In which the Megan Stielstra and Victor David Giron talk Once I Was Cool, Curbside Splendor, and small press lit love at Poets&Writers.

And most beautious it is. Excerpt? Totally.

"Real talk: Independent publishing is not six-figure advances. It’s people who love books, who love stories and ideas and the impossible architecture of language so fiercely and furiously that they back it with blood, with sweat and cash and precious, precious time. Curbside Splendor put everything they had behind this book, and I couldn’t be more proud to count myself among them."

And then there was the time that the Victor David Giron talked story, Curbside Splendor, and Lost in Space with the Chicago Literati.

He did. And it was lovely. Excerpt? Word.

What projects are you excited about working on for Curbside in the coming year?

We have some really great projects coming out this year, starting with February’s blues-road-novel Don’t Start Me Talkin’ by Tom Williams. Tom is the head of English at Moorehead State University. In terms of reading to experience great writing, to be transported fully into the lives of fictional characters and to learn something in the process, this is the book that does all that. Then there’s Ben Tanzer’s essay collection about fatherhood and pop culture, Lost in Space: A Father’s Journey There and Back Again. Tanzer’s made a name for himself with his punchy pop-lit novels and avid writing.  This book showcases his writing chops but at a much more personal and engaging level. Then there’s Once I Was Cool, Chicago storyteller and teacher Megan Stielstra’s amazing essay collection coming out in May. Megan’s work was recently featured in the Best American Essays of 2013 anthology. Then there’s The Old Neighborhood coming out in April, an amazing debut novel by Chicago street thug turned boxer turned writer Bill Hillman. It’s a grand Chicago streets, coming-of-age story about a teenager growing up amidst street violence packed with punches page after page. We’re launching the first books under our neo-noir, speculative fiction, horror imprint Dark House Press this Spring/Summer, of which I’m especially looking forward to Echo Lake, a supernatural, southern gothic thriller by Colorado resident Letitia Trent that will captivate readers this summer. And this is all under our Spring/Summer catalog. Don’t even get me started on our Fall/Winter 2014 catalog!

This Book Will Change Your Life - Last Call in the City of Bridges by the Salvatore Pane.

In our heart of hearts we would have some cogent, yet, pithy, 140 character commentary on Last Call in the City of Bridges by the Sal Pane, that would somehow channel Patrick Ewing's stoic awesomeness, John Starks dogged, one-balled fearlessness, or possibly Kanye West's massive sense of self and all things Kanye. But maybe that wouldn't do the Sal Pane justice? We could also reflect on other recent coming of age debut novels by young male writers that struck us as saying something meaningful in a space filled with so much clutter that actually doing so makes the work meaningful in and of itself. And here, The Slide by Kyle Beachy or Sophomoric Philosophy by Victor David Giron come to mind. We could reference these things. Seeking to infuse this riff with some kind of pop culture shorthand, and we probably already have based on the mere fact that we have mentioned them at all. So we could do all that, and yes, have done so, but let's not totally do so. Instead let's focus on something else. Or something's else. First, the writing itself, because in the Last Call, the writing is tight. Not tight like the shorts Larry Bird wore in his heyday. It's not about restriction, or the inability to breathe, because Last Call breaths. The wordplay and dialogue is alive and dynamic. It's that the craftmanship itself is tight. Sal Pane knows how to construct story, and we think the importance of this sometimes gets lost until you see it right in front of you, pulsating and beckoning. Second, the debut novel can be a trap, there will be sex, drinking, and search. There will also be tragedy, friends die, maybe siblings, or both, and then there are the work woes and relationships and how anyone anywhere can possibly communicate, much less connect with anyone anywhere. And so the question becomes, how does the author do this differently and new? It's about freshness, and new angles, and so it is with Last Call, which is about sex, drinking, death, and alienation as it has to be, but spun through a generation that has grown-up in the internet. Not as guests or travelers like those who came before them, but in it. Everything saturated with social media. Every conversation filtered through how it will ultimately translate to Facebook, Twitter, and blogs. And everyone wondering whether they should be trying to escape something they are so totally immersed in when they don't quite know what alternatives exist because they've never truly been exposed to them. Sal Pane has brought us this generation laid bare, with tightness, humor, and pathos. Will it change your life? We think so. It probably already has.

