The New York Stories is all Pungent Parlour and CCLaP Chicago Book Expo 2015 Preview at City Lit Books, yo.

Thanks to @cclapcenter, @citylit_books, @jason_pettus, @BenTanzer, @josephgpeterson & the rest of the readers for a great event last night!

— Chicago Book Expo (@ChicagoBookExpo) November 20, 2015

Fisk Peterson Tanzer (and a cast of thousands) The New York Stories CCLaP Chicago Book Expo 2015 and City Lit Books at 6:30 pm on November 19th.

For reals. More here and here. And quite certainly sure to change your life. A lot.

 

This Book Will Change Your Life - Sadly Beautiful by the Jason Fisk and Abigail Cashman.

There was this moment as we read Sadly Beautiful by the Jason Fisk and Abigail Cashman when we realized we had something stuck in our eye, some irritant, which seemed to be nothing of much import until we realized that in the most cliche way possible that which was stuck in our eye was sadness, and the act of feeling both terribly moved and full of love. It's an odd to read a book that captures such intense feelings of love - and yes, loss - by someone you know, when you don't quite know them like that, but also when you feel love for that person as well. Because we do feel love for Jason Fisk, as an author certainly, and for his work, and we have always been especially partial to his poetry - and in turn we couldn't be happier to see so much of it here, an oxymoron if there ever was one. We have always thought that there was a sadness that lingered there just below the surface, waiting to burst forth, if, and when prompted. Of course, maybe that is a projection, because we love Jason Fisk the person as well. He is funny and giving and attractive and great to drink with. He is a good friend, so full of love and grace, and yet there too, there's a sadness just below the surface, which may only serve to enhance the rest of it. Along with all of that - if that isn't enough - the subjective, the bias, the love, there is something else happening in this collection that should not be overlooked. So often we write, and read, about the act of grief, ruminations from just slightly afar, and removed from the act of loss, where there is some space, distance and understanding. Sadly Beautiful is something else though. It is the act of grief captured as it is happening, building and finding its way to, and then just beyond, the reason we feel grief at all. We ourselves don't know what it's like to lose a sibling, and we are thankful for that. We are thankful though that Jason, and by extension Abby, were willing to put this on paper. It's what love looks like, and loss, and by any measure sure to change your life.

Jason Fisk and Abigail Cashman and the Sadly Beautiful.

Most Sadly Beautiful it is. So do hit it. It just might change your life.

(The ARC of) The New York Stories is Jason Fisk and most stoked we are.

The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live. All Green. And full of Fisk.

The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live, and we are thrilled to have new poem(s), The Green Woman Poems, by old friend Jason Fisk, and (almost) as always, photo action from Adam Lawrence, music curation from Jason Behrends and nothing politically humorous or ironic at the moment prose love from Pete Anderson. We hope you enjoy this edition and we appreciate all shout-outs and links. Finally, please note, we are hoping more of you will submit comix, and music, novel excerpts, and art, and video, yes, video, and combinations there of. And most finally, Snowpiercer, bam.

"Skipping across genres into the future." Orphans. Goodreads love.

And much appreciated love at that. So big thanks to the Jason Fisk, and drinks, many brother, on us, all post haste and such. Excerpt? Word.

"I have been a fan of Tanzer’s writing for awhile now; what I have most appreciated about his work is the human element that never fails to be at the core of all of his fiction. I was very pleased to find that human element in Orphans."

We are Banango Street Issue Six Guest Prose Editor and we feel fine.

So do hit it. Here. Here. And even here.

There will be books.

For real. Many. And thank you to The Book Cellar for that.

Orphans Book Release Party Yo.

It's true we are Orphans release party on November 6th, 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm, at the Beauty Bar Chicago and we would like you to join us. There will be a laser light show. Fog machines. Drinks. Many. Books (courtesy of the most awesome The Book Cellar). Dogs and Cats living together. And rock star readers who are sure to change your life:

Joseph G. Peterson - Beautiful Piece, Inside The Whale: A Novel in Verse, Wanted: Elevator Man

Kathryn Born - The Blue Kind

Bill Hillmann - The Old Neighborhood

Patricia Ann McNair - The Temple of Air

Jason Fisk - Hank & Jules, The Salt Creek Anthology

And TBWYL, Inc. Spokesperson Ben Tanzer - Orphans, coming soon from Switchgrass Books and NIU Press, among others.

So please join us. Please spread the word. And please don't stop being you, because we think you are quite awesome at that.

Word.

Sunnyoutside and David McNamara present a pop-up Sex and Death pre-birthday celebration reading at Uncharted Books!

Pop-up. Sex. Death. Sunnyoutside. Fisk. Allison. Tanzer. Uncharted Books. All that. Tomorrow. More here. For real. Promise.

