Let's Talk About Plot

LitReactor is a new site that features a magazine with publishing-related content, interviews (they just ran this great interview with Steve Erickson that is well worth the read) and book reviews, as well as online writing courses. Our own Joshua Mohr is going to be teaching a course and here's what it's all about:

Let's talk about plot. That skeleton holding your story together, so all your grand ideas and crazy characters and gut-punch sentences can shine. Every book needs a one, but let's be honest--plot is a pretty easy thing to lose.

That's why we've recruited best-selling author Joshua Mohr for our newest class, Plotlines: Crafting Powerful Story Progressions That Stay True To Character.

Josh will break down the various ways writers can construct a series of events with a laser focus that will keep readers glued to the page. Each weekly session will begin with written and video lectures, and students will have writing assignments to practice the new tactics they're taught. All of this will occur in our groundbreaking online classroom, an environment that encourages discussion and peer reviews.

In this class, Mohr will teach you:

How to start in the middle of the action

Effective ways to dangle bait for your reader

Creating characters who characterize themselves

How to write compelling dialogue

The four-week class starts on Feb. 20.

Click here to find more information about the class and its structure, and to register.

JOSHUA MOHR is the author of three novels, most recently Damascus, which the The New York Times called “Beat-poet cool.” He’s also written Some Things that Meant the World to Me, one of O Magazine’s Top 10 reads of 2009 and a San Francisco Chronicle best-seller, as well as Termite Parade, an Editors’ Choice on The New York Times Best Seller List. He teaches in the MFA program at the University of San Francisco.

LA!

I had a great time in LA last week, where I got to sit on a panel at CalArts they dubbed 'No Need to Perish: Tenacity and Indie Publishing.' While in town, I was able to hang with some TDR folk, like The Emily Pullen, Anne-Marie Kinney (and her husband Abe, who designed the cover to Radio Iris), and Grace Krilanovich (and her sweet little baby girl). I also got to attend Trinie Dalton's launch party for Baby Geisha (!) at Family Bookstore last Saturday night (pic above).

A head's up for any LA folks: Trinie Dalton and Joshua Mohr will be reading together tonight, alongside Stephen Beachy, at Skylight Books at 7:30pm -- don't miss it!

O 2011, Where Did You Go? A recap of sorts.

2011 just blew past and we thought we'd take a moment to slow it down and share some of our most memorable TDR moments from the year.

We'd love to hear from other folks, too, readers or authors as to what some of their favorite times from the past year were, whether with our books or others, so please chime in!

Here are some of those moments we'll remember, in no particular order.

Barbara Browning appearing with Keren Ann at Barnes & Noble's Upstairs at the Square.
Barbara's debut novel, The Correspondence Artist, inspired Largehearted Boy to declare the book "one of the true literary breakthroughs of our young century," and thankfully we have this utterly fantastic video of her in conversation with Katherine Lanpher at a joint event with Keren Ann.


Grace Krilanovich's The Orange Eats Creeps makes the editors' shortlist for The Believer Book Awards.
"Grace Krilanovich’s first book is a steamy cesspool of language that stews psychoneurosis and viscera into a horrific new organism—the sort of muck in which Burroughs, Bataille, and Kathy Acker loved to writhe."
And while it didn't win, we're certain it made an impression.

Michael Schaub reviews Jay Neugeboren's You Are My Heart and Other Stories at Kirkus.
"[Neugeboren] might not be as famous as some of his compeers, like Philip Roth or John Updike, but it's becoming increasingly harder to argue that he's any less talented. Neugeboren's new short story collection serves as a convincing piece of evidence of the author's rare talent... dazzlingly smart and deeply felt... Jay Neugeboren is music to our ears."
That's why it was memorable, a better appreciation for this acclaimed author could not have been written.

Francis Levy pisses off Brazil.
The publication of Francis Levy's satirical second novel, Seven Days in Rio, inspired the Village Voice to declare the work "the funniest American novel since Sam Lipsyte's The Ask" and others to praise this "incredibly elaborate and well-crafted satire." There were voices of dissent, such as Brazilian government officials quoted in O Globo, the most prominent daily newspaper in the country, saying they would demand an official apology for the book's publication.
This would have to win for most surreal happening for us of 2011.

