Saturday, August 27, 2005

No Yeah!

My new chapbook, Loss Leaders, is out now from No Press. It's free if you email nopress2005 [at] hotmail [dot] com

Awesome!

Thursday, August 18, 2005

BookThug Yeah!

My new chapbook, Selected Losses, is available now from BookThug. Take a look at it here.

Awesome!

Friday, August 12, 2005

Not angry anymore

The new Matrix Comics Issue is back from the printer. It's very sweet. My favourites are the gag comics by Lauren R. Weinstein, creator of "morrissey and me." You can find "morrissey and me" at http://gURL.com. (Sorry- I can't seem to get the hyperlinks working on this mac browser.) The issue will not be in stores until after labour day. We don't want the Nostalgia Issue to be returned or pulped just yet.

I've been with Matrix for six years now. And Matrix is in its thirtieth year. I volunteered for the first couple of years and worked my ass off in order to become indispensible. At the time I was just thrilled to be a part of publishing poetry, fiction, art, etc. (I still am, but sometimes I get caught up in the petty stuff.) Back then, working with Rob Allen and Andy Brown helped to save my literary life. I wonder how many young people just give up because of the lack of opportunities and/or money in literary publishing...

Sunday, August 07, 2005

Savaged

Bert Archer of the Toronto Star has this to say about my funnybook, Asthmatica, and David McGimpsey's funnybook, Certifiable:

"The most charitable approach to these books would, I think, be to ignore [the veteran status of the authors] and pretend that we've stumbled on the manuscripts two undergrads have constructed out of the stories they tell their buddies."

I'll spare you the rest of the review. It's mean-spirited stuff. It's the typical, "it may be funny, but that's not enough. It has to be 'grown-up' too" crap.

I hate it when people who have no authority to speak of the art of comedy decide to review comedy books. Being funny is hard work, but to Bert Archer, it's not serious work and therefore not of value. This is how snobbery works.

I know my book is juvenile -- it's about an immature kid named Jonny who gets into funny situations. It's light reading. And it's for young people. Also, I've read Dave's book and it's funny. That seems to be its mandate. And what pisses me off is that Bert "Canada's most beloved comedy scholar" Archer is judging these books for what they represent socially, not aesthetically. He is too much of a snob to judge these comedy books on how well they deliver jokes.

I'm reviewing a very good novel right now for the Gazette. It's a 'serious' novel with very heavy subject matter. One thing I will be sure not to do is to complain that the book is lacking in punchlines.

Oh! And they spelled the title of my book incorrectly! Thanks, Toronto Star!!!