Write Up of KGB

Elka Reads has a funny and strange write up of the launch party for Us at KGB. The room is crowded. There is an open bar and literary football. Sam gets stalked. The Tyrant tells stories. And I read in a haunting tenor.

A Monument to Love

There's a great review of Lo Que Queda de Nosotros, Tusquets' Spanish translation of How Much of Us There Was. Pepe Rodriguez calls the novel "a monument to love" ("un monumento al cariño").

New York Tyrant will release How Much of Us There Was in the US in early 2011.

New York Tyrant #8

New York Tyrant #8 is now out. I have a piece in it called We Lived Together on Paper -- and Andy Devine has a condensed novel in it called Apartment City from into Our Please We Went. There's also a ton of great work by Sam Lipsyte, Ken Sparling, Noy Holland, Breece D’J Pancake, Padgett Powell, Daryl Scroggins, Brandon Hobson, Ken Baumann, and Sean Kilpatrick. Plus, there are lots of knives in the stories.

How Much of Us There Was

I finished writing How Much of Us There Was in late 2003. It was first published in 2005 by Fourth Estate in the UK, then in paperback by HarperPerennial the next year, but it was never published in the US and I ended up firing my agent at the time. Now I'm happy to say that How Much of Us There Was will finally get its US release with Tyrant Books this fall. To honor the occasion, I re-read the novel and ending up making over 500 mostly little changes. Plus, I changed the ending.

Suicide Letters @ Vice

There are a bunch of suicide letters from Dear Everybody up at Vice today, courtesy of the benevolent Tyrant.

New York Tyrant #7

I have a new piece in New York Tyrant #7, which can be ordered here. There's also great work by Alex Balk, Blake Butler, Erich Hintze, Brian Kubarycz, Christopher Kennedy, Joseph Cardinale, Jason Schwartz, Greg Mulcahy, Luca Dipierro, Rachel B. Glaser, Ken Baumann, Peter Gajdics, Peter Markus, Shane Jones, Conor Madigan, Scott Indrisek, Harry Cheadle, Joshua Furst, and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.

Time Out NY on NY Tyrant

There is a nice article by Michael Miller in this week's Time Out New York about great literary magazines -- New York Tyrant, Agricultural Reader, Noon -- thriving while so much of publishing is crumbling all around us.

Lit Crawl NYC

After the Baltimore Book Festival, I took the train up to NYC for Lit Crawl, which is just like a pub crawl except that there are books and beer instead of just beer. I read at the Arrow Bar with the wonderful people of New York Tyrant. Also, thank you to Time Out New York--which made Lit Crawl, and our particular part of Lit Crawl, one of the week's Critic's Picks. Leigh Newman read from her great story, Family Pics, and Chris March from Project Runway said nice things about us. It's always harder to read in mixed-use venues. There are people that came to Arrow Bar just to drink and talk (or drink and not talk) and they were talking through the first couple minutes of the reading, but then I realized that it had gone completely quiet and I knew it was going well.

There were so many great readers at so many different venues that I was only able to see a couple of things, but the after party was great and nearly everybody from every reading was there. Thank you to Todd Zuniga for organizing the huge event. Thank you to Giancarlo DiTrapano and Ellen Moynihan for inviting me and to Chris March for introducing. Thank you to David and Amy for the surprise of you being there (all the way from Texas). Thank you to Eleanor for the genius of being there, and for your early and continual support.