Roadtripping with Joshua Mohr.
We were thankful to be able to convince Joshua Mohr to tour the midwest for the third book of his that we published, Damascus, which led to us eating this Chicago-style pizza:

Josh reading in a chapel at Capital University:

And in a basement at Mac's Backs in Cleveland:

While some super-cool things happened with Damascus, such as the Wall Street Journal and New York Times reviews, and the USA Today year-end mention, the most memorable part of the publication for me will be this trip, the camaraderie, talking books and writing and everything else with a dear friend.

Getting some hometown love from The Columbus Dispatch.
When you work out of your house, it can get kind of lonely, and so it was great to get some local print from our hometown paper that allowed us to open our doors and share what we do with our neighbors and community. Plus, it was really wonderfully written.

Joshua Mohr Reading at Booksmith

Galleys of Joshua Mohr's Damascus

We're about to have back in hand the galleys of Joshua Mohr's forthcoming third novel, Damascus (out October 2011).

"Mohr is the bard of the underbelly, and the Mission District is his playground. Part Harry Crews, part Charles Bukowski, and part Franz Kafka, Mohr will make you squirm, laugh, recognize, and take pause. Behind his wayward and dissolute characters, burns the clear-eyed moral vision of a very unique artist."
-Jonathan Evison

"We're in the belly of the whale, man. We've been swallowed whole."

"It's 2003 and the country is divided evenly for and against the Iraq War. Damascus, a dive bar in San Francisco's Mission District, becomes the unlikely setting for a showdown between the opposing sides.

Tensions come to a boil when Owen, the bar's proprietor who has recently taken to wearing a Santa suit full-time, agrees to host an art show by an ambitious artist longing to take her act to the high-wire by nailing live fish to the walls as a political statement.

An incredibly creative and fully-rendered cast of characters orbit the bar. There's No Eyebrows, a cancer patient who has come to the Mission to die anonymously; Shambles, the patron saint of the hand job; Revv, a lead-singer who acts too much like a lead-singer.

By gracefully tackling such complicated topics as cancer, Iraq, and issues of self-esteem, Joshua Mohr has painted his most accomplished novel yet.

Parties interested in receiving a copy for review or perusal, write to Brian Obenauf at brian[at]twodollarradio.com.

Q+A with Editor: Joshua Mohr

So, starting today, we're going to gradually announce our Fall/Winter list. This is for titles we have forthcoming between the months of September 2011 through March 2012. Over the course of the next few days we'll have an in-depth Q+A with the author of each of the forthcoming titles scheduled during the Fall/Winter season.

Today, the discussion begins with Joshua Mohr. We will be publishing Josh's third novel, Damascus, in October 2011.

Not to get too melodramatic and touchy-feely right off the starter's block, but I believe that Damascus is the most ambitious piece of writing you've done. While maintaining a very personal intimacy with the characters, it's really broad in scope, and tackles a lot of sticky issues that if played poorly could be disastrous for a writer - such as cancer and the Iraq War. What was your approach? Did you say, I want to approach issues of self-esteem and wrestle with how we as humans choose to die, or were these hurdles that naturally presented themselves as you fleshed out the characters?

This is a broader story than either of my previous novels. Bigger not only in page count, but the soul of the story encompasses a lot of things about our world that confuse me. The old axiom is to write what you know, but I try to zero in on things that I don't understand: dilemmas that don't have clean tidy answers, but deal with morals and ethics - things that mean different things to different people. I don't so much care for questions that have answers, as much as the alchemy of the emotion. I realize that sounds pretentious, but I don't know how else to phrase it. Answers are boring. Questions, things that can be argued from varying angles, that's the good stuff. That's where a novel gets deliciously complex.

The filmmaker Lars von Trier talks about leaving open different avenues of interpretation in his work, so a viewer can compile her own meaning of it. I really like that idea and aim to involve my reader via that same tack: what do these weird images mean? Who are these characters on the page who are tough for me as a reader to pin down? It involves your audience in an exciting way when you trust them to build cogent versions of the "facts." I think it's important to write like your readers are brilliant.

