Amber Sparks » Books

Shut Up/Look Pretty Roundtable at Necessary Fiction

Amber Sparks — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:31:47 +0000

Steve Himmer has published a pretty entertaining roundtable with the authors of Shut Up/Look Pretty at Necessary Fiction! Thanks, Steve. If you want to read some damn good writers discussing craft, process, great books, and Tralfamadorian romance novels, look no further.

Read it all here.

And order Shut Up/Look Pretty today before it sells out! You may want to get on that now, especially, because Tiny Hardcore Press has got a great deal going on where you get bundles for less! Including 2 THP books for sixteen bucks. They’re gorgeous books and that’s a good, great deal. Get on it!

Tagged: chapbook, Erin Fitzgerald, Kirsty Logan, Lauren Becker, Michelle Reale, Necessary Fiction, Roxane Gay, Shut Up/Look Pretty, Steve Himmer

All Kinds of Things are Happening

Amber Sparks — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:01:55 +0000

I’ve been horrible about updating this blog lately, so of course all the random everything that I want to tell you about has been piling, piling, piling up. This will be a very linky post, but it will be worth it because all of these things are things you need to know about. Promise!

I got a Pushcart nomination! I know, I know. I’m not supposed to be excited about this. I’m supposed to be all, me and everybody else, right? But fuck that. I am always happy to have validation that someone enjoys what I do. Anyway, this one is for my story “Five Kinds of Human History” in the latest issue of Big Lucks (thank you Mark and Laura and all!) and by the way, you can also get that issue with all its goodness for the Kindle for ONE DOLLAR. How could you pass that up? You can’t, right? Here you go.

So, there is a VERY long awaited and spectacular issue of Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens available, and I have a favorite story of mine published inside: “Death and the People.” Thank you, Bradley Sands, for publishing this weird thing. (For those of you that saw the very first ever Three Tents reading in DC, this is the story I read there.) In addition to my piece, there are stories by Laird Hunt, D. Harlan Wilson, Cameron Pierce, Amanda Billings, Kirk Jones, Andrew W. Adams, Amber Sparks, and a novella by Kirsten Alene, as well as book reviews of Steve Lowe’s Muscle Memory and Shane Jones’s A Cake Appeared. You can buy it here (and sorry but Amazon’s the only place you can get it right now!)

If you’re looking for Christmas/Hanukkah/Whatever gifts, I compiled a great list of gifts over at Vouched. If you just want to get someone the perfect new book, I compiled a list of my favorite books of 2011 over at Big Other.

I guest-edited SmokeLong Quarterly last week and you all sent me some really great stuff. Dang. So now I’m busy trying to decide which story I love the most (and this is not an easy task.)

Ravi Mangla is an awesome writer/person. So I am very happy to see that, in another really terrific decision by Uncanny Valley’s Mike Meginnis and Tracy Bowling, the press is publishing Ravi’s collection of microfictions, Visiting Writers, as an ebook. There are 23 stories in the collection, some of which have appeared in Gigantic #2, Everyday Genius, >kill author, and The Outlet.

Brand new Bright Stupid Confetti, with 50 amazing pieces. It’s–indescribably good. Just curated like honey. Check it out here.

I like what Everyday Genius is doing this month. Where they have a contributor, instead of writing down the same blabbity bla bio that no one cares about, actually point out something else that’s cool online. Good on EG. As always.

Pre-Order Jason Jordan’s A Dying Horse from Main Street Rag

Amber Sparks — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 22:22:04 +0000

I mean. A novella full of bleak black humor about the apocalypse and cats that talk? Yes, please. I’ll be snapping this one up. Get it here.

This is from the same dude who wrote Cloud and Other Stories, so you know it’s going to be great. Just FYI.

ACTION POST! Giant Exclamatory Roundup w/ xTx, R. Gay, Tattoli, Kimball, Fitzgerald, Becker, Reale, K. Logan, and L.E. Scott

Amber Sparks — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 20:22:54 +0000

THRILL…as Roxane Gay’s first book, Ayiti, finally arrives!

WEEP…to read Michael Kimball’s sad and creepy and lovely new flash, at Matter Press!

DIVE IN…to Chantel Louise Tattoli’s excellent, fascinating essay on the Little Mermaid statue and its anthropological history!

DISCOVER…interviews, articles and more, as The Lit Pub celebrates xTx’s amazing book, Normally Special!

GET PUMPED…and pre-order a book by Lauren Becker, Erin Fitzgerald, Kirsty Logan, Michelle Reale, and me called SHUT UP/LOOK PRETTY, published by Tiny Hardcore Press, the likes of which is going to rip your face off!

GASP…as you discover that you, yes, YOU, can get the brilliant Laura Ellen Scott’s new book, Death Wishing, on Kindle for exactly ZERO DOLLARS HOLY SHIT DO IT NOW.

Whew. Wipe brow. Exhale. Now go shopping.

Shut Up/Look Pretty is a thing you should buy.

Amber Sparks — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 20:40:29 +0000

It has been published by the awesome Tiny Hardcore Press, by Ms. Roxane Gay. It is called Shut Up/Look Pretty. It is filled with words by Erin Fitzgerald, Kirsty Logan, Lauren Becker, Michelle Reale, and me. It is filled with words in the form of stories in the form of chapbooks. Here’s the description of mine:

The five stories in A Great Dark Sleep: Stories for the Next World explore death and what follows. These stories are by turns gothic, sweet, funny, fanciful, tragic, playful, and even gruesome. Whatever the tone, whatever the tune, these stories are all written in the language of loss: that ancient tongue the dead have left their loved ones to make sense of.

