"Somewhere between Don Draper and Vic Mackey." You Can Make Him Like You gets Small Doggies'd. And likes it. A lot.

Small Doggies and its fearless leader Matty Byloos, our newest BFF for sure, are coolness, and so we are way thrilled indeed at their quite insane review of You Can Make Him Like You. Big thanks Matty and drinks on us when next we meet. For everyone else, some excerpt and please do keep a look out for some Small Doggies short story action soon. Very, very soon. Who knows, it just may change your life.

"Taking its name from a popular (?) song by The Hold Steady, You Can Make Him Like You dabbles in pop culture moments of the immediate present, offering another pathway into the novel for many readers. In the wake of contemporary cinema and the ubiquitousness of television, we all tend to see ourselves as the star of our own miniseries. We soundtrack our experiences, we relate ourselves and our friends to characters on t.v. shows, we reference the heroes and villains of music, or fashion, or politics, in an effort to understand what the hell might be happening to us at any given time in the world. This is how we make sense of our time on the planet, which might be something particular about being American, I’m not sure. That said, the framework that the title establishes serves as a guide for navigating the text — and this may very well be a significant reason behind exactly why the pages of this book turn so easily and quickly."

Byloos. Bosworth. Interview madness. Or is it loveliness?

No it isn't Sunday, which may screw-up our new found interest in highlighting interviews we are digging on Sundays, but when we came across this interview, discussion really, between long time TBWCYL, Inc. favorite and This Podcast Will Change Your Life podcastee Mel Bosworth and new favorite Matty Byloos from the quite compelling Small Doggies we just felt like we couldn't wait one more minute to post something, frankly, we can barely get through the post itself, so here it is, enjoy, excerpt, loveliness, all of it.

Matty Byloos: Talk to me about your writing process. I always find that it takes something absurd, monumental, curious, or otherwise completely off-putting for me to feel like using the writing process as a kind of pseudo-journalism, a way of unpacking the human experience and speaking to things that we all share. Is this something that sounds familiar? Or is writing a totally different experience for you, in practice?

Mel Bosworth: Yeah, no, that totally sounds familiar to me. Sometimes I’m inspired to write when I have one of those — and I hate to say it — “a-ha” moments, and I’m curious if I can translate that moment well in written form. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be some earth-shattering revelation, although it can be that, too. It could be something as simple as an overheard conversation, or a simple line, even, like a mother saying to her kid in the grocery store, “Put that back on the shelf.” Maybe the kid can’t have “that” because he’s obese, or maybe because there’s some ingredient in “that” that his body can’t tolerate, or maybe they can’t afford “that,” or maybe “that” reminds the mother of her dead child’s favorite cereal.

But yes, it definitely takes something, something external, something I’ve experienced, personally, to lure me to the desk. It’s when I actually have an idea that the writing comes easily. When I don’t have an idea, and I come to the desk, let the pointless, loathsome, time-wasting Internet laps begin. And it’s at these empty times that I have to remind myself to walk away, to read a book, to go outside, to go to a grocery store, to… live.

I have to remind myself to get out and live. Sure, much can be learned (and experienced) from a life of solitude and deep contemplation, but it’s damn fun sometimes to bounce myself off of other people, like, people I can poke and annoy, maybe even love. That’s where the good writing juice is, I think.