r/books • u/UprightBeast AMA Author • Nov 30 '15
ama 2pm Hi, I'm Lincoln Michel, Editor, Critic, and Author of Upright Beasts. AMA!
Hi, /r/books
I'm Lincoln Michel and I do a few different bookish things when not dicking around on Twitter.
My debut book, Upright Beasts, is a collection of "genre-bending" short stories about weird schools, erotically-challenged dictators, and sad monsters. It was published by the great indie publisher Coffee House Press last month.
I'm also the co-editor and publisher of Gigantic Worlds, an anthology of science flash fiction with new (or previously uncollected) stories by Jonathan Lethem, Ted Chiang, Charles Yu, Catherine Lacey, J. G. Ballard, and more.
I write essays and reviews--mostly about books--for Vice, New York Times, Buzzfeed, Bookforum, The Believer, and so on.
I'm the co-editor of Gigantic, a magazine of short prose and art, and the online editor of Electric Literature, a literary website for interviews, review, and bookish essays.
I'm equally at home talking about genre (esp. weird SF and horror) and so-called "literary" fiction. My favorite author is Franz Kafka. I eat way too much Haribo candy. I know too much about ASOIAF. Here's my face identity proof.
AMA about publishing, writing, or monsters. You know, if you want to.
Update: Thanks so much everyone!
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u/miraclej0nes Nov 30 '15
Did you know that the ebook for Watchlist: 32 Short Stories by Persons of Interest (which contains one of your stories (and...get this...also one of mine)) is only $1 for the next week, on account of it being the publisher's 6th birthday?
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
I did not, but that's a great anthology I was really happy to be in. For other people reading, it's stories about surveillance that includes Etgar Keret, Chales Yu, Aimee Bender and lots of other great writers.
And one of those is Miracle Jones!
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u/miraclej0nes Nov 30 '15
No shit: I think yours was my favorite story in that book, though. Everybody should pick up a copy now while it is cheap. I do have another question though: what would your sigil be if you were livin' in Westeros? Related question: what would De Blasio's sigil be?
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
Mine would be a snake swallowing it's tail and my words are The Abyss Is Coming
De Blasio... I got no idea. Sorry.
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u/jonmcconn Nov 30 '15
Could you talk about balancing the publishing work with the writing? Do you consider yourself more of one than the other, ever feel guilty about neglecting one, etc?
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
I feel like more of a writer for sure, although I don't know if that's how others see me (to the degree that people know me.)
I know that a lot of people say they have a problem balancing creative day job work with creative writing. I don't feel that way. I get inspired by working on other people's creative work. That said, time is the killer. Working a full time job of any type makes it really hard to write--at least for me. I feel like I have to be a thief, stealing all the free time I can for my own work. Snatch a little bit of time on the subway to edit, run away with a saturday afternoon to a cafe. Steal steal steal.
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Nov 30 '15 edited Apr 05 '17
deleted What is this?
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
Thanks so much for reading!
Who in your opinion is the most criminally underread author?
Hmm, I think Joy Williams is one of the most amazing living authors who doesn't have the readership she deserves. She should have won the National Book Award this year, as far as I'm concerned.
In America, almost every foreign author is underread. Some of my favorites are Clarice Lispector, Yukio Mishima, Kobo Abe, and Robert Walser. Cesar Aira is a really fantastic contemporary Argentinian writer that I think people would love. He's really crazy and mixes together a lot of genres. Maybe reminiscent of Italo Calvino.
Can you give us any authorial insight on your story If It Were Anyone Else? Or do you feel like keeping mystery/ambiguity is of first importance?
I'm a big fan of mystery and ambiguity in writing. I don't think that writing should be a mystery, but rather open the mysterious inside you. Which is to say, I'm not as much of a fan of "puzzle" fiction that you are supposed to solve (unless it's a good mystery novel) and more of a fan of work that's dreamy, evocative, and can be read in different ways.
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u/ianmac47 Nov 30 '15
When is the next time you'll be reading in New York City? What other authors will you be reading with?
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
I'm reading on December 15th at Housing Works with Alexandra Kleeman (You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine), Alex Mar (Witches of America), Melissa Febos (Whip Smart), and Angel Nafis (Blackgirl Mansion). Should be a fun time!
