Tag: Kickstarter

Kummerbücher

It’s been a stressful couple of weeks here at Winkelman Abbey, so I buried myself under a new pile of books. Between family, class, Caffeinated Press duties and work, I haven’t have any time to decompress, other than spare moments with my girlfriend at the beginning and end of the day. So my brain has unravelled a bit and lost some data.

If you are looking at this post through an Esper you will see that there are two copies of the Jim Harrison book. I was so distracted by events I ordered a copy from the publisher, then went out and bought a copy at Books and Mortar. When the publisher copy showed up in the mail I was both confused and elated, because multiple copies of a collection of Jim Harrison’s poems is inarguable a Good Thing.

(Plus, to crib a joke from My Blue Heaven, I might want to read it more than once.)

Starting from the left side, going clockwise around the circle, first is Outside the Gates of Eden by Lewis Shiner. I have always been fascinated by events which seem to be the nexus or apotheosis (or both) of cultural movements, and Woodstock is one of the most important of the post-WWII era. This will be a good autumn read, I think.

(I like my beer like I like my books – too thick to see through.)

Next is the most recent issue of Rain Taxi, which I hesitate to read until I get a couple more paychecks, as the reviews therein are just that good.

Third, at the twelve o’clock position, is Nineteen Letters by West Michigan poet Kathleen McGookey. This book is gorgeous! Hardbound and composed of a variety of types if paper, seemingly random. And the poetry therein is, of course beautiful.

Next is volume 3 of the Breakbeat Poets series, Halal If You Can Hear Me, full of poetry written by Muslim women and queer, non-binary, and trans writers. If it it anything like the previous two volumes in the anthology series, this will be a helluva read.

On the far right is the newest issue of The Paris Review. Next to it, in the four o’clock position is The Fall, the sequel to Tracy Townsend’s The Nine, which was a wild ride. Probably dig into it later this summer, and will CERTAINLY bring it to ConFusion 2020 for a signature.

At the bottom right is my current day read, Jim Harrison’s The Essential Poems, newly released by Copper Canyon Press. I have probably read every one of these poems at some point over the past quarter century, but they are good to revisit.

At the bottom left is an impulse purchase, the chapbook Dragonskin from the superb Michael Swanwick.

On middle-left is Storm of Locusts by Rebecca Roanhorse, which is the sequel to Trail of Lightning.

In the middle are two new books from Apex Publications – the kickstarter-funded anthology Do Not Go Quietly, and Maurice Broaddus‘s new book Pimp My Airship.

Yeah, that’s a good haul. Just reciting them makes me feel a little more…stable.

In reading news, life has been chaotic and I haven’t read much other than a few dozen more pages in my role as a beta reader. I did finish Here: Poems for the Planet, and I offer my whole-hearted recommendation that everyone in the world buy a copy and read it cover to cover, twice. I originally planned to open some nonfiction next, but with the Harrison book it will be poetry for at least a couple more weeks.

(The title of this post is a play on the German word Kummerspeck – “sorrow bacon” – the weight gained through stress-induced overeating. Hopefully stress-induced book buying is less damaging, other than financially.)

Half a Century, Give Or Take

Yup. I did it. I just turned fifty. I have been reading for approximately the past 47 years. If I could do it all over again, I would start earlier and not purge the books I had to buy for college. Well, not all of them, anyway.

Here we are in the first full week of June. I have been running myself ragged trying to get the new issue of The 3288 Review out the door to our contributors and customers. We were ready to go a couple of weeks earlier but ran into an unexpected roadblock called I AM AN IDIOT WHO CAN’T INDESIGN, and that pushed us even farther behind schedule. But the magazines are out now, winging their way into the hands of the excellent members of the West Michigan literary community.

The latest issue, by the way, is in the upper right corner of the above photo. If you would like a copy, they are available from the Caffeinated Press online store.

(That amazing cover artwork? Local artist Jon McAfee.)

So, yes. It has been a busy week.

From top left in the above photo, we have the latest issue of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet from Small Beer Press, followed by the newest Dreamforge. On the top right is of course the Spring 2019 issue of The 3288 Review.

