Ben Tanzer's Blog, page 20

The New York Stories (and Orphans) - and so many quite fine books - is Small Press Pittsburgh at the Polish Hill Arts Festival, yo.

There is F250 by the Bud Smith.

And much more on all of that soon.

Possibly more Ben Tanzer than anyone should rightfully have to bear. But probably just the right amount of The New York Stories to change your life.

Or so we're told. Regardless, big thanks to Brad King and The Geeky Press for all of it.

So this is what Cobalt's first year of book publishing looks like, yo.

Totally. And much more here. So much more.

The New York Stories is Basement Speaker Series. It is also quite fine line-up. And it is happening next Thursday, July 30th in Cleveland, OH at the Sally Tatnall Black Box,

We should add how excited we are and how much we appreciate Guide To Kulchur making it so. For more details please go here. And to check out the invitation, here. Cool? Indeed.

In which we ruminate on becoming punk and The Decline of Western Civilization at THOUGHT CATALOG.

For real. The THOUGHT CATALOG. Excerpt? Word.

"One day I am sifting through the CDs in the punk section at the one-time Tower Records near my office on Wabash below the “L” Tracks. I am new to punk. When people who are my age and who still love punk started loving punk, I was more focused on varsity sports, fitting in and the Doors; followed by inhaling copious amounts of hallucinogens, the Grateful Dead and long, spacey jams. But something had shifted. A desire for noise and punches to the head, vibrating walls and speed, sparse, quick songs that slam and joke, dart into the room and then out again, as the music heads onto the next thing and the next thing and thing after that. No pause, just one musical blow after another is now my thing, and I am consuming all the punk I can, including the band I stumble onto that day, Be Your Own Pet. They are young and angry and funny and fast and I spend the rest of the afternoon listening to their self-titled debut album with equal parts joy, and confusion – how didn’t this sound appeal to me when I was their age, and why does it now?"

We are Alternating Press interview.

We really totally are. And we are most appreciative too. Totally. Excerpt? Cool.

I like that you brought up anxieties. Many of your books’ characters seem to be working through anxieties of their own, as well. Do you find that fiction helps, as a way to process your own anxieties?

I’m glad to be of assistance. And I am really interested in anxiety, though particularly as a means for exploring how or why we act, or don’t. How does anxiety—among other things: fear, confusion, joy, ego, depression, envy—serve as an obstacle to being in healthy relationships or engaging in healthy behaviors? How do these things impact our ability to communicate with those we love, or might love, and undermine our ability to be as great, or fulfilled—that’s a lot of or, sorry—as we might have been. And the characters who struggle with those things are the kinds of characters I’m interested in writing about. Some of them, like the characters in my debut novel, Lucky Man, are much like I am, and others, like the lead characters in my novels, My Father’s House or You Can Make Him Like You , or the lead protagonists in a number of the stories in The New York Stories, especially the trio of linked stories—“Shooting Stick,” “No Nothing,” and “Vision”—run into situations I run into, but make decisions that I would not make. All of which is interesting to me. Now, does writing about anxiety help me to process my anxieties? Only slightly. Like running, it’s an outlet and a form of managing my anxieties. But it’s more like fertile ground for my writing than a way to process it. It’s calming, even therapeutic, but it’s not therapy. I don’t necessarily understand any of it any better, but I do get to wallow in it in ways that are productive and interesting.

This Podcast Will Change Your Life, Episode One Hundred and Twelve - Luckiest Guy Ever, starring the Jonathan Travelstead.

So podcast we are, yo. And quite Travelstead too. We are also death and anxiety, Cobalt Press, poetry, mothers, the national guard and not actually being EMT at all. So do hit it, it just might change your life.   

Lost in Space Twitter hype there is.

thanks to @BenTanzer for reading at the @TheGeekyPress event tonight, excited to read this! pic.twitter.com/TdQ1pdpmyb

— erik fox (@erik_fox) July 16, 2015

There is new Elizabeth Crane which means we can all smile again.

Hands down, my favorite book cover ever. pic.twitter.com/84YKV05rSZ— Elizabeth Crane (@Elizabeth_Crane) July 16, 2015