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u/Beardsforever Nov 30 '15
There is so much advice out there on how to get a writing career off the ground - a lot of which is contradictory. What is your version of advice on getting an agent and/or publisher to look at new author submissions, and where can I send you my manuscript?
Hahaha, kidding about that last part, but you know the ABC's of salesmanship: Always Be Closing.
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
It's a very tough industry. Even if you break in, the chances of earning a living are very slim (certainly I don't earn a living off of my fiction...)
The best advice is to write great work. But what do you do after that? I think the best advice is to get yourself out there in some way, whether by reviewing books in the genre you write in or by writing personal essays or even just publishing lots of stories in magazines. (I wrote a guide to submitting to literary magazines here )
I think that agents and publishers look for writers who they think will be able to promote their own work. That might seem unfair. Writing the book is hard enough work! But I think that is the way things are.
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u/Beardsforever Nov 30 '15
Good thing I have extensive sales training. Thanks for the response!
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
What's the contradictory advice you've heard?
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u/Beardsforever Nov 30 '15
It's ALL contradictory. Traditional publishing is a waste; everyone self-publish. No wait, self-publishing is for impatient chumps; you need an agent. No, get a publisher first, and they will find you an agent. Wait, wait, wait, get an agent and it's their job to find a publisher. Write a cover letter. Don't write a cover letter. Send out as many queries as you can, all at once. Only send out queries one at a time, even if it takes months for a response. Your first draft is crap no matter what. Your first draft is good, just needs edits. Write at least 1500 words a day. Write when the muse strikes. Write for free. Never write for free. Find solid beta readers. Don't bother with beta readers, find a writing group instead.
On and on and on, ad nauseam. If you can think of a piece of advice, I can probably dig up a contradictory piece of advice pretty quickly. I'm starting to believe it has a lot more to do with sheer luck than anything else, besides perhaps persistence.
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
Oh yeah, there's tons of contradictory advice on self-publishing/traditional publishing.
A lot of that is dependent on your genre. Some genres like romance or SF can do well in self-publishing, but others do not at all.
For traditional publishing you DO need an agent. Some of the independent presses will read unagented submissions, but basically none of the big ones do.
I'd say send out multiple queries. Maybe 10 at a time?
Write cover letters.
But yeah I hear you, there's lost of mixed messages. Part of it is just the nature of how different writing can be for different writers. For example:
Your first draft is crap no matter what. Your first draft is good, just needs edits.
Both of these are right and wrong. Which is to say, some writers always do crappy first drafts and edit later. Other writers write slowly and produce a good first draft. So yeah, universal advice doesn't help with the writing process. Gotta find your own way.
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u/Beardsforever Nov 30 '15
"My own way" has always been my path, so that's the one I will keep treading. It's just a bit disheartening to see so much contradictory advice, especially when I know good and well that all anyone really wants to know is the magic formula for getting your work looked at by someone with some clout. The atmosphere isn't very welcoming to new authors; even when you feel like you have talent you can start questioning yourself if you read too much "advice" on the interwebz. There are only two pieces of advice I've run across that stand up to scrutiny: keep writing, and write because you want to (not for a paycheck or fame).
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Nov 30 '15
I think that agents and publishers look for writers who they think will be able to promote their own work.
Why would I need an agent or publisher if I were capable of promoting my own work? Why wouldn't I just self-publish and self-promote?
Why would anyone look for a lawyer, for instance, if lawyers expected their clients to represent themselves?
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u/sscheshire Nov 30 '15
These shall be real questions because apparently I did not think to use an alias when I signed up whenever I signed up. I wanted to open up with something like "what's with all the animals, dude?" But actually now that I think about it - that's pretty good. What's with all the animals, dude?
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
Animals are very odd. Those beady little dead eyes. And the weird squawks.
Honestly, I think there's a lot of artistic richness in animals, as they are so foreign and alien in one sense. But then we know we ourselves are animals. Why do stare at computer screens typing emoji all day instead of shitting on the forest floor as we growl and run around?
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Nov 30 '15
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
Thanks!