The middle row is all Harlan Ellison, from a Kickstarter campaign I helped fund back in 2016. Ellison, of course, passed away just over a year ago. But reading through these previously-uncollected works I felt the same frisson I experienced when I first cracked open Dangerous Visions, The Glass Teat, and the excellent collections put out by White Wolf Publishing back in the mid-1990s.

In the bottom row we have The Body Papers by Grace Talusan, published by Restless Books, followed by Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice. On the right is The Wilderness After Which, a collection of poetry from L.S. Klatt, a former Poet Laureate of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The latter two I picked up on a whim on a recent visit to Books and Mortar. Call it a birthday present to myself.

In reading news, by day I am still working through the superb poetry in Here: Poems for the Planet. I would have finished by now, but I kept getting sidetracked by sudden inspirations for my own poetry. Collections like this will do that to a person. I am about halfway through the beta read of a novel a good friend wrote over the last decade or so. Time permitting, I should be done with that one by the end of the month.

In non-literary news, I was saddened to see that Mac Rebennack, a.k.a. Dr. John, a.k.a The Night Tripper, passed away on June 6. Dr. John’s music got me through some of the most difficult parts of my life, and the world is diminished by his passing.

The second line in his honor was quite the celebration.

 

Acquisitions and Losses

It’s been another quiet week for literature here at the library of Winkelman Abbey. The only book to make its way into my collection is the above, It’s All Just a Draft by Tobias S. Buckell. This book is a Kickstarter reward.

I met Buckell a few years back at the ConFusion science fiction convention. He is a semi-regular guest and panelist, and a fun person to talk to at the bar in between sessions. He writes some excellent books, of which my favorites are his Xenowealth series, Crystal Rain, Ragamuffin, and Sly Mongoose.

In reading news, I am most of the way through Postcards from the Interior by Wyn Cooper, who I almost met a couple of years ago at the Lost Lake Writer’s Retreat. Almost, because though Cooper couldn’t make it to the retreat, his books did, and I bought some of them. I didn’t have much time or brain-space for reading, so my poetry intake is languishing. I should be done with it today, and then on to the next one! I am also almost finished with Laurus, and should be on to the next evening read by the end of the week.

The “loss” referred to in the title of this post is, of course, the legendary Gene Wolfe, who passed away last weekend at the age of 87. I have been an on-again, off-again fan since the mid-1990s, when I first read his superb Shadow of the Torturer. I met Wolfe briefly at a science fiction convention (probably ConFusion but also possibly a different one) back in the early 2000s. I still regret not having got a book signed.

Here is a brief list of remembrances and appreciations of Mr. Wolfe.

Remembering Gene Wolfe, Valya Dudycz Lupescu
Gene Wolfe Was the Proust of Science Fiction, The New Republic
There Are Doors Everywhere, CSE Cooney
Valar Morghulis, George R. R. Martin
The Bureaucrat has Left the Planet, Michael Swanwick

Warm Days are Good Days for Reading

A little while ago, and for the first time this year, I sat out on my porch and wrote in my journal. The warm weather isn’t expected to last, but I will take every minute I can get.

The first week of April was another fairly quiet week here at Winkelman Abbey. I picked up four new books, three of which are new purchases.

On the left is issue 2 of Michael J. DeLuca‘s fine journal Reckoning, which publishes “creative writing on environmental justice.” I picked up issue 1 at ConFusion back in January, where I also met and shared beers with Mr. DeLuca (as well as several other excellent folks from the genre writing community).

Next is the second volume of the Breakbeat Poets anthology, Black Girl Magic. I picked up volume 1 when my significant other and I visited City Lights Books in June of 2018. I love these anthologies! They are full of powerful, important work which I would almost certainly have never encountered otherwise.

Third up is the revised edition of Conversations with Jim Harrison, a collection of interviews with the late poet and author. I picked up the first edition seven or eight years ago, and read it ferociously, writing down every book, poet, writer and recipe Mr. Harrison mentioned through several dozen interviews. This edition includes additional material up to Harrison’s death in late March of 2016.

Last up is I Am the Abyss, a collection of dark fiction novellas from a Kickstarter campaign I contributed to about three years ago. Things (as they often do) Happened, and production was delayed and further delayed. But the book has finally been released, and it is a thing of beauty! Nine novellas, each with its own custom artwork, all in a very well-produced, high-quality paperback.

