'The Booked. Anthology'
Discussion has officially started!
Synopsis: Booked. They've traveled the country tirelessly for two years, with stops in Chicago, St. Louis, Boston, Milwaukee, L.A., North Korea, The Dark Side of the Moon, and damn near every Waffle House along the way, all in order to bring you, the listener, over 150 episodes, over 75 authors. They've won awards, covered scoops, scandals, archived hours of authors acting badly. They've broken a few hearts on this journey - their voices can be like Russian Roulette in the headphones of the unsuspecting - but now they've called in their markers to leave their own stain on the literary landscape. And you're holding it in your hands, or your hook, which would probably tear the hell out of lesser books. But not this one. All original stories, multiple genres, never been seen, never been read. It's their way of giving back. Although these authors probably consider it more like theft. The Booked. Anthology. There's a period in the middle because it's that serious to say it out loud. Featuring Stories by: TW Brown, Craig Clevenger, Chris Deal, Joshua Alan Doetsch, Christopher J Dwyer, Sean P Ferguson, Matthew C Funk, Michael Paul Gonzalez, Amanda Gowin, Nikki Guerlain, Seth Harwood, Kevin Lynn Helmick, Gordon Highland, Anthony David Jacques, David James Keaton, Nik Korpon, Bob Pastorella, Cameron Pierce, Mark Rapacz, Caleb J Ross, Axel Taiari, Richard Thomas, Paul Tremblay, Fred Venturini, and Craig Wallwork.
If you've listened to the podcast, you know these guys have excellent taste. And if any of you have read Warmed & Bound, you know Pela Via kills it as an editor. When all three of these people get together to compile an anthology, you know it's going to be something everybody wants to read. Every author in this collection brings their A game to the table. You won't be disappointed with this one.
I also happen to know that we will be having many of the authors stop in to answer questions and share their opinions of the other stories. October is going to prove to be an awesome month!
Discussion has officially started!
If you go to BookedPodcast.com and order your electronic copy of the book from there, you can put in the discount code LR50 and get the ebook for $4 until the end of October.
Order the paperback from Amazon here!
Get to reading!
Yep yep, I'll be here. Hell, I've got questions, myself.
Also worth noting, that e-book edition contains a couple of bonus stories.
down for this. it'll be a BLAST.
Wait, is it only an ebook, or is there a print version?
Got my copy :)
Sweet. Buying.
reading it right now. this will be fun.
I just finished it the other day. Now I'm sad. Wishing there was more.
Reading it now :)
These guys again.
Just kidding. Quite a collection. Got myself a copy.
I've read a bit over half the stories in here. All of them damn good. I've said it a number of times, but I'm right honored to be involved.
I have a copy, haven't started reading yet, but I'll be sure to chime in with a few observations.
beware
Stoked for this.
Just got it. This will be good for breaking up the long trek that is 1Q84.
Just bought it.
Ordered my copy - looking forward to reading it!!
I'm nearly done, just a couple more stories to go... :)
Okay, I just want to say, a big fuck you to Fred Venturini for being first in the book and setting the damned bar so high.
Tough one to read, especially at 8 in the morning.
Yep--Fred completely killed it, in the best way. Hell of an opener.
"Kill her or torture her. What a world."
Shit doesn't get much more noir than that.
I'm only about half way through, but I'm enjoying so many of the pieces. Really nice anthology. Yeah, that opening story was killer. I had to put it down for a minute at the jaw scene.
That was sadly my first time reading Venturini's work. I need to remedy that. Have Liv or Robb publicly revealed how they got that story?
Yeah, how they got their hands on Fred's story is a story itself. Compelling nonfiction.
Everything about that story just clicks in place perfectly, so I guess my first question directed at Fred is did the plot of the story just fall into your lap, or was there a lot of back and forth in outline form before actually commiting it to words?
stoked to start this conversation!
And so it begins.
I want to first thank Pete for making this discussion a possibility. Pete, you're the best!
