Such Faster Awkward

Over at The Faster Times, the excellent Michael Kimball has interviewed me, A Kind of Planned Awkwardness. In the interview, MK asks me about all 30 words of my story, "Eleven," which appears in Easter Rabbit. This was one of the most fun interviews I've had the pleasure of doing.

Wow, Megan Lavelle Writes Easter

Megan Lavelle, artist, designer, curator, writer, photographer of first class wrote an essay on Easter Rabbit for the Baltimore art blog, BmoreArt, here. It's such a wonderful piece of thought and image and idea. You should also check out the excellent How We Dwell, a huge project curated by Megan spanning over a year in which she invited artists of all kinds to live in her apartment for a weekend. Oh, and this great piece with pop sickle sticks. Surf around her site!

From her essay, "The relationship between text and reader becomes transactional, how much are we willing to give and how much do we want to take. The small texts draw us in and the white space requires us to go beyond the page, beyond the comfort of the words and to our own black box."

Thanks, Megan.

Catch These

Since last post, there has been some new rabbit news.

Christopher Higgs wrote up his Notes On Joseph Young's Easter Rabbit over at HGiant. Chris keeps the wildly eclectic blog Bright Stupid Confetti, which is a lot about art. He's also a Publishing Genius label mate, with his chapbook Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously. In his Notes On Easter Rabbit Chris says, "I really had a good time reading Young’s sentences…this is why I come to literature: not for story, but for sentences…and this book delivers." He also says, "The way I picture this book in my head is as if the entire story had been painted as a mosaic onto a stained glass window and then the window shattered and Young came and glued the pieces back together," which is pretty cool.

Over in his post at Big Other, Little Easter War Machine Rabbit, J.A. Tyler reminds us on a pretty cool book called Little War Machine, put out by Ravenna Press. That book, says, J.A., reminds him of Easter Rabbit, "well-written, tightly-wound, intensely-structured."

And then there's been a variety of activities at Goodreads, with tiny reviews of Easter Rabbit by Brad Green and John Dermot Woods, plus a reiteration of her Easter Rabbit cover blurb by Amelia Gray. Says Brad, "Well worth multiple reads." Says John, "An incredibly new take on literature. Joe's idea of what language can comprise a narrative and his experiments with brevity gave me a feeling similar to the first time I read Gary Lutz's Stories in the Worst Way."

Christoper Newgent Live Blogs The Bunny

Christopher Newgent has all along been a great supporter, of Easter Rabbit, of Publishing Genius, and of the wide world of literature in general. Now, he's live blogged his reading of the book, here, with cool observations and smart words. Thanks 10 thousand pounds, Chris.

Easter Rabbit Wordle

Christine Gets Heavy

"There’s really only one [story in Easter Rabbit, 'Parallax,'] I don’t like at ALL, it bugs me every time I see it or hear him read it. The ambiguity in it feels so cheap and easy. With the last sentence in the story, the main man looks around at these people he 'has.' The end. It makes me want to scream at Joe. Has?? What a dumb word to end a good story on. He just purposely selfishly withholds everything from us there, with no image, no feeling, and I don’t even want to bother to imagine what 'has' possibly refers to. He gives nothing, I give nothing. Has. Fucking bullshit.

"When I love one of his stories, which is most of the time, it's because it's a small puddle reflecting a tall stand of trees, with complete and startling accuracy."

--Christine Sajecki

Easter Rabbit Release Party

Baltimore author Joseph Young is celebrating the release of his book of microfictions, Easter Rabbit, by bringing together a diverse team of musicians, performers, and visual artists to add their vision to the book’s stories. The party is scheduled for December 12 at The Hexagon, 1825 N Charles Street, starting at 7 pm.

Easter Rabbit, published by local small press Publishing Genius, comprises 86 extremely short stories, with some stories as short as 17 words. At the release party, a team of actors will dramatize a dozen of the stories, while a group of painters and other artists will show work inspired by the book. Local band Sweatpants will be on hand to play music composed especially for the event.

Artists included in the show are Lauren Boilini, Graham Coreil-Allen, Kathy Fahey (designer of poster seen in this post), Luca DiPierro, Paul Jeanes, Magnolia Laurie, and Easter Rabbit cover artist Christine Sajecki. Actors are Linda Franklin and Caleb Stine, directed by Nancy Murray. Sweatpants is Adam Robinson, Jamie Gaughran-Perez, and David NeSmith.

David Peak and Adam Robinson Talk It Out

As I said earlier, David Peak posted a review of Easter Rabbit over at his blog, Ghost Factory. In response to that review, Adam Robinson posted something of his own. David then made a response to that. It's an interesting conversation between two smart guys that has implications beyond just my book. People interested in really short fiction or writing in general might want to get in on it.