In reading news, I finished The Monster Baru Cormorant at around 10:30 in the evening on March 31, thus opening the way for the stack of poetry books I am working my way through during National Poetry Month. So far I have completed the fiftieth anniversary edition of Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s A Coney Island of the Mind; Jack Ridl’s latest collection Saint Peter and the Goldfinch, and sam sax’s remarkable book madness. I am currently partway through When the Moon Knows You’re Wandering by Ruth Ellen Kocher.

Speaking of Jack Ridl, this past Friday I attended the Saint Peter and the Goldfinch book release party in Douglas, Michigan. It was a small quiet affair – Mr. Ridl and his family and over 200 of his closest friends filled the Douglas UCC Church to overflowing for a three hour event full of music and poetry and good fellowship. Jack was accompanied on stage by the superb John Shea Trio, who occasionally joined him for, as he put it, “poetry with jazz, rather than jazz poetry.”

Best of all? Jack signed my book.

During National Poetry Month I am tweeting brief snippets of poems from each of the poets we have published in the pages of The 3288 Review. I was going to do one a day but, well, we have published far too many poets for that to work, so each day I am tweeting out, oh, several, give or take.

It feels good to go back through the several years of publication and see the work which has inspired me to participate in the West Michigan literary community. It really feels like…home.

A Quiet Week

It was a quiet week here at Winkelman Abbey, what with the latest polar vortex turning Grand Rapids into a wasteland of ice and snow. Not a lot of time or energy for complex tasks (or thought), so it is just as well that the new stack was small.

From left we have the latest issue of The Paris Review and the new Two Lines journal. Next is 77, the most recent shipment from my subscription to Open Letter Books. The last two are If This Goes On and Hope in This Timeline, books from a couple of Kickstarter campaigns which I backed some time ago. They will go nicely with the other resistance-themed anthologies which I have picked up over the last few months.

Speaking of such anthologies, I am still reading through A People’s Future of the United States, which remains amazing. Such consistently powerful writing from an exceptionally diverse group of writers! I expect to have it finished by the end of this week.

This issue of The Paris Review includes an interview with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who will turn 100 in a couple of weeks! The interview was conducted over several weeks in 2018, when he was 99. That he is still alive is remarkable, and that he is still active in the literary world is nothing short of astonishing! In the interview he offhandedly mentions regular occurrences from his early life in France, like occasionally seeing Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoer in a cafe in Paris. You know – trivial things.

Ferlinghetti’s book A Coney Island of the Mind was published in 1958, which means it has been out for over 60 years. I have the 50th anniversary edition, which I picked up at City Lights Bookstore this past June. Ferlinghetti has been doing great things in and for the literary world for a decade longer than I have been alive, and he is still going at it, with a new book, Little Boy, coming out on March 19. I was going to hold off on buying more books for a while, but I can see this is a lost cause.

For more on Sartre and de Beauvoir, I highly recommend At the Existentialist Cafe.

Books, and What Could Have Been

A small but distinguished selection of reading material appeared at Winkelman Abbey this past week. From left, we have Cursed and Skull & Pestle, two anthologies from World Weaver Press. Third is the inaugural issue (!!!) of DreamForge Magazine. And finally, and most eagerly awaited, Terminal Uprising by Jim C. Hines.

A year ago this month I spent most of my free time putting together a story for Skull & Pestle. I completed about 90% of a first draft but realized that I would need to either burn a week of vacation days or break up with my girlfriend in order to complete and edit the story in time for the deadline. Therefore I shelved it. The story is good, I think, involving a colony of Old Believers, teen angst and bullying, the Midwest, and of course Baba Yaga. I may complete it at some point and see if there is still need for such stories.

But hey! Even if I didn’t submit my story to this anthology I still get to read the anthology, and that is a very good thing. And World Weaver Press consistently produces some top-quality anthologies.

In reading news, I finished The Blood-Tainted Winter by TL Greylock, and moved on to Death March by Phil Tucker. This was a much faster read and I had more time available for reading, so I completed it Friday night. Last night I started The Black God’s Drums by P. Djeli Clark. 25 pages in, and I am completely hooked! Of course it is a short novella so I will probably finish tonight or tomorrow. Then likely on to Terminal Uprising, though The Nine by Tracy Townsend is suddenly looming large in my attention, due it being discussed in the most recent episode (14.7, “How Weird is Too Weird?”) of the Writing Excuses podcast.

