Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Notable Stories + New Shits

Million Writers Award Notable Stories of 2007 are now up. Congrats to Andrea Fitzpatrick, whose story 'DOLLFACE' from Lamination Colony made the list. Other friends including Shane Jones, Andrew Ervin, Lee Klein, Daniel Spinks, Nick Antosca, Corey Mesler, Jimmy Chen and Matt Bell were in the house, as was I for 'TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME'. Notable. Or something.

I am often confused how the journal of the year at Million Writers is one I have never heard of, and not heard of most any of the authors they have published. Is that a good thing? I think I pay pretty good attention.

Editing novel is about 1/3rd through. Hope to finish 1/3rd tonight into tomorrow. A first published piece of the novel will be at WIGLEAF next week or something. Also, Wigleaf is about to start running their own version of the Notable Stories of 2007, though this focusing on work less than 1000 words. I like this idea.

Read Tao Lin's new book COGNITIVE-BEHAVIORAL THERAPY on Sunday evening. This is a whole other blog post, which I will write later this week, but let's just say that the book has a kind of presence reminiscent of the monolith in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, only if that monolith were made out of neutral facial expressions and lined in soft fake black fur from a fake marmot who curls around you in the evening in place of who might have been there once before or not at all.

Now reading Joy Williams's rereleased book THE CHANGELING from Fairy Tale Review Press (the presence of which as a press overall I am very stoked about), which is already becoming unlike most any other books. More on that later also.

One final bit of related news: Lamination Colony will be releasing its next eBook from an author who also has a novel forthcoming from Fairy Tale Review press. It is a backfucker of an eBook. I will tell you later. Other ebooks pending still consideration promise. I am up to my neck.

ALSO: I am selling a bunch of LPs and a pedal on ebay.

9 comments:

Dan Wickett said...

What exactly do you mean by often, Blake? In regards to journal of the year. I mean, last year was Storyglossia, and I'm assuming you'd heard of that journal long before last year's MWA's. And they've published many writers you're aware of. As to this year, Blackbird's been around for quite a while. The Jespers story is one that will be in Best of the Web 2008.

Looking forward to your piece in Wigleaf, and I love their idea for the shorter pieces. BotW covers both flash and longer stories.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

hey dan,

i think i meant 'best new journal'. i def know blackbird (though i can't say i'm a fan: any web journal that takes more than a year to respond to their submissions is just lazy if you ask me). i hadn't heard of farrago's wainscott or any of their folks. last year the best new journal was Anderbo, which I also hadn't heard of. and before that it was narrative, which i kind of also think of in the league of blackbird. the fact that they charge $5 to read a piece for an online journal kind of boggles my mind.

i know its a lot of work to run something like million writers and its beyond impossible to please all all around. overall i think it's a great thing and a great job done by the panel to wade through so much.

:)

BLAKE BUTLER said...

and i certainly don't have to have heard of a place for it to be the best. or best new. obviously that is part of the idea of 'new'. what can ya do.

Ken Baumann said...

i am excited about upcoming things mentioned here.

also, congratulations to notable writers. notable.

Josh Maday said...

congrats, blake.

wigleaf ho!

Bradley Sands said...

I have heard of Farrago's Wainscott. It is genre-y. "New Wave Fabulism" maybe. They publish surreal stuff. Maybe you are not familiar with genre publications.

BLAKE BUTLER said...

thank you.

yeah, i checked it out. i probably miss a lot more than i realize. who the fuck is i

Bradley Sands said...

It's kinda like Lady Churchill's, but online rather than print. I should have mentioned that the first time rather than used a sorta gibberish-y classification for it.

Bradley Sands said...

It's kinda like Lady Churchill's, but online rather than print. I should have mentioned that the first time rather than used a sorta gibberish-y classification for it.