Soft Skull Announce

Soft Skull Announce Message

2008-08-22T15:46:57Z

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LE SOFT SKULL NEWSLETTER, vol. 2, AUGUST 2008

Welcome, welcome internet readers! Here today for your grazing pleasure is the Second Edition of the all-electronic Soft Skull Press Monthly Newsletter, featuring a full re-cap of this months most delicious deep-fried news tid-bits, smothered in a rich, savory informational gravy. So, dear internet readers, gorge yourself on this news-feast without shame, and whatever your plate may be - laptop, blackberry, your grubby awful jealousy-inducing iphone - be sure to lick it clean!

It begins!
-------------------------------

FIRST OFF - a light salad of selected scrumptious reviews:

David Ohle's "The Pisstown Chaos" has received recent praise from a number of leading leafy publications. Time Out New York calls it "tragically hilarious" and recognizes Ohle as "a beacon to younger, loosely experimental fiction writers;" The Village Voice praises the book's "cool logic of the insane;" and the ever-satisfying and hearty Huffington Post calls Ohle's approach to political satire "potent and compelling." Not one to be left out of the praise-jamboree, the Brooklyn rail had the following to say: "Ultimately... The Pisstown Chaos reveals itself to be a sly and rambunctious satire, devilishly well-imagined and playfully rough with the reader."

Ah, so crisp! Do make sure to keep you ear to the wind, for blowing in from this nation's far Left Coast in the frighteningly-near future will be an wee article on Mr. Ohle Himself, courtesy of those language-wizards over at San Francisco's The Believer!

SECOND - Even when enjoying the fruits of a fine harvest, one mustn't forget to pay attention to their global current-events. For this, we direct your attention to the War Nerd's most recent revelations. And while you chew over that particular morsel, take care to wash it down with a few words from Mother Jones and the Washington City Paper.

THIRD - Review Soup! What is more satisfying than soup? Nothing! Everyone loves it! We drink it up! Enjoy this hodge-podge stew of recent reviews from our most-visually stimulating of offerings, E. Robert Arellano's "Dead in Desemboque" and Ilan Stavans' "Mr. Spic Goes to Washington."

New Mexico�s Read Five magazine's cavernous cauldron-style feature about about "Dead in Desemboque" yields the following lip-smacking nugget: �The combination of great art and the story of a heroic rake chasing loose mujeres and being dogged by posse of unsavory hombres makes Dead in Desemboque an historieta worth experiencing over and over again, no matter which side of the border you�re on.�

Bookslut�s John Zuarino recently conducted an interview with Arellano, discussing �powerful recollection of a genre that has somehow been primarily unexplored in anglophone literature".

Never one's to skimp on portion, Bookslut also featured an interview with Ilan Stavans, discussing Stavans� ideas of �progressive revolution to an old-fashioned system that sometimes seems like it will never change.�

More love for Stavans came in from The Amhearst Bulletin, My San Antonio Entertainment, and Tu Boston, along with blog-luvvin' from Tex[t]-Mex, LaBloga , and Tejaztlan Notebook (which are, by the by, the three greatest blog names in the short, epic history of blog name). Allow their combined mellifluousness to dance about your senses, be they confused and prone to synesthesia as my quickly unraveling extended news=food metaphor! (P.s. Check out a teeny excerpt of Mr. Spic here.)

AND NOW THE MAIN EVENT! Adjust your waistbands and spectacles, my dears, for we give you now the entertainment portion of the evening! Put down your forks, remove your pudgy fist from the french-fry dish, and plug in your RealPlayer - it's time for some Audio/Visual stimulation!

Perhaps you remember way back when, during summers on Cape Cod, you would gather 'round the children, plop them down on the sofa, and fire-up the boob tube for the once-a-year showing of the only movie that has ever really mattered: the Wizard of Oz. Oh, the joy in their eyes!

Well, those days are gone! The Age of Film is dead and buried, replaced by a blinding fusion of all media (or so some would have you think.) Either way, a NEW version of L. Frank Baum's classic story is being forged as we speak, a remarkable cyborg of text and illustration by none other than Graham Rawle. Behold, in a fabulous YouTube preview, the WIZARD of OZ.

