Are you coming to the AWP Writing Conference? Or do you live in Boston and like reading, writing, and the internet? Or drinking booze someone else paid for? Let’s high five each other, drink cocktails, and talk about books! Please join Electric Literature, Lapham’s Quarterly, and Tumblr for a celebration of virtual friends and real world meetings at Sweetwater Tavern in Boston on March 7th.
Woke up today to find Agent Gates has made it into the Comic Strips Best Sellers list, somehow rubbing elbows with the likes of some of my personal favorites, including Scott Pilgrim, Calvin and Hobbes, and Jimmy Corrigan.
Though we’re obviously the victim of an Amazon webmaster’s practical joke, I’m nevertheless very grateful to be in the vicinity of these works of actual art. Thank you guys for getting the word out and supporting our book! We couldn’t be happier with the kind words you’ve have had so far.
Go Tumblr Artists Go!
A dashboard without books is like a body without a soul.
A Sea of Quotes | Book Lover | Book Mania | Book Riot | Books & Quills | Books Matter
First Book | F**k Yeah Manuscripts | Harper Books | Hungry For Books |
Juliette Tang | Literary Juke Box | Little Fiction | Little Texts | Nose In A Book |
OMFG Books | Out of Print Clothing | Pretty Books | Recommended Reading | The Strand Books | Teaching Literacy | Tea, Coffee, Books | Thalia’s Books | The Bookish Dark | The Final Sentence | The Literary Snob | The Paris Review | Underground New York Public Library | White Paper Quotes | Yeah Writers |
Important recommendations! What are yours…?
(Source: thegirlandherbooks)
/A LITERATION/ SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW OPEN!
A Literation is officially launched and submissions are open. Please note our website is not live yet, but we’ll be bringing it online within the next few days. We appreciate your patience. Please read the Submission Guidelines before submitting. The themes for the inaugural issue are detailed below. Please direct any questions you may have to info@aliteration.com.
Submissions are open from now, Monday, November 5th, through midnight CST November 20, 2012.
Thanks, and we look forward to reading your work!
Jen.
Editor-in-Chief, A Literation
Poetry (submit to poetry@aliteration.com): “An Encounter With …”
Specifically, we are seeking the submission of poems describing unusual or provocative encounters. We encourage poets to avoid taking the theme too literally; we are interested in seeing submissions that describe encounters with the vague, the unknown, the obscure, the WEIRD, in lieu of poems about encounters with people, places or things.
Prose (submit to prose@aliteration.com): “Transitions”What does it take to change a life? For this theme we are looking for stories of dramatic change: transitions, transformations, and new perspectives. Pieces could be about anything from a discovery that changes a character’s life (or changes the world!) to a story of a character who is transformed into a tern while lying on the beach. We are generally looking for a major transition, but we would certainly be delighted by unexpected transformations, or new, creative interpretations.
Visual Art (submit to jen@aliteration.com):
Your original art related to either or both themes.
We are accepting submissions of visual art to use as breaks in the magazine, as well as a piece for the cover. These pieces will be reviewed and selected by the entire team. The standard size of an eBook cover or page is 600 x 800 pixels. Please include your name and tumblr URL with your attached artwork, along with a short paragraph describing how your art interprets the theme(s) presented.
Submission Terms and Conditions (please read before submitting):
Some amazing writers from the Tumblr community have launched a lit journal. Here’s how to get involved!
Tumblr Prep! Thursday 11/15 at 7pm at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe.
Celebrate the launch of Jen Adams’ The Books They Gave Me with a night of literary education starring Jen as English, Jason Oberholtzer of I Love Charts as Math, Phil Edwards of Fake Science as Science, and Michelle Legro of My Daguerreotype Boyfriend as History.
Free drinks, school picture day with laser backdrop (courtesy of Have Booth Will Travel), brown bag PBJ/PBR specials, and more! Books will be for sale to benefit Housing Works, as will a Limited Edition My Daguerreotype Boyfriend 2013 Pin-Up Calendar. Enter the #bookstheygaveme contest for a chance to read on stage!
