Jamie Iredell's Blog, page 25

Quilting

It has come to my attention that my book is dangerous.

Although I cannot give any specific details, the Federal Government has determined that my book is a "potentially dangerous package."

No bullshit, this seriously happened.

Other than that pleasant tidbit of info, Sarah and I just returned form Mexico, where our friends got married. We were in Izamal, Yucatan, which was an awesome little Mayan town more than 2,300 years old. I wish that we could've been there for more than a weekend. Mexican...

Thank You

To everyone, so so much, for preordering my book. It was really something. I was gone for the &now conference in Buffalo, and I didn't really check email while I was there. So I was surprised when I got home and saw so many people had come through to buy this thing. All that, and no little amount of thanks to everyone who preordered from the Orange Alert Press website, as well. I'm going to leave this button up here by the book's cover for a little while, so if others come through here and or...

In the last few days of the presale

I'm offering two books for the price (which is already discounted!) of one!!!!

On October 20th Prose. Poems. a Novel. is officially released by Orange Alert Press. From now til then, all those who preorder through this site I'll sign their copy of the book, and include a signed copy of my When I Moved to Nevada chapbook, which was published last summer by The Greying Ghost Press. There's no secret here: When I Moved to Nevada is INCLUDED (as one of the sections) of Prose. Poems. a Novel, but, ...

a cat can't live off books alone

My copies arrived! I'm stoked. The book looks great. I had to fix a few things from the galleys. "Irreverent" in one of the blurbs got misspelled as "irrevernet," which I admit was kind of of cool. Irrevernet is irreverent internet stuff.

And of blurbs, this is what they say:

If Mary Robison listened to more punk, grew up in Las Vegas in the 80s before the 80s sucked, did whippits while reading Ben
Marcus and scrolling the alternative personals for golden lines to crib, she might have exploded ...

Eggs and other stuff

My favorite story in How Some People Like Their Eggs is "Coffee Pot Tree." The story features a retrospective first person narrator, looking back on the days leading up to when the tree was "topped, dropped, and carted away." I like how this story, through the narrator, creates a complete sense of suburbia. There's the "secretary for the Neighborhood Advisory and Recreation Committee [NARC:]," there's lawn winterizing and leaf-blowing, and there are "domestic rodents." I also love the simple a...

I am getting slammed

this semester with my schedule. Four courses, eighty something students, and three of the classes using books I've never read. I've been meaning to post but there's no time. I've got stuff to say about great things I've read in the recent issues of Keyhole, Copper Nickel, and Smokelong Quarterly, as well as other things. And I hardly have any time to write. The new books and our printer with C&R Press are pressing down on me (ha). I have a lot of work to do with that. Oh fuck.

Ore

This by Josh Ware is gold.

I am also excited to announce that my book Prose: Poems, a Novel is now available for preorder from Orange Alert Press.



There's a discount for preordering, and the book will ship on its release: 10/20/09.

Word.

And Steve Himmer's So New/Necessray Fiction has published a story of mine. Thanks Steve. I'm stoked to share space with the great lineup he's put together over there so far.

More of what I think is awesome

Sean Lovelace points out the fact that what's going on with Shane Jones has been "under-blogged" (Sean's term, licensed). So I shall rise to the challenge and point to the fact that Light Boxes has 1) sold out; 2) been optioned for film, to be produced by Spike Jonze; and 3) has been picked up for re-print by Penguin.

Congratulations to Shane! This is really great news for him--for all of us working our fingers off to write things we believe in. Someone (who I now see was fucking with folks to se

Matt Bell & Kathy Fish

have extended their welcome for nominations for Dzanc's 2010 Best of Web Anthology.

I am not an editor of an online journal. However, if I were I would nominate the following (these are only some I would nominate; I can think of many many more, and maybe post them all here over the next few weeks.):

"nomenclature" by Joseph V. Milford
"Another Map of Here and There" By Rebecca Keith
"Ethics" by Ravi Mangla
Last time it rained this hard the dog drowned" by Molly Gaudry
This is not on the web, but fuck

The Heathen are Coming

I had a good time designing this one. The cover's made up of the following: The central image is "16 Circles," by Rosemary Starace. Rosemary's art is badass. You should go to her site and just cruise around.

The background on this image comes from part of a blank page from Century Magazine Volume VII (1884-85). The font for the title was created from the title page of the Century, and the font for Lesley Wheeler's name is manipulated from an inscription printed from Mark Twain's handwriting in t