And while you are there, on that most distracting of sites, check out this little youtube clip about the acclaimed "All About Lulu." Speaking of Lulu, we must mention a recent rights acquisition by a certain Brazilian publisher: Arx has bought the rights to Mr. Evison's novel, and will soon be spreading Lulu love all over their fine country. In other rights and acquisitions news, "War Nerd" is going international! It will soon be published in Spanish by Enrique Murillo's new publishing venture Los Libros del Lince. Next time you find yourself enjoying tapas under a heavy Catalonian sun, consider picking up a copy. AND our beloved Black Flies will soon see release, courtesy of Random House, in those most United of Kingdoms, THE United Kingdom.

Perhaps you live under a rock. Perhaps your genetic capacity to laugh was removed at birth. Perhaps you have embraced irony to a point so deep that the only "funny" things in the world are extinction and apocalypse. Whatever the reason, your too-cool-for-school days-without-laughing streak is over. BEHOLD.....the animated, the unbelievable, the red-white-and-blue FIRST EPISODE of GET YOUR WAR ON!

The hilarity spilling out of Get Your War On's animated edition has been recognized by quite a few little internet soap-boxes. Ladies and gentleman, a run down:

From BoingBoing, who call it their "absolutely my favorite political comic" -
From Comedy Central, and it's Indecision 2008 blog -
From Wired, the overlords and chroniclers of all thing techno-trendy.
From a French politics blog -
From Raw Story -
From The Guardian:
and finally, from the Times!

But now, back to the cinema! sort of! Alex Cox's fascinating "X-Films" has been drawing the attention of some note-worthy outlets over there on the distant, expensive shores of the United Kingdom. The Independent calls the book "a very revealing look at the day-to-day difficulties of being an independent filmmaker" and suggest that "every student at film school should be obliged to read it." Continuing the academic hints, Film in Focus writes that "the book...reflects Cox's own generous, passionate, instinctively polemical nature: he makes a great teacher both of film production and film history." Somebody hire this man! Let him instruct your visionary children! X-Films will be out this fall from Soft Skull.

Ah, so this edition of the Soft Skull Newsletter draws to a close. The bones have been picked dry, the casks of ale nearly exhausted, and the mighty towers of dessert Jello - once so wiggly and gravity-defiant - have been consumed down to their giggly, jazzy basements. Let the dish wait till morning. All there is left to do is slip into our robes, retire to our leather-trimmed studies, and contemplate the ungodly media ingestion that has just taken place, until sleep - that dusky, ancient phantom - falls over our brows like so much devils food cake at a sloppy birthday party food-fight.

I leave you with this, and perhaps this, to help you along the way.

Alas,
Jonathan Lazzara
Newsletter Editor
Soft Skull Press

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April Silver and CAConrad readings in August

2008-08-07T13:37:51Z

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Hello from Soft Skull Press!

We just wanted to check in with you and let you know that if you're tired of the summer heat and want to sit in the tranquil, air-conditioned comfort of a bookstore while listening to some of our fabulous authors read, there are some upcoming events by April Silver (Be A Father To Your Child) and CA Conrad (Deviant Propulsion) that you should definitely stop by at.

April Silver, editor of Be A Father To Your Child: Real Talk from Black Men on Family, Love and Fatherhood will be reading with anthology contributors activist Thabiti Boone, award-winning poet Mo Beasley and Loren Harris at Barnes and Noble in Brooklyn (106 Court Street) next Thursday, August 14, at 7pm. This new anthology compiles the poems, lyrics, short stories, essay, interviews and commentaries on parenting and relationship from the perspective of fathers and sons born during or at the same time that hip hop culture emerged. Be A Father To Your Child has been cited as an absolute must-read book for anyone involved or interested in the black community. It is a mind-bending anthology that examines the broad socio-historical and cultural contexts behind fatherhood within the African-American community but also includes more personal and anecdotal pieces which provides the writers' full range of experiences with the fathers and father figures. For anyone who is located a l
ittle further out of New York City, Silver will also be reading in Nanuet, NY on August 7th at 7pm (Barnes & Noble, 140 Rockland Plaza).