Hello, Tumblr! Presenting: Our Favorite Lit-Minded Tumblrs
After an incredible meeting with Tumblr literary high priestess, Rachel Fershleiser, we are ready to unveil the shiny new Black Balloon Tumblr! On it, you’ll find exclusive odds and ends from our books, outtakes from our blog, photos from events and parties, and anything worth reblogging from our literary friends and allies. To commemorate such an occasion, we’ve compiled a list of some of our favorite literary Tumblrs. Do yourself a favor and follow all these blogs immediately. Your cat-filled, Ryan Gosling-studded dashboard will thank you.
Title 2 Come: Gif blogs may be played out, but this literary-minded one is extremely relevant to our interests. Besides, any excuse to use this Ron Swanson gif is an Internet victory in our books.
Book Storey: For the extremely detail-oriented design bibliophiles, this collection of rare books will make you swoon. Recommended for people who spend way too much time in the Strand’s Rare Book Room.
Fishing Boat Proceeds: YA author, John Green, is a Tumbly messiah, herding masses of “nerdfighters” to do outrageous things like register to vote and donate to Kiva. If you want to know that the kids are up to these days, jump on his bandwagon.
Underground NYPL: Forget the Sartorialist. This is the street style blog you want to be caught on. Subway riders reading, with the occasional e-reader thrown in for good measure.
Rachel Fershleiser: Obviously.
On the Strand: UK Penguin’s Tumblr ain’t the standard huge publishing blog. They post never-before-seen bits and pieces from their books, and if you’re lucky you can catch an early glimpse of soon-to-be bestsellers, like they did with Zadie Smith’s NW a couple of months ago.
The Collected Blurbs of Gary Shteyngart: Yes, he really did blurb this blurb blog. But this is handy to follow, should you ever need a crash course in book blurbing.
The Composites: “Images created using a commercially available law enforcement composite sketch software and descriptions of literary characters.” Either extremely beautiful or extremely upsetting, depending how you imagined Katniss Everdeen to look like.
Book Stalker: Again, obviously.
Bookshelf Porn: A visual case against e-readers.
Better Book Titles: One of the many Tumblrs that has went on to a (well deserved!) book deal but continues to post funny content.
Slaughterhouse 90210: Imperative for anyone who’s ever wondered what would happen to the time-space continuum if Edith Wharton and Blair Waldorf ever crossed paths.
WORD and Housing Works: Two best bookstores on Tumblr. Extremely entertaining Twitter feeds as well.
Let’s all welcome Black Balloon, shall we?
Trapped in the Tumblr Closet: Cole Stryker
Net culture book dude Cole Styker today finds himself Trapped in the Tumblr Closet. You may know Cole from his first tome, Epic Win for Anonymous — or his new one, Hacking the Future, which comes out September 13. While firmly ensconced in our closet, Cole freely discusses the joys of anonymity, pseudonymity, and blue fairies.
Come see Cole on 9/13 with Clay Shirky, activists and Cryptome founders John Young and Deborah Natsios, NYU professor Whitney “Dr. Troll” Phillips, and social media scholar danah boyd for a discussion and launch party at Housing Works!
Three wonderful Tumblr writers have new books on sale today, and what a diverse group they are:
Dan Wilbur tells you How Not To Read in a funny little guide based on Better Book Titles. The party is tonight!
Emma Straub’s long-awaited debut novel is here. I read it in one sitting and then bought another copy for my mom. You should too.
Allie Hagan channels Suri Cruise in this very important instruction manual for fashion and for life. Based on Suri’s Burn Book. The party is 9/25, with the delightful Emma Koenig of Fuck I’m in My 20s.
This should keep you in reading material until at least next Tuesday…
This Tuesday 9/4 at Housing Works Bookstore.
Free beer and wine and comedy! Copies of “How Not to Read” will be available!
Co-sponsored by Tumblr, Community Bookstore, and Perigee. Flyer by Anya Garrett.
Don’t miss it!