I really enjoy working with you. Two Dollar Radio is definitely an all-consuming venture, and it makes all the difference when we're putting in late hours, investing everything we have (both financially and mentally), that we're working with someone who's freaking awesome and really wants to be engaged in a publishing relationship with us. Since I know you've had plenty of offers with the successes of your first two novels to move on, I just wanted to express our satisfaction and appreciation publicly.

Awww... you're going to make me cry and that will ruin my street cred! It was really important to me to stay indie. Way back when my agent was trying (and failing) to sell my first novel to the big swanky corporate publishers, they all told me to fuck myself. So the idea of pandering to them now makes me sort of queasy. You guys took a chance on me as an unknown writer and I'll never forget that. I doubt too many Random House authors have the RH logo tattooed on their arm, and I wear my TDR tattoo proudly. Loyalty is important. We're growing together. I dig that. I hope we can keep it up, though some day I'd like to have more than $300 in the bank.

A lot of reviewers of the first two novels have compared your work to Charles Bukowski, and even Hubert Selby, Jr. and John Milton, but this book really made me think of Sam Shepard, particularly Paris, Texas (which I guess he only co-wrote, but still), which is one of my favorite films. Who have been some of your influences from book to book?

I love Paris, Texas too. It's interesting that you mention a film script because one of my goals with Damascus was to write it like an old robert Altman film, an ensemble piece: many characters satelliting a loose set of circumstances that slowly coalesce and build toward a crazy climax.

My first two novels had pretty small casts of characters, and I wanted to play with more people this time. I didn’t want the story to “belong” to any one person, but for each member of the ensemble to share ownership. Can I call it a co-op? Is that silly?

Plus—and only literature dorks will think this is interesting—but the narrative voice, the 3rd person, lends itself to a more sprawling interpretation of story. Or at least it does to me. So I felt a liberty not to pare back quite as harshly as I compressed the first 2 books. They’re both very lean, like greyhounds; this one has a bit more meat on its bones.

A lot of your writing deals with what we do to ourselves and to others in the dark while scraping rock-bottom. Each of your books deal with characters battling alcohol (or at least abusing alcohol). You stopped drinking a couple years ago. Is your writing a means of confronting your previous addiction?

I’ve been off booze and drugs for 2 years now. It’s a strange new world. I’ll always be examining opulent self-destruction. There’s something mesmerizing about the way humans punish themselves. I don’t pretend to have any answers as to why we’re attracted to it. I once saw a guy smoke speed out of a broken light bulb. I remember thinking that sort of ingenuity could open many doors for the bloke assuming he ever got clean.

I love the opening to Damascus:

“Let’s start this one when a cancer patient named No Eyebrows creeps into Damascus, a Mission District dive bar. For years the place’s floor, walls, and ceiling had been painted entirely black, but that afternoon the owner added a new element, smashing twenty mirrors and gluing the shards to the ceiling so the pieces shimmered like stars, transforming Damascus into a planetarium for drunkards: dejected men and women stargazing from barstools.
“When the first customer of the day had walked in and witnessed the bar’s broken-mirror constellations, he said to the owner, “There must be 10,000 years of bad luck hanging here.””

Damascus appeared in your first two novels, and now is the title of your third. How will you move on when this fictional place seems to have inspired and grounded so much of your work so far?

To be honest, it actually scares me. Since 2003, all I’ve worked on are these 3 books (they are all related, though self-contained; I call them “The Heresies Cycle”). It’s the world I’ve been writing about nonstop. So on one hand it’s exciting to embark into the unknown, new territory, flex some different muscles. But the terrifying part is what if I don’t have any other muscles? What if I’m a one-muscle kind of guy and the rest of me is just useless and scrawny? Jesus, now my palms are sweaty!

Hopefully, something will catch my fancy and the “what’s next?” question will take care of itself. That’s my delusion du jour. And if I’m out of ideas for good, is anybody looking for an assistant? I can wax a back like you wouldn’t believe.