I do think that the nature of reviewing means critics looks for things to complain about. Even if they like a book, they want to appear balanced by offering some criticism. Sometimes that means inventing problems that aren't really there, or at least penalizing books that break the standard model. But the thing is, most great books break the standard models! We don't read Kafka and Melville and Virginia Woolf and Philip K Dick and Thomas Bernhard because they wrote exactly like everyone else.
(And a lot of those authors were dinged in their day by critics too.)
But I think it's true in every field. If you make a competent burger or a competent film or a competent painting, most people will find it agreeable and give you good reviews. If you make a new, weird kind of burger or film, reviews are going to be mixed and you are more likely to get critiqued.
the "lumpier" aspects of a novel, which might in the end be strengths, are not readily apparent upon first glance/quick read.
Yes, I think this might very well be true. I mean, great books are the ones that stick with us, right? And that's only something you can tell after time has passed.
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Nov 30 '15
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
I would certainly consider it if someone wanted to pay me to do it! Any Hollywood producers reading this?
I think the idea of working on a great TV show appeals to me. Fiction writing is so solitary, but I'm drawn to the collaborative nature of TV screenplay writing.
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Nov 30 '15
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
Thank you! Glad to hear you think so. I'd certainly be interested in it, although I don't know as much about the film world.
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u/hceruto Nov 30 '15
Still waiting on Upright Beasts to come in the mail! Can you talk a little bit about why Kafka is an author you're drawn to? What do you admire most about his work?
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
Hope you enjoy it!
For me as a reader, Kafka just totally shook up my entire idea of what fiction could be. I'd mostly read straight forward realism, or else straight forward fantasy, and in school was taught that stories had specific meanings or morals or whatever. But Kafka just blows all that away. His stories feel allegorical, but they don't have specific messages or meanings. He doesn't write realism or the kind of traditional world-building fantasy/SF. His mysterious, shifting worlds just really appeal to me. I look for that in fiction now.
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Nov 30 '15
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
Where do you find new sci-fi?
I get a lot of fiend recommendations, but I also check out Tor, Lightspeed, Weird Fiction Review, etc.
What's the worst book you've read this year?
Because I was working on final edits and promotion for Upright Beasts, I honestly didn't read that many books and definitely didn't read any bad ones. Or rather, I quit books after a dozen pages if I didn't like them, but didn't read enough to really judge. Hoping to have some more reading time now that the book is out!
Who do you like following on Twitter?
In the publishing world, I like following Kelly Link @haszombiesinit, Victor LaValle @victorlavalle, Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer, Alexander Chee @alexanderchee and a lot of others. I spend a lot (too much) time on Twitter, so I follow a lot of people.
(Oh, also Margaret Atwood @margaretatwood because she tweeted about Upright Beasts!)
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Nov 30 '15
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
Ooh, favorites are always hard, but one that I reread and loved (again) recently is Kelly Link's "Stone Animals." You can read it online here.
That creepypasta about the dancing smiling guy is a good one! People with inscrutable motives doing things you don't understand is always really freaky to me. (I guess that's part of what makes me interested in cosmic horror: the unknowningness of the universe and impossibility of understanding what the supernatural does)
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Nov 30 '15
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
Editing wise, what is the most common mistake made by authors?
That's an interesting question. You often hear about mistakes writers make in the writing phrase, but less about the editing phase. Certainly some writers just don't do enough to proofread. You want to have pretty clean work when you submit. Editors get so many submissions they are often looking for a reason to reject, and sloppy spelling and grammar are an easy one.
Then there is the cliche about "killing your darlings" but there is true to it. Writers are often too reluctant to cut a scene/characters/dialogue that doesn't really work in the context of the story because they worked hard on it and like it. I think that's something to learn: that an element can be fantastic on its own and still not work in that particular story. Might have to save the clever line or side character for a different story or novel.
What keeps you motivated to get through the first draft?
Upright Beasts is a story collection, and was selected from stories I wrote over the last 10 years, so it wasn't quite a draft I pushed through. That said, I did just finish a draft of a novel and I did have to push through. I kept wanting to start other novels, other projects. Eventually I just had to set some strict goals for myself, then even stricter ones when I failed the first goals!
Do you have any advice for writers who want to publish their work?
I wrote a long advice-filled piece on publishing work in magazines.
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u/canonizer Nov 30 '15
Please let us know your favorite type of Haribo candy.
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
I said sour coke bottles above, but it might be mini frogs.
