My Alphabook is Out and About!

Click here to read an alphabook I did with my mom. It’s about math club. Illustration by this cool dude.

Go Read Some Alphabooks!

Everyone should go read these neat Alphabooks and also mark Friday the 13th with an “x” because that’s when the one I made with my mom comes out. It’s about math. In other news I live in Toronto now.

Rad Travel

Some naysayers will argue that travel is not radical, in and of itself. And this Is true: a millionaire can jump on an airplane to Barbados and have an entire hotel to himself, just as a crustie in the U.S. can ride trains motivated solely by cheap escapism. The potential of travel lies in its relative freedoms: time to dedicate to projects, the ability to convey materials and information, flexibility in putting energy into new projects, supporting faraway comrades, the list continues on. Travel can also be used to combat isolation and to give us hope in an otherwise unwelcoming world. As any traveler knows, getting somewhere you’ve never been requires patience and dedication. 

From “Anarchy in the Age of Dinosaurs” (download for free here.) Thoughts? Still working my way through material on nomadism in America. Send me everything you have. Tell me everything you know.

Fundraiser Reading: November 13th, 2011.

"Stop out gothing me" "No, stop out gothing ME!"

I spent the Halloween season in Salem, casting spells and working on the manuscript. It sure is a magical town! I have an upcoming reading at the Centauri Festival of Word and Image. 100% of ticket sales will be used to buy school supplies for the Centauri Rosebud Academy in India. Please come! Some of my students will also be reading!

Details: Sunday, November 13th. 4pm-6pm. Revue Cinema. 15$. Buy tickets here.

For my Fellow “Memoirists”

“I moved on to the memoir section.  After browsing for a while, I knew why it had to be so big: who knew there was so much truth to be told, so much advice to give, so many lessons to teach and learn?  Who knew that there were so many people with so many necessary things to say about themselves?  I flipped through the sexual abuse memoirs, sexual conquest memoirs, sexual inadequacy memoirs, alternative sexual memoirs.  I perused travel memoirs, ghostwritten professional athlete memoirs, remorseful hedonist rock star memoirs, twelve-step memoirs, memoirs about reading (A Reading Life: Book by Book).  There were five memoirs by one author, a woman who had written a memoir about her troubled relationship with her famous fiction-writer father; a memoir about her troubled relationship with her mother; a memoir about her troubled relationship with her children; a memoir about her troubled relationship with the bottle; and finally a memoir about her more loving relationship with herself.  There were several memoirs about the difficulty of writing memoirs, and even a handful of how-to-write-a-memoir memoirs.  A Memoirist’s Guide to Writing Your Memoir and the like.  All of these made me feel better about myself, and I was grateful to the books for teaching me–without my even having to read them–that there were people in the world more desperate, more self-absorbed, more boring than I was.”

- BROCK CLARKE, An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England, 2007

Litpop Plaque

I am in manuscript hell. In other news, I am no longer quarantined in the Burning Man medical ward being force-fed shrimp Cup-a-Soups: there’s always that. Big thanks to everyone who came out to the LitPop award ceremony. It was a success! I even got an adorable plaque! Look at how happy cartoon me looks!

Litpop Presentation: Sept 23rd, 7:30!

Montréalers! Come see some good-looking bands play music! Also, come watch me get an award for being a pervert and writing a story about falling in love with an ex-con magician. I love this city except it is making me feel really old.

Litpop Presentation & Show:

Friday the 23rd of September @ Ukrainian Federation :: Exclaim! Venue.

Show begins at 19:30

 Bands: tUnE-YarDs & Pat Jordache & Touchy Mob

Montréal Bound: Sept 21-25

Well, after spending three days in the Burning Man psychiatric ward with an IV in my arm (story forthcoming) I am finally back in business. A note of warning: Moonflower (ASKA Datura) is not something you should give me without my full permission. Or even with my full permission.

I will be participating POP Montréal from September 21-25. The lovely organizers have given me a Superpass, which means if I can go anywhere anytime, so if anyone wants to meet at a show let me know! Also,  I think my Litpop award for non-fiction will be presented at the tUnE YarDs show.

More details to come, but for now enjoy this photograph of me riding a demonic dinosaur in the middle of the desert.

Litpop 2011 Non-Fiction Winner

My holy prayers have been answered! I won Litpop 2011 for non-fiction! Pop Montréal! Bagels! Raincoats! Yahoo! Will post details of the event soon.

In other news, I’ve started a Yoko Ono cover band. ☯seriously☯!

Pop Montréal is September 21-25, 2011.

Lit Pop Montréal Shortlist

Psst! I made the Litpop shortlist for non-fiction (part of the Pop Montréal Festival). This is literally my dream contest.

Three winners, one from each category of poetry, fiction and creative non-fiction will receive a round-trip ticket to Pop Montreal from September 21-25, 2011, a VIP pass to the Pop Montreal Festival, free accommodation at a bed and breakfast, fall publication in Matrix Magazine with full honorarium, and presentation at a special Matrix Litpop event during the festival.

Uh… what? I want to see the Raincoats, binge eat a bag of Montréal bagels, and then fall asleep outside the house I inhabited at 18! Please send me good luck juju! Read more here: www.matrixmagazine.org.