Giron. Curbside. Reader. Beautious.

Here. For real.

These Things We Loved in 2011 Will Change Your Life.

We're not sure we felt especially blown away by much in 2011, but that shouldn't be confused with not endlessly encountering, absorbing and consuming things we loved. Nor should it ignore the fact that there was still much exuberance to be had, case in point, The Artist, and that for us it will always be about exuberance, searching for it, finding it, and reveling in it. We should also add, not surprisingly we suppose, that our search and consumption of art and exuberance is particularly related to and focused on books. Because it is always about books, first and last, and always will be. And yet, it's not only books, just mostly and as always, lovingly so at that.

You may not know it, but people still write novellas, we still read them and this was a quite fine year for them.

The Mimic's Own Voice/Tom Williams, Life After Sleep/Mark Brand, Old Ghosts/Nik Korpon, Nothing or Next to Nothing/Barry Graham, In Great Company/Michael Seidlinger, A Shiny, Unused Heart/J.A. Tyler.

Collections, short stories, flash fiction, absurdist, hyper-fiction, any or all of it.

Sex Dungeon for Sale!/Patrick Wensink, Prize Winners/Ryan Bradley, Carry Each His Burden/James Goertel, Songs of Vagabonds, Misfits, Sinners/Ken Wohlrob, Don't Smell the Floss/Matty Byloos, Normally Special/xTx.

Television shows that got in the way of reading, thinking, and sometimes sleeping, but ultimately made us very happy.

Justified, with a big nod to Margo Martindale, Friday Night Lights, we are still grieving and Louie, painful, and full of fear, isolation and confusion, but always funny, and knowing.

Television shows that have been better at some point, maybe even during their most current season, but still showed moments of awesome pain, humor and terror.

Rescue Me, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Modern Family, The Killing and Walking Dead. 

The one benefit to the new season of Mad Men being delayed due to contract disputes.

We started watching Breaking Bad. Most kind that. 

Novels by rock stars, music, not literary, though arguably literary as well.

alt.punk/Lavinia Ludlow and The Failure/James Greer.

Novels by handsome bearded men.

Birch Hills @ World's End/Geoff Hyatt and Freight/Mel Bosworth.

Novels by "daddy-cool" writers near and far.

Fathermucker/Greg Olear, The Bee-Loud Glade/Steve Himmer, Fight For Your Long Day/Alex Kudera and Sophomoric Philosophy/Victor David Giron.

In a maybe not so great year for movies, movies we still dug.

Marcy Martha May Marlene, Moneyball, Young Adult, Margin Call, Drive, The Artist and Hannah.

And movies we still hope to see.

50/50, Take Shelter and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Sports memoirs we read, which were as much about life, as we know it, and as we would like it, as sport.

Cardboard Gods/Josh Wilker and Chasing the Runner's High/Ray Charbonneau.

Book we suspect we did not read because we thought we might get discouraged about our writing, this being an semi-annual category of sorts, with previous selections including Radiant Days by Michael FitzGerald and The Failure by James Greer.

Volt by Alan Heathcock, which we will no questionably read in 2012. Promise.

And other books we intend to finish or start in 2012. For real.

B-Sides and Broken Hearts/Caryn Rose, Solace in So Many Words/Ellen Wade Beals, Nothing/Blake Butler, American Masculine/Shann Ray, Pulphead/John Jeremiah Sullivan, Half a Life/Darrin Strauss, Three Ways of the Saw/Matt Mullins and Out of Touch/Brandon Tietz.  

Indie publishers we are not so objective about overall, but are doing really good things regardless of how we may or not have benefited from said goodness.

Artistically Declined Press, CCLaP Publishing, Atticus Books, HOUSEFIRE Books, Curbside Splendor, Deckfight Press, Mendicant Bookworks and Main Street Rag.

Podcasts both established, and getting there quickly, we obsessively listened to.