Peak Reviews Rabbit

David Peak, writing books of Surface Tension (Blazevox), writes a review of Easter Rabbit over at Ghost Factory. Says David, "Pieces like "Disclose/Agape," "The Willful Child," "The Idealist"--these stories are worth the price-tag alone. You will read them again and again. You will. And something will sneak up on you, something long forgotten, the back of your head will fall out and you will remember the time you took that big breath and really felt the heaviness of all your surroundings." That's a nice sentence. Thanks, David.

Quickly Reviewed, Said

Greg Gerke, author of There's Something Wrong with Sven, posted his review of Easter Rabbit at Big Other. Says Greg, "[These micros] live in the actions of the characters, in the details of the river or forest, and in the Beckettian/Pinteresque bits of dialogue. They are story and poetry and they describe a universe in mourning for its own mysteries, a human race run down but capable of enchantment." Thanks, Greg.

Cami Park, writer of many good things, blogged her reading of Easter Rabbit at Mungo. A hugely kind thing she says is "these writings do what art does, encompass the familiar, the emotion of everyday life fully and without artifice. A pan in the snow, a quarter on the back of a hand– I had no idea such things could make me feel so much." Thanks, Cami.

Christopher Newgent--author and interviewer--is getting ready to live blog his attempt to read Easter Rabbit in a single sitting. Meanwhile, he is holding a contest to give away an Easter Rabbit postcard. Simple enough, tell him the meaning of life. Good luck!

Variety Spice, Reviews, News

In other news, Easter Rabbit has been reviewed over at Randall Brown's blog, Flash Fiction dot net, by Jess Bouchard. One of the great things about this review is that Jess's 8-year-old daughter has a say too. Says the 8 year old, about one of my stories, “I know this piece is deep. I don’t know why. I just do.” Thanks, Jess and her daughter.

Easter Rabbit also seems to hit a chord with domesticated animals. The cats at Lauren Ellen Scott's house are not only cute but don't mind posing with the book. I can't think of any stories in Easter Rabbit with cats in them, but maybe they'll like the plentiful birds.

At the last, Easter Rabbit gets a mention from Roxane Gay in her interview at The Collagist, saying, kindly, she's looking forward to its imminent arrival.

The Easter Rabbit Interviewed on The Signal

Aaron Henkin of WYPR, our local NPR station, interviewed me about Easter Rabbit and the workings of microfiction on the radio show The Signal. I also read some selections from the book. The podcast is here. All the segments from the show are well worth listening to, but for your info, I'm at approximately minute 25 in the show.

Lucky We Got 'Em

And now, your Goodreads update...

Michael Kimball, who is going to read Easter Rabbit, has a wide net. For start, he wrote Dear Everybody, a novel so good, it really is. For next is his world famous project Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard), which was talked about on NPR. After that, he works with Luca Dipierro on making films, Little Burn Films. After again, he interviews writers at Faster Times, such as Gary Lutz and Rachel Sherman. That's a lot though there's more.

Melanie LaBarge, from Albany, wants to read Easter Rabbit. Her favorite writer is Shane Jones, and I think that's not a coincidence; Light Boxes is dedicated to a Melanie. I'm guessing she's the Melanie too that's a massage therapist, which is very right livelihood.

Chuy Boca seems to moonlight as Derek White. Derek is fond of seafood--he runs the excellent Calamari Press and the fine magazine Sleepingfish. His book, Poste Restante, was reviewed at The Believer, where Ross Simonini says, "White demonstrates the elasticity of [flash fiction] and how the compressed format can allow for some of the wildest creative leaps in new fiction."

Stephanie Johnson is the author of One of These Things Is Not Like the Others, which is stories from Keyhole Books. One of those stories is "A Case Study in Accidents," originally over at Contrary Magazine. Stephanie has live e-readings for the stories, too. Adam Robinson (right, that one) interviewed her at HTML Giant.

Micah Cash is a painter. I know his painting, and he was good enough to let me hang a work of his in a show I co-curated. He was interviewed by Tom Brown, where Micah says, "My choices of materials are always very specific; usually chosen for their metaphorical and physical properties in relation to the emotive elements I want to convey." This sounds very smart and in line with what I know of his evocative work.

Goodreads Has Been A While

New people reading or to-reading Easter Rabbit from Goodreads:

Heather Christle is the author of The Difficult Farm, a collection of poems published by Octopus Books. I'm waiting for it in the mail. Heather is either In The Library With The Wrench or you are. She's got poems in GlitterPony and 1 of them has 10 parts. A broadside of "Barnstormer" is at Nor By Press.