Secondly, I'd like to thank everyone that's supported this anthology either through contributing to it or reading it. I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
Lastly, I'd like to thank any of the podcast listeners. Without you guys, we wouldn't have this book to discuss.
I'll be on-hand regularly to answer any questions you may have.
Thanks to all of you!
Chris already asked you a question.....
woohoo!
I hereby declare that Amanda will be my assistant in this discussion. She will point out to me that questions have been asked :)
Chris, yes we've publicly divulged the back story to how we obtained A Pound of Flesh. But I'm happy to do it again here.
Fred has the only story in this collection who's appearance we reverse engineered. Every one else was asked for a story because they'd appeared on our podcast.
When Jed Ayres sent us an early coy of Noir at the Bar 2, it included two stories from Fred. Although both were good, this one really stood out. I contacted Ayres to find out which story he was using and he said he was going with The Low Man. I wasn't really sure how Jed could let this one get away, but I was thankful for the opportunity to try and snatch it up. We contacted Fred and asked him for the story and forced him into an interview so that we could include it in the book. I'm really glad that everyone seems to be enjoying it as much as we did.
Thank you, Fred for letting us have this. And thanks Jed for letting it slip away :)
ALSO: The Booked. Anthology ebook is available here http://www.bookedpodcast.com/ for half off with the discount code LR50.
My favorite line from Pound of Flesh was "Sometimes love is deciding whether to take your wife’s teeth out with a pipe wrench, or brain her with it." Pretty much, in my mind, sums up that story perfectly.
I hereby declare that Amanda will be my assistant in this discussion. She will point out to me that questions have been asked :)
as it should be!
also, yeah, I sorta wanted to kick that guy in his own teeth - the wife was a much better person. I like that the story was pretty much titled for what he didn't have the balls to do. She took care of business.
I think it's a great collection of work with many diferent voices and styles that somehow seem to work together. Everybody involved stepped up. I have some favorites and not so favorites, but that's just personal taste. It's all solid writing, and polished like a gem. Proud to have a few pages in it.
Wow, I seriously have to thank everyone for their thoughts about my story. I'm glad that Robb and Livius reverse-engineered me into such a damn fine collection.
Bob, you asked "did the plot of the story just fall into your lap, or was there a lot of back and forth in outline form before actually commiting it to words?"
Admission time: I'm not much of an outliner. I seriously never outline short stories. I like to let pieces that small take on a life of their own since you can always scrap them or just go back and fix things up or completely change them. Novels, I have a weird way to outline, but that's a different story.
The story is actually two stories in one. I was working through my MFA and my wife, who scares so easily that she can't watch Dateline alone, asked me why I always wrote stuff she couldn't read. "Why can't you write a love story?"
So I did. I was going to set up this loving old couple, with a crotchety dad who alienated one of their daughters, and as I tried to "turn" the story over, kind of get it into a climax or resolution, nothing happened. I couldn't finish it. I asked myself, "how can I test their love?" That's when I wrote the line that Chris mentioned, "Sometimes love is deciding whether to take your wife’s teeth out with a pipe wrench, or brain her with it." This is the part where you are free to question my sanity.
His wife was definitely an ass kicker, the better half, as wives usually are. Her love changed him throughout their lives, so I thought the ending was a nice way for him to channel her strength.
Overall, I'm so proud to lead off a collection like this. I loved the variety. I'd like to re-read a few favorites and post more thoughtful comments on them when I get a chance.
Just checking in to let everyone know I'm here. Happy to field some questions or talk about the book process.
Glad to see Fred's story is the gut punch for all of you that it was for us when we found it. I'm proud to have it front and center.
I'm here as well! We can turn this into one of those unwieldy comic-con sized panels where there are so many people onstage nobody knows what to ask.
@FRED - so did you ever show this to your wife? i don't show my wife MOST of what i write :-)
I loved Fred's story, total unexpected gut punch introduction to the anthology. I read it quite late at night and I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit I had trouble going to sleep after it. The real (as oppose to supernatural) fucked up stuff in stories or films scares me the most and this is just the kind of things I can imagine happening in the world.