WTF with Marc Maron, see Michael Showalter, Christopher Titus, Dave Foley and Laura Kightlinger especially, and Other People with Brad Listi, Darrin Straus, Ben Loory and Edan Lupicki in particular. Total goodness. Totally.

Music, so incomplete, but a lot terrificness nonetheless, for sure.

21/Adele, Undun/The Roots, Bon Iver/Bon Iver, Who Kill/Tuneyards, Sigh No More/Mumford & Sons and Relax/Das Racist. 

Poetry, which we believe we generally do not read enough of, though we probably can't say that's an accurate statement this year.

Emergency Room Wrestling/the dirty poet, A Soft That Touches Down & Removes Itself/David Tomaloff, Piano Rats/Franki Elliot, Haunts/Laura Cherry, Redneck Poems/Rusty Barnes, What I'm On/Luis Humberto Valadez and A Patchwork of Rooms Furnished by Mistakes/J. Bradley.

And most finally, there are many, many people to thank for this most rocking of years, and we are most definitely overlooking some, a lot maybe, and we apologize for that, here, now, but there you go.

Lauryn Allison Lewis, Mason Johnson, Matt Rowan, Jacob Knabb, Dave Housley, Jason Behrends, Leah Tallon, Anna March, Victor David Giron, Jason Pettus, Nathan Holic, Ryan Bradley, Lavinia Ludlow, S. Craig Renfro, Greg Olear, Adam Lawrence, Nick Korpon, Lindsay Hunter, Matty Byloos, David Masciotra, Mel Bosworth, Brenda Brown Browne, Tim Frederick, Hosho McCreesh, Byron Hatfield, Lori Hettler, Patrick Wensink, Gina Frangello, Nick Ostdick, Pete Anderson, Paula Bomer, Brandon Will, J. Bradley and the Knee-Jerk crew.

These Curbside Splendor Chapbooks Will Change Your Life - The Chapbook: Poems by Charles Bane, Jr. and Piano Rats by Franki Elliot.

We suppose we could have done separate posts on the current Curbside Splendor releases, Piano Rats by Franki Elliot and The Chapbook: Poems by Charles Bane, Jr., but there is something inherently fascinating to us about diving into work from a single source and trying to ascertain what the thinking or philosophy might be behind a growing body of work. What does it say about the press and can we ascribe some kind approach or method of selection to the decisionmaking before us? When asked then to read and blurb Piano Rats and its array of oozy, electric poems, we were struck by the transitions at play and how the writer and her characters had places to go, but really had no idea how to get there, so she kept looking back, for clues or guidance, better less confusing times maybe, something. Mainly though she is stuck in her all druggy, hopeful messiness and what has passed may be all that makes sense to her now, though even that is questionable. In The Chapbook the beautiful poems we encounter reflect a different kind of looking back, the looking back of someone who has lived a life, full of love and family, and there are no bridges to somewhere here, nor any transitions, those days and challenges, the messiness that youth is comprised of has become something else, the ability to clearly look back on what once was and has made us what we are now as we settle in and review a life still full of life but also moving along towards some kind of endpoint. All of which leads us back to where we started as well, but in reading these chaps, what does that it say about Curbside Splendor and what it has and will wrought? There is no doubt Curbside Splendor is about the urban and the cool, and yes we mean this is in a good, non-ironic way, see Sophomoric Philosophy by Curbside founder Victor David Giron, but as we mushed Sophomoric Philosophy in with Piano Rats and The Chapbook, we couldn't help but think Curbside is about something else as well, reflection, and taking measure of who we are, wherever we are, and how we try to figure out not how we got here as much as what happened along the way and what the meaning of those events and feelings are to the person we are right now.   

      

A CCLaP Quadruple Book Release Party and Performance Extravaganza photo podcast wrap-up thing.

There was CCLaP. Readings. Books. Photo action. Podcast. Take a listen. Enjoy. And big thanks to the CCLaP and the Beauty Bar.

The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live. Full of lightning. And Giron.