Blake Butler. Books like Scorch Atlas, from Featherproof, and Ever, from Calamari. "Blake Butler is a daring invigorator of the literary sentence, and the room-ridden narrator of his debut novella, EVER, nerves her way into a hallucinative ruckus of rousing originality." —Gary Lutz. And HTML Giant.

William Walsh, Attleboro, is going to-read Easter Rabbit. He wrote Questionstruck: A Collection of Question-based Texts Derived from the Books of Calvin Trillin and Without Wax: A Documentary Novel, both with colons. Rain Taxi and Blake Butler (see above) wrote about Without Waxxx: "Without Wax is full of the electric, the taboo, the sad bizarre. There's no doubt Walsh knows what he's doing."

Jamie Gaughran-Perez is Baltimore, my friend, definitely Very Most Good. He just wrote something at the really interesting Wunderkammer with pictures of kids, and Jamie knows kids. He's one of the people at Narrow House and Sweatpants.

Last, no least, is Ken Baumann. Blench: A Music
will be at New York Tyrant and Internal Dialog is already at Lamination Colony. He's editing No Posit and co-editing No Colony, yes. He's even got an IMDb page, hugging this girl.

Fictionaut Interview

Meg Pokrass interviewed me over at Fictionaut yesterday, which see it here. Meg lives in San Francisco with rats, and can be read about at Michael Kimball Writes Your Life on a Postcard. She's got one thing at Annalemma and some at Canopic Jar and Thieves Jargon. Jürgen Fauth is behind Fictionaut.

Not Strictly Easter Rabbit (but probably close enough)

First, the editors over at Grey Sparrow Journal have nominated my 5 Micros for a Pushcart. Thanks, editors! Take a look at a couple flash fictions by Stefanie Freele from the Grey Sparrow archives, here.

Second, Ravi Mangla was good enough to ask me to participate in his Recommended Reading series. Beside keeping RR, Ravi writes at such places as Storyglossia and SmokeLong.

Interview by David Erlewine (with weird Luke Wilson interjections)

At his blog of all things fiction, Whizby Fiction, David asks me such well-researched and interesting questions about Easter Rabbit. Check it. There you can also see his Goodreads review.

David, he's a lawyer and a tireless writer and instigator of interesting writing things. e.g., he's now flash fiction editor of JMWW, from which I have no doubt interesting things will come. Another, he's at the front edge of Twiction, as shown by this piece on MSNBC. There are too many of his stories out there in the world to even imagine. Here's just a few: @ Pindeldyboz, @ Monkeybicycle, @ Hobart, @ elimae.

Oh, Blogs! & et Cetera

For today's roundup, we first present John Dermot Woods, working over there at, you guessed it, John Dermot Woods dot com. He says fine things about the Easter Rabbit book trailer, "This is the simplest piece of beauty I’ve looked upon in a while." John has a great novel out called The Complete Collection of people, places & things, by BLAZEVOX. I heard him read from it, and it's funny and sincere, and it's got lovely drawings also by John. See La Petite Zine and also Lamination Colony.

Next, The Idiom by Christopher Newgent. Over there he says he's going to take Publishing Genius and me up on our challenge: read Easter Rabbit in one sitting, get your money back. Christopher might even liveblog his attempt. He's got nice stuff in nice places, such as, "At the Fire Scene" and They Are My City. He was in Top 50 for wigleaf.


Ok, on to Goodreads...

Sasha Fletcher has said he'll read it. I know he was an Everyday Genius, a la fovea, and will be a Mudlucious. We walked to get beer once.

Amy lives in Alexandria, VA. She likes Ray Bradbury and Aimie Bender, among others.

Matthew Simons is the Man Who Couldn't Blog, and another good to-reader of Easter Rabbit. He is also a t-shirt, and he is his very moving book, A Jello Horse, by Publishing Genius. Check out the review at The Believer. He is influenced by "peaches." Read something good on 5_Trope.

Jason DeBoer is in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His work has appeared in nice printy places like The Iowa Review, Quarterly West, and Rosebud, and electron places like Mississippi Review and Failbetter. His novel Stupor, if like his other nice work, is good and should be found a home.

Ah, Rusty Barnes. You and I don't have to even look to know he edits for the fantastic Night Train. Still, we can know that he is the author of Breaking It Down, a collection of flash fiction from Sunnyoutside. Also, good things to look forward to, 3 poems at Dead Mule and a story at A Trunk of Delirium.

