Happy about these books we are.

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."

The Dying Horse. Jason Jordan. Main Street Rag. Pre-order. Fabulousness.

So fabulous indeed. Not only does long-time TBWCYL, Inc. favorite Jason Jordan have a new joint coming out, The Dying Horse, and big congratulations on that brother, but it is being released by the most excellent Main Street Rag. It is also pre-order. Which means discount. Which is goodness. And if all that wasn't enough, and we think it is, we are also fairly confident it will change your life. So there you go. Now hit it. Good.  

decomP action.

There is much decomP action upon us. The April edition. Check. a Kickstarter campaign? Ditto. And an interview with Editor and TBWCYL, Inc. favorite Jason Jordan at Sonora Review. Totally. Good stuff. And some excerpt. Enjoy.

NS: Is becoming “online only” something to be worried about?

JJ: I don’t think so. Rather than pit online and print against each other, why not combine them? After all, you can do things with print that you can’t do online and vice versa. I often think of what Lee K. Abbott said in Dzanc’s Best of the Web 2009: “good writing is good writing, no matter where we find it.”

Jason Jordan dueling release madness. Or is it awesomeness?

Long-time TBWCYL, Inc favorite Jason Jordan is looking at duel releases, a new collection of short stories, Cloud and Other Stories and a re-release of his debut Powering The Devil's Circus, and we think this is quite awesome indeed, so please do check it out, and for your reading pleasure, feel free to enjoy TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer's blurb on the latter below.

"Revisiting Powering the Devil's Circus is like witnessing the birth of the artist, with the seeds, themes and tenor of all that is to come drunkenly lurking and vibrant."

Truman Capote. Waldorf Salad. Cosmopolitans. Main Street Rag. A La Carte. And foodie madess.

We are most pleased to let you know that our story "Truman" is included in Main Street Rag's upcoming foodie anthology A La Carte. Our piece is both an homage to the New York Times Sunday Magazine's long-running foodie column, as well as, a look back on a long-ago dinner of Waldorf Salad and Cosmopolitans that TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer had with an aging Truman Capote during his street hustling days. There are many fine writers gathered for this anthology, including long-time TBWCYL, Inc. favorite Jason Jordan, and so we also want to be sure and thank Main Street Rag for including us. Which we have, right there, you caught that, right? Good, now please go and pre-order your copy, because it not only does a heart good, but it just might change your life.

Birthday love.

Inspired by old friend and TBWCYL, Inc. favorite Jason Jordan we have decided to share the birthday bounty acquired by TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer. We are most happiness.

This Podcast Will Change Your Life, Episode Five - Robot Girlfriend Roundtable. Redux. And Re-Release.

Episode Five. Madness. Multiple Jason's. Tim Hall's. Guth's. And hot robot girlfriends. Its madness we tell you.

Interview love, new friends and old, some are silver and the others are gold.

Quite excited we are, were, are, to have stumbled into interviews from friends old and new, first long-time friend Jason Jordan, editor of decomP and the author of the quite fine short story collection Powering the Devil's Circus, has a new interview up on Pank, and second, much, much newer friend Stephanie Johnson of the quite captivating and recently blurbed here short story and flash fiction collection One of These Things Is Not Like The Others has an interview up at HTMLGIANT. Good stuff all-around, so please take a look and let their words wash over you like literary surf. Yeah, we have no reason why we went all metaphor on you just then, but that said, did it work for you?

Yo, suck it AtlasBooks, all hail the Lucky Man re-boot. Now in red. Okay blue, but that's just a jpeg technical glitch kind of thing.

As you may recall, and if you don't the full story can be found here, AtlasBooks Distribution bought Lucky Man's distributor Biblio and then got into a pissing match with Lucky Man's beloved publisher Manx Media over some trumped-up fees and ridiculous contractual demands. Manx Media refused to sign a contract with them and AtlasBooks in turn not only refused to release the remaining copies Lucky Man to Manx Media or anyone else, but recalled copies of Lucky Man from Border's across the country. With our blessing, Manx Media decided that AtlasBooks could keep those copies of Lucky Man and go in a new direction. As it turned out, that new direction requires a new ISBN# which has allowed us to also clean-up the grammar, spelling and punctuation problems plaguing the first edition of the book, though the esteemed Jason Jordan should note that the paragraphs remain sans indentations, change the cover color to red, though the jpeg wants to be blue, and in general re-boot and re-launch the Lucky Man for fans old and new everywhere. Which we have done and which can now be found at Lulu for all you consumers seeking your first, or even second, edition, and at Books In Print starting on Monday for all of you bookstores and library types. While it would be accurate to say that we find all of this quite amusing in a random indy publishing kind of way, we also think that the best way you can help us tell AtlasBooks to suck it, is to buy multiple copies of the new edition of the book. So what do you think, are you in? Excellent.

