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"Man with Knives" update
Feb. 9th, 2010 09:17 amThanks, everyone, for your warm & enthusiastic comments on my rather giddy announcement post last Sunday 'round midnight about the "The Man with the Knives" chapbook!
I continue thrilled beyond belief; publisher Henry Wessells keeps sending little updates on orders, ideas for design . . . feels like every day's my birthday - a great way to get through February!
Before we shook hands on the project, he insisted that I read his Micropublishing: a Short Course blog entry. As you can see, it's a real labor of love for everyone. He claims that the whole reason he does it is so he can have the fun of hand-binding those 20 special collectors' versions . . . and he may well be telling the truth, as he has posted examples of his previous handiwork here - and at lunch last week, we sat in a posh midtown vegan restaurant (Candle 79, if you're interested) oooh-ing and ahh-ing over the "baby pictures" of the entire process of binding Michael Swanwick's Hope-in-the-Mist at Henry's kitchen table - if you're at all interested in bookbinding in all its glory, see here.
To clarify just a few things, now I'm not so breathless:
The story, "The Man with the Knives," is the one I read aloud at NYRSF in December . . . the one that was unexpectedly rejected earlier that month . . . the one where Alec (Swordspoint etc.) meets Sofia (The Fall of the Kings etc.), and the one for which I needed all that help on surgery - oh, hell, it's all here under the tag "The Man with the Knives."
It's quite short, told in alternating viewpoints, Alec's & Sofia's. I love the Wordles I made by separating each one out. I think they give a pretty good sense of each one's narrative, without giving anything away.
Will the chapbook be your only chance to read it? I certainly hope not! It's bound to be reprinted somewhere eventually - one can even dream of a "Year's Best" inclusion somewhere for this one, as I think it's some of my best work . . . . But my handshake with Henry does stipulate that no other edition appear for several months after the Temporary Culture publication in May 2010.
The point of the chapbook, though, is that it's a Beautiful Object. Even if you don't go so far as to score the handbound edition (which costs the same as a small TV!), I can assure you that the $15 item will be a wonderful thing to hold in the hand. Details to come.
And he really is printing only 400 of the "paper" edition. When they're gone, they're gone - I actually had to beg for one of the last 3 copies of Hope-in-the-Mist to give a friend for New Year's (so I hope she loved it!). This shocked me so much that I talked him into printing more of this one. No one should go hungry in my world. But it's a smallish vineyard with only one pressing, this.
I continue thrilled beyond belief; publisher Henry Wessells keeps sending little updates on orders, ideas for design . . . feels like every day's my birthday - a great way to get through February!
Before we shook hands on the project, he insisted that I read his Micropublishing: a Short Course blog entry. As you can see, it's a real labor of love for everyone. He claims that the whole reason he does it is so he can have the fun of hand-binding those 20 special collectors' versions . . . and he may well be telling the truth, as he has posted examples of his previous handiwork here - and at lunch last week, we sat in a posh midtown vegan restaurant (Candle 79, if you're interested) oooh-ing and ahh-ing over the "baby pictures" of the entire process of binding Michael Swanwick's Hope-in-the-Mist at Henry's kitchen table - if you're at all interested in bookbinding in all its glory, see here.
To clarify just a few things, now I'm not so breathless:
The story, "The Man with the Knives," is the one I read aloud at NYRSF in December . . . the one that was unexpectedly rejected earlier that month . . . the one where Alec (Swordspoint etc.) meets Sofia (The Fall of the Kings etc.), and the one for which I needed all that help on surgery - oh, hell, it's all here under the tag "The Man with the Knives."
It's quite short, told in alternating viewpoints, Alec's & Sofia's. I love the Wordles I made by separating each one out. I think they give a pretty good sense of each one's narrative, without giving anything away.
Will the chapbook be your only chance to read it? I certainly hope not! It's bound to be reprinted somewhere eventually - one can even dream of a "Year's Best" inclusion somewhere for this one, as I think it's some of my best work . . . . But my handshake with Henry does stipulate that no other edition appear for several months after the Temporary Culture publication in May 2010.
The point of the chapbook, though, is that it's a Beautiful Object. Even if you don't go so far as to score the handbound edition (which costs the same as a small TV!), I can assure you that the $15 item will be a wonderful thing to hold in the hand. Details to come.
And he really is printing only 400 of the "paper" edition. When they're gone, they're gone - I actually had to beg for one of the last 3 copies of Hope-in-the-Mist to give a friend for New Year's (so I hope she loved it!). This shocked me so much that I talked him into printing more of this one. No one should go hungry in my world. But it's a smallish vineyard with only one pressing, this.