Pilcrowers, we have excellent news! The CTA and Google Maps hooked up and we get to reap the benefits. We can now figure out how to get from point A to point B on Chicago public transport using Google Maps!
Here is the blog post announcing it and a video explaining it better than I ever could.
4/07/2008
Round-Up
Pilcrowers are no slouches, I'm here to tell you. Let's see... skimming some headlines... Lauren Cerand was quoted in Time Out NY, Jami Attenberg wrapped up her book tour to support The Kept Man, Anne Boles Levey wrapped up the Cybils Awards for this year, Rachel Cline's My Liar came out and seems to be doing well, Elizabeth Crane just finished a whole slew of readings back east to promote You Must Be This Happy To Enter, Peter Davis is doing a little poetry goodness with the ladies from Bloof TONIGHT in Indiana, Jonathan Messinger reads from his Hiding Out on Wednesday night in Chicago, Two Dollar Radio kicks it at good ol' Morningside Bookshop this weekend in NYC for the new novel 1940, Megan Stielstra has a few shows coming in the next few weeks in Chicago... and what else? Pilcrowites, shout out. What are you up to between now and the festival?
Five with Pete Coco
Please welcome our next "Five with..." guest, Mr. Pete Coco, half of Please Don't literary webzine.1. What are you working on now?
I'm writing a novel about a guy who lives at home and figures out how to recreationally overdose on his father's cholesterol medication. That's the beginning, anyway.
More short-term, I'm finishing up the second chapter of Axl Watch, Please Don't's serial-collaborative noir. I'm also starting on preliminary designs for my personal website, petecoco.org.
2. What is your favorite part of literary festivals and why?
If you care about writing and reading, you do so against the grain of the larger culture. Maybe that makes us noble, but only just a little. More than anything else, it just makes us lonely. These are pretty solitary endeavors, after all. So we get together now and then, pull a chunk of time and space out of the larger continuum and seal it off for party and conversation. I think that's pretty reasonable.
3. Who are your favorite small press mover/shaker types at the minute?
There are so many good answers to this question. I'm always checking the catalogs of presses like Soft Skull, Akashic, Graywolf, McSweeneys, Future Tense, etc. With so many indie presses you know you're getting a labor of love, and that's meaningful. There's not enough money changing hands for this to be a cynical business.
I work in an academic library, and the other day I had occasion to pore over like ten shelves of Dalkey Archive back titles and select a bunch for our collection. The depth of that catalog is just astonishing, and I can't think of a press that better demonstrates the vital necessity of independent media. As self-evidently worthwhile as so many Dalkey titles are, most couldn't get in the front door of mainstream publishing. I don't want to demonize mainstream publishing for that, exactly, but it's vital that we have an alternative to that business model, a flood channel for art's sake.
Because, you know, art and commerce, blah, blah, blah. It's an evil pairing sometimes, those two.
4. Which author do you wish was coming to Pilcrow Lit Fest this year who is not?
The best book I've read in ages is Dan Chaon's "You Remind Me of Me." It's been four months, give or take, since I finished it and I still think of it every time I sit down to write. It embodies this cosmic tenderness to which I think all writers should aspire. Or at least I aspire to it, anyway.
I hear Steve Earle has finished a novel. He's always been one of my favorite storytellers so that's a book I look forward to reading. If you want a nice, compact object lesson in story structure, his songs aren't a bad place to start.
5. If you were in charge of picking a theme song for Pilcrow Lit Fest this year, what would it be?
If I were in charge, I'd have to think up some elaborate justification for choosing something off this acoustic Peter Tosh album, "Talk Revolution," that I've been enjoying lately. It's lo-fi and sparse and just pretty damn great.
Also, while working on Axl Watch I've had occasion to watch the video for "Estranged" almost daily for the past couple months. So that song is on my brain. When I'm walking the dog, for example. We'll turn a corner and suddenly that menacing, plaintive guitar lead floods my consciousness.
