TWTKCD gets reviewed in JMWW


So happy to find this thoughtful review by Ashley Begley for That’s When the Knives Come Down in the latest issue of JMWWhere’s a peek:

Not many people admit to feeling empty, to feeling like there is something more out there. Morgan not only writes about it, he tells us straight….It is only after letting the stories seep into our bodies that we begin to grasp what Morgan is saying. And we realize that we want it; we want time that has been stolen from us. We want space to love and hate and feel….We want more. So don’t wait. Don’t let yourself get away. Start the chase—it will be terrifying, but oh so worth it.”

You can read the full review here, and order a copy of TWTKCD here.

Kind words for Susan McCarty’s ANATOMIES

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We know the new year just started, but it’s hard to wait for summer when we know Susan McCarty’s Anatomies is on the way!

The latest blurb, this time from Scott Garson:

“Susan McCarty is deeply engaged with questions of how we live, and while she offers no answers, at least of the simple kind, she leaves me gripping her book with a somewhat mind-blown appreciation. These stories are marvels of craft and life: they follow our wordless intensities, opening naturally, from the inside out. What a collection we have in Anatomies. Can I say it again? What a collection.”

— Scott Garson, author of Is That You, John Wayne?

Two new reviews for TWTKCD

Glowing praise continues to come in for Dolan Morgan’s That’s When the Knives Come Down!

Two of the latest reviews, in Entropy and American Microreviews:

“Dolan Morgan’s That’s When the Knives Come Down is a collection of short stories that seems to have missed almost everyone’s ‘Best of 2014’ list. This is a shame because its true place is at the top of these lists for its passion to discover new territories. Morgan is a brash talent not interested in running over ground already covered by Lorrie Moore, Lydia Davis, George Saunders and other luminaries with experimental flair. Morgan seeks something different, something along the lines of a lost continent to name after himself.” — William Lessard, Entropy

“This is a book full of strangeness, and strange books can come apart pretty easily if they’re not coming from an author with a careful control of his subject matter.  That’s When the Knives Comes Down doesn’t come apart; instead, it takes an obverse, often thrilling tack in its defiance of what we normally think fiction is supposed to do.” — Zach VandeZande, American Microreviews

Order your copy of TWTKCD here!

Dolan Morgan interviewed for BOMB

 

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“All of the pieces in That’s When the Knives Come Down are the product of accident and luck and time, but only as outcroppings from the moments when I felt most exasperated by my own impotence and inability to do anything. You plan and fall short, and you outline and fuck up, and you wish and want, and then you don’t so much give up as you give in. You stand atop a teetering pile of your own absurd expectations and survey the dumb landscape that surrounds you, then don the cupcake costume and offer up the warm lemon hand wedge to the universe. I have to let go of what I want from a story and try in turn to deliver what the story itself wants or demands. Which is an important distinction.”

That’s a small bit from a great interview between Dolan and J.T. Price, now up at the BOMB Magazine site. Check out the whole thing, which includes Dolan’s thoughts on nothingness, face removal, and meaning[ful/less-ness].

TWTKCD gets a starred review in Publishers Weekly!

We were thrilled to see a review for That’s When the Knives Comes Down in Publishers Weekly today, and even more so when we saw the red star next to the title!

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“Morgan debuts his refreshing talent in a collection of 12 short stories that are as bizarre as they are brilliant. Germanely punctuated by Robin E. Mork’s playful graphite drawings, the collection is driven by an idiosyncratic and absurd mind… ‘Experimental’ would be a misleading term for this one-of-a-kind book.”

Read the full review here, then pick up your own copy today!

New blurb and book cover for AFFORDED PERMANENCE

The praise has been rolling in for Liam Day’s debut poetry collection, Afforded Permanence. Most recently, from Mary Pinard, author of Portal:

“Liam Day’s very fine first collection, Afforded Permanence, traces select bus routes (roots) in and around Boston in poems that tell stories, evoke memories, and capture histories of the heart and mind. His speaker throughout is streetwise and tuned to the rhythms of the city, its various environs, and beyond: this is someone you want to know, both for his sense of direction and for his ways with words. These are beautifully crafted poems—formally accomplished and lyrical, with details that chart the pleasures and complexities of urban life. This is the best, most necessary kind of map.”

We couldn’t agree more.

We’ve also made a snazzy new cover for the book, which includes kind words from Simeon Berry. Check it out below, then go see all the other details for Liam’s book, and keep your eyes on this space for the presale, kicking off next week!

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Dolan Morgan interviewed at Electric Literature

923189_10102802822797449_2474154495711510166_nDolan talks inspiration with Matthew Thompson for Electric Literature’s WAX column.

An excerpt:

I like breaking rules, and you can’t break them if there aren’t any. Ads, spam, dismissed genres, how-to guides and brochures all provide such rules. These rules each amount to a kind of game that one can enter into and play. For me, the process is distinctly human: we recognize limitations or obstacles in the world and endeavor to circumvent or undo them. There’s great satisfaction in creating and reading works that mimic this process. It is inherently playful, yes, but I don’t think play is childish. Play is an almost spiritual undertaking. When we give ourselves over to a set of rules, or follow them to their conclusion (or engineer a way to use them in a manner beyond their initial intention), we access something new or even impossible.

Read the whole shebang over at EL.