Here's a cover, designed and drawn by Damian Demartino:

Also, through Sunday, February 6, you can purchase our Year 5 Book Subscription for a tidy $45. Year 5 Book Subscription includes You Are My Heart and Other Stories by Jay Neugeboren; Seven Days in Rio by Francis Levy; Damascus by Joshua Mohr; and two titles to be announced over the course of the next two days -- stay tuned!

My review of James Franco in Sunday's NY Times

The wonderful people over at the New York Times Book Review asked me to weigh in on James Franco's first collection of stories, "Palo Alto." The whole review is here and will be in Sunday's print edition.  But a snippet for those of you who are into the whole snippet-thingie (and we seem to be a country of snippets, sound bytes, and tweets):

Too often, our comfort zones are our tombstones. We settle into numbing patterns and that’s that — wake me when it’s over. Not so in the frenetic world of James Franco, whose ambition over the past few years has manifested almost as performance art: he’s been affiliated with multiple M.F.A. programs, in fiction, poetry and filmmaking; he’s angling to add “Dr.” to his name, having recently become a Ph.D. aspirant at some shabby school called Yale. Oh, and in case your particular comfort zone is a cave: he’s a pretty successful actor, too.

Congratulations to Franco for the publication of his first book!

The Melting Pot

Greetings.


We're headed to San Antonio over the weekend for a wedding, so what follows is a boiling hot pot of some cool happenings in our world.


Grace Krilanovich is converting skeptics. She'll be in NYC reading from The Orange Eats Creeps this Sunday night at KGB Bar @ 7pm as part of a two-night 'Indie Press Crush Fest' with featherproof books authors Lindsay Hunter (author of Daddy's), Christian Tebordo (author of The Awful Possibilities), and Amelia Gray (author of AM/PM). Night #2 will take place at Greenpoint's WORD Bookstore on Tuesday, May 26 @ 7:30pm.

All next week, October 25 - 31, Joshua Mohr will be partaking in a live chat with The Next Best Book Club. You can read the book club's blog post in which they declare Termite Parade 'the next best book'!

Bomb Magazine has posted a podcast of their 'Bomb Literary All-Star Reading' at Greenlight Books earlier this month. Barbara Browning read a selection from her forthcoming novel, The Correspondence Artist (February '11), an excerpt from which was published in Bomb's Summer issue.

L.A., Take 2

This Sunday, September 26, Grace Krilanovich and Joshua Mohr will be teaming up again to read as part of the Vermin on the Mount series in Los Angeles.

Grace and Josh will be joined by Matt Stewart and Steve de Jarnatt. The reading is at the Mountain Bar in Chinatown and is free.

Also, those on the opposing coast, don't forget about the NEA panel at the Philoctetes Center tomorrow in NYC.

Life is Better on the Left Coast

For anyone within driving distance of Los Angeles, on Thursday, September 9 at 7:30 -- tomorrow!!! -- be sure to check out Joshua Mohr and Grace Krilanovich reading from their new novels at Skylight Books in Los Feliz.

It's bound to be exceptional.

The event will be Grace's first reading in support of her debut novel, The Orange Eats Creeps, and sort of serve as the launch party for the book. To that end, there will be wine.

You'll also be able to say 'hey' to the newest TDR-er, Emily, who'll be introducing the reading.

Seriously good times. G-D I wish we lived on the west coast.

For further reading:

The Orange Eats Creeps link roundup:

OEC book trailer
Largehearted Boy Book Notes
Vol. 1 Brooklyn review
HTMLGIANT love
TDR Noise Q&A
Skylight Books launch party with Joshua Mohr, 9/9
Two Dollar Radio/Featherproof "night of hand-holding" at KGB, 10/24
Grace on Twitter

NY Times names Termite Parade an Editors' Choice

So this pic of Lucille Ball basically captures how wonderfully, gloriously shocked I was to learn that Termite Parade made this week's NYTBR Editors' Choice list. In some twisted post-modern way, I kind of look like Lucille Ball. Yikes...