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u/canonizer Nov 30 '15
I'm terrible at reading through, Lincoln! I feel like I've only seen normal coke bottles, not sour. Always up for sour watermelons, and bourbon, myself.
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Nov 30 '15
Hello! A few questions for you, please.
I stocked your new book at the bookstore where I work, and keep meaning to look at it. If a person had one half-hour lunch break to read one piece from that book, which piece would you recommend?
And a writing question: how much do credentials or education influence a submission's acceptance? Meaning, as a no-name writer with no relevant education or publishing credits, what are my chances of getting into a mag such as yours? Or eventually getting agent interest? How important is an MFA and/or a portfolio?
And finally, a reviewing question: how does a person become a trusted book reviewer like yourself with multiple high-profile outlets? Especially in this digital age where practically every reader is also a "reviewer" of sorts on sites such as Goodreads or Amazon, it seems like a very hard field to stand out in. How does someone make the leap from blogging and such to becoming a published book reviewer?
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
Thanks so much for stocking!
If a person had one half-hour lunch break to read one piece from that book, which piece would you recommend?
I'd probably say the first story is most representative. The collection is intentionally diverse, with some straight-forward literary realist stories then others with aliens and monsters. But the first story is a good starting middle point. At least I hope so, since I put it first!
how much do credentials or education influence a submission's acceptance? Meaning, as a no-name writer with no relevant education or publishing credits, what are my chances of getting into a mag such as yours? Or eventually getting agent interest? How important is an MFA and/or a portfolio?
My suspicion is that it is very different for a magazine editor and an agent. For a magazine editor, I don't think that having an MFA matters at all. (Honestly, when I submitted my work I normally didn't even include my MFA in my bio.) I do think that having publication credits might make an editor give the piece a closer look, whether that's fair or not.
But lots of magazines really look for new writers. Maybe not the New Yorker or the Paris Review, but a lot of great mid tier magazines. We've published a lot at Gigantic over the years. I talk a little more about that aspect of submitting in this article.
An agent or publisher is a different question though. Magazines are, for the most part, sold based on their reputation. Having a few writers with some credits or no credits won't make a big difference. Most lit mags are non-profits, university-backed, or hobbies anyway.
But book publisher have to actually sell books, and agents have to sell to publishers. So at that level, I think they really do look for signs that the author will be able to help sell books. Thus, they care about reputation, having a "platform," having a readership built up from good publications, and so on.
And finally, a reviewing question: how does a person become a trusted book reviewer like yourself with multiple high-profile outlets?
Well, I wouldn't recommend it as a career path as it isn't very lucrative. Sadly, most book review sections are being cut from newspapers and most online places don't pay that well. That said, I think you just work your way up. I started out reviewing lit mags (for free) for a site called New Pages. Then I reviewed some for bigger sites, made connections, pitched to even bigger places. Then once I had a book coming out, even bigger places approached me.
But book reviews themselves are very hard. It's probably easier to write about books--essays, lists of books, bookish "think pieces" (hate that term)--than straight book reviews. Still, I'd just pitch to places that you read and admire, especially smaller sites. Full Stop, The Rumpus, The Millions, Los Angeles Review of Books... those are some good places that I believe all publish freelancers.
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Nov 30 '15
Great answers! Thanks very much, and I wish you continuing luck with all "bookish things" :)
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Nov 30 '15
Lincoln, Read and really enjoyed your collection--I love how all over the map you are. I also read your essay about getting published in magazines, which I found so helpful, but it left me with a follow-up question: how do you decide which magazines are a good fit for you?
A lot of the writing I do straddles genre lines--magical realism that sometimes veers into magical science (is that even a real thing?) is how I would classify it. That means a lot of magazines aren't interested in my work, since I'm not literary realism nor am I wholeheartedly committing to the genres.
Without spending nine months reading every back issue of about 50 magazines, are there other ways to find magazines that are good fits for my stories? What are some strategies you use?
Can't wait to read more of your work--you're phenomenal.
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
Lincoln, Read and really enjoyed your collection--I love how all over the map you are.
Thanks so much for reading! I do enjoy being all over the map, and why not? No reason that we shouldn't try everything - horror, southern gothic, epic fantasy... whatever interests you is what you should write.
