John Svalina: 1939 - 2009

After a long battle with cancer my father passed away last night. He was, among many other things, a really good guy.

Obviously, I have canceled my readings that I'd set up for the coming week.

Diptych

Boise woman pulled out of burning house Wednesday has died | News Updates | Idaho Statesman

This showed up on my Google-Search today.

Sad.

Boise woman pulled out of burning house Wednesday has died | News Updates | Idaho Statesman

Notes from no Man's Land, Eula Biss

I'm at the airport. My flight has been delayed. So to kill time I went into the airport bookstore. I'm always fascinated by these as a glimpse into what normal America actually reads. Then I usually look at the Mary Oliver books in the poetry section & think "Oh, what philistines & then I begin to chew the skin off the backs of my hands." But this tiny airport bookstore nook had Anne Lauterbach & Tate & Daniel Yang in the poetry section. And looking around I realized that someone who makes poor decisions about how to stock an airport bookstore was stocking this airport bookstore.

Which is all to say that I found Eula Biss' new book there, which JMW had only recently mentioned. I liked her book The Baloonist from back when & I had some time to kill so I picked it up. I want to tell you about the first essay. That first essay. When i read the last paragraph of it I found myself unable to breathe. Literally, my lungs would not fill. It's so good. So perfect.

Not every essay in the book is a banger, the "my version of NY" essay is the weakest, but this is an incredibly strong book. Biss, especially when she confronts assumptive social constructs of race, is able to lead with her urge tho think about a subject, rather than forcing the aesthetics of a text to do her thinking for her. When she is on, these essays truly feel like she had to write them.

Hey New Yorkers: Heather Green Reading Wednesday Night at Melville House

So the new press Love Among the Ruins & the new press Lightful Press are have a co-debutant party at Melville House. Heather Green is reading & she is the best.

If you don't believe me then go to the reading & if she is not the best I will give you $23*. OK?

Here's the official word from LATR, who live here

We’re launching Heather Green’s No Omen and Ernest Hilbert’s Aim Your Arrows at the Sun with a reading at Melville House Books in Brooklyn on Wednesday, November 4th at 7pm. Melville House is located at 145 Plymouth Street in DUMBO.

The reading is co-sponsored by our friends at Lightful Press who are celebrating the publication of poet Liz Waldner’s Play. Books by all of the authors will be available for sale. Beer and wine will be served.

Visit our friends at Lightful Press: www.lightfulpress.com

The $ may signify "awkward goodbye hugs" rather than "USD."

Heather Christle Week at HTMLGiant : Contest : Win a Heather Christle Broadside

Did you know it's Heather Christle Week? In France this is a time when families gather together & rub erasers on the backs of their hands until they rub the skin off. In Zimbabwe it is a time when members of Parliament hand out photographs of their childhood crushes door-to-door. In The Ukraine it is a time when the third son must find a perfect rock & then stand with said rock in a perfect spot.

Luckily I live in America, home of Feeney's, the Irish bar on 62nd & 5th in Brooklyn. In America we celebrate Heather Christle Week by posting Heather Christle-related posts on HTMLgiant & having contests giving away things that are related to Heather Christle's poetry & going to Heather Christle readings.

She wrote this on her blog:

A while back the excellence that is Nor By Press letterpressed broadsides of "Barnstormer," a poem from The Difficult Farm. In conjunction with the excellence that is HTMLGiant hosting the kindness that is "Heather Christle week," I am telling you about three ways you can win yourself a free broadside and/or book:

1. Anyone who orders The Difficult Farm from Octopus this week (November 2-8) will be automatically entered to win a broadside.
2. Mike Young at NOÖ is hosting a book giveaway with rules he explains himself.
3. Walser & Co., home of a very useful list of what's new at Amherst Books and what's old at Schoen Books, will be secretly tucking a broadside into one of the copies of The Difficult Farm available for sale at this reading in NYC on Friday. You can also go there to win a broadside directly.

I sent this out from octopus today:

This week HTMLGiant, the self-proclaimed “internet literature magazine blog of the future,” will be celebrating Heather Christle Week in honor of her debut book The Difficult Farm.

Please visit HTMLGiant every day this week for poems and features relating to Heather Christle’s The Difficult Farm: http://htmlgiant.com

In conjunction with HTMLGiant’s Heather Christle week, if you order a copy of The Difficult Farm this week from Octopus Books you will be automatically entered into a contest to win a free letterpressed broadside of "Barnstormer," a poem from The Difficult Farm from Nor By Press.

Order from http://www.octopusbooks.net

Heather also has two upcoming readings on the East Coast. You should consider attending them:

Friday, November 6
5 PM
Agriculture Reader Salon at NYU
with Joshua Cohen, Matthew Rohrer, and Diane Williams
Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House
58 West 10th Street
New York, NY
More information

Friday, November 13
8 PM
Amherst Books
with Christopher DeWeese
8 Main Street
Amherst, MA 01002

You were born in this:





And you loved it. You wish you could do it all over again. That's what The Difficult Farm is for.

Julia Won't Read My Blog

What's up with that?

Adam to Adam

So I watched the tv show Party Down, continuing my affection for even the most marginally The State related entertainment. I think the main guy Adam Scott is going to play Adam Peterson in the movie of his life, if the movie of his life was made right now, rather than sometime in the future when a film could conceivably be written & made about his life.








Also, I have a draft of a script called Hi-Life: The Adam Peterson Story that I've been shopping around the major movie houses. If anyone is interested call me at (303) 555-1212. And Mr. Scott, if you'd like to sign on right now it could help things along. We need the kind of star power that comes with the protagonist of a made-for-Starz sitcom.