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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Who's had a book out?

11:47 / 20.07.03

Inspired by a thread in the music about who on barbelith has made a CD, i'm curious to know who around here's got a book out - that's commercially published or self-published.

i'll go first - and point out that this thread wasn't started as a brag or anything, kay? i self-published a collection of poems called From My Head in 1995, then through great fortune managed to get it partially republished with a bunch of new work with an actual publisher in 1998 - this time it was called Not Quite the Man for the Job. And this year I've had me first novel published, called Man Bites Dog. It's about a postman who has some serious trouble with a murderous dog on his round, and how he and his mate Gina, who's mad for Murder, She Wrote, get him out of said serious trouble.

more at me website - here.

again - not a brag, just a ball-rolling kind of thing.

who's next?

m.

Whisky Priestess

14:13 / 21.07.03

NAME REMOVED TO PROTECT THE RELATIVELY INNOCENT is a member of the UpsideClown collective and they've self-published

I've had stories in a couple of anthologies: Signals 3
read about it here and buy it here

and most recently, Feathers and Cigarettes

The Great British Novel still languishes on my bathroom floor unpublished, however ...

14:21 / 21.07.03

Your book looks interesting, M. Will it have a UK release?

I'm all gob and no keks with writing, I'm afraid. Nothing published - well, no fiction, anyway. Fourteen years of journalism, which some might say ought to be filed under fiction.

Two novels completed, both languishing on slush piles somewhere. And a story entered in the Bridport Prize, as well.

07:23 / 22.07.03

Hey, what do you know. After that whinging post yesterday, got home to a letter from a literary agent who's read the first five chapters of one of the novels and wants to see the whole mss. It's a start.

Whisky Priestess

12:10 / 22.07.03

What's the book about, Sax, or is it a secret?

I know this doesn't count but it's so jammy I have to tell you: one of my mates met a novelist at a party, pitched an idea to him, and the next day the novelist's agent called him to set up a meeting.

Bastard.

12:28 / 22.07.03

Bastard indeed. That's the trouble with being stuck up here in the grim north; no chance of networking unless it's with embittered "northern" novelists who jealously guard any contact they have with London literary circles.

My book. I say: "contemporary urban fantasy".

They say: "unpublishable tripe".

Actually, it's very Barbelith, so I hope if it gets published everyone here will go out and buy it. It's about scratching the surface of normality and finding all kinds of strange things underneath, told by a bloke who may have stumbled upon an enormous conspiracy or may be rather spectacularly paranoid and crackers thanks to a surfeit of late nights, beer and drugs.

12:34 / 22.07.03

I also understand shortfatdyke (shouts "where are you?" in a Scooby Doo stylee) has a book of ghost/horror stories out... I think there's a link to it on Persef's Queer Granny site.

Whisky Priestess

14:02 / 22.07.03

Here's the link

Plenty of feedback available from the Barbs who've read it, I seem to remember.

06:24 / 23.07.03

thanks, sax. no UK release in sight at this stage. can be bought online, though, and our puny antipodean dollar versus your champion john bull pounds - it's no contest at all.

does your novel have a title, sax? i'm having an odd twinge that you might've sent an exceprt to the litmag i edit - going down swinging? Pasha Rapley? or was that another 'lither?

m.

06:39 / 23.07.03

M, no, that wasn't me. The novel's called "Hinterland", by the way.

Whisky Priestess

07:34 / 23.07.03

I've got it! Just pitch it to the buggers as "Neverwhere in Newcastle - like Viz meets Neil Gaiman!"

Or perhaps not.

08:40 / 23.07.03

"Paranoid Pat and his Unfeasible Conspiracy Theories".

I like it.

11:02 / 23.07.03

matsya,

I suppose you are aware that there is a Belgian film by the name Man Bites Dog.

11:28 / 23.07.03

I just got an e-mail from a different literary agent asking to see samples of my second novel.

I'm having a good week. It can't last.

Anyone fancy a shag?

11:59 / 23.07.03

"Paranoid Pat and his Unfeasible Conspiracy Theories" - sorry old chap, but it's been done. Enjoy.

Whisky Priestess

13:56 / 23.07.03

Did Flux tell you to change your name, SaxFlax, or is it a new pseudonym harbinging literary success?

14:06 / 23.07.03

A mimor aberration brought on by the Change Your Name Thread. But it just felt so wrong.

23:55 / 23.07.03

zadok,

i am indeed aware of such a thing. i chose the title because it's an old phrase about the test of newsworthiness, and a kind of inversion that appealed to me.

cheers,

m .

13:44 / 29.08.03

Update: The agency didn't like it. But I write "quite well".

Thanks, then.

15:36 / 29.08.03

bogus

17:18 / 30.08.03

My friend who self-published had the same kind of responses for his novel, Sax. Lot's of praise on the writing and the story, followed by some version or another of "We don't really know what to do with this." It falls inbetween most of the established genres, but doesn't adhere to any of them. It's set in the future, and there's aliens and inter-galactic travel and virtual reality, but it's also funny as hell, and there's a lot of direct religious and social and political commentary, and publishers just had no idea what to do with it, so he said 'fuck it, I'll just publish the damn thing myself.' So he did the iUniverse POD thing, and now he's got a novel, A Cross To Bare

11:11 / 01.09.03

Will have a co-edited collection of essays entitled The Origins of Deconstruction coming out in a year or two, and am currently running about madly trying to get Ohio State Press to agree to publish a classics/cultural studies monograph, Feminine Sendings: Gender, Space, Time (based on nice email from editor who is interested but politely pointed out that my original proposal was gibberish).

Edited the B7 f/f zine Sleer as Folk, have eleven or so B7 stories in paper zines* and on the Web and two Harry/Snapes on restrictedsection.org.

*one of which, as I may have mentioned, has won an award

However, spending the last six weeks meeting my gf's friends - which in almost all cases involved reading at least two of their novels beforehand to get an idea of what they were like - and also spending an hour or so watching my gf count off on her fingers trying to remember all the books she's had published (we lost count at around 60) put all that in perspective, thanks

11:22 / 01.09.03

Sixty? Deva, are you seeing Jackie Collins?

11:23 / 01.09.03

Or Barbara Cartland?

14:58 / 01.09.03

Some of them are quite short.

01:02 / 02.09.03

they're also very good, the ones i've read, and the person in question actually makes a living from her writing, mostly public lending rights. people like her are scary and inspiring all at the same time.

m.

--

04:59 / 02.09.03

I'm working on a book about a supermarket employee who stumbles upon a conspiracy at the store she works at. Or that's how it started. Now I'm not sure what the fuck it's about, but I guess one could call it "self-indulgent postmodernism from a William S. Burroughs wannabe fanboy".