On August 10th, at noon, CAConrad, author of Deviant Propulsion, will be reading at the Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery) along with authors Tim Peterson and Laura Goldstein. Deviant Propulsion is a collection of energetic, flamboyant poems that are grounded in queer culture, where the right to where the right to act on basic desires can become a battleground, and everyday acts of love and devotion must be enacted as a political form of defiance. With an immediacy and fervor that jumps off the page, CAConrad suggests that in a world paralyzed by fear, moving at speed of deviants is the only way to transform potential into action, and desire into positive change.

Hope to see you there!

Sincerely,
Soft Skull Press

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Bynoe on CNN's "Black in America"

2008-07-23T16:15:28Z

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CNN taps nationally recognized Hip Hop expert and author Yvonne Bynoe (<a href="http://www.yvonnebynoe.com"; id="ijnr" title="www.yvonnebynoe.com">www.yvonnebynoe.com</a>) to weigh in on the controversial topic of Black women’s images in contemporary rap music videos. Her interview was taped this past weekend as part the network’s two-part series Black in America, airing today (Wednesday) and Thursday of this week. 
 
"My key contribution to the dialogue is to challenge the idea that rap artists and video actresses are the key decision-makers regarding which images of Black women are disseminated. Radio conglomerates, cable television stations and record companies are the real image makers. These multi-national entertainment companies will have Black women doing more than swinging from poles in rap videos when it becomes financially detrimental to do otherwise. For this to happen the public is going to have to strike these companies’ pockets in strategic and sustained ways," says Bynoe. 
 
Bynoe is the editor of the forthcoming book, Who's Your Mama? (<a href="http://www.softskull.com"; id="vnip" title="Soft Skull">Soft Skull</a>, May 2009), an anthology of women's writings about motherhood that addresses race, class, sexuality, identity and intimate partnership. Her other books are the acclaimed <a href="http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-932360-10-7"; id="gomx" title="Stand & Deliver: Political Activism, Leadership and Hip Hop Culture">Stand & Deliver: Political Activism, Leadership and Hip Hop Culture</a> (2004) and the Encyclopedia of Rap and Hip Hop Culture, the first comprehensive reference book on the topic. 
 
Earlier this year, another two Soft Skull authors were featured a major MSNBC special "A Live Conversation About Race," broadcast from Howard University's Washington, D.C. campus and stream simultaneously on msnbc.com—Kevin Powell the author of <a href="http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=978-0-9796636-9-7"; id="z792" title="No Sleep Til Brooklyn: Selected Poems">No Sleep Til Brooklyn: Selected Poems</a> (2008) and <a href="http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-933368-57-8"; id="w:qz" title="Some Day We'll All Be Free">Some Day We'll All Be Free</a> (2006); and Tim Wise the author of <a href="http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-933368-99-3"; id="ab5q" title="White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son">White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son</a> (Soft Skull 2005, revised edition Jan 2008), and the forthcoming <a href="http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=978-1-59376-207-0"; id="w3v4" title="Speaking
Treason Fluently">Speaking Treason Fluently</a> (Soft Skull, Sept 2008). The other panelists were Tom Joyner, Michael Eric Dyson, Malaak Compton-Rock, Kriss Turner, Mike Barnicle, Rev. Buster Soaries—"NBC Nightly News" Anchor and Managing Editor Brian Williams moderated the event. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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The Soft Skull News Letter and Informational Jamboree Vol. 1

2008-07-18T17:18:21Z

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If anything, summer is the season of distraction. The daydreams of island vacations, the wild impulses to quit the continent and move to Antarctica, the endless tyranny of the neighborhood ice cream man, and the fascinating array of reality television shows presented to us each evening on network television � the world seems hell-bent on prying our focus away from what REALLY matters in summer. When your daily agenda is reduced to a desperate, scrambling search for air conditioning, staying in the loop with the more important things in life (like, say, your favorite indie press) just isn�t the priority it once was.

