Ben Tanzer's Blog, page 31

This Podcast Will Change Your Life, Episode One Hundred and Four - He Loved Me, starring the Sheldon Lee Compton.

We love us the Sheldon Lee Compton. We are Skype. And we are podcast. But we are also Appalachia, tragic fathers, flash fiction, children, brain space, labels, Harry Crews, and much, much more. So do hit it, because it just might change your life as it has ours.

Coolness.

After the Flood Tweet hype there is.

@BenTanzer - After the Flood #FridayReads
— Benoît Lelièvre (@BenoitLelievre) March 27, 2015

Because we are so quite likely to never appear in the Paris Review again we think it best that we most unabashedly hype their unabashed hype of our AWP panel "In the Middle of Everything: Independent Publishing in the Midwest." like right now.

And done. More here. As needed of course.

These Books Will Change Your Life - The Garden of Good and Evil Pancakes by the David S. Atkinson and Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty by the Brian Alan Ellis.

Travel. Read. Florida. Read. Alabama. Blizzards. Hotels. Read. Shrimp and Grits. Gin & Tonics. Read. And both The Garden of Good and Evil Pancakes by the David S. Atkinson and Something Good, Something Bad, Something Dirty by the Brian Alan Ellis. Both of which are blurbed by the Bud Smith. Both of which reference the Village Inn. And both of which arrived at the corporate headquarters within days, if not hours of one another, and are hence, and forever, intrinsically linked in our collective lit memory. Which raises the question of whether these books, and authors, have anything to do with one another, and if there is some connective tissue beyond a diner, a Smith, and a common destination? Or whether they are in fact part of some kind of movement. They are indy lit, but so are most books we read. They are male, but that's not saying much, we know a lot of those. They do relationships at once young, and tortured, and the people in those relationships talk a lot. Maybe something Mumblelitcoresque then? Is that even a thing? And if not can we coin it as such, or something just like it? Though regardless, is any of this even necessary? Maybe not in the greater hustle and flow of all things lit and movement, but it is to us.
 

And yet, these are very different productions as well. Ellis is all about grime. His words and pages are caked with it. Not that this grime can cover-up his characters rampant sense of failure, though more than failure it's their existence as those among the never was. They never were going to be anything, but what they are, coke-addled, diner smashing denizens of Ellis world, who endlessly talk shit to compensate for just how much suck there is in said world. Which isn't to say that Ellis doesn't draw a rich world full of colorful characters doing colorful things, because he does, and they are, and that as Ellis completists, we are quite enjoying watching his canon expand, and the rougher edges grow more honed with each outing, the words full of life, and dance. And there is the Atkinson, he of Bones Buried in the Dirt, easily one of out favorite reads in 2013, and now The Garden, which lo and behold, is an epically different reading experience entirely, hipster magic realism, full of satire and sadness. But then not so different either in that these are characters who only know loss, and live in bubbles, both self-made and thrust upon them, while seeing no real way out, something writ much larger and metaphorical certainly in The Garden. Which is to say that Atkinson has stretched here, pushing the sparse language and realism of Bones somewhere funnier and weirder, while still retaining his characters ability to hurt and be hurt by one another. All of which is to say that this may be what Atkinson and Ellis share after all, hurt, inescapable and real, with no real sense how to escape from it. Now does that make for a movement? Why not? We just need a name. Well, that and people reading the books themselves. So do hit it, them, because it, they, just might change your life.      

Lost in Space is 31st International Symposium on Child Abuse, yo.

The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life i...

The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live, and we are thrilled to have new poem, we pray to Mary Magdalene by Jessica Robinson, and (almost) as always, photo action from Adam Lawrence, music curation from Jason Behrends and Mayoral runoff 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, Ted Cruz, really.

So this is real. And by this we mean that TBWYCL, Inc. Spokesperson Ben Tanzer will be a Featured Literary Guest at C2E2 this year. Also, we are as shocked as you are.

And yet, if you want to learn more about this quite amazing turn of events you may do so here. For real. Go ahead. Right? Indeed.

Yup.

My kids are old pic.twitter.com/I3hu6IWhmr
— Darth Vader (@DepressedDarth) March 21, 2015

The Cobalt 2015 Frank McCourt Creative Nonfiction Prize is nigh. And judge it we will.

Seriously, it's nigh, and TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer will be judge. So do hit it. It just might change your life.