Rauan Klassnik, all the way from South Africa, "collects and loves." He has prose poems in a book called Holy Land, from Black Ocean. Gary Young, who I think is probably the same one who used to live in Baltimore, says about Holy Land, "His poems—dreamlike fables that conflate the domestic and quotidian with the dangerous and the perverse—are bathed in tears and blood." Something else is Ringing, which is a free chapbook and illustrated in a really nice way.

Well, Shane Jones. He's got a book, Light Boxes, blowing up. Hipster Book Club says "Gorgeously surreal and touching," and they're not the only ones. Originally from Publishing Genius, it's due out in a second from Penguin Books. Also, in case you don't know, Spike Jonze has said he'll make a movie of the book, bringing in the pretty awesome Ray Tintori to direct. Year of the Liquidator is the new press from Shane and Blake Butler--great. Wow, I also didn't know til now that he blogged Easter Rabbit. Thanks!

Finally, John Dermot Woods, like up above, also put Easter Rabbit on his to-read list. Here's one more for Woods: His comic chapbook, The Remains, is forthcoming from Doublecross Press.

Miscellany Here and There

UPDATE: I discovered after making this post that David Peak, over at Ghost Factory, posted the book trailer for Easter Rabbit, which I think is nice of him. Ghost Factory is also a magazine that David edits and looks really neat. The Rocket's Red Glare is a sci-fi book that David has out by Leucrota Press. Why not read this poem at Kill Author?

So first of all, Cami Park, over at the elegant Mungo, has kind cross-holiday remarks about Easter Rabbit in her post, Easter At Christmas. For one thing, Cami is a bigtime contributor to a cool idea called For Every Year, like this, so please look at that. Then, how about something from Pank?

Next, Josh Kleinberg, working from Missoula, Montana, said a really heart-warming thing about indie publishing on his blog of a very interesting name, ...///.///../.././/./////...///. I mean, if I can just thank someone for being nice enough to buy Easter Rabbit and it makes people that glad about indie publishing, then I'll thank them! Check out Josh's work at Dogzplot and Tulip.

Close Calls with Nonsense is a poetry blog by Harvard prof Stephen Burt. He makes some odd, interesting, and kind comments on the book trailer for Easter Rabbit, as well as on 800 numbers. He has a book the same name as his blog, Close Calls With Nonsense: Reading New Poetry from Graywolf Press.

Thirdly, new people at Goodreads putting Easter Rabbit on their read lists:

Justin Sirois is doing his blog Secondary Sound, which is also one of his books, by BlazeVOX. Another of his books is the no-vowel MLKNG SCKLS, which Brian Evenson says, "A tight, spare and quietly tense gem of a book.” Look at the review at Bookslut.

Mike Young, we talked about him. He edits NOO Journal. He has a chapbook that's only a dollar, MC Oroville's Answering Machine, which is a crazy bargain. Mike Young is really good.

Goodblogsread

A few new Goodfolks have said they will Goodread my Goodrabbit, as follows:

Kathy Fish lives in Colorado. Her work is published or is forthcoming in Quick Fiction, FRiGG, Night Train, Spork, Denver Quarterly, Indiana Review, New South, Storyglossia, Smokelong Quarterly, RE:AL, [sic] literary journal, Cranky, elimae, Per Contra, Sleepingfish and elsewhere. You can also read a review of her book, A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness, which she co-chapped with three other writers, at Quick Fiction.

Greg Gerke lives in Buffalo. His work has or will appear in Gargoyle, Rosebud, Fourteen Hills, Night Train, Flash Forward Press 2009 Anthology and others. There’s Something Wrong With Sven, a book of short fiction, is out from Blaze Vox Books.

Tracey, who lives in the UK, is interested in "cooking, dogs, computer, reading." She has a cute dog and two teenagers, who are likely cute too.

Sarah Harste has a love affair with letters. So also, she's a college student "who is quickly becoming addicted to the online world of journals and blogs." This, by her excellent blog, is very true.

Finally, we've seen him before, Jason Jordon and His Blog have a good thing to say about Easter Rabbit and also the preorder of Put Your Head in My Lap (Future Tense Books), stories by the major time talent Claudia Smith.

Thomas Spande

Painter Thomas Spande is going to trade me this painting for a copy of Easter Rabbit. This is so lucky!

Pank/Bell/Goodreads

The blog from Pank Magazine included Easter Rabbit in their "Five Things, It's Friday" post. They also linked Shellie Zacharia's new book, Now Playing, which is on preorder from Keyhole.

Over at Matt Bell's blog, Matt in all kindness reprints my story, "Valentine," which is included in Easter Rabbit. Matt is behind the super new, super great magazine The Collagist.

