After negotiating a last minute address change, among other last minute changes, I finally received my much-anticipated copy of The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich.

I haven’t had much time with it yet but, after the first twenty pages, I can safely say it is a pretty incredible read.  If the mishaps of Slutty Teenage Hobo Junkie Vampires aren’t enough of a lure, then I don’t know what is.  But really it’s her language, words that are subtle, revelatory and ensnaring and that I can’t look away from.

It’s the perfect book to read after you’ve been uprooted to an industrial crossroads of a big, battered city, and are living in a tumbledown garret room with a view of a lumberyard, a room with walls that look vaguely like they belong in a back-alley Bangkok hostel — all of which has happened to me and happily so might I add.

You should buy it from Two Dollar Radio. I also suspect that someone here at The Rumpus will be doing a full review of it in the near future.

I’m a sucker for blurbs, I have to admit.

But then writers blurb their friends, right? It’s just the right thing to do, so maybe it doesn’t say that much about the book.  Yet I’m always looking to see what writers have praised what books and why. It’s borderline compulsive.

(Jonathan Lethem, I’ve decided, has probably blurbed the most books of any living writer.  And generally I think he is spot-on.) …more

It isn’t lyrical, it isn’t fun, it isn’t a spectacle, it doesn’t beg for your attention—Nog honestly considers the absurdity and sadness of everyday life. …more

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)

…more