Ben Tanzer's Blog, page 163

Wherein we (among others) share three of our favorite reads of the year with TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog and offer them to you as a preview for the more extensive, and yes, life-changing list of books and other pop cultural detritus we found ourselves

Did that sound self-important enough? Great, we really wanted to nail the correct tone there. Enjoy. And big props to the Tom Williams, Lavinia Ludlow and dirty poet respectively for the stellar writing.

Wherein we (among others) share three of our favorite reads of the year with TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog and offer them to you as a preview for the more extensive, and yes, life-changing list of books and other pop cultural detritus we found ourselves

Did that sound self-important enough? Great, we really wanted to nail the correct tone there. Enjoy. And big props to the Tom Williams, Lavinia Ludlow and dirty poet respectively for the stellar writing.

The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live. All full of drunk poet. And Ontis.

The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live. We have new poem Drunk Poet at the Wrong House by Shelley Ontis, which we are way excited about, and, (almost) as always, photo action from Adam Lawrence, music curation from Jason Behrends and Iowa Caucus prose love from Pete Anderson. We hope you enjoy this edition and we appreciate all shout-outs and links. Finally, please note, we are hoping more of you will submit comix, and music, novel excerpts, and art, and video, yes, video, and combinations there of. And most finally, Happy New Year.  [image error]

Things we are looking forward to in the new year, Part Three - Another Chicago Magazine. Issue 50.2. The Chicago Issue.

More here.

Things we are looking forward to in the new year, Part Two - An Evening With Ben Tanzer and Friends. A CCLaP Fundraiser.

More here.

Things we are looking forward to in the new year, Part One - Chicago Stories by Michael Czyzniejewski.

More here.

You Can Make Him Like You is totally Kindle. Totally? Totally.

For real. Totally. Here.

You Can Make Him Like You is most beautious Pete Lit Good Reading 2011. And we are most geeked.

Big geeking thanks to the Pete Anderson and the whole Pete Lit crew for the You Can Make Him Like You inclusion in this most righteous and beautious of year-end lists.

"These stories are packed with musings and observations that come with the pain of growing up." So Different Now gets Curbside Splendor'd. And likes it. A lot.

Big thanks to the Joey Pizzolato and our good friends at the Curbside Splendor for their most kind words about So Different Now. Drinks on us, for sure, when next we meet. Now, how about some excerpt? Word.

In the story "Never Said", Tanzer sums up the dilemma we all face in trying to bury our past as we grow up: "It's funny how quickly you can fall back into thinking about the mistakes you made." And it is funny, in a way, because amidst all the fantasies of what could have been, or what should have been, the characters in these stories are left only with the realization that the present is reality.  And it is in this realization—and the different way each character reacts to it—that these stories find their meaning, transcending off the page and touching your heart in a way made possible only by Tanzer's conversational and evocative style." 

There is new joint. The Terminator of Love. Mendicant Bookworks. At the Smashwords. Hit it. Now. Please. Thanks.

Quite thrilled we are about The Terminator of Love and the quite stellar line-up it joins at The Mendicant. You can hit it at the Smashwords. You can Goodreads it. And you can let us what you think. Cool? Excellent. All of it. That. Now how about some description? 

"Jay McInerney meets Woody Allen -- with enough pop culture to orbit Tarantino. Told in 2nd person, Tanzer brings us along as a love-struck everyman trying to convince both the world and this girl, at any cost, that he -- and not her boss -- is the guy for her. Will she wake up, or must he become the Terminator of Love?"