Shya Scanlon

I’ve been contributing for a few months to The Nervous Breakdown–a Web site featuring the non-fiction of almost 200 authors from around the world–and last week, the site’s fun-loving founder, Brad Listi, told me that they were in the process of completely redesigning the site to include sections for fiction, poetry, arts & culture, reviews and more. Then he asked me if I’d like to be one of the fiction editors.

I had to think about this. If you didn’t know, I was one of the first editors of Monkeybicycle, working with Steven Seighman to create the first three issues, run the weekly-updated Web site, and host a monthly reading series that seriously kicked ass. It was great fun, and very rewarding. But it was a lot of work. Am I ready for that again? Well, to make a long story short, I decided that I was. Am. So I accepted.

In addition to showcasing some excellent work by writers I and the other editors are excited about, the fiction section will feature “self-interviews,” in which writers will have a chance to ask themselves all the tough or silly questions they don’t usually get to answer–or just haven’t been able to answer fully. The launch won’t happen for another month or two, but in the meantime, I’m on the hunt for writers to feature. I’ve written up a call-for-authors, and have been sending it around to agents. But I’ll also be approaching writers themselves. Here’s what I’ve been sending around: CALL FOR AUTHORS.

I’m super stoked to be part of The Nervous Breakdown, especially at this auspicious moment in its development.

I’ve been waiting a long time to write this post, and now that it’s upon me, I can’t seem to find any more interesting way to express it than by getting right to the point: Flatmancrooked will be publishing Forecast in 2010.

FMC is a new press. It is a small press. And it is a very ambitious press. They have big ideas about what 21st century publishing has the potential to become, and I’m both excited and humbled that they’ve asked me to be a part of their visionary project.

This is the first of what will doubtless be a series of FMC-related posts, as we embark upon the great journey of turning a novel into a book.

(For those of you who’ve been following along with the serialization, think of it as a sneak peak of the novel in draft form: the novel is undergoing some significant changes during revision. Feel free to send me any comments you have on the serialized version–who knows? They could find their way into the print version.)

Not included in the serialized version of the book, this prologue introduces the novel’s narrator, and foreshadows some of the book’s more outlandish preoccupations.

Forecast Prologue

Author and editor Ravi Mangla has created a blog called Recommended Reading, in which he asks a great assortment of writers about their reading habits, then asks them to put together a reading list after some theme of their choosing. My interview went up today: click here to read it. Also, I encourage you to read through the blog’s archive.

Not mine. Someone’s, though, surely. It’s a website I’ve begun to contribute to: a place for nonfiction. There is a great variety of talented folks posting at least one update a month (a condition of membership requested by the founder of the site, author Brad Listi), and I’ve been quite pleased with the result: a view into the minds of writers all over the globe.

My second update was posted on the eve of my 34th birthday, and is a smattering of thoughts and observations culled from day-to-day life between Providence, RI, Tuscon, AZ, and NYC. Take a look.

The next print issue of Spork is going to be a doozy. The great concept, combined with a fantastic assortment of writers, all in Spork’s signature hand-bound editions (along with, apparently 50 “elaborate” copies), is sure to be a marvel.

I encourage you to subscribe to get updates on the release, and as soon as they’re offered for advance order, I highly suggest you snatch one up. They, like all other things Spork, will be collectors’ items. Read more about the issue on Spork’s site.

Thursday, July 16, 2009 kicks off the serialization. More information about the project can be found by clicking in the main nav above, on the button Forecast 42 Project. Or you can start with Chapter 1.

Thank you for participating!

Courtesy of Matty Harper.

As a follow-up to Nicolle Elizabeth’s excellent review of Poolsaid last month for The Chapbook Review, this month a brief interview (or account, really, of a conversation) has been posted. Thanks to John Madera for this great new venue, and to Nicolle for her insight and enthusiasm.

Also, the always-entertaining Rumpus has posted my brief laudatory review of Hunts In Dreams by Tom Drury as part of their “The Last Book I Loved” series. If you’re not reading it already, it’s a great way to find some great new literature, or revisit excellent books you’ve already read.

Kind words about FORECAST:

“In FORECAST, Scanlon invokes an absurd not-too-distant future that nonetheless seems altogether too believable and real. Tipping its hat to authors like Stacey Levine, China Miéville and Jonathan Lethem, Scanlon’s novel is part SF, part noir, part road narrative and part love story. Whether speaking about an effete talking dog, an underground edu-musement park or the convoluted heartbreak of a man deep in love with the woman he’s been trained to watch, Shya Scanlon’s is a new and vital voice in fabulist fiction.”

–Brian Evenson, author of LAST DAYS and FUGUE STATE