We here at Soft Skull sympathize with your plight, and to make the whole �keeping informed� thing a bit easier, we�ve rounded up here for your perusal and enjoyment the cream of this summer�s crop � highlights from reviews, choice quotes from authors, and a potpourri of news bits from the Soft Skull sub-universe. Give it a read-though and you�ll find yourself caught up in no time.

IN RECENT NEWS�

July 12^th saw the LA release party for Josh MacPhee and Faviana Rodriguez�s �Reproduce and Revolt.� Held at Los Angeles� Crewest, the party celebrated both the release of the book, which collects originally commissioned graphics and international street art to be used for revolutionary purposes, and the opening of the exhibit �Write and Revolt,� which features some of LA�s most politically active graffiti writers.

Faviana Rodriguez is herself all over the West Coast these days, chatting up Berkeley�s KPFA, tellin' it like it is on the SF Bay Guardian Art�s & Culture blog, and arranging other general launch-party fantasticness.

�in other West Coast Soft Skull news, the Bay Guardian praises Erik Lyle�s On the Lower Frequencies for �its intense curiosity about various subcultures and its sheer enthusiasm for discovering how the city does (and doesn't) work.� Take a look at an excerpt from the book featured in the Brooklyn Rail�if you like what you see, snatch a copy off the digital bookshelf at Soft Skull�s online store. Erik has been busy criss-crossing the country in support of Frequencies, with recent appearances at Bluestockings and Goodbye Blue Monday here on the East Coast, along with a fantastic radio spot with Portland�s KBOO. And he is nowhere close to stopping � check out the Soft Skull Events Calendar for more chances to catch our globetrotting wonderboy, Erik Lyle.

Colleen Mendor of Bookslut called Martin Millar�s Lonely Werewolf Girl �a breakout novel that defies any and all fantasy stereotypes� in her July round-up of �Things that Bite� books. Keep a lookout for even more Martin Miller goodness coming to you this fall and winter from Soft Skull...

Jonathan Evison, of All About Lulu fame, has been a constant source of entertainment and fascination this month. His interview with Powell�s sprawls from a discussion of his recent projects to chit chat about literary pilgrimages and the naming of future landscape architects�Evison breaths wildfire and probably eats whole bears for dinner�it�s seriously worth checking out... The Inside Cover also caught up with Evison for some good old fashioned gloating about the �general buzz� surrounding Lulu. Speaking of buzz, you can get a taste of it for your own filthy self over at the manly love-fest that is Three Guys One Book. If there�s anyone that can tame the wily Evison, it�s these gents, who will take you �into a place of shock and awe� in their discussion of the text.

Publisher�s weekly has been sending Soft Skull some recent love as well. In a starred review, they had the following to say about the aforementioned All About Lulu: �Evison�s debut-of love and loss, growing up, throwing up and moving on-is a stunner....Evison provides readers a viciously funny and deeply felt portrayal of a blended family and one man's thwarted longing� �

�and, speaking of David Ohle�s The Pisstown Chaos, they add that �Fans will rejoice�in their own dystopian way�at the arrival of this mesmerizing installment.... Ohle�s creation of a vivid world, both familiar and foreign, dark and slyly humorous, makes the book a grim delight.�

We could spend hours wading through all the love Shannon Burke�s Black Flies has received this summer - here�s a brief, balanced selection of some of the best. Sort of like a Whitman�s Sampler, but with delicious insects instead of caramel.

First came the fantastically gory NY Times Book Review from Liesl Schillinger, which called the book �Searing and morally resonant� for anyone who has flirted with fashionable jadedness or suffered disappointments that led to a sullen fascination with the darker side of human experience, Burke blows apart the pose.�

Then we were hit with a review from the Chicago Tribune�s Paul Goat Allen, who praises Burke�s �excellent job of re-creating the social and political atmosphere of early 1990s Harlem, and his main characters are meticulously and realistically developed, but it's the insights associated with being a paramedic that make this such a powerful read.�

The icing on this praise-cake came courtesy of Time Out New York: �A gifted stylist, the author makes a thoughtful stab at showing what constant danger can do to an ambulance worker and to a neighborhood�s inhabitants. He also knows when to step back to provocative effect, prompting readers to grapple with the horrors as if they were experiencing them firsthand.�

Outside of the critical realm, Burke�s novel has made an impression on the electronic masses. Check out this paramedic�s blog post about Black Flies, along with the ensuing discussion, and Shannon's own thoughts.

