Ben Tanzer's Blog, page 177

We are Cobalt interview. Feels good. There we said it.

We much appreciate up and coming rock star lit mag Cobalt conducting an interview with TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer. We now want to share it with you. And even excerpt. Which we've done. Feels good. For us anyway.

COBALT: Many readers comment on your ability to draw from hotspots around Chicago – the social environments that people who live in or have visited the city can identify with. How does your hometown feed you as a writer?
Tanzer: Great question, and I should note that as a native New Yorker, I should probably refer to Chicago as my adopted hometown in case anyone takes offense. And yes, I'm talking to you, Joe Meno and Billy Lombardo. No really I am talking to you guys. Let's get some coffee some time. That said, I am fed as all writers are fed. We are always absorbing what is around us, where we go, what we see, and smell and touch and as we write and the stories come together these experiences trickle-in, sometimes consciously and sometimes not, and then when we edit we ask ourselves about the places we are contemplating and the locations we've identified and whether they have the meaning we want to imbue them with or some other place might better capture it. And so it's always shifting and always driven by what is and has been ingested, and for me, especially lately, it is Chicago, where I live now and have been living, and the stories that I'm writing about seem to belong here, just as some of the older stories I have written seemed to belong somewhere else. 

The My Father's House Interview, Part I - A Myles and Ben Tanzer joint production.

 
More here. Or here.

The My Fathers House Interview, Part I - A Myles and Ben Tanzer joint production.

 
More here. Or here.

Big thanks to the quite stellar, and lovely, fictio...

Big thanks to the quite stellar, and lovely,  fiction crew at The Nervous Breakdown, and we do hope the descriptor "lovely" is not pejorative, much less a diminutive, or what have you, is it fiction crew, for running a new piece of ours titled The Angel of Death, which is one of a series of Chicago stories we have been working on that have been popping-up in a variety of stellar literary locations near you, including the Metazen, Fix It Broken and Smalldoggies. Please do take a look and if it works for you, maybe have yourself some excerpt as well.

"Hey!" someone behind me screams.

"Jesus Walks, God show me the way…"

I am lost in the newspaper, headphones in place and walking along the platform at the Damen Blue line stop in Wicker Park.

"Jesus Walks with me, with me, with me…"

"Hey!" they scream again, followed by a playful shove to the back.

I remove my headphones. It's her and she's all smiles. I'm still conflicted about whether I think she's attractive, with her buzz cut, crazy angular features and harsh cheekbones. She could almost pass for a dude, a boy really, but for her breasts which are swelling under an ancient Smoking Popes T-shirt, those hips, just climbing above her baggy jeans, and that ass, that golden ass.

"Where's your head at, man?" she says smiling, but intense, hungry.

She adjusts her T-shirt. Was I staring at her chest? I need to watch that, but can it really be avoided? I don't know. I don't even really know her. I once knew her, sort of, before I was married, though you wouldn't call it a friendship exactly.

We worked at the same agency and she had been hired to oversee this huge grant, AIDS stuff, before protease inhibitors and before anyone could manage the disease. People died then. That's all. I don't even remember what kind of program she was running, what anyone ran back then, hospice and support groups mostly. It was horrible. They called her the Angel of Death. It was mean to be funny, escapist, black humor. But she couldn't deal.

Connotation Press. The March. Quasi-self indulgence. And Interview Sundays. Part Two.

More, yes, more interview, more Connotation, more excerpt, and more terrificness from the Meg Tuite, this time talking with TBWCYL, Inc. favorite and big-time supporter, the Anna March. Enjoy. And word. Big word.


Who have been some major influences in your writing career?
Soooo many.......James Baldwin. Richard Russo.  John Irving.  Ann Beattie.  Tillie Olsen.  Zora Neale Hurston. Ray Carver.  Daphne Merkin.  Lois Lowry.   Alice Walker.  Marie Howe.  Jack Gilbert.  Dai Saijie. Bob Dylan. Ellen Gilchrist.  Quincy Troupe.  Faulkner.  Faulkner.  Faulkner.

