Paul Tremblay's Blog, page 32
August 4, 2009
Farewell Silkworm, hello Bottomless Pit
Silkworm (1987-2005) is one of my favorite all time bands. It's hard to pick their best album, but for the purposes of this post, let's choose the first one that I heard, which is the stunning Firewater (1996).
Their music is kind of hard to describe. Generally, it's Tim Midgett and Andy Cohen swapping vocals over Michael Dalhquist's frenetic drumming. Both songwriters are incredible lyricists, with impeccable sense of story, pacing, and point of view. I've learned as much about writing fict
August 3, 2009
Martha's Vineyard Book Festival: The recap
The only bummer of the whole weekend was the car ride down to Falmouth. We should've left the house earlier than we did, got stuck in terrible traffic, and missed the 1:30 ferry to Edgartown. While in traffic, I drove Lisa crazy by signing "Dogtag" by The Bottomless Pit (former Silkworm members) the whole way down. We managed to catch the 4pm ferry. Cue pictures:
We don't need a bigger boat
No pickles allowed on the upper boat deck
We hit Edgartown at 5:15ish, and I rolled my loud luggage over
July 31, 2009
Martha's Vineyard Book Festival this Sunday
Heading to the vineyard! On Sunday, August 2nd, I'll be reading/speaking from 2:45-3:30, then available (for another 45 minutes) to sign books and train dogs to walk on their hind legs (four legs good, two legs bad!).
Well, I'll mostly sign books. I'm one of 25 authors, and festival is free to public!
Martha's Vineyard Book Festival website.
On Saturday evening, there's the Media Revolution: The Future of Journalism and Media discussion/panel, followed by a champagne reception. Maybe if I drink
July 30, 2009
15 Short Story Collections
The 15 book thing has been floating around facebook for a bit, so I'm tweaking it. Because I feel like it. Here are (in no particular order) are 15 of my favorite short story collections. Or at least the 15 that come to mind at ll pm, anyway. You'll notice me cheating as well.
1. The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, by Aimee Bender
2. I Sailed With Magellan, by Stuart Dybek
3. Love and Hydrogen, by Jim Shepard
3b. Like You'd Understand, Anyway, by Jim Shepard
4. The Imago Sequence, by Laird Barron
4b.
Compostions for the Young and Old released via Creative Commons
I'm making my 2005 short story collection, Compositions for the Young and Old, available for free downloading/viewing/distributing via Creative Commons license.
Hosting of the pdf download and CC license details are here and here.
A jar that holds your deepest secrets and fears. A fireman confronts his past while trying to save a group of children who have fallen through thin ice. A preacher's daughter goes to fantastic and desperate lengths to write a book like Mark Twain. A man who cures people
July 28, 2009
Life imitating something…
On the heels of my meeting Sal, a narcoleptic who was once a private detective, there's this harrowing story from speculative fiction author extraordinaire Tim Pratt, who was reading The Harlequin and the Train while riding a train:
"I read it on a train on the day this happened:
As soon as I came down the stairs to the train platform, I heard loud moaning. I soon saw this blond tweaker-looking dude crawl from beneath the platform by the train tracks like a mole-man emerging from his lair, wailing
July 24, 2009
Meetinghouse reading: The aftermath
First, the venue can't be beat. What a beautiful old place, my pictures do not do it justice.
There were no wickermen waiting for me when I arrived, much to my relief (and disappointment!). William Craig–writer, teacher, reading series guru–offered me a chance to climb up the bell tower. He said it was a little dicey with the fixed ladders. I was fine with the ladders, but he lost me with the talk of bats. I don't have a fear of bats, per se, however, climbing into a tower with bats seemed l
July 22, 2009
Meetinghouse reading in Caanan, NH tomorrow night
Very much looking forward to my trip up to Caanan, NH for their summer reading series at the Meetinghouse.
I got my driving shoes on…. Driving shoes? Well, to be totally honest, I don't own driving shoes, or any accoutrement associated with driving. Sunglasses, perhaps, but I wear those while not driving as well. So, nothing special for the car, but I'll be driving, dammit!
July 20, 2009
Contest: Win personalized copies of H&T and TLS
The Prize: One winner gets a personalized copy of my limited edition novella, The Harlequin and the Train, a yellow highlighter, and a personalized copy of my first novel, The Little Sleep.
Contest rules:
–You email me (p nuke 33 at comcast dot net) the answers to 6 questions. In addition, you post your guess to the bonus question within the comments of this thread. If multiple people get all six questions correct (um, which shouldn't be hard, I'm not trying to stump folks!), then I draw the win
July 16, 2009
Interview with a publicist (Chastity Lovely, Henry Holt)
Chastity Lovely, who currently works for my publisher Henry Holt as a publicist, was kind enough to take some time out of her busy schedule to answer some questions.
Let's start simply with how does one become a publicist?
Man, I don't even know how to answer that one. I think a lot of people fall into it. They find something they love and want to do, but the obvious positions may not be that appealing. Like in book publishing: I love books, but knew that I never wanted to become an editor, so
