Thursday, December 24, 2009

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.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

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.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

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."

Thursday, December 3, 2009

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.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Easter Rabbit Wordle

Wordle: Easter Rabbit

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