OtherLife’s first reviews

Thu 22 Jun 2017 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Kelley Eskridge, OtherLife| Posted by: Gavin

OtherLife, the movie based on Kelley Eskridge’s novel Solitaire has debuted at the Sydney Film Festival and has picked up some great reviews. As Kelley says, “You can find OtherLife on Facebook and on Twitter. Read about the wild ride of indie filmmaking at the OtherLife Journals.”

I hope it gets released in the US as it sounds — from the Hollywood Reporter review — like a film that would be fun to see on a movie screen.

“As OtherLife progresses and the pacing warms up, you can sense the shit about to hit a virtually rendered, glitch-prone fan. . . . The near-future setting, combined with Helen O’Loan’s resourceful, interior-heavy production design, protect the film from extending its sci-fi inclinations beyond the point that can be reasonably achieved within its modest budget. The atmosphere is big but the settings are contained, like Shane Abbess’ Infini.
And like last year’s horror indie Observance (another innovative Australian genre film, constructed on an even smaller budget), OtherLife’s score and sound design is so striking it is practically a character in the film. All credit to Jed Palmer, who also worked on 2014’s delightful The Infinite Man.”
— The Guardian

“A stylish piece of sci-fi pulp fiction. . . . OtherLife likewise boasts a non-linear structure that is just explicable enough until one too many late reversals, though its puzzles could prove catnip to genre fans who thrill to fare such as FX’s Legion that blurs the line between real worlds and virtual ones.”
— The Hollywood Reporter

Read more about the film here and check in here later for who knows what?

The Committee Picks . . . The Chemical Wedding

Tue 20 Jun 2017 - Filed under: Not a Journal., awa, Jacob McMurray, John Crowley, The Chemical Wedding, Theo Fadel| Posted by: Gavin

I never got round to posting some lovely news about one of our books last month but today in among all the copyright registrations, LCRW submissions, and the ubiquitous printer bills, there was a certificate from the Bookbuilders of Boston for The Chemical Wedding which was a Committee Pick for the 60th Annual New England Book Show.

Back on May 9th, I went with The Chemical Wedding illustrator Theo Fadel and her partner to Symphony Hall in Boston for the award show. It was great fun seeing all the winners and we had that lovely extra frisson of enjoyment since our book was one of them. The food was tasty, the chat was good, and the show catalog (the blue hardcover with New England in silver in the photo below) is a thing of beauty, which is still out on the table at home because at the moment it is too pretty to put away.

I haven’t entered books for the awards before because while I think we make beautiful books, so do Candlewick and Beacon and David R. Godine and so on and on but The Chemical Wedding was such an unusual book I hoped it might catch the jury’s attention. Yay for trying! And when you read the committee citation the award is obviously for designer Jacob McMurray and illustrator Theo Fadel, to whom I am still very grateful that we actually pulled this book off.

And now I will go find a place on the wall to hang our certificate — which I had fun photographing on top of an unbound copy of the book.

Skillfully Reinventing Familiar Narratives

Fri 16 Jun 2017 - Filed under: Not a Journal., Christopher Rowe| Posted by: Gavin

It’s what Christopher Rowe has been doing for lo these some years now and soon enough there in every bookstore in the nation will be his collection of stories and those familiar but reinvented narratives will be spreading like wildfire. The week of publication will be celebrated throughout Kentucky but specifically in the author’s hometown of Lexington with these events:

Tuesday July 11th, 7 p.m.: Launch Party at Joseph-Beth Booksellers with drinks and snacks. Richard Butner will interview the author followed by a Q&A and a signing.

Friday July 14th: This, as Christopher pointed out, is Bastille Day. It is also Alumni Day at Bluegrass Writers Studio at Eastern Kentucky University MFA program’s summer residency in Richmond, KY, so Christopher Rowe will be reading for the students on campus in the afternoon and at 5 p.m. Rowe plus a number of alums with will do a reading. New Lexington pop-up bookseller Brier Books will sell books.

Saturday, July 15th, 8 a.m. til 1 p.m.: Lexington Farmer’s Market Homegrown Authors. Rowe will be there from manning a table, talking to people, hopefully selling some books. Note that one scene in “Nowhere Fast” is set at this very farmer’s market, in this very spot. Again, books provided by Brier Books.

What’s the book about? Lemme let the professionals at Publishers Weekly cover that:

“In his inventive debut collection, Rowe bends the world we know, remaking regions of the southern United States. Appalachian settings, recurring characters, and dystopian themes of societal degradation link the stories. In “The Voluntary State,” a band of marauders from Kentucky attack a painter named Soma’s car and kidnap him. Japheth Sapp, the leader of the captors, recruits Soma in a plan to sneak into Nashville and kill Athena Parthenus, the governor of Tennessee. Meanwhile, Jenny, a mechanic, reunites Soma with his repaired (and sentient) vehicle. All paths converge in an explosive conclusion. In “The Border State,” twin cyclists Maggie and Michael Hammersmith set off on a bike race across Kentucky. Their ride takes them along a river and the Girding Wall, which isolates Athena’s Tennessee. The race evolves into a search for their missing father, and a hunt for answers to mysterious messages from their mother, who drowned in a flash flood 20 years earlier. Rowe skillfully reinvents familiar narratives and widens common story lines into a world where anything seems possible. Wild creativity, haunting imagery, and lyricism—as displayed in “Two Figures in a Landscape Between Storms”—urge readers forward even as the pacing slows to provide needed exposition. While at times the poetic syntax of the sentences hampers comprehension, the book offers an immersive and original reading experience.“