Currently goals: Structuring life so I have time to both read well and write well.

A Long-Awaited Treasure

This week brought in a couple of books which I have been looking forward to for months. Sunspot Jungle, the two-volume exclusive-to-Kickstarter hardcover set by Rosarium Publishing, arrived by mail yesterday, and they are stunning! I’ll get into the set in a moment, but first, here is the rundown of this week’s acquisitions.

On the left is the Winter 2018 issue of Rain Taxi, which I became aware of when their article about Lawrence Ferlinghetti appeared on LitHub last week. On the right is the latest book from Deep Vellum, Mephisto’s Waltz by Sergio Pitol.

So: Sunspot Jungle.

I first heard of this project when Bill Campbell, owner of Rosarium Publishing, announced the Kickstarter campaign back in the early part of 2018. I supported the pledge on the first day and the rest has been a year of eager anticipation.

I first heard of Rosarium when John Scalzi posted a photo of one of his weekly stacks of new books, and in that stack was a small collection of short stories called The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria.

That, of course, is one hell of a title.

And Rosarium is one hell of a publishing company.

In reading news, the past week was hectic, what with the polar vortex and associated schedule disruptions. I did make significant progress through Reckoning #1, and am a couple of chapters into T L Greylock’s The Blood-Tainted Winter.

In other literary news, I am back in the saddle at Caffeinated Press after a year-long hiatus/sabbatical, and am hard at work assembling the next issue of The 3288 Review.

Amazing how a schedule disruption, even one which ostensibly frees up a chunk of free time, seldom actually results in more usable free time.

2019 Books and Reading List

And here we are all of a sudden in calendar year 2019. This is the fifth iteration of my reading material acquisition list, and I plan to keep doing it much the same way as I have in previous years. For my complete catalog of books which I own, please visit LibraryThing. For the list of books I have read, with the occasional rating and review (I know, I know. I need to be better about reviewing things I read), please visit GoodReads.

One change from previous years – instead of linking to their pages on GoodReads, I will from now on be linking book titles directly to the appropriate pages on the websites of their publishers or, where publishers do not sell directly to customers, I will link to resources such as IndieBound and the like. Keep the money in the hands of the writers and publishers.

And now, The List.

January (49)

  1. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #38
  2. Châteaureynaud, Georges-Olivier – A Life on Paper (Small Beer Press)
  3. Steinmetz, Ferret – Fix (Angry Robot Books)
  4. Steinmetz, Ferret – The Uploaded (Angry Robot Books)
  5. Shalamov, Varlam – Kolyma Stories (New York Review Books)
  6. Apex Magazine, #115, December 2018
  7. Palmer, Ada – Seven Surrenders
  8. Hartmann, Ivor W. (ed.) – AfroSF: Science Fiction by African Writers (StoryTime)
  9. Smith, Tracy K. – Life on Mars (Graywolf Press)
  10. Long Soldier, Layli – Whereas (Graywolf Press)
  11. Groskop, Viv – The Anna Karenina Fix
  12. Eveland, Erin – Darkness (Selladore Press)
  13. Andrade, R.A. – The Field Trip (Selladore Press)
  14. Greylock, T L – The Blood-Tainted Winter (Grass Crown Press)
  15. Tucker, Phil – Death March
  16. Reckoning #1
  17. Tomlinson, Patrick S. – Gate Crashers
  18. Flohr, Mackenzie – The Rite of Wands (BHC Press – Indigo)
  19. Eichenlaub, Anthony W. – Justice in an Age of Metal and Men
  20. Eichenlaub, Anthony W. – Peace in an Age of Metal and Men
  21. Filak, Stacey – The Queen Underneath (Page Street Publishing Company)
  22. Hughes, Keith – Timehunt: Borrowed Time
  23. Kuppers, Petra – Ice Bar (Spuyten Duyvil)
  24. Künsken, Derek – The Quantum Magician
  25. Matulich, Josef – Camp Arcanum (Post Mortem Press)
  26. Matulich, Josef – Power Tools in the Sacred Grove (Post Mortem Press)
  27. Snyder, Lucy A. – Garden of Eldritch Delights (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
  28. Snyder, Lucy A. – While the Black Stars Burn (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
  29. Bán, Zsófia – Night School: A Reader for Grownups (Open Letter Books)
  30. Poetry #213.5 (February 2019)
  31. Palmer, D. Thourson – Ours is the Storm
  32. Broaddus, Maurice – Buffalo Soldier
  33. Durham, David Anthony – Acacia
  34. Lowell, Nathan – Quarter Share (Durandus)
  35. Tucker, Phil – Nightmare Keep
  36. Tucker, Phil – The Path of Flames
  37. Greylock, T L – The Hills of Home (Grass Crown Press)
  38. Greylock, T L – Already Comes the Darkness (Grass Crown Press)
  39. Sullivan, Michael J. – Age of Myth
  40. Sullivan, Michael J. – Theft of Swords
  41. Shel, Mike – Aching God
  42. Adjei-Brenyah, Nana Kwame – Friday Black
  43. Sartori, Giacomo – I Am God (Restless Books)
  44. Arden, Katherine – The Bear and the Nightingale
  45. Clark, P Djèlí – The Black God’s Drums
  46. Chakraborty, S.A. – The Kingdom of Copper
  47. Poniatowska, Elena – Mephisto’s Waltz (Deep Vellum)
  48. Campbell, Bill (ed.) – Sunspot Jungle, Kickstarter-exclusive 2-volume hardcover set (Rosarium Publishing)
  49. Rain Taxi 23.4 (Winter 2018)