At Goodreads, some new folks have put Easter Rabbit on their to-read lists:

P.H. Madore runs the magazine, Dispatch Litareview. Ellen Frances says, "[P. H. Madore] is nice."

We just heard about Matt Bell above. Here's some more though: Matt Bell is the author of two chapbooks, The Collectors and How the Broken Lead the Blind, and has had fiction published recently in Conjunctions, Gulf Coast, Meridian, Monkeybicycle, and Keyhole. He lives in Ann Arbor, MI.

Peter Cole is the editor of Keyhole Magazine. He also does Nashville Is Reads. He also does a lot of stuff.

J. Michael Wahlgren has Gold Wake Press. If you click his name, you'll see things about old cameras and poetry. His book Credo is forthcoming from Greying Ghost Press.

Ryan W. Bradley is currently working on his MFA in creative writing from Pacific University. His poetry and fiction has been published or is forthcoming in The Oregonian, A Thousand Faces, Third Wednesday, Yippee Magazine, and Gander Press Review. He has also "pumped gas."

Blogs

Some people have been good enough to post about Easter Rabbit on their blogs.

Paula Bomer tells us about the Easter Rabbit preorder on her fittingly eponymous blog, Paula Bomer. Fittingly, she tells us, "I'm a writer." After having seen her read at the 510 Series here in Baltimore, I can say "and a good one!"

Meanwhile, at more blogs more fittingly named, J.A. Tyler, at J.A. Tyler blog, writes, "EASTER RABBIT by joseph young - a collection of micro-fictions that promises to pummel & overwhelm." Read the excerpt, "the ostrich," from his novella The Zoo, A Going.

Finally, Adam Robinson writes about this blog on his blog. Adam says, "Joe Young is keeping a funny blog about press for Easter Rabbit. I don't know why I think it's funny, maybe because it's so blatantly promotional. It seems like if you come within 100 e-feet of the book, like comment on it somewhere or decline writing about it for your ping pong blog or ADD IT TO YOUR GOODREADS PAGE, Joe will write, like, a microbio about you."

Adam has a book coming out some time from Narrow House that's going to be amazing.

HTML Giant

There's a bit of noise about Easter Rabbit over at HTML Giant. Thanks, Blake, thanks, everybody.


Mike Young says, "joe young has been one of my favorite “online writers” for 5+ years

i published one of his stories in the first issue of noo: “domestic”

joe young walked me kindly to a strange and lovely comic book store but didn’t go inside with me because he had to go swimming

this is also an accurate summary of his prose

joe young rocks"


Josh Maday says, "Joe Young’s collection is, of course, excellent. If you read it once, you’ll read it twice, at least (I have my sources). Young’s microfictions function like emergency life rafts in that he gets this ostensibly small bit of material into your head and then pulls the cord and something huge unfolds.

Well, I gave that metaphor a good beating.

Anyway, I’m excited to see this book."

Goodreads

A few folks have added Easter Rabbit to their to-read lists, for which I'm really greatful.

Jason Jordan holds an MFA from Chatham University. His forthcoming books are Cloud and Other Stories (Six Gallery Press, 2009) and Powering the Devil's Circus: Redux (Six Gallery Press, 2009). His prose has appeared online and in print in over forty literary magazines. Additionally, he’s Editor-in-Chief of decomP. You can visit him at his blog at poweringthedevilscircus.blogspot.com.

Lesley C. Weston: "I write to live and live to have things to write about."

Josh Maday lives in Michigan. His writing has been published or is forthcoming in New York Tyrant, Apostrophe Cast, IsReads, Phoebe, Lamination Colony, Action Yes, Barrelhouse, Dark Sky Magazine, Everyday Yeah, Opium Magazine, No Colony, Thieves Jargon, NANO Fiction, and elsewhere.

Carl Annarummo runs The Greying Ghost. He is runs a cassette label dedicated to odd noises and found sounds. Extensive info on these two projects, as well as his blog, etc... can be found at Airforce Joyride.

Goodreads

My publisher, Adam Robinson, added Easter Rabbit to Goodreads, the social networking site for readers. Writer J.A. Tyler was kind enough to put Easter Rabbit on his to-read list. He is founding editor of mud luscious / ml press and the author of SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE (ghost road press, 2009), INCONCEIVABLE WILSON (scrambler books, 2009), and IN LOVE WITH A GHOST (willows wept press, 2010).

Table Tennis Blog

I decided to broaden my outreach with Easter Rabbit to blogs and bloggers of all kinds. The folks at Table Tennis Blog weren't interested in the book, but were kind enough to reply to my inquiry. Visit them for all sorts of information about table tennis, "The most under-rated sport in existence."