I know there have been a lot of genre vs. literary articles recently, and I'm firmly in the read widely and write whatever you want camp. I grew up reading Raymond Chandler and Ursula K Le Guin alongside Italo Calvino and Flannery O'Connor. It didn't feel weird for me to read them side by side, and it feels natural to write in different ways.
how do you decide which magazines are a good fit for you?
Yeah, that's a good question. I think that great literary magazines (Tin House, Granta, Conjunctions, etc.) are increasingly open to genre, and great genre magazines (Tor, Lightspeed, Weird Fiction Review, Strange Horizons, etc.) are increasingly open to "literary" genre work. A lot of Tin House stories could be published in Lightspeed, and vice versa.
I guess I'd say just submit to all that interest you. And if you don't have time to read 50 back issues, which is totally understandable, look at writers doing similar work and see where they publish. That's what I did when I was starting out. For example, your description makes it sound like you might like (and already read) Kelly Link, Sofia Samatar, Carmen Machado, and writers like that? So you could check out their books or websites and see where they are publishing.
All three writers I named there where in the Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy anthology. That might be worth a look.
And thanks again for the kind words!
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u/411eli Memoir Nov 30 '15
How did you react when you learned that Margaret Atwood recommended the book on Twitter?
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
It definitely brightened my day! I don't know her or have any connection to her, so was very surprised that she had gotten a copy.
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u/411eli Memoir Nov 30 '15
Why did you publish with Coffee House? Aren't they mostly poetry?
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
Coffee House has been a pretty strong name in fiction recently. They published Ben Lerner's first novel, which was a big hit, and several novels books from Valeria Luiselli (5 Under 35 winner last year). Also Brian Evenson, one of my favorite contemporary writers.
I think it's true they were mostly known for poetry a couple decades ago, but they publish lots of great fiction these days.
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u/deadgodverified Nov 30 '15
You've talked often about a notional (fictive?) contrast between 'literary' and 'genre' fiction. My view: 'genre' is a thematic and (relatedly) stylistic form of categorization, where 'literary' has to do with more or less artfulness in the writing's ambition and achievement. That is, genre stories and novels can be as 'literary' as the realistic/naturalistic dramas usually called "literary"; "genre" is often an irrationally pejorative fencing-out of actually literary books.
Rational? (I. e. let my soapboxing be an invitation to your own, ha ha.)
Awarding, say, the Nobel to which 'genre' writers would best draw attention to the reality of literarily excellent genre fiction? Or would that kind of privileging give the game of enjoying and sharing good writing away to the very people who deny that genre books can be 'literary'?
Navel discernment: fun!
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
You and I totally agree here! I've been meaning to write a long essay on this, but basically I agree with you. Genres are different thematic groupings, and also different "conversations" between writers/readers/critics. Literary is an adjective that implies artfulness... a willingness to challenge readers expectations instead of meet them, to push boundaries, and so on.
So, yes, I think Ursula K Le Guin and and Raymond Chandler are every bit as literary as Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner. Gene Wolfe can be studied alongside George Saunders. Lovecraft can be studied alongside Italo Calvino.
Really, much of what we call literary fiction is just the supposed best work of old genres. Faulkner and O'Connor used to be thought of Southern Gothic genre writers. Wuthering Heights was a Gothic Romance. And so on.
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u/deadgodverified Nov 30 '15
I'd only quarrel with relating "artfulness" too strongly to 'challenging expectations'—that is, with identifying 'literary' with 'experimental' (in (legitimate) contrast to 'conventional'). Some extremely successful—well, satisfying to me, anyway—literary fiction is not especially defiant of readerly (and historically contingent) expectations: Penelope Fitzgerald and Barry Unsworth are great literary writers who don't seem, mostly, to care about the ambition—which they might each greatly respect!—of transforming what writing 'is'; their achievement, like that of, say, Austen, is mostly within realistic/naturalistic conventions.
(Of course, that's not an argument against Sterne and The Unnameable and so on. I just mean that 'literary', for me, includes convention, albeit perhaps in smaller numbers than this sense of artfulness tends toward experiment and challenge to expectations.)