February (27)

  1. Duffy, Damian and Jennings, John – The Hole: Consumer Culture (Front Forty Press)
  2. James, Marlon – Black Leopard, Red Wolf
  3. LaValle, Victor, and Adams, John Joseph (eds.) – A People’s Future of the United States
  4. Noll, João Gilberto – Lord (Two Lines Press)
  5. Hines, Jim C. – Terminal Uprising
  6. Sullivan, Susan Abel (ed.) – Cursed: Wickedly Fun Stories (World Weaver Press)
  7. Wolford, Kate (ed.) – Skull & Pestle: New Tales of Baba Yaga (World Weaver Press)
  8. DreamForge #1
  9. Rosenthal, Olivia – To Leave with the Reindeer (And Other Stories)
  10. Jacobin #32
  11. Deleuze, Gilles and Guattari, Felix – A Thousand Plateaus (University of Minnesota Press)
  12. Willow Springs #83 (Spring 2019)
  13. Poetry #213.6 (March 2019)
  14. Emergency Index #7 (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  15. Berenguer, Amanda – Materia Prima (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  16. González, Wingston – No Budu Please (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  17. Ponce, Liliana – Diary (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  18. Montalbetti, Mario – Language Is a Revolver for Two (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  19. Feinstein, Rochelle – Pls. Reply (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  20. Cope, David (ed.) – Song of the Owashtanong: Grand Rapids Poetry of the 21st Century (Ridgeway Press)
  21. Harris, Bill – Birth of a Notion, or The Half Ain’t Never Been Told (Wayne State University Press)
  22. Evans, CJ – A Penance (New Issues Press)
  23. Upton, Lee – Undid in the Land of Undone (New Issues Press)
  24. Kocher, Ruth Ellen – When the Moon Knows You’re Wandering (New Issues Press)
  25. Daniels, Jim – Night with Drive-By Shooting Stars (New Issues Press)
  26. Platt, Donald – Dirt Angels (New Issues Press)
  27. Huey, Amorak – Ha Ha Ha Thump (Sundress Publications)

March (13)

  1. Senkus, Mark – Screaming Like War (Single-Minded Cocktail Press)
  2. Rahmani, Zahia – “Muslim”: A Novel (Deep Vellum Publishing)
  3. Two Lines Journal #30
  4. Rambo, Cat (ed.) – If This Goes On (Parvus Press)
  5. Frank, Meg (ed.) – Hope in This Timeline (Fireside Fiction)
  6. Saccomanno, Guillermo – 77 (Open Letter Books)
  7. Paris Review #228
  8. James, D.R. – Surreal Expulsion (The Poetry Box)
  9. Ridl, Jack – Saint Peter and the Goldfinch (Wayne State University Press)
  10. Malte, Marcus – The Boy (Restless Books)
  11. Poetry #214.1 (April 2019)
  12. New Ohio Review #25
  13. Wolff, Lina – The Polyglot Lovers (And Other Stories)