It feels like some kind of coup, my sordid little book ending up in the NY Times. Their review last week was amazing. I'm so thankful. The person who wrote it, Rebecca Barry, had a novel-in-stories come out a couple years back called "Later, at the Bar;" I haven't had the pleasure of meeting/speaking with her, but I'd like to buy her 924 cocktails. And as she's now my new favorite person, I've ordered several copies of her book. And you should too. And then tell 10 friends to pick it up. It can be like a chain-letter for us literature dorks.

Thanks Rebecca and thanks NY Times! I'll wear my Lucille Ball shock all day...

Powells: "Mohr is a post-millenial Bukowski."

We should do our best to support independent bookstores, rather than the corporate hubs. Powells is one of the most renowned. It's a veritable church of books. It's like Graceland (pic above), if you've been buried in novels your whole life.

For those of us that can't trek to Portland to buy books in person, their website is kick ass, stocked with any title you could want to get your hands on. So shop there. And they're good people. And we should support good people.

They also review a newly released book every day. They weighed in on Termite Parade over the weekend. Thanks, Powells. Us indie kids gotta stick together!

From the review: "Written with as much heart as brawn, Termite Parade is a sucker punch to literary complacency, without a hint of authorial self-absorption. Mohr is a post-millennial Bukowski with a dash of Hubert Selby, Jr. thrown in for good measure, and with only two published novels under his belt, he is rapidly becoming one of my favorite American novelists."

SF Chronicle: Termite Parade is "similar to Dostoyevsky's 'Crime and Punishment.'"

I'm a pretty excitable cat. Temperamental, moody diva? Manic pain in the ass? Yes, these are titles I'm familiar with, have heard once or twice over the years. I'm man enough to admit that.

So this weekend is making me crazy, in the best way. I'm bouncing off the walls. First, the San Francisco Chronicle reviewed Termite Parade today. I'd like to thank the reviewer, Evan Karp, for giving the novel such a close read, taking the time to dig into the story's cracks. Evan also runs a local reading series in SF called Quiet Lightning. The next one is on August 2nd at the Rickshaw Stop.

Here's a pull from his text:

"The book is similar to Dostoevsky's 'Crime and Punishment': the most crucial action serves as a portal to and wellspring for the various psychologies of its characters. But Mohr's storytelling is so absorbing that 'Termite Parade' does not read like an analytical rumination; if he is examining the very nature of these characters under a microscope, he at least lets the specimens speak for themselves."

Then on Sunday, The New York Times Book Review will weigh in with their thoughts. I've always struggled with insomnia, but waiting to hear/read my first NY Times review? I haven't slept more than 10 hours all week! I'm a train-wreck... a bigger train-wreck (thanks, peanut gallery). Please cross your fingers; I need all the help I can get.

And finally, I just tattooed my publisher's, Two Dollar Radio's, logo on my arm. You can see it in the pic above: hint, it's the only image that looks like a two dollar radio...

Author Jonathan Evison interviews me for 3G1B

J. Evison's first novel "All About Lulu" is a solid read. I was lucky enough to get my hands on an advanced copy of his next, "West of Here," that hits stores February 2011. Let me tell you: Evison can write his ass off. WOH is so good, in fact, I'm predicting awards for it. Pulitzer? National Book Award? I'm calling my shot. Just remember where you heard it first, people...

Evison was nice enough to instigate a dialogue with me. In it, we discuss my penchant for squalor, vampires on submarines... you know, the usual. He also asked about my relationship with my publisher, Two Dollar Radio. Here's part of my response:

JM: I’m very comfortable on the fringe. I like that role of being underestimated. There are very few expectations of me, and so if something goes well, it’s just gravy. I feel like I’m playing with house money… except in this particular example there’s no money. Or a house.

Thanks, Herr Evison for asking such thoughtful questions. It was a stunning asylum from the normal batch of obvious ones, like: "Hey man, do you write with a pen or on a laptop?" Why would anybody really fucking care what the answer is to that?

Termite Parade is "a more optimistic version of Chuck Palahniuk."

