Lemony Snicket, source of inspiration (and childhood nightmares)
“Mr. Snicket rarely appears in public, but when he does, it is best to avoid him.”
Lemony Snicket is brilliant. And I don’t just mean his quirky writing. I mean he himself is brilliant, a mysterious and morbid genius in the guise of a man. So for your viewing pleasure, I have included a link to Snicket’s pep talk for a previous National Novel Writers Month. If this doesn’t cause you to pick up your pen and dash off a few inspired pages of that autobiography you’ve been wanting to start, then nothing will.
Also, for the morbidly curious, I’ve included a link to the information page on the author’s own website.
Publishing woes
As a follow up to the post about the writers Anthony Carelli and Maaza Mengiste, I thought it would be interesting to post about book publishing. Both writers had odd starts in their literary careers since neither of them were published in the ordinary way. During the discussion portion after their readings, Carelli and Mengiste both mentioned that although both of them did send their writing out to many different sources that isn’t how they got published. Carelli sent his poems to an editor of the New Yorker, who not only published a few of his poems in that prestigious literary source but also asked for a manuscript of Carelli’s poems, which were published for him. Mengiste approached an agent of a fellow writer during a book talk, offered over her manuscript and voila.
These may be rare occurrences, but it may give us some hope for the future.
Signed,
Jenna, editor - the Mill the blog.
The Mill The Change
So the Mill as a collective body has decided that the blog, this blog, needs work. Major work. So a few dedicated Mill members, and hopefully this number will continue to grow, have decided to put time and effort into this blog to make it something worth reading and worth dedicating time too.
The posts will be on a range of topics, from art to literature to music and everything in between. Hopefully we can create a place that is dynamic and interesting and inspiring.
Let’s see where this takes us.
Signed,
Jenna, editor - the Mill the blog.
"The Instructions": The Next Big Thing? 
So Dave Eggers’ publishing house, McSweeney’s, recently released what critics are calling “One of the 21st century’s finest literary creations.”
It’s called The Instructions, and it was writtenby the young (33-year old) new author Adam Levin. Granted, the “21st Century” is composed only of 10 years’ worth of ficion, but given that this guy spent a decade working on this mammoth 900+ page novel, I think that maybe it’s worth our attention. Of course length is a lame qualifier as a standard of literary merit, but the synopsis and its reviews make it sound pretty hilarious, engaging, maybe sad at some points. And they make it sound characterized by something that seems crucial for a book of such serious length: this thing sounds really fun and rewarding.
I ordered my copy today after reading the first chapter. The main character, Gurion Maccabbee, is a ten-year old Torah scholar (among other variations on scholar, from what I can tell so far) who kicks the shit out of two kids in the first 8 pages and has a messianic complex. And, though that brief character-description might not imply it, he’s totally likeable (at least, once again, from what I’ve read so far). The first chapter, some snippets of reviews, a synopsis, and the book itself ($24) are all available on the page the above link directs you to (it goes to the McSweeney’s page). I’m psyched. Homework can wait awhile; this thing’s comin overnight.
-JDA
Calico Grounds is a small press from Houston, TX that has released stuff from Jaimie Stewart (of Xiu Xiu) along with a number of Houston writers and artists. They asked me last autumn if I’d like to release something, and that promise has finally come to fruition. It’s eighteen new poems/prose pieces from this past fall and I’m pretty psyched on it.
It’s available here and only $5 plus S&H. I’ll only have a few copies to sell, so grab them from their site if you’re interested.
Peace.
