Ben Tanzer's Blog, page 200

This Book Will Change Your Life - Fight for Your Long Day by Alex Kudera.

Travel. Read. And so many thoughts on Fight for Your Long Day the debut novel by new TBCWYL, Inc. favorite and from what we now know one-time quasi-acquaintance Alex Kudera. In essence, we have two buckets of thoughts that we think are complimentary and explanatory and on the one hand, but sort of cancel each other out on the other, which we think may be unfortunate, or reflects poorly on us, but definitely does not on this book, and more soon, now, on that. So, first bucket, this is a highly intelligent book which references and pays homage to One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, while also touching on a wealth of other literary references including, but not limited to Frederick Exley's A Fan's Notes. Further, and related, in some fashion, let's call it skill, this is a well-crafted book, the sentence structure and layering and flow, and Kudera, and yes we know this follows, is truly a craftsman. These are positives, big time, and yet as we thought, and now write, about them, we began to worry that such attributes might scare people off, we hope not, but that's we thought and we got worried, which made us think how important it was to not forget that there is a whole other bucket in place as well, and that bucket, is one comprised of humor, pop culture and political touchstones, sex, flow, and easy to readness, yet still packed, and it is packed, with vibrant imagery and secondary characters and all sorts of fascinating commentary on work, corporate life, the state of education, and the profound, at times, insipid, is that the right word, impact of terrorism on our lives, all of which makes for a wonderfully electric read about the world today and what we struggle with, and think about, and encounter, all of us, not just adjuncts, which might be my other concern, this book has been celebrated as an insightful and colorful description of the adjunct life, and it is, but it's so much more as well, really, and totally, so read it now, okay, and enjoy it, now, cool? Thanks.

It's back. And we are geeking out. Please feel free to join us at your leisure.

TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog coolness. Tell Me a Story. And Joshua Mohr.

So, the fine folks at TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog have a great new feature called Tell Me a Story where they are inviting writers to write them a previously unpublished story. First up, is TBWCYL, Inc. favorite Joshua Mohr, and there are rumors, that TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer just might be making an appearance as well. We'll see, but for now, some excerpt.

"Between these questions, though, I have to entertain myself. I've been watching eighteen, nineteen hours of TV a day, which it turns out is a good thing because it's where I see it: where I see baseball players celebrating, pouring champagne over one another's heads, guzzling the stuff, spanking the asses of every teammate within an arm's length. I'm no baseball fan, didn't even know the World Series was happening right now. I mean, how am I supposed to worship millionaires with low IQs who adjust their cocks and spit brown piles of tobacco in the grass that look like smashed tarantulas?"

Mary Miller. The Rumpus. And an inadvertent, albeit ongoing, AWP round-up sort of thing.

There are a number of AWP wrap-up type things flying around the internet that we are quite enjoying, though we have not quite been inspired to do one ourselves. Still, the experience of being there has been trickling into our communications over the last week and will probably continue to for some time after this. One of the highlights, maybe the highlight, of the whole experience for us was the endless swirling, twisting, chaotic hustle as we bounced from one writer or publisher to another, in some cases people we feel like we've known for some time, but had yet to meet in person, Ryan "Reynolds" Bradley from Artistically Declined, Dave Housley from Barrelhouse, yes that Barrelhouse, Michael Fitzgerald of Radiant Days awesomeness, or Caleb J. Ross of Charactered Pieces fame, long-time TBWCYL, Inc. favorites and friends such as Mel Bosworth, Scott McClanahan and S. Craig Renfroe, not to mention the Lindsay Hunter who may live right here in Chicago, but who we still never see enough of; newer acquaintances like Tom Williams of the soon to be published The Mimic's Own Voice, Dan Cafaro of the most triumphant Atticus Books, Chris Heavener from so kind Annalemma and Alan Heathcock of the so now, so hot Volt; writers new to us we can't wait to learn more about, Nik Korpon, Brandon Tietz, Amber Sparks, David Kiefaber and Matty Byloos; and then another sort of group, writers we admire, but have never met or corresponded with, and while there are many, one who made a huge impression on us was long-time TBWCYL, Inc. favorite Mary Miller the author of Big World who among others we had dinner with one night and who turned out to be as lyrical and captivating as her stellar short stories, all of which is a long way of saying we did our best not to be total fan boys when we met her, though we are, and while we probably would have mentioned here how much we enjoyed the interview we just read with her in The Rumpus at any time, what a different flavor it has after meeting her. So, please do check it out, enjoy the below excerpt, something we plan to quote and/or steal as needed and yeah, this turns to be a sort of AWP round-up anyway, go figure.