The new edition of This Zine Will Change Your Life is live. We have a new story Ride the Lightning by Victor David Giron, which we are way excited about, and, (almost) as always, photo action from Adam Lawrence, music curation from Jason Behrends and ongoing debt ceiling 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, where did July go, we mean really?

Sophomoric Philosophy and TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog. Most beautious.

Quite happy we are to see this most beautious review of TBWYL, Inc. favorite and This Podcast Will Change Your Life podcastee Victor David Giron's Sophomoric Philosophy from TBWYL, Inc. favorite and killer supporter TNBBC's The Next Best Book Blog.

"Filled with a lifetime worth of drug use, sex, partying, and havoc-wreaking, Sophomoric Philosophy is going to speak loudest to those of us who have reluctantly given up our 20's and firmly refuse to stare our rapidly approaching 40's in the eye. Giron is not afraid to make his narrator look like an asshole, openly admits his fear of making the first move on the fairer sex, and dispels the whole opposite-sex-being-friends myth by exposing it for what it really is."

Mass Curbside Splendor splendiferousness.

So much Curbside Splendor goodness happening all at once, but let's begin by thanking Victor David Giron and crew for hosting a most kind You Can Make Him Like You release party at the Beauty Bar this past Wednesday night, and then let's be sure to hype both Curbside's upcoming release The Chapbook: Poems by Charles Bane Jr. and the new lit joint posted on their website Bear v. Snake written by none other than TBWCYL, Inc. favorite Lauryn Allison Lewis. All in all, most splendiferous indeed.

Bad boys? Word.

Along with the endlessly magnetic Victor David Giron and Mark S. Brand, both This Podcast Will Change Your Life podcastees, here and here, respectively, we were recently invited to read and talk books at the quite wonderful Centuries & Sleuths Bookstore out in the Forest Park. Along with getting to meet owner Augie Alesky who quite rocks, we also had the chance to talk with books blogger Helen Kossler, who also rocks, and who has decided to collectively deem us as writers of "bad boy books." That is first, for us anyway, and that is awesome, so big thanks Helen for that. For the rest of you, please do take a look, please enjoy some excerpt and please feel free to comment on which celebrity referenced below might be matched with which "bad boy" author.

"All three of these guys have intense day jobs and personal commitments with wives and children but they long for the days when they were footloose and fancy free. Their longing seems almost comical to someone old enough to be their mother. I mean I want to shake them and say, “Welcome to the rest of your life! Responsibility isn’t glamorous but it beats the alternative, which is to be a slacker forever.” These are the literary equivalents of Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn and Matthew McConaughey. Charming but still wondering if Peter Pan had it right."

Writers Read. You Can Make Him Like You. Trifecta.

Wait for it, there you go, and yes, we have a Campaign for the American Reader You Can Make Him Like You trifecta. The Page 69 Test. Check. My Book, The Movie. Check. And now a Writers Read post where we get to celebrate the work of Victor David Giron, Ray Charbonneau and Alex Kudera among others. Big thanks, yet again, to Marshal Zeringue, please enjoy the below excerpt, and please read, and buy, independent books, it does a heart good.

"I've actually been in a really interesting stretch over the last month where I've been reading three debut novels, okay, two novels, and one memoir for those of you counting at home, all three by authors I have become friendly with, and all quite different in tone and texture, but still all debuts, and self-published or from new, small presses, so quite cool, fun to dig into and deserving of a wider audience."

The You Can Make Him Like You readings. Week one. Photo action.

Right, so, the first You Can Make Him Like You reading was going to be on March 16th at the Rediscovered Bookshop in Boise, Idaho. The turnout was uhhhm, light, but the staff rocked, and the signage was most sweet.

We then moved on to more familiar turf hitting the Orange Alert Reading Series at The Whistler, where the drinks were flowing, the crowd was most kind and the readers were sublime.

The always easy on the eyes and wonderfully reflective Victor David Giron.

The quite awesome Natalie Edwards talking dogs and copulation. Yes, you read that right. Next.

Chicago's greatest disembodied poet Luis Humberto Valadez doing his disembodied thing. And more soon. Promise.

All hail the Curbside Splendor. And all day at that.

