This Other Eden

This Other Eden, a collection of inter-related novellas, is scheduled for May, 2010 from The Dybbuk Press.

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Shabbytown

Black Mask Books, an imprint of Disruptive Publishing and Munseys,  has issued, on Dec. 31, 2009, my short novel (or novella?), Shabbytown.

My Norman K. Denzin Award

Presented to me by the Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research for my paper, “Autoethnographic Fragments of My Grandmothers.”

The paper will be published in 2010 in the McFarland & Co. anthology, First Person Sociology:  Essays Towards Autoethnohraphy in Today’s Qualitative Research.

Short Essay in The Hemingway Review

The new Fall/Winter 2009 issue of The Hemingway Review , published by The Heminwgay Society and Univ of Idaho Press, contains a short research essay I wrote on the “Bimini” excerpt from Islands in the Stream that Esquire published in 1970.  Gordon Lish was fiction editor at the time, when Howard Hayes ran the men’s journal.

When I was researching Lish’s papers at Indiana Univ. last year on two Helm Fellowships, I found letters from Mary Welsh Hemingway to Lish — they spent much time together, and she was not happy with the cover photo of her deceased hubby, nor the situation with the excerpt (which the magazine had paid $30K for — probably $200K in 1970 money!).

Gordon Lish, of course, has again lately been the subject of much debate in the press now that Raymond Carver’s Beginners and a new biography is out, which is anti-Lish.

My Carver bio, which will be out in 2011 from McFarland and Company, will tend to be pro-Lish editing — for the most part.  I contend Carver would not be he institute he is without Lish’s help; he would have been a obscure but respected minor short story writer published by small and university presses, not McGraw-Hill and Knopf, which Lish had to go up to bat and do songs and dances to secure book contracts.

“Why Don’t You Use Your Parking Space?”

The 2009 issue of Gargoyle Magazine (more like anthology) contains my short story, “Why Don’t You Use Your Parking Space?” which is the lead story in my Black Lawrence Press collection, Pictures of Houses with Water Damage, out Summer 2010.

This is issue #55, cover image below.  I have been reading Richard Peabody’s Gargoyle since I was 16, contributing now and then since I was 18.  Long history here. I also had stories in Peabody’s books, Momdo Marilyn and Mondo James Dean (St. Martin’s Press).

New Traveler’s Companion: Tropic of Kimber

Olympia Press has just published, as New Traveler’s Companion #144, my 376-page Tropic of Kimber, which comprises all three volumes of my House of Dreams trilogy that Blue Moon Books put out 2005-2007.

Blue Moon was set to issue all three in a trade paper omnibus, but they folded before that happened.

So, finally, here are all three, under a new title, in a classic plain green cover…

Order from Amazon here.

The Dress Reprinted

Originally published in 2002 by Blue Moon Books and included in my omnibus collection, The Garden of Love (Blue Moon, 2004), The Dress has been reprinted by the Olympia Press in one of those nifty plain green New Traveler’s Companion Editions — #150 here.

The movie option is still in effect but have not heard anything lately about its progress into development and production.

Quite a history with this little book — I started it way back in 1995, finished it in 1997, was published in 1998 in Maxim Jakubowski’s Mammoth Book of New Erotica as a 30K word novella, then I expanded it to 45K words for Blue Moon.  It’s the only erotic novel of mine that has brought in decent money over the past decade.

SF Studies Issue on Sex and Science-Fiction

The recent issue of SF Studies (Vol. 36.3, whole #109), with the theme “Sex and Science Fiction” has two longish research notes by me:

“Vintage Sleaze and SF” — about Robert Silverberg, Harlan Ellison, Earl Kemp and Nighstand/Greenleaf/Cornith.

“Sex and Star Trek” — self-explanatory

NaNoWriMo: Post-Crime Noir and A Bra Full of Bullets, Yo

Every year I try to do the National Novel Writing Month thang, aka NaNoWriMo, but I always get side-tracked.  Doing 50,000 words in 30 days is nothing, it’s a matter of not letting assignments, deadlines for late books, new book deals, and life get in the way.

It’s a good motiavtor.

So I decided my project this year will be this post-crime noir-y thang I’ve had in my head since summer that I shall call A Bra Full of Bullets (appropriated, apropos, from Hal Dresner’s The Man Who Wrote Dirty Books).

Essay on Vollmann’s Seven Dreams in New Critical Anthology

Continuing my literay scholarship in all things William T. Vollman Studies, my essay on Native America myths found in his Seven Dreams Series is included in the above anthology, published now by Mythopetic Press.