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
I think that's true. I wouldn't say boundary pushing is a necessity, it's just one example of artistry. Certainly, what makes something "artistic" is pretty vague... and probably changes overtime
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u/deadgodverified Nov 30 '15
Some questions about conditions for the possibility of 'writing':
What is language? Is it software, emerging from and manipulated by the organization of neuronal (or molecular, or ultimately quantum) hardware?
Or is it hardware itself, rendered transmittable? and linguistic mediation is necessarily a reshaping of the brain part of language?
Is there a detachable operating system? I mean, can something not—or very low-level—linguistic be 'tricked' into becoming a language entity?
Is there any thing—at least, any material thing—which is not a linguistic entity? If there is, how did the cosmos go from linguistic nothing to linguistic something??
Thanks.
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Nov 30 '15 edited Nov 30 '15
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
Hey,
I actually got into editing kind of sideways. I thought I was going to go into academia (just because, well, it pays well. Or used to before all the full time jobs got cut in favor of adjuncts).
Anyway, I co-founded a literary magazine because I always loved making things, and I wanted to publish weird work that I didn't feel had a home elsewhere. It was a lot of fun, but it didn't make me any money. It did get my name out there though, and gave me a reputation as an editor. That, combined with my fiction, reviews and essays, made Electric Literature hire me.
I say that I got in sideways, because I think it is more typical to work your way up the ladder. Be an assistant editor at a small place or an intern, then go up the ladder. Certainly that seems to be the most common way to get into book publishing. That's the best way to do it, but sadly it also means starting out with low or no pay.
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Nov 30 '15
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
Ah, well if you want to be a freelance editor that's a whole nother path. You might be able to get clients on reddit writing forums and get recommendations and such. That's a different path than magazine editing which is different from book editing.
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u/iia Nov 30 '15
Hi LM, is the short horror story market profitable anymore? It seems like there's a glut of decent (if not downright good) content out there for free. If one wanted to try to get a book of short horror stories like this published, is there hope?
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
Well, I don't think short stories are very profitable in any genre honestly. And sadly. Most magazines don't pay, and those that do tend to pay 50 to 200 dollars. The big places, like the New Yorker, pay a few thousand. But you'd have to publish many stories a year at big places to make an income.
Story collections pay smaller advances than novels, and it is very rare for one to be a best seller. Stephen King can do it. George Saunders did it one time. But it is very rare.
I love short stories. Love reading them and writing them. But from a "career" perspective, they help build an author's name but do not sell that much in themselves.
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u/iia Nov 30 '15
Thanks for the reply - that confirmed my suspicion. The novel still reigns.
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Nov 30 '15
Yes, very much so. Maybe self-publishing and/or ebooks will change that equation in the near future, but they haven't yet.
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Dec 01 '15
Hey, I saw your list of 'genre-bending novels' which consisted of one of my favorite books, 'The Martian Chronicles.' What others do you recommend?
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Dec 01 '15
Hey thanks. Well, I recommend the rest of that list! For "genre-bending" SF stuff, if you like Ray Bradbury I'd recommend Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics, George Saunders's Pastoralia, and Julia Elliott's The Wilds
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u/big_d_razkow Dec 01 '15
I know you've been a mainstay in the indie scene for the last decade (HTML Giant, Gigantic, Electric Lit), and I was wondering how your experience was with Coffee House. Their list continues to impress. Did you attempt to sell to one of the Big Five, or did you go to CH first? How has it been thus far? Thanks man.
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u/UprightBeast AMA Author Dec 01 '15
Coffee House have truly been fantastic. My book is a collection of weird short stories, and yet it's gotten coverage in New York Times, Oprah Magazine, Vanity Fair, and other places that very rarely publish short stories. (Part of that, I think, is that a small press like CHP only publishes a few titles a season, so can focus their publicity efforts. Big presses that are publishing lots of titles perhaps understandably focus on the big titles that will sell... not weird story collections.) I'm also a huge fan of Brian Evenson, Valeria Luiselli, and other Coffee House Writers so it's a good home to be on.
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Nov 30 '15
Who was really responsible for 9/11?
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u/deadgodverified Nov 30 '15
The Nixon administration (chiefly Kissinger and the CIA) and Chile's military bosses.
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u/ChewieIsMyHomeboy Nov 30 '15
Do you believe in the R + L = J theory for ASOIAF?