I moved into a new apartment a couple months back. It's great, so much bigger. There are rooms, people. I mean, real rooms. It has its own kitchen, for god's sake, not some galley type thing wedged in the corner of the living room with a sad mini-fridge and mini-stove that made mini-food and forced me to wonder whether I should've gotten an MBA.

I feel lucky to have found a better apartment for roughly the same price. And now I can stand up straight, rather than feeling like I'm working on the 7th and a half floor ala "Being John Malkovich."

I mention this because there are these small windows way up the bedroom walls, and these little guys don't have shades or blinds, and they make the room incredibly bright too early. I've been complaining about them for the last few weeks, but now I'm starting to see their benefit. Jesus, may the glass indeed be half full? This is undermining years of cynical whining...

Today, these meddling windows "forced" me to read Campus Circle's review of Termite Parade bright and early. Here's an excerpt:

"The book reads like a lighter, (slightly) more optimistic version of Chuck Palahniuk (author of Fight Club), and although the story is a veritable microscope of humanity at its worst (and maybe a glimpse of it near its best), it examines both our motives and the consequences of our actions in a very readable fashion."
-Campus Circle

Despite the reviewer's penchant for parentheses (she seems to really like them) (I mean, really really like them), I'm going to start singing the praises of these small windows. Maybe getting out of bed ain't so bad after all.

Skylight

The People Who Watched Her Pass By is being recommended at Skylight Books by manager, Steve Salardino, who says:
"The author of the shamefully out of print History of Luminous Motion brings us his best book in 10 years with this tale of a three year old on the road. Sal is nabbed from her home by the water heater repair man and so begins her journey. She wanders through vans, laundromats, abandoned basements, the desert, effecting everyone around her while maintaining a world weary distance. Beautiful."

You can order The People Who Watched Her Pass By while supporting one of the best and coolest bookstores in 'Merica, here.

Also, Grace Krilanovich and Joshua Mohr will be reading at Skylight on September 9 at 7:30.

Happy Birthday, Joshua Mohr

Last week, Joshua Mohr celebrated the release of his second novel, Termite Parade, at City Lights in San Francisco. It was two days before his actual birthday, so in the spirit of celebration he held an inverted party, celebrating everyone else's birthday he forgot over the last year. He handed out some gifts, including some TDR-shirts, and led a singing of 'Happy Birthday' to the raffle-winner, whom Josh appointed "Birthday Boy" for the evening.

Introducing Josh is Peter Maravellis of City Lights. As though they need to assign an award and these stores don't remain consistently awesome, Publishers Weekly names a 'Bookstore of the Year' annually and City Lights received the crown for 2009. City Lights is a Mecca for me, and so it's pretty amazing and gratifying to have them supporting our authors and our books. We definitely appreciate it.

Rumpus Radio with Nick Flynn

I like to tease fiction writer/memoirist/sexual savant Steve Elliott that he's the Mayor of the Mission District, and I'm only sorta kidding. He's got our neighborhood wired. One of the nice things about living around the corner from him is that I can show up at his apartment and harrass him from time to time.

For example, maybe he happens to be recording a broadcast of the Rumpus Radio...maybe he's all dialed in for the show...checking levels, prepping the guest...mic tests, getting in the zone...and I happen to stagger in and say, "Hey man, can I borrow some mayonnaise?" Or: "Do you have any clean socks? Mine are all, like, wet for some reason."

Just such a glorious anomaly happened last week, as Steve was preparing to chat with Nick Flynn on Rumpus Radio. Steve was nice enough to let me co-host. Check it out here. Nick has some wise words and seems like a wise person all the way around. I highly recommend both his memoirs, "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City" and his latest, "The Ticking is the Bomb."

In 5-words, what's your relationship like with your mom?

I'll mail a copy of Termite Parade to the person who posts my favorite 5-word description of her/his releationship with their mother.

An example: Wondrous love scabbed with masochism.

Another: Floundering freedom for hypocrisy ticket.


And one "happy" riff just so nobody says I'm merely a glass-half-empty-sorta-guy: Your dad made me bald.

No rules, except c-bombs = disqualification... maybe. Although, sometimes c-bombs really work.
Mothers from Courtney Love to Michelle Obama want to know your answer!