It's the last day. The last chance. For This Book Tour Will Change Your Life. Yes, Day Thirteen is upon us and today we finish up with the J.A. Tyler.

Quasi-disco and Emo-length blog titles aside, it's true, it is Day Thirteen, the last day of this wonderfully self-absorbed journey we called This Book Tour Will Change Your Life. We really appreciate all of the hospitality and kind words we have received along the way. We hope that we have changed lives, many lives, ideally in good ways, though if we changed any lives in bad ways, we hope it wasn't too bad. Today we visit the always cool J.A. Tyler where we riff on the future of publishing and then it's done, way done. So, many thanks to CCLaP for organizing this and giving Repetition Patterns a home and if you, and you know who you are, are so inclined, please feel free to revisit the entire tour below.

Day One - Pete Lit

Day Two - stand By Bert

Day Three - So the devil and a circus walk into a bar

Day Four - What to wear during an orange alert

Day Five - Does this font make me look fat?

Day Six - Michael Fitzgerald

Day Eight - Bigmouth Indeed Strikes Again

Day Nine - Chicago Literary Scene Examiner

Day Ten - Jason Riley

Day Eleven - In The Nick of Time

Day Twelve - I don't know what I'm Talking About

Update: And would you look at this, for the same low price, you also get an official tour round-up kind of thing from the good people at CCLaP. Sweet.

So, the devil, a circus and Repetitions Patterns walk into a bar. Or, Day Three of This Book Tour Will Change Your Life.

It is Day Three of This Book Tour Will Change Your Life and we have wandered outside the safe confines of Chicagoland and all the way to Pittsburgh, home of the lushly bearded and sweet writing Jason Jordan and So the Devil and a Circus Walk into a Bar, todays stop in our ongoing efforts to achieve Repetition Patterns world domination. As always you may also follow our exploits at CCLaP and we hope you will also join us for tomorrow's stop at Orange Alert where they are launching a new feature, writers interviewing writers, in this case TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson and Repetition Patterns author Ben Tanzer being interviewed by the Pete Anderson. Yes, that Pete Anderson. Nice, right? Way.

This Tour Will Change Your Life, Day Two, rocking the Repetition Patterns with the endlessly awesome Elizabeth Crane.

We are in it and on today's stop on This Tour Will Change Your Life we are rocking the Repetition Patterns with none other This Blog Will Change Your Life muse Elizabeth Crane. We hope you will join us for a quasi-serious discussion of Friday Night Lights, Diane Lane, Rod Serling, and oh yes, the Repetition Patterns as well. Many thanks to Ms. Crane who is as lovely and gracious as always, please feel free to see what's up with the posse at CCLaP who are tracking our every stop on this tour by satellite and GPS, and if you have a moment tomorrow please be sure to cruise by So the Devil and a Circus Walk Into a Bar as the awesomely bearded Jason Jordan hosts us on Day Three.

A quasi-AWP round-up, massive shout-outs and the new edition of this Podcast Will Change Your Life - No Screendoors. Nice, right? Totally.

AWP has been going for days and we barely scratched the surface in terms of events and networking. We did make two stops though and had much fun that we want to report on. First off, we hit the Orange Alert reading at the Book Cellar on Wednesday night and while there were many great writers both reading and hanging-out at the event we want to especially highlight long-time TBWCYL, Inc. favorites Jason Jordan, who read a killer piece of epistolary prose and S. Craig Renfroe, who we have not only published in This Zine Will Change Your Life, but who stars in the new and quite rocking edition of This Podcast Will Change Your Life - No Screen Doors; recent favorite, the awesomely dashing and black-clad John Domini; and new found kick-ass favorites Barry Graham of Dogzplot who read from his new slamming book The National Virginity Pledge and Peter Schwartz he of the wonderful poetry and singing voice. And last night we hit the Featherproof after-party blow-out and again, while there was much literary and musical love to be found we do want to highlight Amelia Gray of the new Featherproof flash-fiction collection AM/PM, quite funny and awesome; local playwright Chris Bower who is nothing less than spell-binding every time we see him; once and future rockstar Kyle Beachy of the terribly buzz-worthy new book The Slide, which we will be sure to report back on as soon as we read it, which will be soon, for sure; and last but not least, singer and too cool hip hop dude Serengeti, who ripped it up. Many thanks sir, we were floored. As we were all-week. Long live AWP.

Something wicked this way comes. Well, not wicked, but there is the Repetition Patterns and a virtual book tour and even the Elizabeth Crane. Nice.

