An Artistically Declined Press sure to change your life Labor Day sale thing.

Yes, wow, so awesome, through Labor Day, Artistically Declined has decided to take 25% off its backlist books, which includes not only You Can Make Him Like You, but a series of titles sure to change your life, to the river by Rose Hunter, Hush Up and Listen Stinky Poo Butt by Ken Sparling and Prize Winners by Ryan W. Bradley. It may go without saying that we think you should hit this now, like right now, but just in case it doesn't, why not hit this, like right now. Good work. And thanks.

This (chap) Book Will Change Your Life - to the river by Rose Hunter.

We suppose it's impossible not to project one's own stuff onto the poems from to the river by Rose Hunter, poems about location, travel, escape and memories, poems that focus on the feeling of now even as they look back to touchstones from the past, and yes, we know, this is about one woman's journey and all the things such journey's might entail, work, discovery, relationships, and so on, but as you read it, as we read it anyway, you can't help but think, is she running from something or to something, what is the state of her past relationships, be they with her mother, men or home, what do the threads of violence mean, and then you pause and you think, is this reaction about the author, who's out their grabbing nuggets and spinning them into something new and complicated and beautiful, or is about you, us, and all the things you, we, have run from, and continue to run from, and the wonder you, we, have about what it would look like to just go, here, there, everywhere, now, always on a journey and always capturing whatever is going on around you, we, on paper and in words, endlessly cascading words, no longer at home, even as we reach back to it in everything new thing we see and do.

"Loved it. It made me want to run and write." 99 Problems gets Whoever Brought Me Here Will Have to Take Me Home'd. And likes it. A lot.

There is a quite terrific and much appreciated free-associating riff about running, writing and 99 Problems on Rose Hunter's blog Whoever Brought Me Here Will Have to Take Me Home. There's a lot of good stuff in there, but we were particularly excited to see here musing on place, a thread we were very conscious of trying to capture in these pieces, but not one that has received much attention prior to this. Many thanks to Rose, who should we add has a new poetry joint coming out with the Artistically Declined titled To The River, which means that unless things going awry, and sometimes they do, we will soon be sharing a publisher with Rose, something we find terribly exciting.

"Apart from all the running and writing and publishing stuff in Ben's book, I also liked the focus on place. I liked the street names, and run routes. When I was a teenager I was a runner. One dislocated kneecap, three arthroscopes and this lateral release thingy - later, and I wasn't, anymore. Boo-hoo, I know. The point is these days I'm securely in the degraded "jogging" category, but I still remember at least what it used to be like to go at a decent clip - definitely running as opposed to jogging, and the mental distinction as well. And I still call it "going for a run," even though both of us (two of my split personalities at least) know that this isn't what actually happens. This isn't what I was going to try and say. I'm not capable today it seems, of saying what I was going to try and say. The other day - or was it yesterday? - I went for a jog around the neighbourhood, which made me think of the part in the book which refers to the view over Lake Michigan I think it is, as like the dropoff-world in The Truman Show, because that's what this entire neighborhood [here in Brisbane, Australia, where I am] looks like to me (The Truman Show) - but of course I can't find the quote, because I never can find quotes when I want to. I'm not even sure it's in there now. Maybe I dreamt it. I had a dream once that I was in Atlanta (one of the "settings" in 99 Problems). It was very vivid (the dream I mean here) and I wrote the whole thing down somewhere. I was ice skating, outside, but I knew it was Atlanta because someone told me it was. Which is one way to know you're in a place."