April (16)

  1. Reckoning #2
  2. Browne, Mahogany L, Simmonds, Idrissa, Woods, Jamila (eds.) – The Breakbeat Poets Vol. II: Black Girl Magic (Haymarket Books)
  3. DeMott, Robert (ed.) – Conversations with Jim Harrison (Revised and Updated) (University Press of Mississippi)
  4. Morey, Chris (ed.) – I Am the Abyss (Dark Regions Press, LLC)
  5. Oomen, Anne-Marie (ed.) – Elemental (Wayne State University Press)
  6. Davis, Jean – Trust (Caffeinated Press)
  7. Pimwana, Duanwad – Bright (Two Lines Press)
  8. Buckell, Tobias S. – It’s All Just a Draft (Xenowealth LLC, Kickstarter exclusive)
  9. Poetry #214.2 (May 2019)
  10. Wellman, Mac – Awe (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  11. Farrell, Nathaniel – Lost Horizon (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  12. Osman, Jena – Motion Studies (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  13. Rodríguez, Reina Maria – The Winter Garden Photograph (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  14. Steck, Ed – An Interface for a Fractal Landscape (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  15. Fitterman, Robert – Rob’s Word Shop (Ugly Duckling Presse)
  16. Peninsula Poets #76.1, Spring 2019

May (16)

  1. Levrero, Mario – Empty Words (And Other Stories)
  2. Scego, Igiaba – Beyond Babylon (Two Lines Press)
  3. Van Gelder, Gordon (ed.) – Welcome to the Greenhouse (OR Books)
  4. Duncombe, Stephen – Dream or Nightmare (OR Books)
  5. Boyd, Andrew – Beautiful Trouble (OR Books)
  6. Coleman, Elizabeth J. (ed.) – Here: Poems for the Planet (Copper Canyon Press)
  7. Pulphouse #5, Winter 2019
  8. Poetry #214.3, June 2019
  9. Rasmussen, Bjørn – The Skin Is the Elastic Covering That Encases the Entire Body (Two Lines Press)
  10. Rucker, Rudy – Million Mile Road Trip (Night Shade Books)
  11. Rucker, Rudy – The Big Aha (Night Shade Books)
  12. Scholes, Robert, Comley, Nancy R., Ulmer, Gregory L. – Text Book
  13. Kazin, Alfred – The Open Form
  14. Waugh, Patricia – Metafiction (Methuen & Co.)
  15. Fernández, Belén – Exile: Rejecting America and Finding the World (OR Books)
  16. Jacobin #33, Spring 2019

June (39)

