My Father's House. Blurb goodness from the Michael A. FitzGerald.

Few things remind us we're utterly alone in this universe like our dads dying. At the same time, few things can remind us we're all in this together like great literature. In My Father's House, Tanzer took the first and made the latter. It's a sincere and important book full of grace, beauty, and… I'm happy to report…a delicious humor. I can't recommend it highly enough. Michael A. FitzGerald

submishmash visits the HTMLGIANT. And goodness ensues.

Quite nice to see the always awesome Michael A. Fitzgerald interviewed about submishmash at the HTMLGIANT this week. This Zine Will Change Your Life is a proud member of the submishmash revolution and we hope you will take a look. In the interim though please feel free to peruse the below excerpt.

I want to go back to something you said earlier. The idea that you can make things easier for writers by making things easier for publishers really blows me away. It’s so forward-thinking. I think people (like me) who agonize over ways to make literature viable work hard at making their stories great or their presses great—but in the meantime it’s extremely difficult to manage the administrative tasks. It’s becoming clear that literature doesn’t just depend on writers and publishers—even indie literature is developing a structure. Booksellers are getting into the mix, and lately a lot of developers have joined the charge with sites primarily for writers/readers—like Fictionaut or ambitious online journals like Electric Literature. But Submishmash is really back end, since your focus is on the publisher. To me this is absolutely essential, but is it thankless?

No, not thankless at all. John’s band Oblio Joes (click here to listen to a super cool indie rock song from the Oblio Joes) was around for 12 years. Bruce has spent the last 5 years working on a documentary about Travis Bean guitars. Radiant Days took me 8 years. More people have used Submishmash in the last month than heard of any of these projects. And whether they know it or not, they’re using Submishmash to make literature happen. And isn’t this interview being posted on the Internet Literature Magazine Blog of the Future? We feel pretty good.

But, to the first part of the question: Yeah, that’s exactly right. The arts are ripe for technological innovation because the big brains are all focused on the outward-facing parts of art itself. But successful ideas (not saying this is one) are always about simple solutions to difficult problems. How do I search the internet? How do I send information to my mom? How do small publishers get paid? How do they pay their writers? With few resources (which is starting to be any publisher that matters), how do they deal with endless piles of submissions?

successful ideas (not saying this is one) are always about simple solutions to difficult problems . . . Most software fails because it tries to do too much or it’s just what the designer or developer might think is ‘cool’.

Most software fails because it tries to do too much or it’s just what the designer or developer might think is ‘cool’. It becomes a pile of weird features rather than a simple tool that lets users complete a straight-forward goal. (In the software world, this is all 101. Sort of like a writer saying, Show, don’t tell.) But the best software is the software you don’t even notice you’re using. (Incidentally, writing can be the same way.)

We are submishmash, hear us roar.

This Zine Will Change Your Life has joined the submishmash revolution.

What does this mean for you though?

It means that all future submissions to This Zine Will Change Your Life will now be managed through submishmash.

Because we are obsessive though, please note, that if you have submitted up through this very moment, you're cool.

Meanwhile, what does this mean for us?

It means that the skies are bluer, the grass is greener and everyone is way more beautiful, even you, and you already looked great.

It also means that subsmishmash has changed our life and we are most appreciative.

A double-dose of Michael A. Fitzgerald and Radiant Days from the fine crew at Baby Got Books.

Not unlike our terribly fanboy reaction and blog post earlier this week about our excitement over learning about an interview with TBWCYL, Inc. favorite Shannon Burke in The National, today we find ourselves way geeked to see a double-dose of Michael A. FitzGerald over at the always fine Baby Got Books. In fact, you get not only a typically terrific review of Radiant Days, but a bonus interview as well. Not bad, right? No, not at all. Meanwhile, if you find yourself craving an additional dose of FitzGerald, and why wouldn't you be, feel free to check out TBWCYL, Inc. spokesperson Ben Tanzer's tag-term interview with Michael and William Walsh over at the Orange Alert as well. There you go. Nice.

The TBWCYL, Inc. 2009 Top Ten Lists are coming and today you get our Top Ten Books. No for real, you do. Just look below.

As there was much work travel and work furlough in 2009, there was much reading, hence we terribly excited to roll-out TBWCYL, Inc.'s 2009 Top Ten Books List, the first of our 2009 Top Ten lists, all of which we intend to post over the next couple of weeks. As with previous years, most of these books are from indie presses, which makes us happy, and many are written by friends, which makes us biased, though luckily, we love being biased almost as much as we love being self-absorbed. In terms of housekeeping, please note, that unlike our other end of the year lists, we do not limit ourselves to books published in 2009. Further, pretty much all of the following books were written about or blurbed here at This Blog Will Change Your Life, so, while we will keep the verbiage to a minimum today, we will be hyper-linking like there's no tomorrow. And who knows, maybe there won't be.

(1) Radiant Days/Michael A. Fitzgerald
(2) Stories/Scott McClanahan
(3) Big World/Mary Miller
(4) Dear Everybody/Michael Kimball
(5) Put Your Head in My Lap/Claudia Smith
(6) The Collectors/Matt Bell
(7) The Understory/Pamela Erens
(8) The National Virginity Pledge/Barry Graham
(9) When the Cats Razzed the Chickens & Other Stories/Mel Bosworth
(10) Conquering Venus/Collin Kelley

Some additional 2009 literary love (albeit in no particular order): Safelight/Shannon Burke, Full of It/Tim Hall, When I Moved to Nevada/Jamie Iredell, Bad Monkey/Curtis Smith, The Slide/Kyle Beachy, Sunlight at Midnight, Darkness at Noon/Hosho McCreesh and Christopher Cunningham, Some Things That Meant the World to Me/Joshua Mohr, Tranny/Steve Lafler, Fast Forward/Eric Spitznagel, You Must Be This Happy to Enter/Elizabeth Crane, Questionstruck/William Walsh, Talking Heads: 77/John Domini, Too Young to Fall Asleep/Sally Wiegel, Oh Baby/Kim Chinquee, One of These Things is Not Like the Others/Stephanie Johnson, The Complete Collection of People, Places & Things/John Dermot Woods, All the World's a Grave/John Reed.

And finally, for your retro viewing pleasure:

TBWCYL, Inc.'s 2008 Top Ten Books List

TBWCYL, Inc.'s 2007 Top Ten Books List