#flatmancrooked

[monkfishjowls]

Flatmancrooked is closing. Sad! I did hear rumors of its demise over the weekend but now it's official.

They did some pretty cool things like their LAUNCH initiative to publish debut authors such as fellow tumblr users Emma Straub and Edan Lepucki. It looked something like this: "During the Launch period, patrons can buy a “share” and thus help “launch” the career of a promising writer. In return, the philanthropist receives a signed, limited, first-edition copy, and the comfort of knowing that he or shehelped feed a struggling artist."

They also were behind the Zero Emissions Book which brought us "We’re Getting On by James Kaelan. First editions are 100% green, recycled, and super-post-consumer. The interiors are 100% recycled paper. But what’s crazy is that the covers are made of seed paper that, upon burial, germinate and grow into birch trees. That’s right! This book offsets its own carbon footprint 10X over." (These are currently available for $4 on flatmancrooked.com)

Flatmancrooked was doing some awesome innovative things and I'm sad to see them go. In its wake, Deena Drewis has started Nouvella Books which will work similarly to the Launch program to jumpstart books. 

Now would be a good time to show your favorite indie press some love before it's too late. Everyone should know what mine is: Featherproof!

[fwriction]

Myfanwy Collins, who recently won Flatmancrooked's 2010 Fiction Prize, has done it again with this story in Used Furniture Review. UFR consistently puts out great stories, and Collins' continues that. Read this story of the day, and share it with a friend.

My mother had a bad experience, he said and did not elaborate. I pictured her backing away from dogs as they walked along the sidewalk. I saw her calling to him from the house, stay away from that dog. She was scared.

I knew about being scared. When I was a child we’d had a neighbor who had a phobia of dolls. We girls were under strict instruction not to bring our dolls out when Geeta was over for coffee.

In the basement, we would dare each other to walk through the room where Geeta was with a doll in our hands. The cruelty of children circles around humor.

I was always the chosen one. The youngest, I was also the least full of guile. Mostly, I was excited by the task. I wanted to see what would happen. So I did it.

[fwriction]

A great way to begin this Monday: a TNB self-interiew (which I am big fan of) with Shya Scanlon. His new book, Forecast, is out now and should be snatched up, post haste.

Let’s talk about Forecast. This is science fiction. I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say, Well, it’s slipstream or it’s literary fiction that plays on common genre tropes. Or something equally evasive and insecure. But come on. It’s a sci-fi book. Can we agree on that?

I’m trying to think of something that isn’t evasive.

[fwriction]

From Edan Lepucki, whose debut novella, If You’re Not Yet Like Me, is out now from Flatmancrooked and available here, comes a great look at the appeal of the young protagonist:

Teenagers have a real drive to be independent, to discover and define (or defy) their identities. And yet, they’re also powerless. They have their parents’ will to contend with, and their friends’ complicated codes of behavior. They have the secret shames of the body. They long for the purity and ease of childhood even as they fling themselves into the dangers of adulthood. In short, they make for compelling characters.