  1. Talusan, Grace – The Body Papers (Restless Books)
  2. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #39
  3. Dreamforge #2
  4. Ellison, Harlan – Dimensions of Harlan Ellison (Edgeworks Abbey)
  5. Ellison, Harlan – The Book Needs No Introduction (Edgeworks Abbey)
  6. Ellison, Harlan – The Ephemeral Ellison (Edgeworks Abbey)
  7. Ellison, Harlan – The Ellison Treatment (Edgeworks Abbey)
  8. The 3288 Review 5.1 (Caffeinated Press)
  9. Riekki, Ron and Scarpino, Andrea (eds.) – Undocumented: Great Lakes Poets Laureate on Social Justice (Michigan State University Press)
  10. Klatt, L.S. – The Wilderness After Which (Otis Books)
  11. Rain Taxi #24.2 (Summer 2019)
  12. Swanwick, Michael – Dragonskin (Dragon Stairs Press) (signed, #21/50)
  13. McGookey, Kathleen – Nineteen Letters (BatCat Press), (#11/100)
  14. Broaddus, Maurice – Pimp My Airship (Apex Book Company)
  15. Sizemore, Jason and Conner, Lesley (eds.) – Do Not Go Quietly (Apex Book Company)
  16. Townsend, Tracy – The Fall
  17. Roanhorse, Rebecca – Storm of Locusts
  18. Harrison, Jim – The Essential Poems (Copper Canyon Press)
  19. Asghar, Fatimah and Elhillo, Safia (eds.) – The Breakbeat Poets vol. 3: Halal If You Can Hear Me (Haymarket Books)
  20. Shiner, Lewis – Outside the Gates of Eden (Subterranean Press)
  21. The Paris Review #229
  22. Brace, Kristin – Each Darkness Inside (Finishing Line Press)
  23. Split Lip Magazine #2
  24. Burn Collector #14 (Microcosm Publishing)
  25. Gnade, Adam (ed.) – The CIA Makes Science Fiction Unexciting #6: The Life of Lee Harvey Oswald (Microcosm Publishing)
  26. Ensminger, David A. – Out of the Basement (Microcosm Publishing)
  27. Moore, Anne Elizabeth – Cambodian Grrrl: Self-Publishing in Phnom Penh (Microcosm Publishing)
  28. Suren, Bob – Crate Digger: An Obsession With Punk Records (Microcosm Publishing)
  29. Herbert, Alexander – What About Tomorrow? An Oral History of Russian Punk, From the Soviet Era to Pussy Riot (Microcosm Publishing)
  30. Campbell, John W., Jr. – Frozen Hell (Wildside Press)
  31. Doyle, Aidan – The Writer’s Book of Doubt (Ate Bit Bear)
  32. Poetry #214.4
  33. Reckoning #3
  34. Yong, Jin – A Hero Born (ARC)
  35. Silver, Steven H. and Palmatier, Joshua (eds.) – Alternate Peace (Zombies Need Brains LLC)
  36. Coe, David B. and Palmatier, Joshua (eds.) – Temporally Deactivated (Zombies Need Brains LLC)
  37. Bray, Patricia and Butler, S.C. (eds.) – Portals (Zombies Need Brains LLC)
  38. Yideum, Kim – Blood Sisters (Deep Vellum Publishing)
  39. von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang – The Golden Goblet (Deep Vellum Publishing)

July (12)

  1. Amazing Stories 76.4
  2. Brace, Kristin – Toward the Wild Abundance (Michigan State University Press)
  3. Jallal, Karim and Zbiciak, Teresa – Mustapha Panda
  4. Willow Springs #84
  5. Daáood, Kamau – The Language of Saxophones (City Lights Books)
  6. Long, Michael G. (ed.) – We the Resistance (City Lights Books)
  7. Breedlove, Lynn – Forty-Five Thought Crimes (Manic D Press)
  8. Ivánova, Adelaide – The Hammer (Commune Editions)
  9. Schatz, Kate and Stahl, Miriam Klein – Rad American Women A-Z (City Lights Books)
  10. Neidich, Warren (ed.) – The Psychopathologies of Cognitive Capitalism: Part Three (Archive Books)
  11. Zisson, Steve (ed.) – A Punk Rock Future (Zsenon Publishing)
  12. Torres, Fernanda – Glory and Its Litany of Horrors (Restless Books)

August (3)

  1. Serna, Rudolfo A. – Snow Over Utopia (Apex Publications)
  2. Poetry #214.5, September 2019
  3. Fellous, Colette – This Tilting World (Two Lines Press)

September (11)

  1. Two Lines #31
  2. Paris Review #230
  3. Yang, Jy – The Ascent to Godhood
  4. Chiang, Ted – Exhalation
  5. Hossain, Saad Z – The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday
  6. Luff, Cody T. – Ration (Apex Publications)
  7. Harjo, Joy – She Had Some Horses
  8. Kendi, Ibram X. – How to Be an Antiracist
  9. Rain Taxi 14.3, Fall 2019
  10. Dreamforge #3, September 2019
  11. Poetry #215.1 (October 2019)

October (20)