More short-term, I'm finishing up the second chapter of Axl Watch, Please Don't's serial-collaborative noir. I'm also starting on preliminary designs for my personal website, petecoco.org.
2. What is your favorite part of literary festivals and why?
If you care about writing and reading, you do so against the grain of the larger culture. Maybe that makes us noble, but only just a little. More than anything else, it just makes us lonely. These are pretty solitary endeavors, after all. So we get together now and then, pull a chunk of time and space out of the larger continuum and seal it off for party and conversation. I think that's pretty reasonable.
3. Who are your favorite small press mover/shaker types at the minute?
There are so many good answers to this question. I'm always checking the catalogs of presses like Soft Skull, Akashic, Graywolf, McSweeneys, Future Tense, etc. With so many indie presses you know you're getting a labor of love, and that's meaningful. There's not enough money changing hands for this to be a cynical business.
I work in an academic library, and the other day I had occasion to pore over like ten shelves of Dalkey Archive back titles and select a bunch for our collection. The depth of that catalog is just astonishing, and I can't think of a press that better demonstrates the vital necessity of independent media. As self-evidently worthwhile as so many Dalkey titles are, most couldn't get in the front door of mainstream publishing. I don't want to demonize mainstream publishing for that, exactly, but it's vital that we have an alternative to that business model, a flood channel for art's sake.
Because, you know, art and commerce, blah, blah, blah. It's an evil pairing sometimes, those two.
4. Which author do you wish was coming to Pilcrow Lit Fest this year who is not?
The best book I've read in ages is Dan Chaon's "You Remind Me of Me." It's been four months, give or take, since I finished it and I still think of it every time I sit down to write. It embodies this cosmic tenderness to which I think all writers should aspire. Or at least I aspire to it, anyway.
I hear Steve Earle has finished a novel. He's always been one of my favorite storytellers so that's a book I look forward to reading. If you want a nice, compact object lesson in story structure, his songs aren't a bad place to start.
5. If you were in charge of picking a theme song for Pilcrow Lit Fest this year, what would it be?
If I were in charge, I'd have to think up some elaborate justification for choosing something off this acoustic Peter Tosh album, "Talk Revolution," that I've been enjoying lately. It's lo-fi and sparse and just pretty damn great.
Also, while working on Axl Watch I've had occasion to watch the video for "Estranged" almost daily for the past couple months. So that song is on my brain. When I'm walking the dog, for example. We'll turn a corner and suddenly that menacing, plaintive guitar lead floods my consciousness.
Shut Up, I'm Talking
One of the cool things about being involved in Pilcrow is that I'm suddenly much more aware of readings, book launches and author events going on around the country. Also, my friends are more aware too and are starting to send things my way.
Last week I went down to UIC to the Jane Addams Hull House to see Adam Mansbach read from his new book, The End of The Jews. He was the featured speaker for a class, but lucky for me the reading was open to the public. I'm only a chapter in, so I can't give you a review, I can just tell you that I went.
Coming up in New York, Gregory Levey (the best friend of a friend) is launching his new memoir Shut Up, I'm Talking: And Other Diplomacy Lessons I Learned in the Israeli Government -- A Memoir. I wish I could go, alas, I don't live in New York. Maybe you do?
What readings are you hitting this month?
Last week I went down to UIC to the Jane Addams Hull House to see Adam Mansbach read from his new book, The End of The Jews. He was the featured speaker for a class, but lucky for me the reading was open to the public. I'm only a chapter in, so I can't give you a review, I can just tell you that I went.
Coming up in New York, Gregory Levey (the best friend of a friend) is launching his new memoir Shut Up, I'm Talking: And Other Diplomacy Lessons I Learned in the Israeli Government -- A Memoir. I wish I could go, alas, I don't live in New York. Maybe you do?
What readings are you hitting this month?
4/04/2008
Five With William L. Bryan
For our next guest on Pilcrow Lit Fest's "Five With..." interview spots, I'm happy to introduce all of you to William L. Bryan.1. What are you working on now?