While this outpouring of verbal love leaves us grinning ear to ear, reading through it all left us anxious to get back to what the internet is REALLY all about: PICTURES! Filling our need for visual stimulation this month was New York Magazine, who set up a fantastic exclusive excerpt from the beautifully illustrated Dead in Desemboque.

The historieta has also received recent praise from The Boston Globe, who, looking at the trio of fantastic illustrator's who bring author Roberto Arellano's story to life, had the following to say: "Will Schaff's ornate images evoke the Mexican days of the dead; Richard Schuler's more regular art evokes a rougher Robert Crumb; and Alec Thibodeau's calculatedly primitive, open style compliments the psychedelic landscape Arellano conjures in three tongues: English, Spanish, and forked."

Garnishing to this critical goulash was provided by the El Paso Times' take on the graphic novel: "This marvelous chronicle of a death foretold is a stunning achievement that invites comparisons to Homer's "Odyssey" -- also a story about a love disrupted by the trials and tribulations during one man's dangerous journey back to the arms of his beloved." Epic indeed!

Shifting our attention up North, Sheila Fischman, translator of Sylvian Trudel's Mercury Under My Tongue, was recently awarded the Molson Prize in recognition of her "outstanding lifetime achievements and ongoing contributions to the cultural and intellectual life of Canada." Fischman has translated over 125 novels, and is responsible for introducing countless new Quebec literary voices to English speaking readers. . . .

. . . . Fischman's fantastic translation of Mercury, meanwhile, has received some well-deserved attention both north and south of the Canadian border. The Toronto Globe and Mail calls the book's "first-person narrative reads like a high-speed train barreling toward a head-on collision with a mountainside." Stateside, Entertainment Weekly praises Trudel's novel as a "a candid rant against fate" . . . . and while lunching in the park this week, a wee birdie with a newspaperboy's hat and a cockney lilt advised us to keep our eyes glued to the New York Times Book Review for another Mercury Under My Tongue appearance.

After much debating, campaigning, and filibustering, we've settled on this month's Blorb of the Month. And it goes to none other than Simon Doonan, creative director of Barney's, who offered up the following in praise of the Jeff Martin-edited anthology The Customer Is Always Wrong:

"Once I got passed the shock and horror of not being asked to contribute to this book, I started to enjoy it...a lot. Cathartic and entertaining, these essays will rivet and delight, regardless of which side of the counter you stand on."

The book, which features some wickedly funny essays by Jim DeRogatis, Elaine Viets and a hoard of other disgruntled and enlightened American retail veterans, is due out this Fall.

Deeper into the dark realm of Soft Skull Non-Fiction, fans of Victiorian-style sexual repression everywhere received a special treat courtesy of the USA Today Book Review of Mikita Brottman's "provocatively subtitled" Solitary Vice: Against Reading. More liberated were the words of Shelf Awareness' Harvey Freedenberg, who calls the ok "a hand grenade into the ranks of those promoting reading as the cure all for our social and cultural ill."

While on the general subject of liberation and hand grenades we must mention the recent re-issue of Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore's fantastic That's Revolting. Mattilda has been all over the California media scene, writing up a gorgeous storm...some of his best can be found here on the archives page of his amazingly entertaining website.

And what sort of Soft Skull newsletter would be com[plete without a good dose of the War Nerd to wrap things up with. Mr. Brecher has been all over the interweb, with a fresh tirade on Alternet, a celebration of his nerdy heritage on Wisconsin Public Radio's "To the Best of Our Knowledge", and some more general snarling on KSCB Santa Barbara's "Marketplace For Ideas." Strap on your headphones, fire up the RealMedia player, and let Gary lull you to sleep with his melodious, euphoric rants.

Well, that just about does it - by now, the Soft Skull knowledge should be dripping out your eardrums and sizzling pleasantly in embers of your adoring heart. For more updates on what goes on in our world, check out the Soft Skull News Blog, the very faucet from which this here news-letter flows.

