Seems like much exciting stuff is happening while I’ve been kind of snowed under with things (but not, unfortunately, snowed under in some cocaine kind of way; nor in the way that a few inches of snow can bring London’s airport, bus and rail network to a complete standstill (that kind of way is the sort of retrogressive progress that can put a vehicle on the moon many decades ago, but replaces high-speed internet with carrier pigeons - or allows Chuck Palahniuk to be considered as anything other than predictably mediocre)).
Well, I’ll try and catch up with my shit as soon as I can in subsequent posts. But briefly: I stopped writing stuff at the end of November – I may, or may not, return to doing this in the future. I’m taking a break from it – but if I enjoy the break from it too much – who knows? It is not really my intention to do much submitting of stuff to zines from this point on. There are a few ancient and outstanding submissions that might filter through – but many journals die, lose submissions, don’t get them (but not in a ‘you just don’t get it, man’, kind of way), or (quite possibly) struggle to tactfully say: ‘this might be the biggest pile of shit anyone has ever sent us’. There will be occasions – often idiosyncratic – where I do occasionally submit. Mostly I just want to be doing something a bit different. I am not writing a novel, and I never will – it would be fucking awful (and fans of Chuck might then grunt about pots and kettles – or, more probably, gesticulate inarticulately to that effect).
I’ve been doing some artwork for book covers recently, and enjoying that tremendously – although, once again, a bit swamped with things. I guess the reason for putting this shit on my blog is just to say to the various people I have said ‘no’ to for various things of late - or anyone feeling ‘neglected’ on various ‘networking’ sites – it is not any kind of arrogance: I’m often just very busy and very lazy. But, of course, without any inconsistency, keep the suggestions coming in – I might be up for doing something, or else get an enormous sense of self-importance saying ‘sorry, can’t do’! (A perfect win/win situation for me, that more than compensates for any hurt caused to anybody else!)
I’ll be shortly moving into virtual office space at Epic Rites – and will say more about this when I’ve got some stuff together to put up. I am massively honoured to be joining some kick-ass people there, and secretly hoping for inappropriate sexual harassment from anyone with the slightest inclination. There are a number of really fucking exciting things happening at Epic Rites\Epic Rites Press, so extremely pleased to be involved with some of this. Wolfgang Carstens has been fucking awesome to work with – and matches ‘monster’ ambition with a lot of fucking hard work.
So, if there is brevity with a lot of my stuff, excuse the brevity with the exciting stuff I mentioned at the start of what is not a particularly brief post:
David McLean’s Of Dead Snakes should be out very soon at Rain Over Bouville, and, I believe, the excellent novella – Henrietta Forgets – forthcoming with Isms Press. There is already tons of great stuff you can buy (and links to many great pieces online) – so you know where the link is to Autoerotic Elegies…
Constance Stadler has got two excellent and powerful collections out – or out soon – Tinted Steam and Sublunary Curse. Check out the reviews and links for info at Connie’s blogspot…
Antony Hitchin has got The Holy Hermaphrodite coming out soon, and other exciting things in the pipeline – keep up to date with all of this at Antony’s blogspot…
And finally, but the exact opposite of least, very excited that one of my two most favourite journals is out and live – there is a link to a truly astounding collection of pieces in the link to Jennifer Chesler in MungBeing (on the right-hand side), that demonstrate why 15, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22 and 24 is my favourite numeric sequence.
Hell, I’m sure there must be loads of other stuff that I have forgotten to mention – but if one considers that this morning I put some bread in the microwave to defrost for three minutes, and went to put some rubbish/garbage out while waiting, and, on my return, I thought the beeping of this ‘special’ oven was the smoke alarm going off due to the excessive smoking of menthol cigarettes – or, that every five years or so, I have to ask my mother if she had killed someone (when in fact this was my father) – one must conclude that I’m just not very good at retrieving information from - and retaining information in - my brain, and am some sort of idiot savant (well, maybe half true)…