You ever feel like you're having a Curbside Splendor kind of week? Us too. So we're going to do a day of Curbside Splendoring starting with our Writer on Writer interview at Orange Alert with Curbside Splendor founder, This Podcast Will Change Your Life podcastee and daddy-cool author of Sophomoric Philosophy Victor David Giron. Please check it out. Please enjoy some excerpt. And more to come. Much, much more.

Only somewhat switching gears, I know you published Sophomoric Philosophy through your publishing arm Curbside Splendor and I was wondering what you want us to know about Curbside Splendor, well, you know besides that fact that all authors you publish get free drinks and manicures at Beauty Bar for life?

Well, sure, but only Curbside authors that write nice reviews and publish an interview with me get free drinks and manicures, just to clarify. Curbside Splendor was the name of a band that me and my friend Brian talked about starting when I was at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I could never play an instrument so the dream quickly went up in smoke. However, the name stuck with me. When I thinking of how to publish my book, I decided to start a small press when I learned one could do such a thing and I immediately thought of calling it CS. In the process of working with the editor, the designer, my friend Gabriel Hurier who did the artwork, I really dug the whole publishing process. So now we publish short stories and poetry online, and will also in print starting with our first semi-annual print journal coming out in March. We’ll also publish more books. Our focus is urban-themed work, but we publish other stuff. In fact we’re publishing a chap book of poems by Chicago native Charles Bane Jr. this May. He’s retired, now lives in Florida, writes these fleeting romance poems and though it’s something I never thought I’d want to publish, I quite literally fell in love reading his work. I also co-host with my friends Amy & Becca of Two With Water a bi-monthly reading series at Beauty Bar Chicago that is getting better and better. I’m in the process of organizing more a literary-friendly events at the Beauty Bar that will be quite killer, and I’m now selling books and journals by local presses and authors at the Logan Square Farmer’s market here in Chicago. To my pleasant surprise, I’ve just now discovered all the great lit-stuff going on here these days. Do I have a prior time period to compare against? No. But, it’s fun, now, and I guess for me that’s what matters and I’m eager to support it.

This Book Will Change Your Life - Sophomoric Philosophy by Victor David Giron.

Small town life. Parties. Drugs. Listening to music. Hooking-up. Getting out. Coming back. Coming of age. These are stories we know. Stories we live. And stories that writers, not to mention filmmakers, hello Dazed and Confused, are inevitably drawn to as they mine what they know in attempt to create art and find their voice. Into this universe comes the latest edition to this genre, Sophomoric Philosophy by Chicago's own Victor David Giron, a recent podcastee over at the This Podcast Will Change Your Life division. Victor knows small towns, and definitely knows drugs and chicks. He also knows what we listened to, watched and read in the eighties and nineties, adding a layer of time and place that is both uniquely Chicagoland and full of pop culture awareness. All of this is done with wit and nuance, but what allows Victor and this novel to transcend, and expand, on the genre is not only the exploration of the immigrant experience, specifically being first generation Americans navigating American culture, and frankly the sense that this is where literature is heading, because this is where the world is heading, but the idea that all of these kids are dropped into these small towns and even as they try to determine what their relationship will be to their parent's places of origin they still chase girls, take drugs and behave like total idiots, in essence like everyone else, imagine.

This Podcast Will Change Your Life, Episode Thirty-Three - Literature, Drinks and Beauty.

Following the terrific Two With Water reading last night we had the opportunity to podcast with the equally terrific Victor David Giron, lead dude at Curbside Splendor and author of the newly released novel Sophomoric Philosophy which we will most certainly be reporting back on shortly. For real. Now go listen. Thanks.

Sophomoric Philosophy. Victor David Giron. Curbside Splendor. Coming soon.

New friend and Chicago writer Victor David Giron's debut novel Sophomoric Philosophy is coming soon from his publishing joint Curbside Splendor. We are quite excited indeed and quite digging the first trailer for the book which you can watch below, so please do, there you go, and why not order the book as well, cool, great, you rock.

An excerpt from Sophomoric Philosophy | Part 1 from Garett Holden on Vimeo.