Yes, sorry, nothing truly wicked, nor anything involving Ray Bradbury or Jason Robards for that matter, though they are so welcome to join us. No, what we're talking about is the upcoming Repetition Patterns virtual book tour - This Book Tour Will Change Your Life, where over the last two weeks of February we will be on the road, the internet road, thank you very much Al Gore, and visiting a variety of blogs and electronic literary outposts to hype, dissect, deify and love all that is Repetition Patterns. We will certainly let you know more as we know more ourselves, but we are happy to report that among the bloggers we know we will be visiting are none other than the Pete Lit, Orange Alert, So the Devil and a Circus Walk into a Bar, Bigmouth Indeed Strikes Again, the j.a. tyler, and yes, yes, long-time This Blog Will Change Your Life muse Elizabeth Crane as well. Nice, right? Way, and much, much, appreciated.

Special AWP Orange Alert Press Reading Series madness. Check it out. No, seriously, take a look.

And it is madness. Look at this freaking line-up. Seriously, present company excluded, this reading is going to be killer. For more details please visit the Orange Alert Press blog and then you know come-out and join us. If you already have plans, cancel them, now, like immediately, because this reading will most definitely change your life.

Vacation. Reading. Vacation. Some writing. Vacation. No blogging. For real. We think. And happy holidays.

It's true we're heading off on vacation for the next week, we're shutting down the office and we don't really plan to blog, sorry, much less go on-line much at all, which we think we look forward to, it means less RedTube sadly, but it also means less time compulsively visiting ourselves on Goodreads which can only be a good thing. We will write, we have to write, right, of course, and we definitely plan to read, especially the novel Talking Heads: 77 by new friend and wonderful writer John Domini. It did occur to us, however, that if you, our devoted fans and customer base, don't have This Blog Will Change Your Life to read during the week, you may require some kind of additional options or outlets, other than RedTube, and so we have taken it upon ourselves to offer you the following literary possibilities, all of which are pieces by writers we love and we think you could love to. So, happy holidays, have a good week, we will miss you terribly, and enjoy some writing we think just might change your life: Stick by S. Craig Renfroe, Jr. at 3:AM MAGAZINE, who we believe has been grading papers, but we could be wrong; Holy Crap: The Unhappiest Place on Earth by Eric Spitznagel at Vanity Fair, yes that Vanity Fair; Alleys are the Footnotes of the Avenues by Pete Anderson at Shoots and Vines, and we know, we've been name-dropping Pete all week, what are you going to do; Iron Lung by the nicely bearded Jason Jordan at Red Peter; Sand #1 by J.A. Tyler at Word Riot, the J.A. Tyler; and last, but far from least, Brothers by Nick Ostdick at VerbSap, and big props to Nick for finishing his penultimate semester at school, nice work sir.

Guest blogging, massive name-dropping and much love for the quite awesome J. Kaye Oldner.

J. Kaye Oldner of the kick-ass J. Kaye's book blog invited TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer to guest blog today, which he has done, and despite his great desire to endlessly and shamelessly feed his massive ego and talk on and on about his writing prowess and massive successes, we here at headquarters decided that it might be more appropriate to temper that a bit and focus on all of the wonderful writers, bloggers and friends, new and old, we have met, connected and re-connected with during the last year as Lucky Man has shown some legs and Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine has found a home and been released. Which is not to say we didn't take a moment to hype our awseomeness, or stroke our beloved narcissism, just that we thought we would cast the net a little more widely. So, many thanks and much love to J. Kaye, this was much fun.

The blogging, shout-outs and mass marketing has begun. And we are most humble and appreciative.

Many thanks to all of of our friends for their kind words about Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine going live and much appreciation to our boys Nick Ostdick, author of the quite wonderful Sunbeams and Cigarettes, Steve Lafler, of Bughouse comix fame and publisher of Lucky Man at Manx Media, Jim McKay, the most awesome Wabi-Sabi, and Jason Jordan overseer of all things decomP and the author of the very rocking Powering the Devil's Circus, for the "Go Your Way..." shout-outs on their most excellent blogs.

RAGAD reading love, YouTube, robot girlfriend roundtables and This Podcast Will Change Your Life, Episode Five. Not bad, right?

We had some killer RAGAD reading love Saturday night, many thanks as always to the ever-luminous Nick Ostdick for making this happen, and then recorded This Podcast Will Change Your Life, Episode Five - Robot Girlfriend Roundtable, which stars a posse of Chicago (and Pittsburgh) literary and arts culture rock stars including Nick, Amy Guth, Jason Pettus, Jason Behrends, Jason Jordan and Tim Hall. Tim also shot some video of the gathering which can be found in several parts on YouTube, though for a sneak peak, you can take a look at Part One below as well. All-in-all a great night, and a most awesome multi-media assault. In fact, all we are missing is more Jill Summers, who read as well, and who totally rocks it, but who we failed to grab for the podcast. Next time. For sure.