Saturday, September 29, 2012

Last night, at the Book Cellar...

...there was a standing-room-only crowd...

...for the Chicago launch of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction:

Jenny Boully...

....Philip Graham...

...Sue William Silverman...

...and Barrie Jean Borich...

...all read, and many copies of the Field Guide were sold. Thank you to everyone who came out last night, and to the Book Cellar for hosting. If you were not able to make it, never fear; you can always add the book to your cart here.

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One of the best pieces of work coming out of the Millennial Generation....

....according to Clarisa Ramirez of Gapers Block, is Shampoo Horns by Aaron Teel. " I'm looking forward to reading more from this rising author," she says. You can read the whole review here. Thanks, Clarisa! 

Come see Aaron and Kyle Minor read this Sunday at the Sunday Salon Reading Series at Black Rock Tavern at 8:00 pm. 

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Monday, September 24, 2012

Aaron Teel in Conversation

You can read two excellent interviews with Sixth Annual Rose Metal Press Chapbook Contest winner Aaron Teel this week in SmokeLong Quarterly and the Flash Fiction Chronicles on Every Day Fiction here and here respectively.

In the former, Aaron says: "“Don’t speak in clichés,” is something I heard a mother say to her son at a restaurant. He’d said he was so hungry he could eat a horse, and she reprimanded him, so he sat quietly for half a minute, thinking, and then said he was so hungry he could eat an elephant. I liked the idea of a mother not wanting her child to use phrases like that, but the literal notion of trying not to speak in clichés is really just a frame for this kind of revealing little watershed moment between a mother and her twin sons."

In the latter, he says: "Perversely, making the switch to fiction allowed me to see the characters more clearly than I had. They didn’t want to behave like the people they were based on, so letting them out of that box allowed them to act and react to their environment it ways that felt authentic but also heightened. The world in the book is kind of fantastic, but only because it’s seen through Cherry’s eyes and his perspective. The reality of the place is kind of dreary and depressing, but his perception of everything is so heightened it takes on a kind of hyperreal aura. I started to think of it as magical realism, but without anything magical actually happening, apart from the sleeping widow who may or may not have actually existed."

Thanks to Tara Laskowski and Gay Degani for the interviewing prowess!

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Saturday, September 01, 2012

Shampoo Horns is all over the internet...

...including here, in this review on HTML GIANT by Sean Lovelace, and in this video where Sean lovingly shoots the book with an arrow. Shampoo Horns is also reviewed here, on The Next Best Book Club blog, which says: "Grab yourself a copy if you're in the mood to (1) jump into the way-back machine on a journey down memory lane, (2) vicariously live the life you wish you had when you were that age, or (3) want to experience a powerful, emotional firestorm of teenage angst and curiosity. You won't regret it. And you can thank me later." And finally here on the Brevity blog where Aaron Teel chats with Dinty W. Moore about the process of turning autobiographical material into fiction. Last but not least, here is a panoramic photo of the release party for Shampoo Horns at Domy Books in Austin, TX:
Thanks, Domy!

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