My lovely and talented writing partner (one Angela Gant by name, to be found all over the Pilcrow pages) and I are working on a horror screenplay. It should have been a vampire movie, because it is sucking the life right out of us.
Individually, I am working on a YA novel about a boy whose dog is possessed by a being from another dimension who has to try to help the boy save the universe.
2. What is your favorite part of literary festivals and why?
You learn so much by listening to people talk about whatever they want to talk about – literary festivals are particularly wonderful in this regard because so much discussion is logically about writing that my interest is more than prurient. Even the most obscure perspectives on the craft can be helpful.
3. Who are your favorite small press mover/shaker types at the minute?
I have to give respect to D-Town’s own Joyce Meskis, who owns the Tattered Cover, America’s best independent book store and is the Director of the University of Denver Publishing Institute, who has done and continues to do more for the literary scene here than any other ten people combined. Steve Church and some other very talented people have started a literary magazine called The Normal School which drops this fall – they have a lot of really cool stuff on tap for the first issue, so I am looking forward to that.
4. Which author do you wish was coming to Pilcrow Lit Fest this year who is not?
David Simon, because if I can take anything back to The Wire, I will. Joolz Denby. Nick Arvin – I think he owes me beer.
5. If you were in charge of picking a theme song for Pilcrow Lit Fest this year, what would it be?
Everybody wants to make this meaningful, but I figure if it gets played at every event, I just want it to be something that does not suck. It should be a Chitown artist because that’s part of what Pilcrow is all about, so I considered some of the greats – My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, Material Issue, Liquid Soul, The Wesley Willis Fiasco, Molemen, The Bomb. I finally settled on Big Black’s “Bad Penny.” It’s brilliant, short, crude and who embodies the spirit of independent Chicago arts more than Steve Albini?
4/03/2008
Live from The Fixx
I'm sitting in the middle of The Fixx Coffee Bar and we've just applauded the last poet of the April reading. This is the last reading before the reading the night before the Pilcrow Lit Fest.
OMG! Can you believe it? I can't, but it is coming.
So I'm sitting back here, looking around the room and imagining what this room will look like when it is filled with Rebuilt Books, supporters and authors dressed to the nines and smelling Jambalaya.
It is going to look great and you will look fabulous. I promise!
OMG! Can you believe it? I can't, but it is coming.
So I'm sitting back here, looking around the room and imagining what this room will look like when it is filled with Rebuilt Books, supporters and authors dressed to the nines and smelling Jambalaya.
It is going to look great and you will look fabulous. I promise!
4/02/2008
Five With Jill Alexander Essbaum
Our next guest for Pilcrow Lit Fest's "Five With..." interview series is Jill Alexander Essbaum. She's coming to Pilcrow this year from her home in Europe. Not too shabby for us, right? Nope.1. What are you working on now?
A book of poems I'm calling (L) O V E R.
2. What is your favorite part of literary festivals and why?
The belly-up-to-the-bar-ness of them, the conversations that take place not on panels but over ice clinking around in highball glasses. Finally, meeting the people you've been reading, emailing, hearing about. The antics.
3. Who are your favorite small press mover/shaker types at the minute?
I'd be a fool to not mention No Tell Books headed by the extraordinary Reb Livingston and Neil Ellis Orts' press NeoNuma Arts-- they've published me, loved me, cajoled me, and worked very hard to bring me (and many other fabulous authors) into print. There's also Pilot Press, Coconut Books, Bloof Books-- so much goodness to be had these days! The cup runneth over!
4. Speaking of Bloof, some ladies of Bloof are reading here in Chicago tomorrow, Thursday April 3rd at the Fixx Reading Series. What a coincidence! Which author do you wish was coming to Pilcrow Lit Fest this year who is not?
Hmmm. John the Revelator.
5. If you were in charge of picking a theme song for Pilcrow Lit Fest this year, what would it be?
Carole King: "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?"
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