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Celebrate the Solstice with "Awake" from Soft Skull Press!

2008-06-20T17:24:16Z

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Bon Soir Soft Skull disciples,

In honor and reverence of the impending Summer Solstice, we are eager to announce that our anthology of insomnia, "Awake: a Reader for the Sleepless," is available for sale from our online store. "Awake" is a collection of stories, essays, poetry, comics, and art designed to entertain you on the most pacing, restless of nights. Featuring contributions from Chales Simic, Jonathan Ames, and Louise Bourgeois, the anthology will perfectly compliment any sleep-deprived evening.

And what better occasion to invest in such a useful volume than tomorrow, the longest and most wretchedly sunny day of the year: the dreaded Summer Solstice! Picture a day, if you dare, with so many hours of sunlight that darkness becomes a forgotten substance and sleep a laughably extinct possibility. How, dear readers, will you fill those endless hours of horrid wakefulness? Your answer, nay, your SALVATION, lies in pages of this handsome text...

Awake!
A Reader for the Sleepless
Edited by Steven Lee Beeber

1-933368-79-9
Trade Paper Original 6 x 9 256pp.
Fiction $14.95

Awake is an exploration of the connection between creativity and sleeplessness...and the ideal book to read when you can’t sleep!

Stories (including previously unpublished pieces by Aimee Bender and Arthur Bradford); probably true fictions (like Jonathan Ames’s masturbation solution to insomnia); essays (from Yale neurobiologists to Priscilla Becker); comix (Howard Cruse, Shannon Wheeler); poems (Charles Simic, Rebecca Wolff), even found texts from Davy Rothbart of FOUND magazine, drawings from Louise Bourgeois, and a photographic insomnia diary from one of the Suicide Girls … all combine to offer a nighttime companion for the sleepless. As varied as the genres are, each contributor’s approach to the seemingly endless night is very much his or her own. Humorist Steve Brykman decides to enter a sleep study at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston; writer Steve Almond depicts Lincoln as a man who listens to his nightmares. Priscilla Becker takes the trash out in her sleep, while Matt Zapruder writes a novel called The Pajamaist in his. Jonathan Messinger’s girl born with small wings on her back dreams onl
y of falling and Bob Hicok’s man should have stuck with the red wine.

AWAKE! is divided into sections, one for each day of the week, and is compiled in such a way as to evoke the experience of insomnia. Millions can’t sleep; millions more sleep with those who can’t sleep. Both groups now have ever more reason to emerge bleary-eyed into the dawn.

The contributors:
Steve Almond, Jonathan Ames, Simon Armitage, Margaret Atwood, Nicholson Baker, Priscilla Becker, Aimee Bender, Gwenda Bond, Louise Bourgeois, Arthur Bradford, Steve Brykman, W. Bruce Cameron, Edward Champion, Claro, Joshua Cohen, Karen Condon, Howard Cruse, A. Roger Ekirch, Brian Evenson, Myles Gordon, Rose Gowen, Franklin H. Head, Bob Hicok, Michael Koenig, Molly Kottemann, Catie Lazarus, Gary Lucas, Lydia Lunch, Jonathan Messinger, Mark Mirsky, C.O. Moed, Nicholas Montemarano, Joyce Carol Oates, Robin Palanker, Bud Parr, Neal Pollack, Matthew Rohrer, Davy Rothbart, John Sayles, Charles Simic, Frank Stack, Susan Steinberg, Darin Strauss, Cricket Suicide, James Tate, Lynne Tillman, William Waltz, Joe Wenderoth, Shannon Wheeler, Dara Wier, Rebecca Wolff, Beth Woodcome, Franz Wright, and Matthew Zapruder

About the editor:
Steven Lee Beeber’s study of the New York Jewish origins of punk rock, “The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB’s: A Secret History of Jewish Punk,” recently appeared from A Cappella Books. A freelance writer of fiction and non-fiction, he has written for the Paris Review, Fiction, Conduit, the New York Times, Mojo, Spin, and elsewhere. A regular insomniac, he nonetheless seems to be well rested—or, at least, so he likes to think. His website is www.jewpunk.com.