Fisk. Smolarek. Thomas. Anderson. Duffer. Peterson. Brand. And Tanzer. We are Daddy Cool release party. Saturday. June 8th. The Book Cellar.

And quite geeked we are. So please do join us. Bring your kids. Share this with your friends. Buy books. And change lives. Cool?

These Books Will Change Your Life - Every Laundromat In The World by Mel Bosworth and Hank & Jules by Jason Fisk.

The books arrive at the same time. Landing as it were in our mailbox as if traveling together. And we quite dig the synchronicity of that. We don't know that Mel Bosworth and Jason Fisk even know each other. But in our head they go together regardless. It seems that they entered our lives at the same time, full bore and intimate. That we were all getting started and trying to do something else and new. That they were, and are, so good and right, and so attractive with their joy and intensity, short hair, big grins, and bearded mugs. They are both full of love as well, but with an endless roiling history lurking behind their eyes. And they of course are write. Always write. Telling stories that search for things, love and understanding, and relationships that want to cohere in some fashion, despite the damage, abuse, confusion and distance that their characters struggle with and through. To say then that their writing is them is clear and true, and to say we love them for who they are, what they represent to us, and how they do what they with story would be understatement.  
  

So here we are then, Every Laundromat In The World by the Bosworth, a collection ridden with short, tight, bursts of poem about how we live from moment to moment as small things become big things that look like a life, and all this from a writer we have thought of in terms of fiction, and Hank & Jules from the Fisk, who we once thought of as a poet, despite his protestations otherwise, continuing to work more directly in the realm of short fictions as he tells his knowing stories of lives full of pain and love, and things slowly gone wrong even though should not need to, should they? We'd say not, but to do so is to ignore what life is, compromises and sadness, punctuated by moments of insight and love. To also say that we are unabashedly Bosworth Fisk completists is understatement as well, but we are thrilled to see both of them continue to write and push and grow, and possibly, maybe yes, even change lives along the way.

Fisk. Soccer. Dads. Good. Bam!

It's true. Two-time This Podcast Will Change Your Life podcastee the Jason Fisk is soccer and Dads and Good and here.

We are CCLaP Podcast Dreadful. And in some awfully fine company yo.

For real. Here. Look. Now. Please. Right?

This Podcast Will Change Your Life, Episode Forty-Four - Salt Creek.

Yo, we are so Salt Creek tour Day Ten, albeit twenty-eight minutes late, and most excited to be podcasting with old friend Jason Fisk. So please do take a moment to listen and please do check out the Salt Creek, because it just might change your life.

TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog Literary Love, Part Two.

Yes, geeked we are to see the TNBBC showing the Jason Fisk some Salt Creek Anthology Blog Tour love. Also geeked we are to be participating in the tour ourselves. Soon. Like totally soon.

"I continuously found myself lulled into the natural cadence of his writing, only to come to the end where I would find myself helplessly sitting in a pot of boiling water, unable to jump out." So Different Now gets some love from the Jason Fisk. And likes it. A lot.

We love the Jason Fisk. He is a wonderful, sensitive and incisive writer attuned to the ebbs and flows of small town life and intimate relationships how our roles in these kinds of things can almost sometimes maybe work. He is also a This Zine Will Change Your Life contributor and This Podcast Will Change Your Life podcastee. And we say all this in part, because when writers like the Fisk like what we do, it can be more exciting and moving, and sometimes crushing in its way, than any positive or thoughtful reaction we might receive otherwise. All of which is to say, thanks brother, it means a ton, drinks on us when next we meet, and now for some excerpt.

"I am drawn to Tanzer’s writing for the same reasons I enjoy getting a beer with him: there is a charm, in both his manner and his writing, which is simply entertaining, yet hints at a much more complex, sometimes dark, psychological underpinning. While reading this collection I continuously found myself lulled into the natural cadence of his writing, only to come to the end where I would find myself helplessly sitting in a pot of boiling water, unable to jump out." 

Updated and most self-serving Breakfast With the Author Silverthought Press website awesomeness.

The fine folks at Silverthought Press have updated the website for their Breakfast With the Author video series and have most kindly kicked it off with a quite awesome, and quite humbling, profile of TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer who appeared in Episode One along with long time TBWCYL, Inc. favorite Jason Fisk. Please do take a look and if you're so inclined, and we think could be, please revisit Episode One below, because it just might change your life.


Breakfast With the Author, Episode 1 from Mark Brand on Vimeo.

Experiments in Manhood meets God, Death, Love and The Fisk.

We couldn't be more excited to see This Podcast Will Change Your Life podcastee and This Zine Will Change Your Life contributor Jason Fisk  guest essaying at Experiments in Manhood, the brainchild of fellow TBWCYL, Inc. favorite and This Podcast Will Change Your Life podcastee Robert Duffer. It's heavy stuff, but we think you can handle it. We also think it just might change your life, so hit it, just do so softly and knowingly.