Bravo Sir, and yeah that line was a killer.
Richard: I read it to her. She was appropriately freaked out. Now if I give her something and say "You should read this" she gets nervous. I gotta say, if you write scary stuff even on occasion, get a fraidy-cat spouse, it's kind of fun.
@Fred. That's really cool. For some odd reason, I figured that was one of those rare short stories that was outlined, mainly because of the pacing, how everything clicks into place. It's good to know that it wasn't outlined. I've got a weird way of doing it when it comes to longer stories as well, but I've never plotted out a short story either--seems like too much work for something so small, and it's much better when it just happens naturally. That one line sets the tone very ambigiously, the reader just can't tell which way it's going to go from that point on, but they cannot stop reading at that point, or at least I couldn't. Great story. Good to see you here.
Welcome, noobs. Coffee's brewing, beer's in the fridge, yadda yadda.
"California Oregon" by Cameron Pierce. That one stuck with me a while after reading (as did many that we'll get to). The choose-your-own-adventure device didn't come off as gimmicky, and it was no problem reading it straight through. What I liked best was that notion of fatalism or inevitability he explored regardless of which path was taken. That, while life circumstances would change dramatically, other things might not, maybe just taking some time to align. I dug it.
@fred - yeah, that's definitely a weird sensation, watching your wife read something of yours, knowing the reaction is going to be one of fear or sadness. funny that you talk about wanting to write something sweet or romantic for your wife. i get that all the time, and then, much like what Stephen King says, it turns out dark and strange anyway. "Flowers for Jessica" and "Fireflies" were two of my stories where I tried to inject some heart, but in the end, the wives die. LOL. so, not sure if i succeeded. :-)
Yeah, Cameron's was equally satisfying and fucked up. You want to think when there's a huge fork in the road you took the right one, it's both comforting and scary, the notion that if your thought processes and basic personality development follow similar paths you're going to end up in pretty much the same spot emotionally.
i think I pretty much just said everything Gordon said, but I moved the words around!
Was gonna bring Cameron's story up. One of my favorites, so far. I got the CYOA vibe, but never considered reading it any way other than straight through. It's more like the movie Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow (sorry, Cameron).
I ended up getting a page in, seeing what was what, then I went back to the start and read each section individually, thought that was cool, then hit it up again and read it straight through that time. Both rewarding reads in their own way.
Hey, @fventurini: After I read your story I looked you up online and saw that you had a novel, Samaritan. Then I read that Samaritan was out of print, and a re-edited version is coming out from Picador in August 2014 (congrats, btw). I was all, fuck waiting, and got a criminally cheap copy on Amazon Marketplace.
Question: How different is this new edit? Please and thanks!
Josh, thanks for looking into my book. I turned over probably 50 percent of the book. New ending, new twists, more time in the second half world of the book and less time in the first half world. I'm sure it will further evolve as I go through editorial with Picador.
I'm really glad I took a chance with an indy publisher with my first book. The big reason for the changes is that I was probably more nihilistic and raw back then, making for a narrative thread that was a slow plunge. I rewrote it wanting a few more peaks and valleys for the main character, and I always had the new ending hanging around in the back of my head, which in turn gave it a little more commercial appeal, I think.
Thanks for looking into it, certainly get in touch with me and let me know what you think. There's plenty of time to let this version fade a little before picking up the new one (which I hope you do!)
Clevenger's The Confession of Adelai Shade was a surprising story in how different it feels from the rest of the man's writing, but in how simple and how much it just worked. The voice was perfect, and it just made since in a weird way.
Fred, I've got your book on my Kindle, I'll definitely need to hit it up before the new version comes out. I could kiss your ass all night over Pound of Flesh. About showing our work to our significant other, I don't do it all that often with my wife, especially when I go dark (she's a wimp), but she seemed very happy with my story in this collection, mostly because she knows who it's about.