I keep a little note on my computer that says:  "Where's the heart?" -- that's from Michael Stearns.   The other note I keep there says:  "Does it hurt yet?" -- that's from Pam Houston.  Those two questions guide me.

Connotation Press. The Bradley. Quasi-self indulgence. And Interview Sundays. Part One.

Yes, true, that, the quite terrific Meg Tuite and Connotation Press talked Prize Winners with the Ryan W. Bradley this week, which can only mean one thing, Interview Sundays are back, we are most geeked, we think you might want to take a look and we are even providing some excerpt because we are good like. 



The title story, "Prize Winners," is the one we are publishing and quite a powerful and memorable story. What was your inspiration for this story?
To me it feels shamefully obvious that I was reading Aimee Bender when I wrote this story, but it probably wouldn't necessarily come to mind for others, so I've ruined the romance of it now. I don't remember much about what spurred the story other than that when I read something I really like I often have an urge to write my version of that story. So, in this case I had read some Aimee Bender and thought, "what would my version of an Aimee Bender story be?"
Originally it had a much more Bender-esque ending (which I just now re-read for the first time since it was changed), but in revisions the ending changed to its current version, which is much more consistent with my style, if I have what can be considered a style.

The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live. All full of Hooray. And Santos. And yes, there is a lot of Santos going on around here this week. Feels good, right? Indeed.

The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live. We have a new poem from old friend Greg Santos, which we are way excited about, and, (almost) as always, photo action from Adam Lawrence, music curation from Jason Behrends and jobs bill touting 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, Go Bears!

These (Chap) Books Will Change Your Life - The Emperor's Sofa by Greg Santos and A Soft That Touches Down & Removes Itself by David Tomaloff.

We are so poetry this week and so digging it. We have said before that at times, it just feels obligatory, how can you want to write and not read poetry, seems wrong, without poetry where else would we try to figure out how to be sparse and lyrical and say in just a few lines, and sometimes, many times, more beautifully at that, what we say in whole stories, poems being these multicolored explosions of electricity bending their way through and around whatever comes before them in quick blasts, here and gone, but still lingering. Which leads us to The Emperor's Sofa by Greg Santos, a former and soon, quite soon, like this week, contributor to This Zine Will Change Your Life, and yes there is certainly some pluggage going on here, and A Soft That Touches Down & Removes Itself by David Tomaloff who we have yet to meet, but somehow feels like someone we need to spend some time with soon, you hear that Tomaloff? Good. Anyway, the chaps, both of which are great and well-crafted reads, vibrant and focused, eschewing the sweeping, for the here, now, and what's happening in front of you, us, the reader, whoever. With Santos, we get an ongoing commentary about how this may be what poems are supposed to look like, love, mysteries and real life, but with a dose of humor, a dash of pop culture, and a wink, riffing on love, but using the Hulk to communicate it, because he can, and because you will dig it. And then there is the Tomaloff, working the personal, a series of moments and exchanges, witty communications rife with metaphor and imagery between the author and some unidentified woman, who won't take his shit, is not impressed with his verbiage or observations, but stays with him in the thing they are in, this relationship, their discourse, and the omnipresent tug-of-war we call relationships and are always trying to work through, work out and just make work, ideally with a smile and some wry commentary to make it not just bearable, but fun, because there can be fun, right? Of course there can. Both chaps then just may change your life, but even if they don't, they still need to be consumed, because poetry needs to be consumed, explosions all, here for a moment, electric and bound to change something. 
 

Please file under new books being released by publishers we love that also maybe kind of love us too and so we are hyping them like mad, Part Two.

Yo, The Artistic Life by Mark SaFranko is the new joint out from young upstart Mendicant Books who we are happy to let you know will also soon be putting out an original joint from TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer. For real. And shortly. 

Please file under new books being released by publishers we love that also maybe kind of love us too and so we are hyping them like mad, Part One.

Yo, American Wasteland from CCLaP is here. We are most excited about this and think you could be too. We also think that it is very likely to change your life, like now, so let's hit that okay? Nice.