamous 2001 book club situation between himself and Oprah Winfrey), was not to teach one person, me, not to trust media representations of the actual personalities of people, but that is the lesson I took from it.”
“It’s not bad in the same way that it was bad when Hemingway and Faulkner became public figures because I think the culture wasn’t so distracted back then…The whole culture of selling has become personalized. I don’t think it’s all bad. The kind of frenzy and the kind of gotcha culture….and the opinions based fourth- or fifth-hand on something, that’s an artifact of our electronic culture, and probably bad. That’s what good books are supposed to be helping to resist.”
So on to Palahniuk, who seems to embrace the idea of a novelist performer. His events are the anti-reading, full of fainting fans, inflatable sex dolls, and morally questionable book inscriptions, on top of the reading itself. The performance has become the reading for Palahniuk fans.
What is the author’s role in performance-based book promotion? Should authors resist performance, forcing the reader (and the reader’s forum discussion, online book reviews, and, ahem, blog posts) to testify for a book? Or, should authors embrace the possibilities of our changing culture? Perhaps in the world of Kindles and Nooks, the author video will become to the new book cover, the new visual representation of a book.
Awkward Palahniuk handshake
And for no real reason, here’s a photo I took of Denis Johnson singing
Bob Dylan songs at the 2004 Tin House Writers Workshop
I respect Tim Hall, both as a writer and a person, at a level that few others have been able to reach. Not that I’m picky about whom I worship, but of all the gods in my life, Tim is one of the platinums.
I met Tim through the Outsider Writers Collective a couple years ago. As a newbie to the site, I was embraced immediately by everyone there, but Tim seemed to reach out just a little further. He’s taught me so much about book promotion, relationship building, and being cool (though I’ve got a lot to learn about that last item).
Everyone should abandon this blog post right now and head over to the revamped Undie Press site.
I plan on spending some time digging more into the site tonight, but at first glance here’s what I see:
A photo column from the wonder and beautiful, photographer and writer Kristin Fouquet
Quick, before they are outlawed. Inhale, inject, and/or read these recently-legalized vices el pronto:
A Mel Bosworth is worth a follow-up story chapbook called Grease Stains, Kismet, and Maternal Wisdom. Street date of NOW! Mine is on my way. Based on Mel’s previous work, I can expect some glorious toilet time in the near future.
1 Ben Tanzer will run you 99 Problems (that was an easy conversion). This book is a collection of essays about running. I’m no runner. Write a book called 99 Pastries, and I’m all over it (though I am all over 99 Problems, too; I finally bought a copy today). Want a taste? Meet a guy named Jason Behrends over at the Orange Alert Podcast, episode 27. Tell him “Compulsions” sent you.
1 Nik Korpon is worth 3 CD cases full of drugs, 2 heart-sick slackers, and 1 preorder date of October 1st, for his debut novel Stay God. I am currently devouring an advance copy of the book for the second time. I could go bankrupt reading this book.
Just when you thought you had over a year before getting offended by a book from me (I Didn’t Mean to Be Kevin, November 2011), I go and do something crazy like sign with another publisher to release a novel in March 2011. Stranger Will, a noir story of apathy and abortion, is coming early next year from Otherworld Publications.
Otherworld Publications is a young publisher, but one with an impressive drive to promote its authors. This fact is not the sole reason I signed with them, though. This press seems to have acknowledged something that I, and the below authors, have known for a long time: The Velvet and The Cult are cesspools of untapped talent. Of the 11 current Otherworld authors (some noted on the Otherworld site, others not yet public knowledge), 5 have grown up at The Velvet and/or The Cult forums. I think we have Mr. Richard Thomas (Otherworld’s first author) to thank, as I am certain his word helped shimmy all of us followers in the door.
Be on the lookout for these other forthcoming titles:
December 2010 | Stay God by Nik Korpon. I had the privilege of reading an early draft of this novel. It’s good. Damn good. Preorder it in October.
2011 | Out of Touch by Brandon Tietz. Otherworld is republishing Tietz’s originally self-published novel of decadence and excess turned sour
2011 | We Are Oblivion by Michael Sonbert. I have his debut, The Neverenders, high on my to-read shelf. It is above Paul Auster and a book about beer. Consider my expectations high.
It’s official. Negotiations have been negotiated. Signatures have been signed. Bells have been sleighed. I Didn’t Mean to Be Kevin will be published in late 2011 by Black Coffee Press. I’ll keep this announcement short and tidy; there is plenty of time for me to drone on about how proud I am of this book. For now, just make sure your nutting pants are clean.
Perhaps not coincidentally, I do drink my coffee black.
Black Coffee Press has a quite a list of books lined up for 2011-12. Some I am especially looking forward to are:
This guy is everywhere. J.A. Tyler is one of those names that materializes on every lit site, from the smallish to the giantish. Sometimes I theorize these appearances are simply to make me feel inadequate. Well done, sir.
Again, a writer whose name appears everywhere. I am not as familiar with Mr. Bradley’s work as I am with the other two fellows on my list, but based on what I do know, Code for Failure is not code for failure (ha, see what I did there).
When You Are Sleeping I Will Evolve Into A Bird by Nathan Tyree (2012)
Nathan Tyree and I put together a grand collection of stores called Oprah Read This >> Oprah, Read This, featuring too many fabulous writers to list here. Go to the site, read the stories, and anticipate Tyree’s Black Coffee Press book.
“If I made it I might as well destroy it by eating it” – Blake Butler
In this interview episode of The Velvet Podcast, I interview Blake Butler, author of Ever(Calamari Press), Scorch Atlas (Featherproof Books) and the forthcoming There is no Year (Harper Perennial). Blake and Caleb discuss the impact of eReaders on visual-dependent literature, the novels vs. movies fallacy, and the importance of humility in a predominantly stuffy industry.
Just when you thought you had over a year before getting offended by a book from me (
