New joint. Languid. As an Exquisite Duet with the Anna March. At the JMWW.

Yes, that Anna March. And big thanks to the Meg Tuite for all of it. Excerpt? Word.

"Baby you are raw and nothing can scorch you. And we are naked, scuffed, and covered in a fine layer of glistening sweat and scum. Smiling and languid, as we eat Ben & Jerry's, and ignore all those things that must be ignored, dying fathers, dead-end jobs, and baby's that won't make themselves."   

Ignoring all snow-related worries and thoughts of rampant narcissism, we will be reading at this Thursday night and we are quite jacked about that.

Barry Graham is having a week.

TBWCYL, Inc. favorite and This Podcast Will Change Your Life podcastee Barry Graham is having a quite fine week indeed.

First, a quite piece at JMWW on the origins of his story "The Cigarette Story."

"Anyone who’s ever worked a fast food joint knows that the world that exists behind the counter is far different than the one taking place, simultaneously, though perhaps in a separate, alternate, universe, on the other side of it. On one side, customers order and wait, eat then go home. We’ve all done it. But things aren’t so simple on the other side of the counter. I won’t give details here because that information is private, sacred, meant only for the select few who’ve been blessed enough to belong in that world, even if temporarily. And fortunately I have..."

And second, a quite fine interview at Flash Fiction.

What inspires you to write?

The self deprecating feeling that I otherwise have no valuable work skills that will allow me to contribute positively to society.

Pretty cool, right? Way.

Confessions of a Book-Bagger. Karen Lillis rocks the JMWW.

The quite awesome Karen Lillis not only has a new serialized memoir happening at Undie Press titled Bagging the Beats at Midnight - Confessions of an Indie Bookstore Clerk about her days as a bookstore clerk at the quite awesome St. Marks Bookstore, but a quite happening interview about the project with TBWCYL, Inc. favorite and This Zine Will Change Your Life contributor Jen Michalski at the JMWW. Anyway you slice it, its goodness all-around, and we do love the goodness.

JM: So what came first for you—the idea for the bookstore tour or the idea for the memoir?

KL: The memoir idea came a few years ago, when I was in library school and all the 22-year-olds in my classes were saying that books didn't matter to them, that they were just "information containers" like any blog, e-reader, or PDF. I think my blood pressure went up during library school because of this ongoing conversation. The thought came to me, "Everyone I’ve ever loved, I related to through books." In 2007, I started keeping a notebook of book anecdotes, of my life spent with books, of my friends and loved ones and the books I associated with them. More recently I decided to make my book clerk years the parameters of the book—because St Mark's is so unique, and because those years were the ones most intensely lived with books. St Mark's was at the center of so many book-related friendships I made.

Cultural Tourism is an idea I have been really interested in ever since I found Larry Portzline online (maybe 2007), he invented Bookstore Tourism. Over the past few months, I’ve written about Small Press Tourism, Creative Tourism, and Library Tourism, and it was from these writings that SPF (Pittsburgh’s Small Press Festival) asked me to do the two tours.

2011 AWP conference reading love.

Quite thrilled we are to be reading as part of this stellar lineup at AWP in February. That said, we now need a ride there, a place to stay and some per diem money, so please don't hesitate to offer any or all of these things because they will be warmly embraced and accepted.

McClanahan madness.

There is much McClanahan happening out there right now and while we totally promise to read Stories II and report back soon, in the interim we thought we would offer you a review and stuff at HTML GIANT from the Sam Pink and an interview by Jen Michalski at the JMWW blog. We should add here, that we honestly believe that this ought to suffice for the moment, but if you in any way disagree you know you can always take this up with management. We're good like that.