Rumpus: What is the gestation process like for your stories? Do they start with a character? An idea? A simile?

Miller: Never a simile, sometimes an idea, often a sentence. The narrator is nearly always a thinly veiled version of myself so this takes some of the question out of it. If the narrator isn't "me" then it's someone watching "me." It's a very narcissistic world I live in.

Fathers. And father figures. Jeff Bridges. Unforgiven Charles Portis. Atonement. Hallie Steinfeld. Dead Man. And Barry Pepper. True Grit.

"Easy and graceful." You Can Make Him Like You gets Banners of Death'd. And likes it. A lot.

You Can Make Him Like You has received its first review from Dave Kiefaber over at Banners of Death and quite geeked we are. We had the chance to meet Dave at the AWP and we really appreciate the kind thoughts. We're going to share some excerpt below and then we're going to report back soon on his chapbook You People Disgust Me which is sitting here, right here, as we speak.

"I do take issue with the reviews mentioning how saturated with pop culture the book is, because it's much more genuine than that. "Pop Culture" books are usually insufferable, brand name-dropping turds that laugh at their own jokes too much, and You Can Make Him Like You is miles above that classification in terms of delivery and content - in fact, it makes the incredibly difficult process of developing and maintaining a character arc look easy and graceful, in the same way that Timothy Willis Sanders does when he's on point."

"I did really enjoy this book." You Can Make Him Like You gets Banners of Death'd. And likes it. A lot.

You Can Make Him Like You has received its first review from Dave Kiefaber over at Banners of Death and quite geeked we are. We had the chance to meet Dave at the AWP and we really appreciate the kind thoughts. We're going to share some excerpt below and then we're going to report back soon on his chapbook You People Disgust Me which is sitting here, right here, as we speak.

"I do take issue with the reviews mentioning how saturated with pop culture the book is, because it's much more genuine than that. "Pop Culture" books are usually insufferable, brand name-dropping turds that laugh at their own jokes too much, and You Can Make Him Like You is miles above that classification in terms of delivery and content - in fact, it makes the incredibly difficult process of developing and maintaining a character arc look easy and graceful, in the same way that Timothy Willis Sanders does when he's on point."

This (e-) Book Will Change Your Life - Supercomputer by Jordan Castro.

Travel, read, we're are easing back into it and are very excited as always to check out new presses and new work and sift through the tremendous amount of good writing that is endlessly percolating and finding its way into our mailbox, inbox and hipster TIMBUK2 bike bag. And so it is that we read Supercomputer by Jordan Castro the new e-book from the new Deckfight Press, a publishing spin-off from long time TBWCYL, Inc. favorites Deckfight, purveyors of all good things literature and music. Supercomputer is a collection of interlocking stories, no poems, maybe prose poems even, focused on work and girls and possibility, mostly the lack there of, that hit us on a variety of levels, not the least of which was the idea that not only did we enter adulthood at a different place and time than the protagonist(s) in this collection, but that in so many ways this collection is almost a literary and pop culture driven anthropological survey of the state of young adults, twenty somethings, Millenials, what have you, today, because something is happening out there across the country, less work, the necessity of going back home, and the lack of direction due to the the lack of opportunities and choises regardless of direction, and in that way Supercomputer becomes a snapshot of what is now, if not what will be for some time, and a voice for the disenfranchised, which really is what art can be, maybe should be, and something Castro and Deckfight have jumped on in a most exciting fashion.

The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live and all full of Madonnas and angels and Giacomo Lee.

The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live and all full of Madonnas and angels. Huh. We have a new piece my angel rocks back and forth (ex-voto) by Giacomo Lee, which we are way excited about, and, (almost) as always, photo action from Adam Lawrence, music curation from Jason Behrends and repeal veto 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, and art, and video, yes, video, and combinations there of. And most finally, please do keep the cool side cool and the hot side hot.

You Can Make Him Like You AWP action.