So anyway, you should definitely order this book because holy shit is it good. These writers will eat your bones and read them back to you like the I Ching. So here you are. And you are welcome.

Big Lucks and Mud Luscious Press: Things for You to Buy and Love

Amber Sparks — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 19:04:17 +0000

I have a new piece, “Five Kinds of Human History,” in the DC-based Big Lucks magazine, thanks to Mark Cugini and Laura Spencer, the fabulous editors of that publication. It’s a great issue, full of really good poetry and fiction by people like Ryan W. Bradley, Dawn Elisa Gabbert, Ricky Garni, Joe Hall, Kathleen Rooney, Nick Ostdick, Nick Ripatrazone, Justin Sirois, and, J.A. Tyler. Best get you some words today.

And Mud Luscious Press is fast becoming one of the most consistently stellar presses out there. They keep pumping out these terrifically designed, beautifully and engagingly written small books and this makes me happy. What makes me newly happy about MLP? They’ve just released my friend and terrific writer Robert Kloss’s magnificent How the Days of Love and Diptheria, as part of their Nephew imprint. Buybuybuy!

Okay for real, get your MLP subscription blind or miss out big time.

Amber Sparks — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 18:03:49 +0000

Because it’s not really blind, after all. You know that you are going to be getting a book from my friend and super talented writer Robert Kloss! And a book from my friend and super talented writer Matt Bell! Plus Gregory Sherl and Ken Sparling (their books, not the dudes themselves) and hello, how could you ask for anything more?

That’s enough exclamation points for one post, but you should know that you’ll be getting all of this:

2012 MLP [blind] Subscription /// $40 + free shipping /// buy now
Save $20 off the cover price by subscribing blind (blind = before blurbs, covers, or excerpts are released) to the entire set of 2012 MLP titles: Gregory Sherl’s THE OREGON TRAIL IS THE OREGON TRAIL, Matt Bell’s CATACLYSM BABY, Ken Sparling’s DAD SAYS HE SAW YOU AT THE MALL, & Robert Kloss’ THE ALLIGATORS OF ABRAHAM. Once we release blurbs, covers, & excerpts the price will go up, so get in on it now.

Seriously. Get on that now. I plan to, soon as I get paid.

Summer Reading for Science Geeks from Wired

Amber Sparks — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 17:43:04 +0000

I’m not a science geek–though I wish I were. I wish I were so brilliant at science that I got to wear the robot hands to handle terrifyingly deadly diseases in sealed-off rooms like the scientists in movies. Of course, then something would surely go wrong and my suit would get punctured and I’d be the first to die of Ebola or the rage disease or whatever escaped from that robot-hand area. So, you know, it’s probably a good thing I was borderline learning-disabled when it came to anything science-y in school. (This is true. My SAT scores for English and for Science were so radically different (top of the scale/bottom of the scale) that test administrators were initially suspicious about the results. Oddly enough I’m not so bad when it comes to math, though I hate most math unless it’s logic.)

Anyway, my idiocy doesn’t stop me from being fascinated by all things scientific, particularly anything to do with space, physics, black holes, parallel dimensions, relativity, dark matter, etc, etc. I know half of that stuff is probably not real, and by god I couldn’t explain almost any of it to you, but it’s fascinating just the same. I like reading books on science designed for dummies like me, and pretending to myself that I know just as much as Stephen Hawking.

So, you know, this reading list Wired put together is perfect for amateurs like me. Entertaining books about science that require no real knowledge of science. I love it. The one I’m most excited to read? Naturally, Lab Coats in Hollywood: Science, Scientists and Cinema, by David Kirby. Maybe I can finally find out how one goes about becoming a robot-hand operator–and the odds of deadly viruses escaping in real life versus film life.

Last Day to Take Advantage of Ethel Rohan’s Generosity

Amber Sparks — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 14:35:36 +0000

Seriously, guys. Ethel Rohan, in her mega-niceness, is supporting the brand-new Lit Pub by doing giving away a hundred bucks to a lucky commenter. It’s like this:

Everyone else who comments in response to Christopher Newgent’s posts at The Lit Pub through midnight PST, June 30th, with be entered in a LIVE draw tomorrow to receive a $100 gift certificate to spend at The Lit Pub and purchase from the great and growing titles in their library. This gift certificate expires December 31st, 2011.

So comment already! What are you waiting for? Hopefully you’ve checked out the Lit Pub already, but if not you’d better get over there today, before Ethel’s wonderful book stops being featured and they’re on to something else new and exciting. I guess what I’m saying is, the Lit Pub is worth checking out at LEAST once a month. But I’d go more often than that if I were you.

Why you should really, truly pre-order Rae Bryant’s marvelous debut collection now.

Amber Sparks — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 17:56:02 +0000

I wrote about Rae’s collection, (The Indefinite State of Imaginary Morals, coming out at the end of June from Patsola Press), over here at Vouched.

As a tribute to the book itself, I wrote my review in a loose, fragmentary, symbolist-sort-of- way. Or maybe I just finished reading Nightwood, too, and that influenced me. Either way, here’s an excerpt:

Gorgeous language, lush and built up like layers of embroidery, etched secret meanings under secret meanings. Sensuality, sexuality, no separation of the body and mind in these lovely, deadly stories. Experimentation, but with form rather than subject matter–formulae, repetition, one sentence stories, play–never two stories quite the same, never a dull moment, despite the shared themes of love, sex, food, bodies.

Sound intriguing? Then you should read the rest of the review over here.