So this is what Cobalt's first year of book publishing looks like, yo.

Totally. And much more here. So much more.

The Cobalt 2015 Frank McCourt Creative Nonfiction Prize is nigh. And judge it we will.

Seriously, it's nigh, and TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer will be judge. So do hit it. It just might change your life.

From now until Christmas, you can get EPUB or PDF versions of Four Fathers and BLACK KRIM, yes that Four Fathers, and that BLACK KRIM, from Cobalt for $4.95.

Here and here. For real. Now do hit it. It just might change your life.

This Thumbnail Will Change Your Life is in the house. And big thanks to the Andrew Keating for that.

Oh hell yes, The Last Original Guitar Riff in G by Tom Williams is at the Cobalt and rejoice we shall.

And you can too, rejoice that is, so please do, here, nice, thank you.

Sattin Sparks Tyler Keating and Cobalt Issue 7 Spring 2013 Oh My!

Really. They're all there. And so much more. So do hit it. It just might change your life.

And then there was the time we all signed our Cobalt contract and joy was felt far and wide across the land.

New joint. Moving. At the decomP.

Quite excited about this we are and big thanks to the Jason Jordan and the decomP crew for that. We are also excited to let you know that this joint is part of a series of pieces from our contribution to a new collection titled WHERE YOU SHOULD BE: Four (Aging, Uncertain, Often Confused, Frequently Terrified) Contemporary Writers on Fatherhood that we collaborated on with stellar dad writers dudes and friends Dave Housley, Tom Williams, and BL Pawelek, and will be released by the Andrew Keating and Cobalt. So there's that as well. Excerpt? Word.

"He’s just walking down the street in front of you. It’s what they do of course, walk and breathe, and all those things people engage in when they’re alive and they grow.

He’s in front of you though, and he’s not holding your hand, or looking at you, and that’s different, new.

You’re not even on his radar.

Did you see when she kicked him at recess? your older son says to his friend all mock serious.

Yeah, she replies, he got treated.

Treated, your son says laughing, that’s not how you use the word treated.

No, she says, what’s treated?

It’s like when you say, your mom is so fat, that when she stands in front of the sun it’s like a total eclipse. That’s getting treated, he says.

And they both laugh."

Cobalt includes You Can Make Him Like You on its guest-edited City Paper Best Books of 2011 list in part for being a champion of "dick-lit" and we have a new found appreciation for both dick and lit.

More fantastic list. More coolness. More honored. And big thanks to the Andrew Keating and the Cobalt. Drinks soon, yes? Yes.

We are Cobalt interview. Feels good. There we said it.

We much appreciate up and coming rock star lit mag Cobalt conducting an interview with TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer. We now want to share it with you. And even excerpt. Which we've done. Feels good. For us anyway.

COBALT: Many readers comment on your ability to draw from hotspots around Chicago – the social environments that people who live in or have visited the city can identify with. How does your hometown feed you as a writer?

Tanzer: Great question, and I should note that as a native New Yorker, I should probably refer to Chicago as my adopted hometown in case anyone takes offense. And yes, I’m talking to you, Joe Meno and Billy Lombardo. No really I am talking to you guys. Let’s get some coffee some time. That said, I am fed as all writers are fed. We are always absorbing what is around us, where we go, what we see, and smell and touch and as we write and the stories come together these experiences trickle-in, sometimes consciously and sometimes not, and then when we edit we ask ourselves about the places we are contemplating and the locations we’ve identified and whether they have the meaning we want to imbue them with or some other place might better capture it. And so it’s always shifting and always driven by what is and has been ingested, and for me, especially lately, it is Chicago, where I live now and have been living, and the stories that I’m writing about seem to belong here, just as some of the older stories I have written seemed to belong somewhere else.

 

Interview Sundays are back. Teaser. Cobalt.

True it's only a teaser for now, but the young upstart literary magazine Cobalt recently conducted an interview with TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer and in preparation for its most imminent release has rolled-out an interview teaser, and yes, management believes even a teaser interview question ought to qualify for the highly coveted Interview Sundays slot, which we thought we would share with you. Please do hit the Cobalt blog for the full answer, please do keep an eye out for the full interview and please do enjoy some excerpt below.

Cobalt: You’re a busy man. You work in the nonprofit sector, you are constantly changing people’s lives through your blog, and you have a family to come home to every night. How do you find the time to write at the great capacity that you do?

Ben Tanzer: Ball bearings are crucial. As is cloning, polygamy, and, like my great hero Korczak Ziolkowski procreating at as great a rate as possible so as to generate as many assistants as I can to work in substandard conditions for nominal rates of pay. Mainly though I seek to keep the fat in my schedule, i.e., Soap marathons and the like; the doubt in my head and any drifting towards preciousness to a minimum; while simultaneously stoking and embracing any and all compulsive desires to write the things I’m thinking about at as maximum a level as I can...