  1. Perlman, Jim, Cooper, Deborah, Hart, Mara and Mittelfehldt, Pamela (eds.) – Amethyst and Agate: Poems of Lake Superior (Holy Cow! Press)
  2. Lauchlan, Michael – Trumbull Ave. (Wayne State University Press)
  3. Lynch, Thomas – Still Life in Milford
  4. Gerber, Dan – A Last Bridge Home (Clark City Press)
  5. Liebler, M.L. (ed.) – Brooding the Heartlands: Poets of the Midwest (Bottom Dog Press)
  6. Hilberry, Conrad – After-Music (Wayne State University Press)
  7. Hinrichsen, Dennis – Kurosawa’s Dog (Oberlin College Press)
  8. Clark, Patricia and Jenkins, Jinny (eds.) – Great Lakes: Image & Word (Grand Valley State University)
  9. Mréjen, Valérie – Black Forest (Deep Vellum Publishing)
  10. Masłowska, Dorota – Honey, I Killed the Cats (Deep Vellum Publishing)
  11. Pulphouse Fiction Magazine #6, Spring 2019
  12. Straczynski, J. Michael – Becoming Superman
  13. Defoe, Daniel – Robinson Crusoe (300th Anniversary Edition) – Restless Books
  14. Etchells, Tim – Endland (And Other Stories)
  15. Zafón, Carlos Ruiz – The Labyrinth of the Spirits (Subterranean Press)
  16. Poetry #215.2 (November 2019)
  17. Erin, Alexandra – First Dates, Last Calls
  18. Ono, Masatsugu – Lion Cross Point (Two Lines Press)
  19. Anyuru, Johannes – They Will Drown in Their Mothers’ Tears (Two Lines Press)
  20. Peninsula Poets, Fall 2019

November (13)

  1. Tidhar, Lavie – Hebrew Punk (Apex Publications)
  2. New Ohio Review #26
  3. Patel, Shenaz – Silence of the Chagos (Restless Books)
  4. Conner, Lesley – The Weight of Chains (Sinister Grin Press)
  5. Burmeister-Brown, Susan and Swanson-Davies, Linda B. (eds) The Glimmer Train Guide to Writing Fiction, Vol. I: Building Blocks
  6. Poetry #215.3 (December 2019)
  7. Pulphouse Fiction Magazine #7 (Summer 2019)
  8. Steffen, David (ed.) – The Long List Anthology, vol. 5 (Diabolical Plots LLC)
  9. Meadors, Melanie R. (ed.) – Scoundrels (Outland Entertainment)
  10. Meadors, Melanie and Abbott, Alana Joli (eds.) – Brigands (Outland Entertainment)
  11. Meadors, Melanie and Abbott, Alana Joli (eds.) – Knaves (Outland Entertainment)
  12. Wang, Jackie – Carceral Capitalism (Semiotext(e))
  13. Valencia, Sayak – Gore Capitalism (Semiotext(e))

December (12)

  1. The Paris Review #231, Winter 2019
  2. Fisher, Mark – Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? (Zero Books)
  3. Choi, Franny – Soft Science (Alice James Books)
  4. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #40
  5. Rain Taxi #24.4 (Winter 2019)
  6. Dreamforge #4 (December 2019)
  7. A Creative Sojourn, vol. 2
  8. Burstein, Michael – I Remember the Future (Apex Book Company)
  9. Jung Young Moon – Seven Samurai Swept Away in a River (Deep Vellum Publishing)
  10. Sentsov, Oleg – Life Went On Anyway: Stories (Deep Vellum Publishing)
  11. Salvage #7 (Autumn/Winter 2019)
  12. Brown, Luke – Theft (And Other Stories)

Books and Broadsides

Reading material acquired week of 2018.10.07

Another week, another collection of new reading material. This post is exceptional for reasons I will get to in a moment, but first: the books. Starting at the upper left, is issue 7.1 of Storm Cellar Quarterly, which I picked up for research as a possible venue for submitting poetry. Next is Passing by Nella Larsen, published by Restless Books but not part of my subscription. Restless is doing some seriously good work in bringing forgotten and underrepresented voices into public awareness. Next is the easiness and the loneliness, poetry by Asta Olivia Nordenhof, from my subscription to Open Letter Books.

The bottom row is my reward for backing a Kickstarter campaign from Copper Canyon Press to publish Ursula Le Guin’s last collection of poetry, So Far So Good. Next to that is a broadside of her poem “July”, and on the right side is a special-edition reprint of one of Le Guin’s early collections, Wild Angels.

Le Guin didn’t come into my awareness as a poet until many years after I began reading her fiction, so when this Kickstarter appeared shortly after she passed away I jumped at the opportunity. Copper Canyon continually turns out superlative work and in this they have done justice to the final collection of a magnificent writer.