At KQED’s The Writers’ Block, Rumpus contributor Joshua Mohr reads a passage from his new novel Damascus. The passage comes from the book’s second chapter and focuses on a man named Owen whose below-the-nose birthmark resembles a Hitler mustache. In case you missed it, here’s the Rumpus review of Damascus, and our interview with Mohr.

In honor of today’s Rumpus Interview with Joshua Mohr and the Rumpus Review of Mohr’s latest novel, Damascus, we are announcing a giveaway! The first ten people to email their address to eric AT twodollarradio.com will receive a free copy of Mohr’s new book. Get on it!

Update: Well, that was quick. All ten copies have been claimed. Thanks for playing!

Joshua Mohr knows how easily the dark parts of the psyche can be sustained and deepened by the seamy parts of city life — drink, drugs, chronic poverty, and sad selfish sex. …more

Set in a dive bar, Joshua Mohr’s new novel, Damascus follows a weird gang as their lives crumble. Somehow it’s still life-affirming. …more

The Rumpus talks to Patrick DeWitt about his new book, The Sisters Brothers, the story of two brothers in the Gold Rush California. …more

Joshua Mohr’s second novel returns to the seedy side of San Francisco, where the addicted and the lost search for redemption. …more

To bring in the New Year, we had one helluva week at Rumpus Books. Steve Almond confronted “Katie Roiphe’s Big Cock Block,” Joshua Mohr asked why we write reviews in the first place, and Dubravka Ugresic talked about myths and the former Yugoslavia. …more

Two authors, one dinner table. Joshua Mohr talks to Joe Meno about The Great Perhaps, fundamentalism, and why George W. Bush’s sentences are so short. …more

This week, Rumpus Books has published reviews of Christopher Buckley’s new memoir, the work of Sidney Wade, and two novels, including one about being Jewish  — and accused of patricide — in Holocaust-era Austria.

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by Joshua Mohr

Lately people have been asking me why I decided to publish my novel, Some Things that Meant the World to Me, with a small press. Instinctively, my gut wants to lie, stammer some kind of self-justification: “Well, uh, I felt that a boutique house (note that I didn’t say “small press”) would give me more attention (i.e. answer my emails) and nurture the book in a way true to my artistic vision (i.e. not perform fellatio on the marketing department)

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