Margaret Atwood Twitter contest

Margaret Atwood herself posted this press release on her blog today. Instead of wasting time grousing about "what-has-the-world-come-to" I'm going to get busy tweeting. I suggest you do too, because the prize is unbeatable: MA's entire Virago back catalog, which are gorgeous.

Virago/ The Year of the Flood Twitter competition – announced 19^th July. Opens 29^th July

Margaret Atwood has one of the largest literary Twitter followings with 66,718 followers to date. To celebrate her Twitterati and the publication of the Virago edition of The Year of the Flood, Virago are delighted to announce the ‘Publisher for a day’ Twitter competition.

The competition – be Publisher for a day…

Margaret Atwood considered five titles for The Year of the Flood before choosing ‘The Year of the Flood.’ You: Propose a different but appropriate title. Then write an imaginary back cover quote — from a newspaper, from a celebrity, from one of your friends, from your cat — it’s wide open! Word limit: 140 characters each for title and for quote. (Like Twitter!). Then email your entry to the Virago website.

What to do…

The competition opens 29^th July. On this date, head to http://www.virago.net where there will be a special page for the competition as well as the original cover blurb. The competition closes on 12^th August.

The prize…

Virago will then decide the winner and the runner ups. The cleverest tweeter will win £100. The second and third prize winners will receive copies of Margaret Atwood’s backlist with the new Virago jackets. Honourable mentions, as well as the winning three, will be posted on the Virago website and shared via Twitter.

For further information please contact Zoё Hood, Virago, 020 7911 8070, zoe.hood@littlebrown.co.uk

I'm probably the least qualified person in this lineup

Vol. 1 Brooklyn’s Birthday Party: The Greatest 3-Minute Record Reviews Ever

Vol. 1 Brooklyn Presents

The Greatest 3-Minute Record Reviews Ever

With special musical guests: Xray Eyeballs

Aaron Lefkove (LiveFastDie/Creator: Summer of Megadeath)
Adam Wilson (The Faster Times)
Andrea Bartz (Stuff Hipsters Hate)
Ben Greenman (The New Yorker, new book called What He’s Poised to Do)
Bill Pearis (Sound Bites NYC/Brooklyn Vegan)
Brenna Ehrlich (Mashable/Stuff Hipsters Hate)
Brandon Stosuy (Stereogum/The Believer) Canceled/had a baby/mazel tov!
Claire Shefchik (The Faster Times)
Emma Straub (Author)
Jared Bloom (The Full Ginsburg)
Jason Diamond (Vol. 1 Brooklyn)
Jason Orlovich (Brooklyn the Borough)
James Yeh (Gigantic Mag)
Jed Smith (My Teenage Stride)
Jens Carstensen (Limewire/The Giraffes)
Jeremy Krinsley (Impose)
Jesse Hlebo (Swill Children)
Maggie Serota (New York Press)
Maris Kreizman (Slaughterhouse 90210)
Marisa Meltzer (Author of Girl Power: 90′s Revolution in Music)
Marty Beckerman (Online features editor at Esquire/author)
Maura Johnston (The Awl)
Rob Tannenbaum (Playboy Magazine/Rolling Stone)
Sara Jaffe (Writer/musician)
Scott Lindenbaum (Electric Literature)
Tobias Carroll (The Scowl/Vol. 1 Brooklyn)
Zachary Lipez (Freshkills/Author of “Please Take Me off the Guest List”)

At: Bar Matchless – 557 Manhattan Ave. Greenpoint, Brooklyn

7 PM, no cover

Reunited

Not only is author Eric Davidson an accomplished music journalist who's written for CMJ and the Voice, he is, in fact, a member of the legendary New Bomb Turks, who are reuniting tonight at the Bell House for one night only to celebrate the release of We Never Learn, Davidson's firsthand account of the punk underground of the '80s and '90s. So you get to see him read and play. And if that's not enough, I'll be selling the book, so you can keep me company. There's nobody lonelier than the merch girl during a good show. And wait, what's this about gourmet barbecue?

If he can't catch it, nobody can

So the good old boys at Underwater Peoples' records, they of all of your favorite vaguely folksy indie rock acts -- Real Estate, Woods, Islands, etc. etc. are planning some epic hootenanny up in the mountains this July 24 featuring all those bands and more, but they need your pledge or it won't happen. I'm broke so I can't help, obviously, but maybe you can make this happen. This event is all but guaranteed to feature flannel shirts and beards galore-- how could you say no?



Also, I don't have a car and have no idea where Saratoga Springs is, but if I'm really lucky, maybe I'll be able to hitchhike up there in the Woods Family Van. I'm stoked.

Take the plunge

Friday night, possibly for the only time in history, you'll be able to experience me, Ben Greenman, David Hollander, shipwrecks, burlesque theater pieces, the 19th century maritime painter Thomas Chambers, and the mournful gothic-roots music of Richard McGraw (whose album Burying the Dead is out now on Non-Utopian Records, and whose single "Hurting Heart" is stream-able below), all in one place. Plus more, all in celebration of the wacky and vaguely disturbing, in some cases, objects lurking beneath the waterways of New York.

It's a reading-theatre-music-art blowout at the American Folk Art Museum, and it starts at 5:30. The museum is located at 45 W. 53rd St, between 5th and 6th Avenues. Did I mention that it's free? More information can be found at the official UNY site.

Stream - Richard McGraw - Hurting Heart

We all scream for Japanther

Friend and well-wisher of Indichik Lauren Cerand, a leader and pioneer in literary publicity (think Roxana Robinson and Diana Balmori), is branching out into punk rock, and we here couldn't be more excited about it. Her first project is the latest album from Brooklyn tongue-in-cheek punks Japanther (who were, appropriately enough, one of the first genuine DIY shows I ever saw, shortly after moving to New York). And I'm not just saying this to make Lauren happy, those of you (like me) who have recently been disenchanted by a music scene increasingly full of bland indie poseurs doing more of the same nondescript, overly-mannered electronic shit. This is one of those rare albums you always sort of assumed existed ever since sometime in 1981, but it wasn't until you actually heard it that you realized that it didn't, until now. Please take a minute to get yourself excited about music again by checking out the Mp3 of "Alone in the Basement" below, then go live it up at the Mercury Lounge tomorrow night. I'll see you there.
Mp3 - Japanther - Alone in the Basement

What's the deal? Your weekly Publisher's Lunch deal snark (Beloved Childhood Series Edition)

Publisher's Lunch says: Francine Pascal's SWEET VALLEY CONFIDENTIAL, following her iconic identical blonde twins and full cast of characters into adulthood, now in their late twenties and early thirties, "where the real world intrudes," to Dan Weiss at St. Martin's (who created the original series with Pascal when he was a book packager), with Hilary Rubin Teeman editing, for publication in early 2011.

Indichik says: In a departure from my usual attitudes about PM deals, I'm kind of genuinely excited about this. I wasn't a big Sweet Valley girl (meaning I probably only read about 10 of the 8000 books in the series), but this fills me with joy if only because I love that no attempt whatsoever is being made to market this to children. I hope it's the beginning of a very successful trend

In fact, Ann M. Martin, god bless her, is already getting in on the act by reissuing the first Baby-Sitters Club book as a semi-ironic graphic novel that will deliberately not update the circa-1983 story, and that's a good start. But please consider going a step further. We as a generation need to know whether Mary Anne married Logan, whether Claudia ever learned to spell, and whether Jessi and Mallory finally embraced the love that dare not speak its name.

R.L. Stein? K.A. Applegate? Donald J. Sobol? Kathryn Kenny? David A. Adler? Judy Delton? Anybody else want to get in on this?