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2008-06-20T17:23:30Z

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Mark Frauenfelder of BoingBoing on Womans World: "Looks like a ransom note, reads like a dream"

2008-04-24T07:53:07Z

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Very Short List is a daily email recommending one excellent, but under-hyped, entertainment gem. Yesterday's VSL recommendation came from Mark Frauenfelder. He wrote a short review of Woman's World, a novel by Graham Rawle. [Check it out here: http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-59376-183-X]

Here's what he had to say:

Women’s magazines of the 1960s set impossible standards for the modern housewife: She was expected to be an immaculate housekeeper, a brilliant entertainer, a fashion plate, and (natch) a perfect pleaser of the man in her life. For Norma Fontaine — the first-person narrator of the new, wholly original thriller Woman’s World — the tips, instructions, and suggestions in these magazines rule her life, which is no surprise, considering her every thought and utterance literally originates from the magazines she worships.

In creating Woman’s World, collage artist Graham Rawle spent five years cutting 40,000 snippets of text and spot illustrations from 1960s women’s magazines and pasting them onto 437 sheets of paper. The result is a page-turning thriller that’s utterly original yet retains the sensibility of its source material. Even without Rawle’s amazing facsimile presentation, Woman’s World stands on its own as a delightfully dark suspense novel about a family with a horrible secret.

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Selling, selling...

2007-05-22T10:28:20Z

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So, as some of you have heard Soft Skull Press plans to be acquired by Winton Shoemaker Co. LLC--here's the press release http://www.softskull.com/files/Counterpoint_SoftSkull_PR.pdf

In some respects this is a sudden development, in other respects one could say this has been a long time coming. What it all means really remains to be seen.

This is certainly a paragraph in a key chapter in the history of American publishing, a chapter prefigured by the sale of PGW to AMS in 2003, and one that begins with the sale of Consortium to Perseus in the summer of 2006. I do not believe this chapter is over--for reasons which have to do with a difference between how PGW and Perseus account for returns, the full cash flow impact of the AMS/PGW bankruptcy will not be felt until July.

There are any number of regrets--that I was not able to keep the staff is a big one, and there are others that shall remain private--but I beg the subscribers to this list not indulge in apocalyptic thinking about independent publishing. The process of consolidation is, yes, relentless, but it is not eternal.

True, it is hard, in some respect, not to feel elegiac. As I've been preparing materials for a process known to those who buy and sell companies as "due diligence," it became clear how many people have contributed to allowing Soft Skull to publish the truly important books it has published over the years--my thanks to you now, my thanks to you eternally.

Yet Soft Skull is not over. As our wonderful author Sparrow said when he heard the news: "Soft Skull is dead. Long live Soft Skull." Soft Skull continues as an imprint. Soft Skull is not no longer independent. Had I won the lottery and bought Counterpoint from Perseus, instead of Charlie Winton buying Counterpoint and then Soft Skull, we would not have ceased to be independent.

Especially given the recent announcement by Perseus that it was closing Carroll & Graf and Thunders Mouth, it seems to me quite culturally valuable for Shoemaker/Counterpoint/Soft Skull--a group clearly embracing the imprint idea, clearly also eclectic and idiosyncratic--to be operating from a more solid financial foundation that hitherto. Allowing Soft Skull at least, to be more reliable and consistent for our authors and for our readers, which are the two communities we serve.

I'll be blogging for a long time to come at www.softskull.com/news (which is updated far more regularly than emails are sent to this list), and in the days, weeks and months to come, I promise to take some time out every so often to report on the transition, and I also promise to be as candid as possible about the process, about the ways in which things are harder, as well as the ways in which they're easier.

One little bit of hell right now is that we are seriously b-r-o-k-e for the next 6 weeks because this deal is not scheduled to close until June 30th. So, as a result, 40% off virtually everything on the Soft Skull website www.softskull.com! Buy early, buy often! (Believe it or not, we need the ducats now far more than we did during the days of the PGW bankruptcy, this is one crazy-assed business...)

All the best,
Richard Nash
Publisher

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Selling, selling...

