Publishing Anyone?
And with any luck it may even smell good.
McSweeney's Quarterly Concern Issue 13, filled with the sort of personality, smell and stylistic prose we've come to expect of our favorite west-coast publishing shop, has been sitting on my shelf for some time now and I've failed to make note of it. My sincerest apologies.
In a deviation from the norm, McSweeney's has published an issue that is dedicated almost entirely to illustrated stories that decry that genre's comical stereotype. I'm in a serious backlog of books-to-read, including two T.C. Boyle books (World's End and The Tortilla Curtain), a novel by Rick Moody (The Ice Storm), a memoir by Dan Kennedy (Loser Goes First), a Hemingway novel (The Sun Also Rises) and short stories (Winner Take Nothing), McSweeney's Quarterly Concern Issue 8, a Crighton novel (The Terminal Man), and a novel by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason (The Rule of Four), so sadly I may not get to this for a while yet. But it beckons.
I've also re-upped my subscription and tacked on a sister publication, The Believer. It is a monthly magazine, with a wonderful, ink-and-paper, ad-free smell. Seriously. And the typography is sexy; the writing clever.
The first issue came with a music CD with many great pieces of music by bands I'd never even heard of, and now I'm a fan. What more could a subscriber ask for?
Earl and I have been kicking around the idea of publishing a wee chapbook, nothing fancy. Nothing on the order of The Quarterly Concern, but a beginning, and an avenue to expose ourselves in print-form. The contents would be varied, the publishing schedule erratic. But it would be ours. And with any luck it may even smell good. Like clever words committed to paper. Like compelling typography flowing from page to page, chapter to chapter. Like stories and poetry and essays. Like the delicate wafting smoke of literature-in-the-making.
It excites me, this.