2007-05-19T21:57:15Z

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Announcing a New Subscription Program, and the Blog

2006-03-29T07:50:49Z

OK, it's time...Soft Skull launches a subscription model...

Having been thinking about this for a while, and with the help of some prodding from AK Press and Clear Cut Press and One Story and Tin House and McSweeney's and such (both directly and by example), we've decided to launch a Soft Skull subscription. It'll be category-specific and we'll start with poetry: all the poetry Soft Skull will publish in 2006, with a couple backlist bonus tracks to spur folks into action. (As the spiel goes on the site: "A new way to buy Soft Skull books, with subscriptions to follow in Fiction, Pop Culture, Graphic Novels, and Queer Studies...")

Here's what folks will get (for $50):
Jim and Dave Defeat the Masked Man by James Cummins and Devid Lehman, illustrated by Archie Rand

Deviant Propulsion by CAConrad

Eunoia by Christian Bök

Saints of Hysteria, edited by Denise Duhamel, Maureen Seaton, and David Trinidad

How to Make a Life As A Poet by Gary Mex Glazner

Supermodel by David Breskin

AND, and a limited time bonus, Tremble & Shine by Todd Colby AND God Save My Queen by Daniel Nester!!!

Should you wish to order, click here: http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-887128-00-0

Basically, we suspect this part of the future of independent publishing—in large part because we're almost certain that as eBook sales pick up in the coming years, a subscription model is by far the most plausible means of delivery. So I figure we should start getting used to it by setting something pretty basic up for the print books, forcing us to proceed slowly along the learning curve.

Also, in the interest of uncluttering folks' in-boxes, we're going to try to reduce the number of e-mails being sent out, and focus instead on the blog as a way for folks to find out about what we're up to.

Basically, once every couple of months, we'll send out an e-mail alerting you to new posting on the blog, like, for examples, free sample chapter downloads, great reviews and awards, musings on the state of publishing and the world, blah-de-blah.

But, basically, fewer e-mails.

To check it out go to www.softskull.com/news and here is a link to the blog's feed: http://www.softskull.com/news/atom.xml

And, finally, a toiny bit of quasi-gloating. We got name-checked in an Onion piece:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/46694

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Soft Skull News about "America's Mayor" and "Going Postal"

2005-11-01T09:31:15Z

Hello from Soft Skull Press,
We wanted to give your a heads up about a couple of our books that are making waves this fall.

1. Recently, AlterNet posted as its top story an interview with author MARK AMES and two excerpts from his new book "GOING POSTAL: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan’s Workplaces to Clinton’s Columbine and Beyond" (Soft Skull, November 2005). Take a look at the following links for the interview and excerpts, which have already received a huge response:

http://www.alternet.org/story/24796/
http://www.alternet.org/story/24798/
http://www.alternet.org/story/24801/

GOING POSTAL examines the school and workplace rage murders that shocked America in the early 1980's and have since grown yearly in body count and social significance. The New York Press calls GOING POSTAL, "a fascinating slice of cultural history that also offers up that rarest of things: an original idea.” You can get the book here: http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-932360-82-4

2. "AMERICA'S MAYOR: The Hidden History of Rudy Giuliani's New York," edited by Robert Polner, with a Preface by Jimmy Breslin, is being offered as a prize at TheSmokingGun.com: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/tvspecial/donrudy.html

You can also get the book here: http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-932360-58-1

And here's what David Corn, Washington editor of THE NATION, has to say about AMERICA'S MAYOR:
“In a vibrant democracy, no politician deserves a free ride, and America's Mayor provides a highly valuable service: telling the whole story of Rudy Giuliani. This book is a crucial and convincing reminder that both before 9/11 and after the dust settled, Giuliani was hardly a hero. AMERICA'S MAYOR serves up a powerful indictment of a flawed political leader, casting a bright-as-the-sun spotlight on Giuliani's arrogance, his crass ambitions, his ethical lapses, his politics of division, and his policy failures (including those that caused NYC to be less prepared for 9/11). It chronicles the high costs that others have had to pay for his failures. No one should ponder Giuliani's future without reading this collection.”

Best regards,
The Soft Skull Press Staff

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